Human Voices by Penelope Fitzgerald

 This is my first review for Rose City Reader's TBR 23 in '23 Challenge. I am starting earlier this year, so I should be able to complete the challenge!

Human Voices is a gentle, character-driven study of working at the BBC, the organization which 'seeks the truth', during the Second World War. Although the novel is set in the war, don't expect excitement. It's more an account of people keeping on and 'doing their bit' while bombs fall, glass shatters around them, and the sounds of sirens pierce the sky, while beset by constant blackouts. Characters include Sam Brooks with his 'seraglio', Jeff Haggard, quiet and introverted, Lise who cries a lot and sensible Annie.

The war remains mostly in the background but as a terrible nuisance to be contended with, as Fitzgerald describes the interactions between the characters, the technical workings of the department at the BBC and the friendship between Lise, Annie and Viv. She worked there herself during the war, and wrote this when she was only 25! Although I enjoyed it, I tend to prefer novels which concentrate on one main character. Fitzgerald is described in the Preface by Hermione Lee as 'one of the most spellbinding English novelists of the twentieth century'. I will certainly read more of her novels.