... gripping ... a well-crafted true story ... It is no easy feat to weave six lives into a narrative that compels the reader all the way through, but like a big-canvas painting that brings together personal dramas and machinations of state, The Correspondents is full of intriguing detail. Structurally, it covers the revolving cast with near-equal focus, with Virginia Cowles’s story serving as a connecting thread. Though the book is occasionally head-spinning in its various layers, with each reporter’s timeline tracking against global events, Mackrell is concise with context, sticking to major tactical moves and the waves of optimism and pessimism that animated the Allies ... the abiding value of The Correspondents is in its gathering of six experiences that shows their commonalities and divergences. Through this framing, a picture of a shared endeavor comes into focus, while individual contributions and preoccupations are less prone to exaggeration or psychoanalysis. This is especially fitting given that these particular subjects did not tend to write in the first person: as professional witnesses, they saw others, not themselves, as the true protagonists.
A powerful narrative ... The focus on the human element, from refugees to soldiers to concentration camp survivors, lends their writing a raw and intimate power. Their stories are never simple lists of battle statistics, but journalism at its finest in its mission to take chaotic data and shape it into a coherent narrative ... [A] thoroughly researched book ... Mackrell makes each of these women a vivid character ... This is an important book.
Just as women are so often written out of war, so it seems are the female correspondents. Mackrell corrects this omission admirably with stories of six of the best ... It’s not just foreign correspondents like me who owe these amazing women a debt. Mackrell has done us all a great service by assembling their own fascinating stories. At first I wished she had included more of their work, but perhaps they are better served by leaving us wanting to go off and read firsthand how women see war.
... wonderful ... Mackrell effortlessly weaves together the personal and professional stories of these six journalists, producing a hearty biography that feels almost like a novel with its rich details. She brings each woman to life, tracing her childhood and entry into journalism, as well as her work and romantic life, against the backdrop of a simmering conflict that boiled over into a disastrous war. Although these women covered hard news, delivering scoops about impending military moves, they also wrote human stories that almost certainly would have been underreported had the war been left entirely to male correspondents.
Mackrell...has organized this chronology with scholarly intensity. She brings every moment to life, serving up the women’s views of world war on all fronts...with sizzling realism. The book concludes with a satisfying epilogue to give readers an enlightening look at the later lives of these six courageous correspondents.
Ambitious ... Mackrell’s approach is to provide a chronological account of the war, and weave in the back stories of her subjects as they enter the action. She has done an extraordinary job of mining their reportage, interviews and memoirs, and creates an experiential tapestry based on their experiences ... The women are deftly drawn, and their stories compelling, but their sheer number and the speed with which they are ushered on and off the stage can make Mackrell’s account confusing.
Group biographies are notoriously hard to write, and there are moments in The Correspondents when Ms. Mackrell’s protagonists merge and blur. But what comes across is a powerful and convincing picture of the overwhelming struggle these women—and others like them—were forced to endure to make themselves heard ... The Correspondents is more than an overview of how women reporters fared in the first real war in which they were determined to be major players ... Ms. Mackrell...also paints here a picture of war reporting at a time when correspondents were not tied to their editors and their offices by cellphones, when there were opportunities to do considerable research, and when personal contacts—and personal charm—were often determining factors.
... it is above all the courage and tenacity of Mackrell’s subjects that impresses ... The six journalists profiled in The Correspondents deserve credit for their pioneering work. Fortunately for us, their life stories make for vivid and fascinating reading, too.
Mackrell adopts a you-are-there intimacy as she brings readers behind the front lines ... [A] dazzling, insightful, engrossing, and multifaceted group biography.
Immersive and revealing ... Sparkling quotations from the reportage are woven throughout ... Secondary characters including Ernest Hemingway, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Clare Boothe Luce make entertaining appearances, and Mackrell lucidly sketches military and political matters. The result is a rousing portrait of women who not only reported on history, but made it themselves.
This is incredibly rich material, and Mackrell makes the most of it ... Mackrell concludes with a brief summary of the women’s postwar careers, capping off an exhilarating read packed with emotion and genuine humanity ... A vivid portrayal of six remarkable women who made history reporting on World War II.
