Scan barcode
A review by cgreenstein
A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II by Sonia Purnell
adventurous
informative
medium-paced
3.0
What I liked: very impressive research. The author did extensive legwork to make this book happen, as the subject's comparatively sparse personal paper trail required the author to gather data from all sorts of sources, including many that were obscure and minute, and to triangulate all of these disparate sources to tell the story of a woman whose life story is astoundingly courageous. Virginia Hall's story is cinematic in its intensity and scope, and there are countless vignettes of close calls and daring escapades.
What I have quibbles about: I listened to this as an audiobook, so maybe that's why I had trouble keeping the people straight, but I did have trouble keeping people straight. I also understand that people's personal stories don't have linear trajectories and that this particular woman left very few personal records behind, but this book really could have ended with WW2 and could've used a tighter focus on Virginia, as opposed to the adjacent figures whose stories are fascinating but are not relevant to this book. Part of doing research is gathering too much information and then cutting it ruthlessly so only the necessary remains (something I will freely admit I am very bad at), and this book didn't cut enough. Plus there were some weird word, phrasing, and commentary choices that felt dated, even though the book was published only 5 years ago. By the end of this, I didn't feel like I knew Virginia Hall as a person or had a good frame of reference for how extraordinary a person she was. Based on what the author says, Hall was incredibly impressive, but what exactly did her missions facilitate? How did her work enable bigger operations to succeed? What were her cells' survival rates in comparison to others? How did she never get arrested by the Gestapo even though she kept taking unnecessary risks? I wanted to know more about her view on things, her actions, her methods, etc., but much of the book consisted of stories about other figures whose exploits are more detailed, presumably because they left behind diaries or memoirs.
Anyway, an interesting subject, and I wasn't zipping through the last hour to just get it over with the way I often am by the end of an audiobook.
What I have quibbles about: I listened to this as an audiobook, so maybe that's why I had trouble keeping the people straight, but I did have trouble keeping people straight. I also understand that people's personal stories don't have linear trajectories and that this particular woman left very few personal records behind, but this book really could have ended with WW2 and could've used a tighter focus on Virginia, as opposed to the adjacent figures whose stories are fascinating but are not relevant to this book. Part of doing research is gathering too much information and then cutting it ruthlessly so only the necessary remains (something I will freely admit I am very bad at), and this book didn't cut enough. Plus there were some weird word, phrasing, and commentary choices that felt dated, even though the book was published only 5 years ago. By the end of this, I didn't feel like I knew Virginia Hall as a person or had a good frame of reference for how extraordinary a person she was. Based on what the author says, Hall was incredibly impressive, but what exactly did her missions facilitate? How did her work enable bigger operations to succeed? What were her cells' survival rates in comparison to others? How did she never get arrested by the Gestapo even though she kept taking unnecessary risks? I wanted to know more about her view on things, her actions, her methods, etc., but much of the book consisted of stories about other figures whose exploits are more detailed, presumably because they left behind diaries or memoirs.
Anyway, an interesting subject, and I wasn't zipping through the last hour to just get it over with the way I often am by the end of an audiobook.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence