The Briar Club

The focus now turns to Arlene. As part of HUAC, she has always supported McCarthy’s views on communism. She thinks of Grace as a “pinko slut” as she listens to the rest of the Briar Club defending her: “Arlene cringed, remembering how she’d sucked up to this woman. Coming around those Briar Club dinners like a dog who refused to stay on the other side of a shut door, even when the others made it clear they hated her” (383). The group goes downstairs to discuss what to do. Everyone points out the numerous instances when Grace helped them in some way. They regard her as a friend. Further, they mention that persecuting her as a communist is disproportionate to the crime. She killed in self-defense. Aside from that, exposing Grace will create another firestorm that will only feed McCarthy’s witch hunt at a time when it is finally losing momentum.

Asserting his position as man of the house, Pete says, “I vote we report an attempted robbery, get that lunatic’s corpse off the floor upstairs, and forget this entire night ever happened” (387). The direction the conversation is taking incenses Arlene. She had dreams of turning Grace in and earning a promotion at HUAC and personal recognition from McCarthy and President Eisenhower. She slips quietly out of the room as the debate continues and phones the police. Then, she returns and tells the group that she’s settled the matter for them. Arlene rushes to the door when she hears someone outside, assuming the police have arrived. Instead, it’s a drunken man named Barrett who says, “That bitch of mine, she’s here” (393). When Arlene tries to interrogate him, he punches her in the throat, leaving her gasping.

Barrett staggers into the parlor, knocking down Harland when he tries to intervene. Arlene assumes the intruder is another one of Grace’s communist friends. Arlene demands he get out of the American house, calling him a “Commie bastard.” Barrett continues to search for someone in the room, fighting off the men as he goes. Arlene grabs Bea’s bat and strikes Barrett in the head, crushing his skull. She is silently congratulating herself on quelling the Red Menace when Pete points out that Barrett is Senator Sutherland’s son and the husband of Sydney, who is cowering in the corner of the parlor. Everyone realizes that they now have two bodies to explain—a communist spy and a senator’s son. Arlene is too shocked to move until Grace comes to her rescue and says that neither one of them is going to jail if Arlene will do exactly as she’s told.

The chapter opens with a recipe for Briarwood House’s Good Night and Good Luck.

This chapter is told from Briarwood House’s perspective as it observes the staged scene that the Briar Club created to explain the murders. Harland, in his FBI role, is the most credible witness, and he plausibly tells the detectives what happened. A burglar wielding a sickle interrupted the Thanksgiving party. Barrett Sutherland was an invited guest, and he picked up a bat to defend Fliss, whose neck was injured. The burglar got hold of the bat and clubbed him. Harland then followed the intruder to the top of the house and dispatched him with a sickle. The detective asks, “‘The others will corroborate your version of events? The ladies have been mostly hysterical—‘Feminine nerves,’ Harland says, not batting an eyelash. ‘Naturally they’re all in shock’” (397-98). The house is grateful for the way things turned out. It thinks that Grace belongs in the house and brought it to life, regardless of whether she is a Communist, spy, or murderer.

The story switches to Grace’s point of view in the aftermath of the murders. Harland has destroyed the compromising document that Grace gave him, even though it goes against his FBI training. He can’t understand why he disobeyed until Grace points out, “It’s a more complicated question than people like McCarthy or Hoover like to think. Who deserved to live here. Who deserved a second chance. Who deserved to call themselves a citizen of this big, flawed […] country” (405). Grace then takes Arlene under her wing, hoping to keep the latter from coming unglued and tattling to the authorities. The newly widowed Sydney gives Grace a large bundle of cash for saving her life, which opens up some new possibilities. Ultimately, Grace decides that she must leave Briarwood House to protect its inhabitants, but she takes Arlene with her. Despite acknowledging Arlene’s negative personality traits, Grace still feels an urge to feed and fix her.

In May 1956, Pete concludes the story from his point of view and details the changes at Briarwood House. Mr. Nilsson moves back into the neighborhood to keep a better eye on his children. Since his name is on the house’s title, he won’t let Doilies sell it. Nora begins seeing Xavier again. Fliss’s family moves to Massachusetts, where she works as a nurse in her uncle’s clinic for women. Harland quits the FBI, takes a job with the CIA, and continues to date Bea, who is happily employed as a talent scout for the Senators. Reka created some original pieces of art before passing away suddenly from a heart attack. Sydney has taken her son to live in Bermuda near his maternal grandmother. Claire has gone along as her social secretary.

Pete receives a postcard from Grace in New York, where she is preparing for Arlene’s wedding. The latter is going to marry a very dull man. Grace says, “She runs him like a train & he seems quite happy” (412). As the novel closes, every member of the Briar Club has created a better future for themselves.