Tag: Library Raid

On Tour

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

The Noel Streatfeild kick? Still going strong…once this review is done? Off to e-Bay to see if any of her Susan Scarlet romances are available for a decent price! First, let’s take a look at volume two of Noel Streatfeild’s semi-autobiographical series, On Tour: An Autobiographical Novel of the 20’s.

Published in the UK as Away From the Vicarage, On Tour: An Autobiographical Novel of the 20’s shows us Victoria Strangeway as an adult. World War I has ended. It’s been a very rough time but the vicarage has survived. Victoria, Isobel and Louise have returned from their war work, younger brother Dick has been wounded but will be headed to university soon. The vicar is still a walking saint and Mrs Strangeway? She still can’t manage her household for beans even though the vicar has inherited property from his late parents. And there’s a new Strangeway, littlest sister (totally a surprise baby) Theodora. Who knew the vicar and Mrs Strangeway were still…well…you know…Theodora is charming, clever and wonderful and thanks to the age gap between her and the others, is almost an only child. Louise has dropped a bombshell, she’s getting married and moving abroad with her new husband. Is there a place for Victoria in all this change?

Turns out the answer is NO. So Victoria summons her courage and goes to train as an actress. Because of the general family reaction (actress=scarlet woman) Victoria decides to take the name Victoria Sonning. Her theatrical training is hard and she has little money but Victoria is determined to live life as much as possible and shake off the vicarage shackles. A reader used to Streatfeild’s children’s novels might get a little shock when you realize that Victoria is pretty much prostituting herself to get money and clothes from her suitors. She never goes the full nine yards but you get the feeling she’s come awful close a few times. And is it that much different from Louise marrying so young? But sisters are doing what they have (and who they have) to do to escape the confines of the vicarage. Their parents aren’t horrible people but vicarage life is confining and narrow for the eldest Strangeway children.

Victoria manages to survive her stage school and then plunges into the world of a professional actress. She gets work and travels all over but you get the feeling that her stage work doesn’t truly fulfill her. And she certainly doesn’t care for the narrow and grimy life in theatrical digs and the constant moving around. Africa is enchanting but being thought of a Jezebel and a man-eater thanks to a some less than brilliant behavior and two male members of the theater company dying casts a cloud and stain on her acting career. People will always remember the scandal over how good her performances are.

On Tour is such a sadder book than A Vicarage Family. The younger Victoria had a fire and a zest that not even the wartime death of her beloved cousin John could quench. The older Victoria? The rough patches in life really send her skidding. The spark that got her to pursue a theatrical career vs life as an unpaid curate/domestic slave to her parents dims the farther she gets from school. Her longing for a home and love leaps off the page and when she realizes her so called love isn’t truly “in love” it’s a cut that almost destroys her more than the scandals that plague her acting career.

The other issue that makes On Tour a much different experience than A Vicarage Family is how closed off Victoria is. In A Vicarage Family you feel all the injustices and joys of Victoria’s life. She crackles and blazes and jumps off the page. You understand exactly why Annie is drawn to her and defends her. Maybe it’s because of the upheavals of the war or the changes in society but On Tour Victoria holds back and only gives us glimpses into her life. Was Noel Streatfeild ashamed of her life and feelings then? What was so awful that she makes Victoria a pale shadow of the girl that intrigued us so? Is it because S-E-X rears it’s head?

You can almost feel the squirming when Streatfeild writes about the appearance of Theodora. Yes, Noel/Victoria was a product of a very Victorian upbringing (Her sister Louise had no clue why she was getting sick every morning only weeks after being married. Just how much if any talk did Mrs Strangeway have with her daughters?) You might be tempted to think what keeps Victoria from actually jumping into bed with her suitors during her training isn’t the consequences (Theodora/the village girls illegitimate babies) but the actual act of sex itself. She is certainly repelled by Louise’s husband Him. Maybe it’s this disgust of sex that keeps her with her “we shall have a white farmhouse” suitor for so long because it seems crystal clear to me that this suitor might be happier with Dick Strangeway than Miss Victoria Sonning. Then again I could just be having one of my Gwen’s Crazy Literary Theories. Because I find Victoria Strangeway an interesting character I want to read more about no matter who or what she loves.

Even with it’s issues, On Tour is a must read. Even if many things are white-washed it still gives an interesting look at leaving a very moral and upright world for one with looser boundaries. And it makes you want to track down more of Streatfeild’s adult works. And exploring an author’s full writings is never a bad thing.

 

 

 

Princesses Behaving Badly

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Back in the glory days of living at Expensive Acres, when Blacklight was well enough to work, we went to the bookstores every weekend. Once the other person was done, we knew we could check certain sections and find the other one. For Blacklight? Just head to the graphic novels and science sections? For me? History. Even better, General European History (RIP Borders, much love). And it was unusual weekend when we didn’t stroll out of Borders with at least one bag and another Borders Reward 40% off coupon gone to Coupon Heaven. I had a bookshelf devoted to Eleanor Herman, Leslie Carroll, Karl Shaw, Michael Farquhar and their ilk. So any wonder while zipping past the New Non-Fiction at the Berlin-Peck Memorial Library on a mission to get the entire Naked Gun series for Blacklight I slowed down only long enough to snatch up Linda Rodriguez McRobbie’s Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings on my way to the DVD section?

Now once I was home and curling up on the bed with Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings, I had a moment of wariness. I’ve read a lot of these real royal stories over the years. And sometimes? They’re not quite good. Even if they’re well researched. Because well, research does not always compelling writing.

Case in point. I found the wait for Kris Waldherr’s Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, From Cleopatra to Princess Di was much better than the actual book. I’ve read Doomed Queens: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, From Cleopatra to Princess Di more than once just to make sure I was giving the book a fair shake. It’s okay but it’s like a bag of classic Hershey’s Kisses when you really want to savor a handful of Lindt Almond truffles. Chocolate yes, but not what you need to really satisfy your craving. On a scale of Sex With Kings/Sex With the Queen (bought them in hardcover brand new from Borders= excellent) to oh…Doomed Queens (interlibrary loan first read, picked up for a $1 at a library sale just because later on=meh) would Princesses Behaving Badly fall?

Even though I had two true crimes meets history books on the nightstand, the adventures of Leland Stanford and his pet photographer Eadweard Muybridge, the Hall-Mills murder and F. Scott Fitzgerald did not exist once I opened Princesses Behaving Badly and started to read. I have Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion, 1878 framed at my Company X work desk right next to my HPLHS membership certificate. And Netflix knows I’m a sucker for true crime shows like Deadly Women. That night, I turned off the bedroom light with the greatest reluctance.

Why? I was plunging into well written and researched mini-biographies of women, some who I know from reading or Stuff You Missed In History Class podcasts to ladies I had never encountered before. As a person who has read a vast number of true royal stories, mad props to Linda Rodriguez McRobbie for not just going down the easy path of “Pauline Bonaparte? She could give  Santa Ho Ho Ho lessons” and “Caroline of Brunswick was so nasty…”. It was so refreshing to see both these ladies treated with respect and not just meat holes for poking. Crass yes, but most people think of them as just sluts. Sure, I might have rolled my eyes at mentions of Princess Diana and her daughter in law the Duchess of Cambridge because that comes as naturally to me as breathing, but I was reading about princesses who actually did something besides get on the cover of every darn tabloid in existence. Don’t believe me? Read about Sarah Winnemuca and then we’ll talk about who did the greater good. <crosses arms and raises eyebrow at the People’s Princess cult> And who knew the Punk Princess I used to read about in Vanity Fair became an accomplished business woman who could teach fellow 1980s icon Donald Trump a thing or thirteen.

If I hadn’t just spend a hoarded Amazon gift card on Blacklight’s birthday present (damn you Police Squad: The Complete Series DVD), Princesses Behaving Badly: Real Stories from History Without the Fairy-Tale Endings would have been snapped up for Mr Kindle in a heart beat. For full price. And given my tight book budget and love of a good bargain? I can’t give any other recent real royal stories books that high a praise.

 

Skating Shoes

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

It’s January and the parking lot at Moderate Income Apartments is a bit tricky when it snows as you lug a trash bag to the dumpster. If I fall would I be as graceful as Skating Shoes‘ Lalla Moore? Or would I go smack splat smash on my butt like something out of a Keystone Kops flicker? Given my natural grace (none) I say the latter would be true.

As you might have guessed the Noel Streatfeild kick continues. Nothing like a cozy book on a cold New England January afternoon. And on the chopping block (or shall I say skating rink?) is the charming 1951 tale Skating Shoes (aka White Boots in the UK). Little Harriet Johnson is all wobbly and bobbly from being sick. Her family, a good one but not in the best financial state what with a shop filled with substandard offerings and four children to support, will do almost anything for her to be strong and well again. Enter the family doctor who pulls a few strings and gets Harriet free skating time at the local ice rink. But you need ice skates and well, the Johnson family certainly doesn’t have the money for those. But eldest Johnson child Alec gets a paper route and gives the bulk of his earnings for Harriet to rent ice skates. You know it can’t be easy for the Johnson parents to agree to this but they are in desperation mode. Harriet means just as much to her parents as her three brothers. And Alec is happy to help, he’s not being forced into his decision. Now before you die from the wholesome, who does Harriet meet on her first day at the rink? Only budding future star Lalla Moore. Do the two girls hit it off and become fast friends? Did I eat Utz Sour Cream and Onion chips for lunch yesterday (come on…of course I did!).

The two girls not only become fast friends but lonely orphan Lalla who has everything her rich uncle David’s money can buy gets absorbed into the Johnson family. The children let her join their secret society and plans to turn the shop around, mother Olivia regards Lalla as another daughter and is more than happy to try and helpful Lalla when she gets into a sticky patch. Basically, the Johnson family (except for George’s horrid older brother Uncle “Guzzle”)? Awesome.

Skating Shoes is from the Golden Age of Noel Streatfeild and hits all the classic Streatfeild tropes. Orphaned character? Lalla. Big but loving poor family? The Johnsons? Distant but actually quite awesome and reasonable father figure? Lalla’s Uncle David King. Fame hungry brittle woman who shouldn’t be a mother figure? Hello Lalla’s Aunt Claudia! Talented child getting too big for their boots? Waves to Lalla post skating exhibition. Look into a creative field? Duh…skating. Technical performer vs the popular performer? Harriet might have championships in her future. Lalla? Total Queen of the Ice Capades. Annoying, gorgeous and knows it snot of a younger sibling who needs a good smack? Come here Edward… Snippets from Noel Streatfeild’s childhood? The Johnson family estate and how they’ve declined in the world. Child planning for its future/learning a trade? Alec deciding to how turn the family shop around. Devoted servant? Nana and her everlasting knitting and Miss Goldthorpe the tutor.

Skating Shoes may not be in the first Shoe book you think of (quick! Noel Streatfeild book! you know you want to say Ballet Shoes) but it’s worth the read and you need to snap up a copy when it’s in print.

A Vicarage Family

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

I’m on a Noel Streatfeild kick so let’s look at the first volume in her semi-autobiographical series, A Vicarage Family.

Our Noel character is Victoria, the second eldest of the Strangeway children, the misunderstood child of the local vicarage. Poor Victoria can’t seem to do anything right in most people’s eyes with the exception of the maid Annie and her beloved cousin John. Without these two wonderful people? Victoria’s very soul would be crushed. Her father comes from a good family with some land but it’s a narrow living compared to his other siblings. Granted, looking at this Edwardian vicarage life with 2014 eyes, having servants, sending your children off to private school and the like seems pretty sweet indeed and not too bad even if the children can’t eat cake and ices at a birthday party because it’s Lent. A life with servants, even the skeleton crew that runs the vicarage is pretty darn awesome when you’re the person who has to do all the housework.

Reading A Vicarage Family, you see how Noel Streatfeild was able to make her books so true to life for her readers. Whenever you encounter a little girl whose growing out of her clothes and there just isn’t the money to replace them with something better, those velvets that have been let out and patched and have the velvet nap going in all directions (the Fossil girls, Harriet Johnson, etc) it’s something the Strangeway girls experienced. The feeling of horror and disappointment and shame the Streatfeild characters feel is so real, so vital that you can feel in your bones that the Streatfeild sisters endured this too. And if you’ve read the Bell family series (if you can get your hands on them? Do it. Seriously.) you’ll know why out of all the perfect Bell siblings, imperfect stocky Ginny jumped off the page and into your heart. Both Ginny and Victoria fight to be understood and loved for their talents in the same way the world showers love and attention on their siblings.

And A Vicarage Story gives something not found in the Shoe books. In the Shoe books, the parents/parent figures are loving and care deeply about their children. In Ballet Shoes, Garnie is willing to take in boarders to give her charges a decent life. Given the circumstances she has been raising the Fossil sisters in, taking boarders is a step down on the social ladder but it’s a step Garnie takes. Skating Shoes‘ Olivia and George do everything possible to restore their beloved Harriet back to health even if it means accepting financial help from their son Alec. The money for Harriet’s skates is found and Olivia extends her maternal care and love to Lalla Moore without a thought.  Sure Rachel and her adopted sister Hilary end up in the clutches of Cora Wintle after their mother dies but their mother scraped and scarified to make sure her adopted daughter could dance. And Pursey and their tutor are willing to stand up to Cora Wintle for Rachel. And even when Ginny messes up? Mrs Bell loves her.

Reverend Strangeway does care about his troubled daughter and tries his best to understand her. But Victoria is just one member of the extended flock he ministers to. And the elder Strangeways love Victoria and understand her life isn’t easy and try to give her both love and the tools to make her way easier. Victoria’s mother? Mrs Strangeway? If Victoria fell down a well or disappeared? Not a problem. It’s not that Mrs Strangeway doesn’t want to be a mother, she doesn’t want to be Victoria’s mother, yes she comes to have a better relationship with Victoria as she gets older but that’s as a confident or companion not as a mother.

Just try reading about Victoria’s birthday dessert or what happens when the family gets the flu. In Annie we understand why the loving and devoted servant is so important in the Shoe books. When you haven’t received love from your parent, a person who doesn’t have a blood tie can still love and cherish you no matter what.

If the Deaccession Squad came a’calling at the local library and I couldn’t convince the librarians to sell me A Vicarage Family and it’s sequel On Tour? I would combing Awesome Books UK, hoping against hope that they had copies of A Vicarage Family available even if it was a 1970s paperback reprint. And given the prices for the trilogy on-line? Would some kind publisher (coughcoughBloomsburyGroupViragoPersephone Classicscoughcough) please please please talk to the Noel Streatfeild estate and put out the Strangeway books in an omnibus? Pretty please?

 

Traveling Shoes

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Getting books from the inter-library loan system can be a gamble. Some times you stumble across a gem (Circus Shoes), some times you want to hurl the book across the room screaming “Burn It With Fire!” but refrain since it’s 2 am and it’s a library book you don’t feel like spending gas money to replace (The Children on the Top Floor) and others fill that sweet spot while you hunt down more treasures.

Noel Streatfeild’s 1962 offering Traveling Shoes (published in the UK as Apple Bough) fits the last category. It has all the usual cozy goodness you expect from a Noel Streatfeild book, a family of talented children and their devoted governess/nanny and their adventures using their talents to earn their livings. This time around our charming talented bunch of tots are the Forum clan, eldest daughter Myra (the worrier), Sebastian (the classical musician), Wolfie (the budding pop song writer) and Ettie (the dancer). For a change, the Forum parents are both alive (father David is a musician and mother Polly paints-no orphans here!), artistic and flakier than the almond croissant that I’m tempted to brave Sunday afternoon crowds to get my little undead raccoon paws on. Trust me when I say David and Polly totally belong in 1990s Portland or 2000s Brooklyn.

Everything is fine and dandy in the Forum household at their shabby house Apple Bough until Sebastian is discovered to be massively talented. And before you can say “Sir Garnet”, the Forum clan is traveling the world as Sebastian gives concerts all over the world. At first everyone loves the whirlwind life but after four years the children want a proper home, their beloved Apple Bough was sold when Sebastian went on tour even though the Forum parents think everything is marvelous. Enter the children’s visit to their clergyman paternal grandfather (ding ding Streatfeild trope!) and a plan to have a proper home is born. And three other Forum children learn there just might be life outside of being Sebastian Forum’s sibling.

I know there is wonderful children’s fiction out there, things that will inspire and teach and uplift you. But dang it if sometimes what you need is a Noel Streatfeild tale. I mean Wolfie, the handsome little budding pop song writer, oh how you want to smack the smug right of him, especially once he becomes a popular child actor. And of course Ettie is the most talented and amazing and wonderful dancer since…well…since Posy Fossil first danced in the day nursery. Will she be accepted to the Royal Ballet? Will I eat candy for lunch? Duh. Add in the cozy governess Miss Popple and the children clinging to their proper British background like it’s a security blanket and it’s pure Streatfeild heaven.

Sure you might want to shake the vague out of the Forum’s mother Polly because really…for the mother of four she’s one of the most self-centered mothers in a Noel Streatfeild book. I know she’s an artist and artists have the creative and must create or die but dang. There were times I wondered if she loved the glamor of being Sebastian’s mother and the touring life more than Sebastian himself. Does it ever cross her mind that she should be the mother and not push off her duties on her oldest (and least artistic) child Myra? Myra is headed for a nervous breakdown or becoming Miss Popple 2.0 to her siblings children.

Would I track down Traveling Shoes in a white hot panic on Amazon, Awesome Books UK or eBay if the library’s copy falls victim to the Deaccession Squad? Nope. But I would snap it up if I found it at Book Barn or a library book sale. It’s not the best Noel Streatfeild ever, and if you’ve read other Noel Streatfeild books you’ll find things that occur over and over but Traveling Shoes is a nice solid Sunday afternoon read.

 

Celia’s House

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Oh the curse of being a reader who loves old British novels. Either your beloved author is slowly be rediscovered or you’re stuck combing the libraries to find anything by that lovely author. I should consider myself fortunate D.E. Stevenson is in the rediscovery stage but it’s agony waiting for The Two Mrs Abbots and The Four Graces to come out as e-books and trade paperbacks. But while I wait for mid year 2014 to come around, I’m trolling the inter-library loan system to see if any other D.E. Stevenson books out there will enchant me as much as the adventure of Barbara Buncle did.

The stacks of my local library coughed up D.E. Stevenson’s Celia’s House, a 1943 novel (republished in the 1970s), a charming story about the Dunne family and their Scottish ancestral home Dunnian. The basic plot, ancient disappointed in love spinster Celia Dunne leaves her family home and fortune to her grandnephew Humphrey Dunne instead of her expected heir Maurie Dunne. The catch? Humphrey only has a life interest in Dunnian. After his death, Dunnian will pass to his daughter Celia (who isn’t even born left alone conceived) at this time. Old Miss Celia dies, the Humphrey Dunnes move and time passes focusing on the younger generation of Dunnes. Oldest son Mark learns to love the land, distant cousin Deb finds a home her flighty mother Joan can’t provide and the new Celia is born. The family survives World War I intact, hearts are broken and love is found in the 1920s/1930s and Dunnian faces World War II.

Celia’s House was a quick and cosy read while curled on Mr Couch with the January winds whipping around Moderate Income Apartments. As when the Dunne clan is preparing breakfast in the thick of World War II? Well, it felt perfectly decadent to be eating Aldi’s private label Double Chocolate Milano knockoffs while wondering if I should turn the rest of the challah bread into French toast. The Dunnes are getting ready to eat burnt porridge <cue Jane Eyre flashbacks> and tiny bit of bacon. And one of the characters actually likes Spam.

Besides making me feel like a truffle eating prize sow in my lovely warm living room while reading (Blacklight: “oink”), parts of Celia’s House seemed lifted right of out Miss Buncle Married. There’s no deep mystery needing to be solved or worrying if the now Mrs Abbot will be revealed as scandalous author John Smith. What we do have is the device of an elderly aunt making a will that favors a different relative than expected with unusual conditions (Miss Bunce Married: Jerry gets the estate if she isn’t married, Celia’s House: Humphrey gets the estate for his life only and then it goes to his daughter Celia). And the estate in question not being entailed so that the elderly female relation can do whatever she likes with the place. With certain males shaking their heads and thinking it’s a dashed shamed that the dear old place isn’t entailed. In Celia’s House, the reader is spared the scene of the expected heir finding out their beliefs are only castles in the air but I do rather wish we could have seen the Maurice Dunnes finding out the news versus just the devoted servant saying oh dear me, how upset they was and now they are gone. The similar scene in Miss Buncle Married is quite good and you can almost see the disappointed would be heirs forehead veins sticking out and the handkerchiefs being crumpled in rage.

What’s also gone? Remembering the book is called Celia’s House. Yes, it does get mentioned the young Celia is the true heir to Dunnian versus her brother Mark and we see her as a small child adoring and loving the dear old place but the bulk of the story belongs to Mark, his failed romance with gold digger Tessa and distant cousin Deb. It’s a shame because D.E. Stevenson leaves some nice little crumbs to imply the young Celia is the reincarnation of her great-great-aunt Celia. The young Mark sees a ghost which an old portraits implies is the late Miss Dunne. Alice (Mrs Humphrey Dunne) has a vision/visitation from the late Miss Dunne the night before Celia is born. The newborn Celia seems knowing of her surroundings from birth and is the spit of Miss Dunne. And for heavens sake, the end? Oh come on! Then again I would also love to see more of the late Miss Celia Dunne’s story too.

Given that Celia’s House was written in wartime and if I’m not mistaken had a limited print life due to wartime printing restrictions, could this have made D.E. Stevenson wrap up her novel sooner than the story should have been wrapped up? The ending, while quite heartwarming and lovely, feels very abrupt. Even one little chapter more would have balanced the story quite nicely.

Hopefully, given the D.E. Stevenson rediscovery and the last reprinting of Celia’s House being the Holt, Rinehart and Winston  1977 edition, perhaps Sourcebooks Landmark could try and acquire the rights to add Celia’s House to their D.E. Stevenson reprints. Even with it’s flaws (more reincarnated Celia, less Edith please because I don’t care a fig for her), Celia’s House is a charming book crying out to be read by more than just D.E. Stevenson fanatics.

 

 

 

Kehua!

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Scene from earlier this morning:

Blacklight: <standing at the sideboard looking at his weekly pill organizer> “Gwen. Is today Wednesday?”

Me: “Yes!”

Blacklight: “Are you sure today is Wednesday?”

<cue me growling from Mr Couch>

Blacklight: <holding up the Fay Weldon novel Kehua!> “Let me guess. Pink cover. British girl book?”

<cue flames coming from the top of my head>

Well, Blacklight did get some of it right. The cover of Kehua! is pink. And Fay Weldon is a British author. But I wouldn’t exactly bundle Kehua! into the chick lit box. Even if it’s not my favorite Fay Weldon book ever (The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil) Kehua! is oceans better than oh say….Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (My Inner Critic: “Darling even We Like Kindergarten with the horrid little girl with the undead eyes that see beyond seeing is better than Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy…” My Inner Critic? Does have a point.)

Even with it’s oceans better than Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy status, I am of two minds about Kehua!. One part of me is jumping up and down and shrieking in mad joy over having a new (well new to me in America) Fay Weldon to devour. Yes, I know there are her Habits of the House books but I’m not feeling those novels even though I know darn well Fay Weldon wrote for the original Upstairs, Downstairs. My preferred Fay Weldon books are her very sharp novels of modern (20th century/21st century) life and manners. I want feminists and scandal and improbable names and people with causes and missions. Kehua! delivers with characters Scarlet, Cynara and Lola. And matriarch Beverly? Some of her adventures are pure young Fay Weldon as a single mum and others? I want a volume of nothing but Beverly’s memoirs STAT (oh wait…why don’t I just re-read Auto da Fay because that is as close as I’m going to get.) There are secrets upon secrets and the lives of women and what we learned from our mothers. And then there is the other part of me.

Now this second part of me groaned, read the first 50 pages, put Kehua! down for almost a week and once I did decide to keep reading could not get through parts of Kehua! fast enough. A Fay Weldon book should last no longer than an Aero bar or a Magnum Double Caramel ice cream or a Starbucks tall hot chocolate no whip cream around me. A Fay Weldon book should be devoured and send me to Amazon and the library to scoop up my favorites. Even the seemingly endless The Hearts and Lives of Men gets devoured and let’s face it, I lose count of how many times Nell’s parents get together and break up because it’s more than the main couple on an 1980s soap opera. Okay, let’s get super real, The Hearts and Lives of Men IS a 1980s soap opera but I still devoured it.

But Kehua!? It was more making dinner from potluck leftovers versus a candy bar and chips.  It’s both the story of Beverly and her female descendants AND our unknown writer writing a book about the characters and her own possibly supernatural adventures in her home as she’s writing the we’re reading. For some people, this device is going to be the most brilliant thing ever. For me? Too jarring for reading Kehua! but if you got the money to make a top notch miniseries (like Case Histories) then I’m all for it. (But who to cast as our Fay Weldon Expy? Helen Mirren is much too young.) The two stories of Kehua! work much better as two short novels like Weldon’s brilliant The Spa Decameron (with a Fay Weldon Expy of it’s own) and The Heart of the Country. I wanted more of Beverly’s New Zealand girlhood, her adventures with Dionne and more of the possible ghosts haunting the author if she was being haunted or was she experiencing a time slip? The tidbits we get in this book aren’t enough to fully satisfy but you will not starve for plot. Maybe I’m just greedy.

Still a middling Fay Weldon novel (a middling novel from Fay Weldon is another writer at the top of their game) is better than no more Fay Weldon novels ever. I fear the day of no more Fay Weldon. She is not immortal or even de-aging like Grace appears to in the much criticized The Bulgari Connection. Age has not dimmed Fay Weldon’s sharp wit or observing eye in the least. And I’m grateful Europa Editions is publishing her and beyond grateful for the Anglophile at my local library who used our library’s tiny new book budget to snap up Kehua! instead of whatever author is trying to get some of that sweet Fifty Shades/Twilight market. Not everyone blindly reads the New York Times Best Seller list. And hopefully even a middling Fay Weldon (remember not a bad thing) will inspire a reader to explore her other work.  Beverly is a most interesting lady and even her dutiful Alice has surprising hidden layers. Lola? She has the potential to live a life even more full of twists and turns than her great-grandmother Beverly. And even with it’s flaws (this could have been two brilliant short novels, D’Dora kept making me think of D’orothea from Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City) Kehua! is most welcome to haunt my bookshelves.

 

 

Henrietta’s War

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

You know you’ve discovered a good book when you mention said book to a coworker and the coworker’s eyes light up while they demand you send them the author’s name and titles ASAP. Another sign your book is a winner? Seeing Coworker’s shoulders slump when you explain “oh golly gee…you can get them from the X and Y libraries…once I return my inter-library loans…”. But Coworker forgives you because they’re just as big an Anglophile as you are.

Now what book had Coworker plotting just how fast I could read and return a certain book? Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 by Joyce Dennys. I’m not certain I might have stumbled across this little charmer without Amazon’s Customers Also Bought Items By while I was bemoaning  how very budget wrecking snapping up E.M. Delafield on Kindle would be to my wallet. The local library system had a few of Joyce Dennys’ books and the descriptions seemed interesting, so what did I have to lose?

Like her fellow Andre Deutsch Limited author Helene Hanff, Joyce Dennys was doing a spring clean one day when she came across some old writings from World War II. But instead of the relatively anonymous Helene Hanff’s letters to a London book shop, Joyce Dennys’ old writings were from her articles published in each issue of Sketch magazine, letters from an imaginary Doctor’s wife in the countryside writing about life at home to her childhood friend Robert fighting in the war. Our Doctor’s wife, Henrietta is a faithful correspondent, giving Robert all the little details about her daily life with the Doctor (Charles), her two grown children Bill and the Linnet, their dog Perry and all their friends and foes in the village.

I’m very tempted to burble on and on about the charming writing, the rough little sketches in each letter (done by Joyce Dennys herself) that even though they are just rough little sketches, you can get the warm and loving nature of Lady B in all her Helen E. Hokinson like club woman glory and the glamorous divorcee Faith who oozes a magic spell over everyone like a Peter Arno showgirl. So yes, burble I did. Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 really is truly charming. You get a look at a way of life that is vanishing and how the everyday residents of a seaside village are coping with the upheavals. Liquor is in short supply but Charles manages to scrape up some sherry to offer to Lady B and use the ends of this and that for Christmas cocktails. During Marmalade Week, the residents are wondering how they will make their usual bounty with restrictions on sugar. Village glamor girl Faith has the idea of using saccharine tablets in place of the desired sugar. Her plan is flawed but it’s a plan. But a war isn’t going to keep our villagers from their rounds of visits and parties even if face powder and stockings are soon to be in short supply.

Henrietta’s War: News from the Home Front 1939-1942 is a slim book and before you know it, you’ve devoured Henrietta’s letters to Robert and have questions plaguing you. Will Henrietta get to join in war work or is she just doomed to tend house and dig in the garden with a hot water bottle on her back until the war ends? Will Faith’s devoted suitor The Conductor ever get Faith to be all his? Will Lady B keep being the utter rock of grace and sense in wanting to defend her beloved country? But worry not, because there’s a second Henrietta book, Henrietta Sees It Through: More News from the Home Front 1942-1945.

Counting My Chickens

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Out of the marvelous Mitford sisters, it’s no big secret my absolute favorite Jessica “Decca”. But Nancy? The baby sister you nicknamed “Nine” for her presumed mental age? She’s closing in on your perch as my second favorite Mitford.

Now just in case you don’t know who the Mitford sisters are (which is okay, I forgive you, not everyone’s personal book collection spans Lovecraft/King/Bloch/Jackson to Louisa May Alcott to Jacqueline Susann/Grace Metalious to the Mitford sisters) these six lovely ladies were the daughters of David Bertram Ogilvy Freeman-Mitford, 2nd Baron Redesdale and the granddaughters of Thomas Gibson Bowles (founder of The Lady and the UK Vanity Fair). Eldest sister Nancy wrote wickedly sharp novels, second sister Pamela took up the country life, third sister and family beauty Diana become a political prisoner in World War II, fourth sister Unity was entranced by Hitler and Nazi Germany, fifth sister Jessica ran away and became the infamous muckraker who made the funeral industry shake in its black boots and sixth sister Deborah aka Debo? She grew up and married a sweet young man named Andrew Cavendish and became the Duchess of Devonshire.

Along with helping turn the family seat Chatsworth House from a financial sinkhole into one of the premier stately homes to visit in the UK (all you Jane Austen fans? Chatsworth House is used as Mr Darcy’s Pemeberly in the 2005 version of Pride and Prejudice), Debo has inherited the literary gene turning out charming books about her beloved Chatsworth House and memoirs. Counting My Chickens and Other Home Thoughts, is a slight book, only a 192 pages of Her Grace’s thoughts and observations of her life, family and being the mistress of Chatsworth House but what a wonderful 192 pages.

You might think a Duchess would be snotty, aloof and beyond writing a book for the masses. Maybe. But Her Grace The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire (her husband, the 11th Duke of Devonshire died in 2004) is a down to earth lady who buys her clothes at agricultural fairs and shows because they’re comfortable and wear well. She’d rather grow a lettuce by the front door than the finest rare orchid. When asked if she’d rather have tea with Elvis or Hitler, she chose Elvis. One of her favorite books of all time is Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Ginger and Pickles.

How could you not love this lady? Counting My Chickens and Other Home Thoughts makes me want to save up my pennies, go to Chatsworth House and hope I run into Her Grace in the grounds. And you know just how very much I “love” Outside. Closing Counting My Chickens and Other Home Thoughts made me very glad I’m snapped up Wait for Me!… Memoirs of the Youngest Mitford Sister and In Tearing Haste: Letters Between Deborah Devonshire and Patrick Leigh Fermor at the Friends of the Ferguson Library Book Shop to add to my Mitford collection. Now off to see if the Central Connecticut library system has any more of Her Grace’s books!

 

 

 

Inside Peyton Place

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes when you read a book, you want to fire up the old Literary Time Machine (Blacklight: “Lemme guess, you want to make out with H.P. Lovecraft” Me: <death glare> “No…”) I want to go back to the 1956 and smack away every glass of Canadian Club and 7 UP that Grace Metalious even gave the slightest longing look at. And I also want to frog-march her directly to a competent agent and financial manager and not let her sneak back to The Plaza until every last paper was signed. I wonder if Emily Toth ever had the same crazy thoughts while she was working on Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious. Because let me tell you, out of the Shirley Jackson/Grace Metalious/Jacqueline Susann trio? Grace was the clear winner of the shouldn’t be coveted Most Bleeped Up Her Life title. And we’re talking about some stiff competition because Shirley Jackson and Jacqueline Susann? Lots of Bad Life Choice Theater.

Blacklight: “Who the heck is Grace Metalious again?”

In case you haven’t visited the Grace Metalious page or are my beloved Minecraft addicted spouse Blacklight, Grace Metalious is an author who wrote the mega best seller Peyton Place about the secrets of a small New England. This novel spawned an Oscar nominated movie, several television shows and sequels. If you’re under 40 years old? Your parents or grandparents read Peyton Place in secret, clucking over all the s-e-x. Unless of course you’re my parents. Neither of them read the darn book, even though my mother remembers watching the 1964-1969 prime-time soap opera and “not liking that Allison girl at all”.

Now of course as a wee lass reading Peyton Place, Return to Peyton Place, The Tight White Collar and No Adam in Eden, I had no idea that the lady behind these crumbling paperbacks I found at tag sales died young and broke. Or that we shared a French-Canadian heritage. Grace Metalious just seemed so young and innocent and sad in the iconic “Pandora in Blue Jeans” picture. Nothing like the glamorous leopard clad Jackie Collins whose books I was devouring as fast as Her Collins could produce them. Then one day, after I had a license and realized my library card could be used at any public library in the state, I found Emily Toth’s Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious. And boy oh boy was my image of Grace Metalious shattered.

Grace Metalious’ rise from child of blue collar workers in a New Hampshire mill town to marrying young to living a shack of a rented house  with a dry well to writing the bestseller Peyton Place was like something out of a Hollywood movie. One with Joan Crawford in Adrian gowns at the end. And what happened after the fame and fortune from Peyton Place? Something John Waters and his stable of stars would film with Divine in a sloppy housecoat with booze stains down the front as Grace. How do you just sign over all the film rights to a movie studio without protecting yourself? Or blaze through all your royalties and that sweet $250,000 studio check in less than eight years?

Would you still want to read Peyton Place, Return to Peyton Place, The Tight White Collar and No Adam in Eden after encountering Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious? YES! It’s worth the trouble of tracking them down. Inside Peyton Place: The Life of Grace Metalious adds annotations to the experience. Who knew Grace could have avoid certain legal troubles if she just changed certain character names? Or just how much of her own life was being woven into her books. The quick end coming out of nowhere in No Adam in Eden is easier to understand once you know the circumstances in which the book was written. And after reading Grace’s notes for a third Peyton Place novel, you wonder what could have been if Grace Metalious was able to stay away from the bottle long enough to plop her butt in that lovely office in her dream house and write. A lesser writer than Emily Toth would have sneered at the wreck of Grace Metalious’ life  with all it’s scandals but Emily Toth has the skill make you care as deeply about her subject as she did.