Synopses & Reviews
The riveting, untold history of a group of heroic women reporters who revolutionized the narrative of World War II — from Martha Gellhorn, who out-scooped her husband, Ernest Hemingway, to Lee Miller, a Vogue cover model turned war correspondent.
Thrilling from the first page to the last. —Mary Gabriel, author of Ninth Street Women
On the front lines of the Second World War, a contingent of female journalists were bravely waging their own battle. Barred from combat zones and faced with entrenched prejudice and bureaucratic restrictions, these women were forced to fight for the right to work on equal terms with men.
The Correspondents follows six remarkable women as their lives and careers intertwined: Martha Gellhorn, who got the scoop on Ernest Hemingway on D-Day by traveling to Normandy as a stowaway on a Red Cross ship; Lee Miller, who went from being a Vogue cover model to the magazine's official war correspondent; Sigrid Schultz, who hid her Jewish identity and risked her life by reporting on the Nazi regime; Virginia Cowles, a "society girl columnist" turned combat reporter; Clare Hollingworth, the first English journalist to break the news of World War II; and Helen Kirkpatrick, the first woman to report from an Allied war zone with equal privileges to men.
From chasing down sources and narrowly dodging gunfire to conducting tumultuous love affairs and socializing with luminaries like Eleanor Roosevelt, Picasso, and Man Ray, these six women are captured in all their complexity. With her gripping, intimate, and nuanced portrait, Judith Mackrell celebrates these courageous reporters who risked their lives for the scoop.
Review
“An exhilarating read packed with emotion and genuine humanity. A vivid portrayal of six remarkable women who made history reporting on World War II.” Kirkus (Starred Review)
Review
“[An] immersive and revealing group biography....A rousing portrait of women who not only reported on history, but made it themselves.” Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
“In this dazzling, insightful, engrossing, and multifaceted group biography, Mackrell reveals the enormous physical, emotional, and professional obstacles each woman encountered and the astonishing ingenuity each employed to confront and overcome those challenges.” Booklist
Review
“Judith Mackrell's bravura group portrait of six English and American women journalists who confronted entrenched professional prejudice while risking their lives to cover World War II is as engaging as their own richly varied reportage. Fast-paced and informative, it puts these women's trail-blazing accomplishments in the social, military, and historical contexts we need to grasp how remarkable they were — at a time when the authorities saw them as a novelty and their mission, to report only about civilian life under war conditions. The period before, during, and after the war is illuminated by Mackrell's impressively researched account of their creative ways around official constraints, like being barred from combat zones, their bravery under fire, and their intense wartime affairs and sometimes complicated friendships.” Carolyn Burke, author of Foursome and Lee Miller: A Life
About the Author
Judith Mackrell is the critically acclaimed author of The Unfinished Palazzo and Flappers. She is also a celebrated dance critic, and her biography of the ballerina Lydia Lopokova, Bloomsbury Ballerina, was short-listed for the Costa Biography Award. She also coauthored The Oxford Dictionary of Dance.