Description
Book SynopsisThere's No Story There is about the lives of conscripted workers at Statevale, an enormous rural munitions factory somewhere in England during the Second World War. The workers are making shells and bombs, and no chances can be taken with so much high explosive around. Trolleys are pushed slowly, workers wear rubber-soled soft shoes, and put protective cream on their faces. Any kind of metal, moving fast, can cause a spark, and that would be fatal. All cigarettes and matches are handed in before the workers can enter the danger zone, and they wear asbestos suits. When a journalist is asked why she hasn't written about this secret factory, she shrugs, and says 'There's no story there.' With so much death just waiting to happen, why aren't the workers' stories told? The Introduction by Lucy Scholes explores this wartime trilogy by Holden against her life as a novelist and Bright Young Thing in the 1930s, and as a wartime journalist.
Trade Review‘This is a journal of the tense months between Dunkirk and the start of the Blitz – months when a German invasion of Britain seemed both imminent and inevitable. It’s written with a steady intensity; raw worry pokes through the elegant prose, and though there are many vivid details, and moments of wit and levity, this is also an extraordinary meditation of what it means to be free in a world of encroaching tyranny.’ — Lissa Evans
