The Secret War of Julia Child by Diana R. Chambers 3

 

"I'm just fumbling my way through like everyone else, trying to do my best. One thing I learned---well, two things: Work hard. And never give up."

       -Julia's advice to Trixie, from the novel

I began reading this book thinking it was a biography and not until the Author's Note did I know for sure it is a work of fiction. But A Conversation with the Author, the Credits and Acknowledgements made it clear the author had done mountains of research to make this part of Julia's story as authentic as possible. 

A good portion of this book was over my head and other parts were confusing. There are so many acronyms for WWII, the author included a dictionary at the beginning to define them, for example OSS, FANY, SEAC, SACO, WRENS and several others. I don't read many spy novels, making this more challenging reading. There were so many characters, I almost gave up trying to keep track of who's who.

Julia McWilliams aspired to be a writer in her youth but ended up with the highest clearance working for the OSS in exotic (and dangerous) places like Ceylon, India and China. She is described in various places and by different people to be strong, resilient, intelligent, organized, dogged and ambitious. Reading this, it is hard not to be impressed, and she certainly managed to survive a few life-threatening incidents. 

I wondered if I wanted to keep reading when Julia's future husband, Paul Child, appeared. They didn't like each other at first, so I had to continue to find out how they eventually connected. I am rating the book a 3 since I liked it enough to finish and I learned a lot but didn't enjoy it immensely.