The Dressmaker of Dachau

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.