SISTERS IN ARMS

As the United States heads into World War II, two Black women in Harlem are dissatisfied with their career prospects.

Although she’s a brilliant pianist, Grace Steele freezes at her Juilliard audition and fears to confess her failure to her mother, who’s already distraught about son Tony’s disappearance in the Philippines. Eliza Jones is warring with her employer and father, the editor and publisher of a prominent Black newspaper, because he’s relegated her to covering the society beat. Grace and Eliza meet as new recruits to the newly formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, where each hopes to alter her destiny. But as they enter training, even as relatively privileged officer candidates, they soon learn that racial and sex discrimination have followed them into the armed forces. Although prominent African Americans like Mary McLeod Bethune urge enlistment in the WACs to advance “the race,” the government reneges on its promise to not segregate the WACs. The main arc of the episodic plot is the conflicted friendship between Grace and Eliza. There is a push-pull between them, instant dislike at first, followed by personality clashes—Eliza thinks Grace is rigid and arrogant, Grace resents Eliza’s spoiled, upper-class attitude. Then both, unthinkingly, inflict grievous harm on the other. Eliza blames Grace for failing to warn her about disembarking, alone, at a deserted Kentucky train station, where she is savagely beaten. Later, Eliza will, unintentionally, put Grace in jeopardy in a manner that is equally mystifying and contrived. The language throughout is overly expository and repetitious. But the author fulfills her stated intent to shed light on “hidden figures,” in this case, the trajectory of the WAC in general and the empowerment, however provisional, with which it “armed” its soldiers, who weren’t allowed to bear actual arms.

Calls long overdue attention to the Black women veterans of World War II.