Not So Quiet...: Stepdaughters of War

Helen Zenna Smith
Publisher: Feminist Press
January 01 1993
EAN: 9780935312829
ISBN: 093531282X

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Synopsis:

"[A] bittersweet feminist antiwar novel . . . Brilliantly written, and cleverly mixing humor with bitterness" (Library Journal).

Praised by the Chicago Sun-Times for its "furious, indignant power" and winner of the Prix Severigne in France as "the novel most calculated to promote international peace," this story offers a rare, funny, bitter, and undeniably feminist look at war and its effects on all those who take part.

First published in London in 1930, Not So Quiet . . . follows a group of British women ambulance drivers on the French front lines during World War I, surviving shell fire, cold, and their punishing commandant, "Mrs. Bitch"--even as their parents swell with pride that their girls aren't shirking their duty to king and country.

Taking the guise of an autobiography by Smith--a pseudonym for Evadne Price--Not So Quiet . . . is a compelling counterpoint to Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front. The novel's power comes from Smith's outrage at the senselessness of war, her own daily contact with the suffering and the wounded, and at her country's complacent patriotism and willingness to sacrifice its children.