Lesbian military fiction is a popular genre, featuring titles such as Silver Wings and An Army of One, but Jack and Eve is a true story. Written by the journalist Wendy Moore, whose previous books tackled medical and social history, it tells of two suffragettes who caused havoc in the first world war and exposed the absurdity of Edwardian homophobes.
Before the war, the jobbing actor Vera Holme, who liked to be known as Jack, changed careers to become Emmeline Pankhurst’s mechanic and chauffeur. In 1908 she met Evelina Haverfield, the conventionally beautiful, wealthy daughter of a Scottish baron. The two fell in love, began living together and soon became the public faces of the suffragette movement. Brave and out-spoken, they fought their corner fearlessly and went to prison.
Moore expertly weaves together two narratives that have been overlooked. One concerns the development in the past century of a lesbian culture among women she describes as ‘forthright, flamboyant and proud’.
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