Skip to main content
Small Acts of Courage by Sue McCormick
Timely reminder of the power of individual and collective action to bring about positive change
HIGHLY READABLE: Sue McCormick

IT MIGHT be easy to lose hope after the Brexit referendum, Labour’s election defeat and the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic but not so with Sue McCormick’s debut novel.

A bite-size introduction to some of the last century’s radical history, it places friendship at its core as it interweaves the lives of four women.

Daisy is an illiterate music hall performer in Edwardian London and Nora a millworker from Salford who nurses at Gallipoli during WWI. Charlie is a middle-class girl whose eyes are opened to social inequalities when she visits the slums owned by her family in the 1930s, while Margaret worked in New Labour’s press office during the Iraq war.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Jonathan Hanks in A Christmas Carol
Theatre Review / 23 December 2024
23 December 2024
SUSAN DARLINGTON enjoys, with minor reservations, the Northern Ballet’s revival of its 1992 classic
Tristan Sturrock and Katy Owen in Emma Rice’s Blue Beard
Theatre review / 6 March 2024
6 March 2024
SUSAN DARLINGTON revels in an exhilarating adaptation of the gruesome fairytale that invokes the real-life horror of women lost to male violence
(L to R) Eddie Ahrens, Rachel Hammond, Hannah Baker and Harv
Theatre Review / 23 May 2023
23 May 2023
SUSAN DARLINGTON is disappointed by a show that aims to highlight misogyny within the police but fails to arrest the audience's attention
Brett Anderson of Suede
Gig Review / 10 April 2023
10 April 2023
SUSAN DARLINGTON revels in a band that know their own continuing relevance
Similar stories
Tampa Tribune, 3.12.1947
Book Review / 10 December 2024
10 December 2024
TOMASZ PIERSCIONEK relishes a collection of cartoons that focus on Palestine from the period 1917 to 1948
ARROGANCE AND IGNORANCE: Group of six European men sitting,
Book Review / 24 September 2024
24 September 2024
FRANCOISE VERGES introduces a powerful new book that explores the damage done by colonial theft
Julia Margaret Cameron, Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty, 1865
Exhibition review / 21 June 2024
21 June 2024
LYNNE WALSH applauds a show of paintings that demonstrates the forward strides made by women over four centuries 
Edgar Degas, Young Woman with Field Glasses, 1866-68, detail
Exhibition review / 7 June 2024
7 June 2024
HENRY BELL steps warily through the collection of a Glaswegian war profiteer to experience his collection of Degas’ remarkable images of working people