I struggled to get into this book. I read it coming directly of "The Radio Hour," so perhaps I was more primed for fiction, but I was excited to see more from a similar period in Australia. However, I found "Cold War" rather slow, and I struggled to get back into the text after putting it down for the night. The writing itself is fluid, and the details are interesting and well-wrought, but the overall thread of the story just didn't grip me.

Margaret Ann Spence, Cold War in a Hot Kitchen, Wakefield Press, September 2024.

Thank you NetGalley for providing me with this uncorrected proof for review.

Cold War in a Hot Kitchen is a special read from beginning to end. It is a social history; a commentary on a sometimes unique, at others familiar, domestic life; a magic blend of feminism and loyalty to family beyond shared ideology; and a fascinating story of gold mining in Australia. With its references to Ballarat and Bendigo gold fields, to those in Western Australia, the story of management and miners, company houses and Indigenous communities, a truly Australian story emerges. With its broad sweep over world events that drew Margaret Ann Spence as a child into debates, or quiet thoughtful speculation and the Spence family move from Australia to different cultural, social and political environments the autobiographical features of this eminently readable book, almost merge into the fictional devices of ‘a good yarn’. Written in the most engaging style, in language that is almost musical at times, a strong story of robust characters in a history replete with social commentary emerges.

The chapter titles are useful in two ways. They not only provide information about what is to be covered in each chapter, but a pointer to the themes, domestic and public that are woven throughout. Some chapters concentrate (although never without some acute social, economic or political observation) on the domestic lives, while others, such as ‘Seen and not Heard’, ‘Battle of Ideas’, ‘Left and Right in Kew’, ‘Private School, Public Transportation and ‘The Industry of Women’ clearly focus on social issues. The introduction is an engaging amalgam of personal exploration of the family’s lives and foreshadowing of the debates in which the reader cannot help but become involved. There are maps, photographs, notes (although these are not numerous) and a bibliography.

Cold War in a Hot Kitchen, subtitled, A memoir of mid-century Melbourne is a wonderful memoir which exquisitely blends personal and public strands of that time. It is a lovely read, its host of information and ideas making a rereading very tempting. Not giving into that will be hard and this work has certainly sent me on a chase for Margaret Spence’s two novels, Lipstick on the Strawberry and Joyous Lies.

I loved reading this one and learning about what was going on in Melbourne Australia during the cold war through a woman's kitchen. With cooking and recipes. It made learning about that time period fun.

When I first read the description of this book, it reminded me of the marvelous movie "Ladies in Black" (2018). In the movie, Australian teenager Lisa wants to go to university in 1959, but her father believes women should do no such thing. Margaret Ann Spence spends a lot of time in this memoir discussing the limited opportunities for women in Australia, before and after the 1950s. Most interesting was her mother's life and how she returned to school after raising children, receiving no support from her husband, as well as facing discrimination from professors.

Her mother's life is only part of the story, however. This memoir covers all sorts of topics about life in Australia. It's a more painless way of learning history than reading a dry history book, yet it wasn't written in a totally captivating way. I had a very hard time getting into it at first. Nevertheless, once the author focused more on her generation and her parents' generation, the reading became more interesting. By the end of the book, I realized I had been pretty much totally ignorant about Australian history, but could now have a reasonably intelligent conversation about the country.

Anyone lucky enough to have good grandparents has heard their stories: what life was like back in "their" day, the differences between modern times and then, and an endless cast of characters who are familiar by name though time has prevented the generations from meeting.

"Cold War in a Hot Kitchen" is the written version of this. It's the kind of book that would be fun to come across, perhaps in a prominent position on a bookshelf, if this recorded my family's history. It might resonate just based on the location, since proximity can yield similar histories.

Having neither familial nor regional ties to the story resulted in moments of confusion for me. Many friends and family's names popped up; I would have been able to keep up or make connections to other people and events if this was about my family. It's not, so I simply couldn't feel the connections or significance.

Again, this would be a nice story for people with connections to people, places, and events. It simply wasn't for me.

Wow! I just finished the greatest memoir. Cold War in a Hog Kitchen was such an amazing story! I loved it!