A jolly romp through London in the blitz sounds like an unlikely idea for a novel, but Dear Mrs Bird is full of poignant moments that cut through the froth of its narrator’s voice. Miss Emmeline Lake is a plucky gal who lives in a smart flat with her best friend, Bunty, and dreams of becoming a lady war correspondent. This is a world in which young couples make “a lovely effort to be gay about things”, one’s regiment has “a bit of a time of it”, and Boots in the high street has “taken a biff during the raids”. It’s stiff upper-class lips all round.
Emmy’s journalistic ambitions also take a biff when she accidentally applies for a job typing up letters for a women’s magazine problem page, run by a termagant in a feathery hat. Henrietta Bird issues Emmy with an extensive list of “Topics That Will Not Be Published Or Responded To By Mrs Bird … not exclusive and will be added to when required”, but Emmy finds herself moved by her correspondents’ troubles, and begins, rather rashly, to answer them.
If all this sounds familiar, it may be because Chris Cleave’s excellent 2016 novel, Everyone Brave Is Forgiven, starred a plucky young woman called Mary, who quits finishing school to join the war effort only to be palmed off with a teaching job, but finds herself fighting for her winsome charges while also falling in love. Dear Mrs Bird is a far chirpier read. And though at times the book seems like an Evelyn Waugh pastiche crossed with a Radio 4 comedy drama, complete with hilarious misunderstandings and some dodgy dialogue, Emmy is truly charming. When her upper lip finally wobbles, the reader’s will, too.
Several things look inevitable: that Emmy will be won over by a chap; that her sympathetic letter-writing will be Found Out, and that somebody important will get Horribly Biffed by Hitler. But along the way she shows some grown-up insights as well as true grit, and gives a voice to all those women who had to be “chipper and stoic and jolly good sorts and wear lipstick and … not cry or be dreary”. In the end, the novel’s spirit is madly winning, and its foregrounding of wartime women seems spiffingly modern.
• Dear Mrs Bird is published by Picador. To order a copy for £7.03 (RRP £7.99) go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.
