Human Voices

The "human voices" of Penelope Fitzgerald's enchanting novel are those of an eccentric group of broadcasters at the BBC in London during the air raids of World War II. When British listeners tuned in to the Nine O'Clock News in the middle of 1940, they had no idea what human dramas -- and follies -- were unfolding behind the scenes. Targeted by enemy bombers, the BBC had turned its concert hall into a dormitory for both sexes. And, as in any dormitory, romance and intrigue prevailed. At the center of Human Voices is the tense relationship between two departmental directors and a surprising love affair with a sixteen-year-old intern named Annie, who has the perfect pitch.

Like Fitzgerald's novels Offshore and The Bookshop, Human Voices grew out of her personal experience -- she worked for the BBC during the war, when the station served as a lifeline to the troops and a singular source of truth to the public. Romantic, ironic, tragic, as only Penelope Fitzgerald can be, Human Voices is an unexpected treat for her many American fans.

When British listeners tuned in to the BBC's Nine O'Clock News in the middle of 1940, they had no idea what human dramas-and follies-were unfolding behind the scenes. Targeted by enemy bombers, the BBC had turned its concert hall into a dormitory for both sexes, and personal chaos rivaled the political. The tense relationship between two departmental directors is at the center of Human Voices, as is Annie, a sixteen-year-old assistant who falls hopelessly in love with the monstrously selfish one. Reading this intimate glimpse behind the scenes of the BBC in its heyday, "one is left with the sensation," William Boyd wrote in London Magazine, "that this is what is was really like."