She does this throughout the text, bringing new life and information to Hall’s story. Purnell goes into much further detail, noting how the leather straps of this type of prosthetic would chafe and cause wearers to bleed in the summer months and that, although hollow, the device weighed a whopping eight pounds and seriously affected the gait of any user (p. Other accounts mention that Hall lost her leg in an accident and had to use a prosthetic leg.
Hall’s life is reconstructed through the use of small details. But Purnell’s intention with Hall’s biography is not simply to highlight her triumphs and achievements, but to use Hall’s story as a lens to “reveal how one woman really did help turn the tide of history,” and in turn “how women can step out of the construct of conventional femininity to defy all the stereotypes, if only they are given the chance” (pp. There are few texts written about women spies that are not simply biography.
However, 2019 was a busy year for Virginia Hall, who not only had Purnell’s biography published, but also Hall of Mirrors: Virginia Hall: America's Greatest Spy of WWII, by former CIA agent Craig Gralley, and The Lady Is a Spy: Virginia Hall, World War II Hero of the French Resistance, by scholar Don Mitchell. Though this is not the first biography of Hall to be published, most previous biographies were written for younger audiences rather than academics. It gives a highly detailed account of her life and while it is focused on her wartime experience, Purnell takes the time to build up Hall’s account both before and after the war, creating more context for her time as a spy and, notably, connecting her wartime experiences to the events she faced once the war ended. Sonia Purnell’s A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II is a biography of Virginia Hall, an American woman who became one of the first female spies to operate in the field for the Special Operations Executive, a British intelligence agency. Reviewed by Danielle Wirsansky (Florida State University)Ĭommissioned by Margaret Sankey (Air University) A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II.
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