Review: A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians by H.G. Parry

It must have been fate, or perhaps intuition. Only a couple of days before the winter storm that would pretty much disable most of Texas and keep me from 1. leaving home and 2. using the internet very much, I happened to see a copy of H.G. Parry’s A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians in Barnes and Noble. I already had a couple of other books I was reading. I had a full nightstand of books I was intending to read. And I rarely buy thick, heavy books at full price from B&N (and this book is very thick and heavy). But this time, for whatever reason, I took a chance. I thought it had an intriguing premise, and I liked the cover. I also love history and fantasy, and this book seemed to be full of both of those things.

I’m glad I did. While we were lucky enough not to lose power during the winter storm (we live close to a hospital, so I think they spared our section of the grid from the rolling blackouts), we didn’t really have much internet connection, and I tried to keep TV watching to a minimum to keep from using too much electricity. So I ended up spending a lot of time reading. I finished the two books I’d been working my way through (reviews of those to come), and started on this hefty books I bought on a whim. It sucked me in from the very first pages.

Cover of A Declaration of the Rights of Magicians

I will warn you, the book contains some very graphic and intense descriptions of violent and horrifying historical events, from the infamous Middle Passage that brought slaves to the West Indies to the horrifying violence of the Reign of Terror in France. Some of the reading is gut-churning, but the story, and the amazing characters, make it all worthwhile in the end. Speaking of characters, H.G. Parry manages to capture and humanize some of history’s most notorious figures, in particular Robespierre. As someone fascinated by the French Revolution, I’d always imagined him as a sociopath who took advantage of the Revolution to indulge a taste for violence. Yet, Parry’s depiction, of an ultimately tragic character who desperately wanted to bring freedom and equality to France, feels heartbreakingly true.

I also loved her depiction of Fina, a slave girl who ultimately escapes and joins the resistance. I liked that Fina was so human and honest. She was vulnerable and sometimes she does despair (which I think is a very reasonable response to her situation). But when she finally escapes, she fights to regain the life that was stolen from her.

I wouldn’t have expected William Pitt the Younger to be quite so interesting a character as Parry depicts him, but in her hands, even English parliamentary debates feel exciting and engaging (and of course, magical).

Speaking of magic, Parry has created an interesting magical system. In her world, magic is an “inheritance” which is freely practiced by the Aristocracy, but suppressed, often violently, in the common people. Dark magic, including blood magic and necromancy, is forbidden. Slaves are controlled by a combination of alchemy and mesmerism (or mind-control magic). The magic in her world feels natural, like an extension of someone’s personality.

Overall, I’d recommend this book to anyone who likes fantasy or history. It’s an epic, incredible story with amazing characters and interesting magic. It’s just a great book to read, even if you’re not snowed in!

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Review: Sounds and Sweet Airs

While I mostly love to read sci-fi and fantasy, I do read other genres. As a classical musician and music teacher, I particularly like to read books about classical music and famous composers (I’d recommend Mozart’s Letters to anyone). I’ve had to teach a lot of music history due to Covid 19, and I wanted to include female composers as a regular part of my curriculum. In my research on female composers, I stumbled across Anna Beer’s Sounds and Sweet Airs, a book about “the forgotten women of classical music.” It focuses on eight female composers throughout history, telling about their lives, their struggles, and of course, their music. It’s a fascinating look at women who often achieved considerable recognition and respect within their own lifetimes, yet somehow their music was often ignored by (mostly male) musical historians after their deaths.

Cover of Sounds and Sweet Airs by Anna Beer

I loved reading this book—it was inspiring to me as a female musician who was always nervous about trying to write my own music. But in addition, it felt like a breath of fresh air. I felt like the stories of these women reflected a part of music history that I always suspected was there, but was somehow always obscured by the narrow focus on only a few (always male) composers (though shout out to my early music history professor, who taught us about Barbara Strozzi and Francesca Caccini). Several of the composers I had never heard of before, including Marianna Martines and Elizabeth Maconchy.

It’s hard to generalize about the composers Beer describes—they are all from different time periods and backgrounds, and their music is unique. But each one managed to overcome the strictures and expectations of their gender to compose in her own voice. Each composer’s biography was well written and engaging, though I found the story of Lili Boulanger the most haunting. As I read about each composer, I also found recordings and performances of their music on Youtube. I particularly loved Fanny Hensel’s Das Jahr, Clara Schumann’s piano trio, and Francesca Caccini’s opera, La Liberazione de Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina.

Overall, I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in classical music or women’s history. It’s always a pity when truly beautiful and powerful music is neglected due to silly stereotypes, and it’s a great loss if we don’t enjoy these women’s brilliant music.

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Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) of World War II

To celebrate the release of an upcoming documentary, Clipped Wings, a book about the female Air Force Service Pilots of WWII (WASPS)!

I’m excited to share this book, because this is a subject I find deeply fascinating and powerful. At a time when we are so close to seeing the first female Vice President, the fearless and sharply intelligent Kamala Harris, this story feels more relevant than ever. Read on for an excerpt from Clipped Wings by Molly Merryman!

In her exhilarating book Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII, author Molly Merryman shines light on the critical and dangerous work of the daring female aviators who changed history. New York University Press classics series has just updated the book with Merryman’s reflections on the changes in women’s aviation in the past twenty years. A documentary based on Merryman’s work, Coming Home: Fight For A Legacy, is currently in production.

The WASP directly challenged the assumptions of male supremacy in wartime culture. They flew the fastest fighter planes and heaviest bombers; they test-piloted experimental models and worked in the development of weapons systems. Yet the WASP were the only women’s auxiliary within the armed services of World War II that was not militarized.

In Clipped Wings, Merryman draws upon finally-declassified military documents, congressional records, and interviews with the women who served as WASP during World War II to trace the history of the over one thousand pilots who served their country as the first women to fly military planes. She examines the social pressures that culminated in their disbandment in 1944—even though a wartime need for their services still existed—and documents their struggles and eventual success, in 1977, to gain military status and receive veterans’ benefits.

Clipped Wings by Molly Merryman

Excerpt of Clipped Wings:

Airplane ferrying was the initial mission for which WASPs were created, and it would occupy nearly half of all active WASP graduates when the program ended in December 1944. Planes produced in the United States needed to be flown from the factories to air bases at home, in Canada, and overseas. To handle this transportation demand, the ATC hired thousands of male civilian pilots to ferry planes. These male pilots were later commissioned directly into the AAF if they met the requirement and desired commissioning. The WASPs were brought on as ferrying pilots, and by the time they were disbanded in December 1944, they had delivered 12,652 planes on domestic missions. By that time, 141 WASPs were assigned to the ATC. Although they comprised a small percentage of the total Ferrying Division pilots, WASPs had a significant impact. By 1944, WASPs were ferrying the majority of all pursuit planes and were so integrated into the Ferrying Division that their disbandment caused delays in pursuit deliveries.

The days of ferrying pilots were long and unpredictable. At bases that handled a range of planes, pilots did not know from one day to the next what planes they would be flying or how long of a flight to expect. In Minton's words, "We usually reported to the flight line at seven o'clock in the morning and looked at the board to see what had been assigned us in the way of an airplane, where it went and what we would need in the way of equipment to take along, and then we would go out to find our airplane and sign it out at operations and check it over to be sure everything was okay with the airplane. And then we would take off to wherever the plane was supposed to go."

Ferrying military aircraft during World War II was not an easy task. The majority of these planes were not equipped with radios, so pilots navigated by comparing air maps with physical cues (highways, mountains, rivers, etc.) or by flying the beam. (The "beam" was a radio transmission of Morse code signals. A grid of such beams was established across the United States. To follow the beam, a pilot would listen on her headphone for aural "blips" or tones to direct her. This required a great deal of concentration and was not always accurate.) Both navigational techniques were difficult, and this was compounded by the facts that many air bases and factories were camouflaged, blackouts were maintained in coastal areas, and the navigational beams were prone to breaking down. Problems sometimes arose with the planes themselves, which ha d been tested at the factories but never flown. Cross-continental flights often took several days, depending on the planes being flown and weather conditions.

In addition, planes equipped with top secret munitions or accessories had to be guarded while on the ground, and WASPs received orders to protect these planes at all cost. WASPs flying these planes were issued .45 caliber pistols and were trained to fire machine guns.

Molly Merryman, author of Clipped Wings: The Rise and Fall of the Women Airforce Service Pilots of WWII

More About Author Molly Merryman

Molly Merryman, Ph.D. is the founding director of the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality and an Associate Professor at Kent State University. She is the Historical Research Producer on the upcoming Red Door Films documentary about the WASP, Coming Home: Fight For A Legacy. She has directed and produced nine documentaries that have been broadcast and screened in the United States and United Kingdom. She is the research director for the Queer Britain national LGBT+ museum and is a visiting professor and advisory board member for the Queer History Centre at Goldsmiths, University of London. Merryman is the vice president of the International Visual Sociology Association.

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