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Using rich, engaging characters, Laura Anthony immediately draws us into “The Women on Platform Two,” a novel that enlightens and entertains, the courage displayed by Irish females of their day impressive as they risked public criticism and consternation to have their voices heard and gain control over their right to have children or not in the 1960s and 1970s.
Set in two time periods, we first meet Saorise, a modern day woman living in Dublin in 2013. Saorise is 35 and married to Miles, a good man who badly wants children. Saorise isn’t ready. She worries about being a good mother and has concern about birthing a healthy child, having seen so many sick children in her position as a nurse. When another pregnancy test comes out negative, and Saorise feels relieved, the couple argues and Saorise walks out. She wanders around Dublin, ending up at the train station where she waits out a storm.
At the station, Saorise notices an attractive older woman with silver hair, carrying an old time scrapbook. As Maura passes by Saorise, a black and white photograph slips out of the scrapbook and onto the floor. Acting on impulse, Saorise quickly boards the train going to Belfast to return the photograph to the woman, who’s most grateful, explaining that her friend, who’s pictured next to her, would have been upset if the memorable photograph, taken exactly 50 years ago that day, had been lost. With that the train doors suddenly close and Saorise finds herself on her way to Belfast, a two hour journey, a fateful trip that passes quickly as Maura reveals her backstory.
In June 1969, Maura married Christy, a wealthy doctor she's quickly fallen for. Maura’s family isn’t well-to-do, and the doctor is seen as a catch, but there’s a dismal catch in their marriage. Though he’s generous, Christy’s possessive of Maura and abuses her while simultaneously insisting she get pregnant. Maura has no support from her parents, any complaint seen as rebelliousness, males being the unquestionable head of the household, even though Maura has visible injuries, her face battered, bones broken.
Maura’s life takes a positive turn when she’s walking home one day and a pregnant woman with a pram bumps into her. The women are about the same age, but that is their only commonality. Bernie and her loving husband Dan have three daughters age 6 and under, the youngest just a year, and Bernie is pregnant again. The couple is hard pressed to know how they’ll be able to afford another baby, a child that will be delivered by Christy, a nightmare that Maura can hardly imagine, worry about her friend paramount as Maura continues to hide her abuse and try her best not to get pregnant.
As her mistreatment worsens and Maura fears for her life, Bernie begins to have serious problems with a pregnancy that’s threatening her life, the intimacy Bernie and Dan share becoming non-existent because Bernie is instructed to not have any more babies because of her health. Maura and Bernie become fast friends and lean on one another for support. When they band together and secrets are shared, they become a force to be reckoned with.
“The Women on Platform Two” is not only a pageturner, it also raises awareness of the issues women faced and the courage they displayed in the movement to legalize contraception in Ireland.
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