Tuesday, August 7, 2018

From Boswellian Jen Steele - Why I Love the Kopp Sisters Novels

I admit it. The first time I saw Amy Stewart’s book Girl Waits with Gun, I judged it by its cover. In fairness, though, it’s an eye-catching cover. This thing pops. Plus, I’m a total sucker for historic novels, especially starring strong women who refuse to conform to the expectations of their time. Constance Kopp is the middle sister of three real women who lived at the beginning of the twentieth century, and she is just the kind of woman I love to read about. She was strong in a time when women were expected to be meek. She was a trailblazer, the kind you never hear of or find in history books. Add on top of all that an engrossing, mysterious tale, and I could not put this book down.

It's 1914 and the world is changing fast. Yet Constance and her sisters, Norma and Fleurette, live a quiet life out in the country. They tend to their farm animals and chores and go into town only when supplies are needed, until one ordinary day, when an automobile crashes into their buggy while in town. The reckless driver turns out to be Henry Kaufman, an ill-behaved Industrialist, the spoiled brat heir to a local textiles fortune, armed with his very own gang. Following the crash, his constant threats and harassments shatter the Kopp sisters' quiet existence.

Constance could easily have backed down and hid out on the family farm until the whole thing had been forgotten. But she won’t let her family be taken advantage of. Still, Henry Kaufman runs with the wrong crowd, and soon bullets are flying and bricks are crashing through the Kopps’ windows.

Constance does not back down. Instead, she learns how to shoot and intends to use her gun, if needed, to protect her family. All Constance wants is justice for the car accident. But as she chases after justice, a whole new world is opened up for her. Once she has a taste for making things right, she can’t stop.

I am not a big mystery reader. I definitely gravitated to this book more because of its historic angle, though I can see how some will classify it as a kind of light noir, or perhaps even fit it in with the cozies, though to me it doesn’t feel like that’s the heart of the novel. Rather, it’s this funny, quirky world based around the sisters’ relationships to the town and to each other that drew me in. There’s Constance’s homing-pigeon loving older sister Norma, who marches to the beat of her own drum and has no time or interest for anything going on in town. And then there’s Fleurette, Constance’s younger sister who wants to be a star – she’s pretty, feminine, a wannabe actress in love with the theater and all the gossip around it. And then there’s Constance, who I can best describe as the Bea Arthur type (there’s a great scene of her beating up a quite unsuspecting tough guy) whose strong will drags all of them into the center of attention in town.

I’ve read along as the series has continued. Stewart’s Kopp Sisters continue to chronicle women who, just by being themselves, rather than what they are told, broke into the boy’s clubs of nearly a century ago. Like the journalist Constance meets in the second book who’s trying to get out of writing a paper’s ‘women’s interest’ column and into the hard news on the front page. Or the paralegal who wants to become a lawyer, definitely not a woman’s job. The Kopp Sisters series is a great alternative look at history and the women decided to live their lives the way they want!

Jen Steele, Boswell Book Company

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Amy Stewart appears at Boswell for the Kopp Sisters series on Wednesday, August 22, 7 pm. Tickets are $17 and include a copy of Girl Waits with Gun, Lady Cop Makes Trouble, Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit, or upgrade to the forthcoming (available September 11) Miss Kopp's Midnight Confessions for just $24. Purchase your ticket at stewartmke.bpt.me.

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