Book Review: The Secret War Of Julia Child by Diana R. Chambers

At thirty years old, Julia McWilliams wants to make a name for herself, even if ambition is considered a bad thing for women in 1940s America. She signed up with the newly formed US Office of Strategic Services (OSS) after America got involved in World War II, and is chafing to prove herself as a field agent to her boss, the legendary General William “Wild Bill” Donovan. While she’s proven invaluable in her position as supervisor of the OSS Registry of Documents and Files, patriotic fervor – and perhaps a longing for adventure – has her wanting to make a bigger difference out in the field.

She gets her chance when Donovan decides to collaborate with his British counterpart Lord Louis Mountbatten in staffing a South East Asia Command to oversee intelligence on that front of the war. Julia leaps at the chance to go, little knowing the path it will lead her down. While she’s originally stationed in Delhi, her work will take her to Ceylon, Burma, and China, where she and her colleagues will do whatever it takes to win the war for the Allies. After hearing rumors of a Japanese push into India, for example, she sits down with her friend and co-worker Betty MacDonald who assures her:

“This is propaganda, to pump up their troops. And the waiting families.” She narrowed her eyes. “We need a counterpunch.”

 

Julia handed her the mailbag. “Taken during a raid of one of their Burma bases.”

 

Betty riffled through dozens of soldiers’ postcards–cards to be sent home to Japan, all with handwritten addresses, an Imperial Army star, and a censor’s chop. “These must be young recruits, by the simple language and rough characters.” She passed Julia one of the cards.

 

Julia regarded it, an idea dawning. “They’re in pencil. And I bet you have an eraser.”

 

A quick smile lit Betty’s face. “The censor has approved them, so they’re ready to be dispatched–after my little rewrite. We’ll get an agent to mail them at an occupation post office.” She handed Julia some paper. “Be creative.”

Assisting in creative propaganda efforts is the least dangerous of Julia’s many tasks, which eventually grow to include ferreting out spies, at great risk to her personal safety. But it’s the peril to her heart that she perhaps feels the most. While she’s initially drawn to the charming Irish Lieutenant James Mack, she can’t help but pay attention to the almost prim and certainly infuriating mapmaker Paul Child. Her mother had always taught her to wait for The One and not settle into marriage simply because society tells her to. But could her One possibly be such an exasperating fellow?

It’s no secret that this novel is a fictionalization of the famed Julia Child’s time working for the OSS, primarily in Asia, where she not only met the man who would become her husband but also had her eyes and tastebuds opened to the delicious possibilities of world cuisine. Given how Julia herself always downplayed her role as an OSS employee, author Diana R Chambers has definitely taken liberties with what we know to be true and what we can only suspect. Her book is, however, anchored in some fine historical research, accompanied by an afterword that helps sort out fact from fiction.

The narrative itself takes a leisurely pace through the action-packed set pieces that pepper its standard romance novel structure. Not being the most informed regarding Julia’s personal life, I don’t know whether Paul was really the Mr. Darcy-like figure he’s portrayed here as being. I did, however, very much warm to Julia’s spirit and determination throughout:

She’d always known she was meant for something, a belief she had confided to her girlhood diary but not dared proclaim aloud. Now she had crossed into the twenty-first century, where it was normal for a young woman to be ambitious. Few could imagine the shame she’d felt at wanting to achieve[.]

 

How hard she’d worked. But she did it. Imagine, mastering the art of French cuisine–and bringing it to the world. Yet she would not have become that woman without her experiences in the cauldron of WWII, where she’d learned what she could really do.

It isn’t hard to imagine that the Julia Child who popularized and demystified French cooking for the masses had such an exciting and formative time in World War II Asia. The chef, author, and television personality is well known for her upbeat nature: her declassified OSS files even cite her “drive and inherent cheerfulness.” The Secret War Of Julia Child is certainly a plausible account of what she might have gone through on the road to both romance and, far more importantly, learning her worth and capabilities.