The Dressmaker's War

November 16, 2015
Chamberlain’s outlandish novel chronicles the misfortunes of Ada Vaughan, a struggling but aspirational dressmaker in 1940s London whose dreams of founding a great fashion house are derailed by war. After getting bamboozled by Stanislaus von Lieben, a smooth talker who claims to be an Austrian count, Ada finds herself in Paris, far from her overprotective parents, just as World War II begins. When Stanislaus later abandons her in Belgium, Ada pretends to be a nun and is captured by Nazis, but not before giving birth to a son, Thomas, who is whisked away, presumably to an orphanage, by a priest who is eventually found dead. A few years later, Ada believes she has found Thomas after being forced to make dresses for a cruel Nazi Frau who is raising the child as her own. When the war ends, Ada returns to London and begins again, making the occasional dress while waitressing. She becomes a kept woman in an effort to save enough money to find her son, but has a violent confrontation with someone from her past that leads her astray again. Chamberlain’s story moves at a breakneck pace that makes it hard to feel any connection to her beleaguered heroine or to suspend disbelief for some of the more unbelievable things that happen. The bad guys are as cartoonishly one-note as Ada is flighty and heedless of consequences. The muddled characters and unlikely coincidences prevent any statement about overcoming adversity from resonating.

October 15, 2015
An English seamstress is lured to Europe by a con man and enslaved by Nazis, only to end up on death row in her own country. A prologue reveals that Ada Vaughan is preparing to meet the hangman in a London prison. The remainder of the novel is a flashback. In the late 1930s, young Ada, a product of the London working class, apprentices to a couturier as a mannequin and dressmaker and dreams of opening her own atelier, a la Chanel. Count Stanislaus von Lieben, a dashing admirer with a foreign accent and equally foreign name, at first encourages Ada's ambitions with compliments, lavish nights out, and, ultimately, a trip to Paris. Once they're in Paris, Stanislaus turns colder, then, as the Germans are on the march, he takes her to Belgium, where he abandons her. Narrowly escaping German bombardment, Ada is taken in by nuns who disguise her as one of their own. Removed by cattle car to Bavaria, the sisters are impressed into service by the Nazis, caring for Aryan elderly. There, Ada, whose pregnancy (by Stanislaus) has been disguised by a too-large habit, gives birth to a son, Thomas, who is taken away by the parish priest to be adopted. Ada is put to work in the household of Herr Weiss, commandant of Dachau. Confined to one room, she is starved, beaten, and forced to do heavy labor and sew. Her one comfort is creating clothes for a growing circle of Frau Weiss' friends, who repay her only with grudging respect. After the Americans liberate Dachau, Ada is returned to London, where, rejected by her mother, she strives to rebuild her life. From here it may defy credulity that Ada has failed to learn the lessons her harsh personal history has taught, but Chamberlain demonstrates, chillingly, how the deck was stacked against her protagonist from the very beginning. A bleak look at one woman's war.

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