Review: The Hedgerow by Anne Leigh Parrish

Anne Leigh Parrish showed readers the losses women suffered when men came back from WWII and resumed their lives in society in her novel, an open door (lower case intentional). Now she's back with a sequel, The Hedgerow, named for the poetry press her heroine Edith wants to open in conjunction with her bookstore.

It's 1949 in Cambridge, MA. Edith may have escaped her unsatisfying and soul-sucking marriage to Walter but she cannot escape society's expectations for women quite so easily. Having moved into her wealthy British peer friend Henry's spacious apartment, she drifts into an affair with him and then subsequently into an engagement she's not sure she wants simply out of obligation and gratitude to him for his support during her separation and divorce. What she really wants is to devote herself to her bookstore and the fledgling poetry press she is launching but Henry's neediness continues to overwhelm her as she falls back into the habit of putting her own wants and needs second until things come to light that change her trajectory.

Edith inches her way to living the life she wants but it really is slow and incremental inching. Her character feels more lethargic and trapped than she was in the first book, trapped by society's expectations, Henry's money and the ease it brings to life, and by the surprising weight of the past, both her own and Henry's. She seems to have (and accept) an inability to feel deeply and passionately about anyone, even telling both Henry and his mother that she doesn't love him despite agreeing to marry him. There is a real feeling of lassitude arching over the story as a whole and Edith rarely breaks out of her entrenched ambivalence, finding a well of determination and courage only when she chooses to publish a poet whose work she knows will be controversial and potentially censored. Like in an open door, the tone of the novel is quiet as it examines the idea of duty and what roles are available to women. And also like an open door, the novel ends with Edith facing bigger, more surprising concerns that could force her to reevaluate her chosen path once again. I felt like this sequel was a little more plodding than the first novel and I'm a bit ambivalent myself about whether I'd follow Edith any further although I continue to think Parrish is an exceptional writer.

Thank you to the publisher and author for a copy of this book to review.