A Woman of Intelligence

A Woman of Intelligence by Karin Tanabe Simon and Schuster Australia

Katharina Edgeworth was once a translator at the United Nations. She loved her life and then she fell in love with Tom Edgeworth, a pediatric doctor from a well-to-do family. They eventually married and when she had her first child she stopped working and became what would today be called a stay-at-home mother. Her life appeared to be just about perfect but the reality was anything but that. Her husband was almost never, home, more married to his work than to her. Meanwhile, she has lost herself to motherhood. As much as she loves her children, it’s not complete. And spending all her time with her children is causing her to lose the plot so much that she has a parenting blip that to others is unforgivable. After a short trip away from her normal life, which ends disastrously, she’s back to the same old thing. Until she is contacted by the FBI and recruited as an informant.

While I have never had such an exciting life as she has experienced, I can certainly identify with those feelings of losing oneself to motherhood. And that is without the career restraints that existed during that time. I found this to be an extremely atmospheric novel and there was just the right amount of tension as Katharina started taking more risks and taking back a former part of her life. During the war, women finally were able to take on roles previously denied to them and to some degree were keeping the economy afloat. But post-war, much of this power was rescinded and women were expected to return to their “proper” domains. Just within this context, I think it’s easy to see how the women’s liberation movement slowly gained momentum over the next couple of decades. Katherina surely would have been a forerunner of the women in that movement.

Husband Tom is a much-admired doctor who puts everything into his work, but his role as husband and father is almost an after-thought. He has no understanding of the pressures of being a parent because his wife has essentially become a single parent. And the idea of having support is almost out of the question to Tom due to his own upbringing where his parents were largely absent. He wants the kids raised without nannies and maids because that is the best way.

The subject of communism, which was highlighted thanks to the McCarthy hearings of the era, runs heavily throughout the story and is the basis on which Katherina is recruited. You can feel there’s a lot of distaste for those hearings amongst the public. But Katherina comes to see how those people in the party are often just ordinary people and not the demons they are portrayed to be. There’s a certain amount of intrigue in this part of the story with someone from Katherina’s past and someone in the present both involved with her due to her work.

I found the book was resolved pretty satisfactorily, addressing Katherina’s situations but with some regard to the times when she lived. This was a pretty enjoyable read and I recommend it by giving 3.5 stars. I would like to thank Netgalley and SImon and Schuster for providing an advanced reader copy for free. I write this review honestly and voluntarily.