Book Review – Transcription by Kate Atkinson

About the Book

In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage. Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathisers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying. But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past for ever.

Ten years later, now a producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat. A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.

Format: Hardcover (352 pages) Publisher: Doubleday
Publication date: 6th September 2018 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

Transcription is a book that has been sitting unread on my bookshelf for years. It has even appeared in several 20 Books of Summer lists. Why I’ve not got around to reading it before I have no idea. However, it’s a case of better late than never as I absolutely loved it.

When Juliet is assigned to make transcripts of conversations taking place between British Nazi sympathisers and an MI5 agent posing as a German spy in an adjoining flat bugged by the Secret Service, she doesn’t realise quite what she’s letting herself in for. She finds the work rather meaningless since the quality of the recordings are so poor she frequently has to guess at words or leave gaps. However, the tedium is somewhat offset by her youthful attraction to her superior, Peregrine (Perry) Gibbon. It’s a romance the reader knows is never going to happen although Juliet, in her naivety, fails to spot the clues.

In order to ensure the mission’s success, Juliet must never come face-to-face with the varied group of people who gather to pass on snippets of information gleaned from conversations and social contacts. Instead, she only knows their voices.

Juliet becomes more actively involved in subterfuge when she is given a fake identity and asked to infiltrate a group of society people thought to be sympathetic to Nazi Germany. She carries this off with aplomb, proving herself a natural liar. That is until something goes drastically wrong, events take a darker turn and it no longer seems like a game.

Ten years later Juliet, now working at the BBC, catches sight of one of the men she worked with during the war. She’s perturbed when he pretends he doesn’t know her. That’s not the only thing worrying Juliet because she’s started to receive anonymous notes threatening to hold her to account. For what she doesn’t know but comes to the conclusion it must be something to do with her wartime activities. Determined to be ‘the hunter, not the hunted’ she reaches back into the past to try to discover the source of the threat.

Atkinson brilliantly evokes both time periods. I particularly liked the depiction of the BBC in the 1950s, with children’s programming constrained by rather outdated attitudes. There’s a very funny scene where unsuitable material is broadcast in error, ironically, given Juliet’s war work, because no-one has listened properly to the recording before it went out.

Juliet is a wonderfully sassy character. Although told in the third person, the reader gets access to her inner dialogue of quips and witty asides, and her ponderings on love and life .

I wondered for a long time what was the significance of the flamingo on the cover on my edition of the book. It’s finally revealed when Juliet is reluctantly persuaded to undertake one more mission for the Secret Service involving the safe delivery of a package. What could be simpler than that? After all she’s done it lots of times before. However, all is not what it seems and there’s an unexpected revelation in the final pages that rather upends how you’ve regarded Juliet.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Fenella Woolgar who I thought absolutely nailed Juliet’s clipped, breezy, slightly sardonic tone and created distinctive voices for the other characters.

I thoroughly recommend reading the Author’s Note in which Kate Atkinson reveals how much of the book’s plot is based on fact and the identity of the woman who inspired the character of Juliet.

Transcription is a fascinating, thoroughly entertaining novel in which everyone has something to hide. And it’s a warning that you should think very carefully before responding to the question, “May I tempt you?” as well as a reminder that WW2 Britain effectively ran on tea.

In three words: Intriguing, immersive, witty

About the Author

Kate Atkinson won the Whitbread (now Costa) Book of the Year Award with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum.

Her 2013 novel Life After Life, later a BBC TV series starring Thomasin McKenzie, won the South Bank Sky Arts Literature Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and was also voted Book of the Year by the independent booksellers associations on both sides of the Atlantic. A God in Ruins, also a winner of the Costa Novel of the Year Award, is a companion to Life After Life, although the two can be read independently.

Her five bestselling novels featuring former detective Jackson Brodie – Case Histories, One Good Turn, When Will There Be Good News?, Started Early, Took My Dog, and Big Sky – became the BBC TV series Case Histories , starring Jason Isaacs.

Kate Atkinson was awarded an MBE in the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

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