Social Comedy

Regency Buck

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By Georgette Heyer

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As familiar as I was with this story, listening to it being read (Audible-Jasmine Blackborow),as always, gave me a fresh outlook and enjoyment. The narrator was excellent, and I must credit her with making the ever-irate Judith a little less irritating and childish-seeming and Worth’s highhandedness understandable. This was the first Regency Romance by the mother of the genre. So this is the book, folks. The origin of it all. The urtext if you will. And as such, a more archetypal example there could not be. Judith is the quintessential strong, fiery, and headstrong type heroine. Worth is the all-knowing all powerful hero, a Corinthian, no mere Dandy, who excels at everything he does. Heyer mixed and matched all kinds of other personalities in her books of course, but this has sure been a popular combination of hers and her followers through the years.

The story unfolds around the country-raised and very rich Miss Judith Taverner and her eager but dumb brother Perry coming to London for the season after the death of their father. Due to a massive error on his part (like father like son in the brain department), they are under the guardianship of the 5th Earl of Worth, not his deceased father, the 4th Earl. Judith must have taken after her mother. To make a long story short, Worth gets on the independent-minded Judith’s bad side from the start with his arrogant dismissive ways, and they are at loggerheads throughout the novel. It is, in fact, an enemies to lovers trope, and a good one. Julian Audley, 5th Earl of Worth is not one of the more popular Heyer heroes. Some find him too overbearing, cold, and dictatorial. His behavior at their second meeting manhandling the prickly Judith into his phaeton (for her own good) and purposely provoking her by giving her a little kiss hasn’t won him any points among enlightened readers on the lookout for sexual harassment either. But I’ve always been a fan. His deft parryings of poor Judith’s every effort to get the better of him are very humorous. I did sympathize with and even admired her persistent efforts to exert her independence but for an intelligent girl she was not very wise when it came to her guardian. “Mad as a wet hen” is a phrase that comes to mind. She was forever letting her emotions and temper get the better of her brain while always trying to maintain her dignity. Worth’s overbearing maneuvers were often only to save her from cutting off her nose to spite her face while purposely provoking her for his own amusement. He just couldn’t help it.

As the Taverners are immersed in all manner of sport, culture, fashion, entertainments, and ways of the elite of society (AKA “The Ton”) in her introduction to London, so is the reader. The plot provides Georgette Heyer the perfect framework to display all of her meticulous research into the Regency period. The book could be used as a primer for aspiring writers of regency romances. Various real historical figures of the time are woven into the narrative including the Duke of Clarence (who proposes marriage), Gentleman Jackson the boxer, The Prince Regent (who makes a pass at her), and particularly Beau Brummel, who is a great friend of Worth and who becomes a wise advisor to Judith. We are treated to many actual quotes from the great Brummel woven into his conversations with Judith. Some readers count all of the factoids, long descriptions, historical details against the book. And I probably skimmed through a lot of it myself in previous readings. But listening to it all seemed different. I couldn’t just skip ahead and I liked it all. It is so obvious that GH took such delight in sharing all she had learned, and worked hard to include all of her little nuggets as seamlessly as possible. After writing historical romances set in other periods for 14 years prior to this first Regency, she finally found her niche, and it seemed to me like she was having a ball with the writing of it.

On top of the slow burn romance and Judith’s adventures amongst The Ton, we have a mystery! Someone is trying to kill Perry. It’s really not much of a mystery. Readers reading the book at the time might have been a little misled, but those who have read other Heyers or almost any other regency or gothic romance written in the years following this one will not be fooled. We 100% know who Judith will end up with from their first meeting so we know he is not the murderer. There is only one other person with a motive, and though he fools Judith, as savvy readers, we see right through him.

After our two combatants/lovers declare their true feelings, we are treated to a long happy conversation in which they have a lot of fun dissecting their relationship. We get a lot along the lines of “What did you think when I…? And when you did this, I just…! How could you have…? I thought I had lost you when…! Oh that day at…! This is very unusual for Georgette, and I absolutely loved it. Usually it’s declarations, clinch, and “The End.”

Georgette would continue to refine her style as the years went by, but this one, although it doesn’t have some of the subtle or hilarious characterizations of some of her later works, should not be missed. It is the foundation of a genre.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Auntie Mame: An Irreverant Escapade.

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By Patrick Dennis

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It’s been many many (many) years since I have reread this mid-century classic gem and old favorite of mine. I’ve read a few of Patrick Dennis’s books, many now very hard to find and undeservedly out of print. Two of the three books that are still readily available are (strangely) ones that I haven’t read and have no desire to. I guess that means my taste in novels by Patrick Dennis must be a little off. Around the World with Auntie Mame is still available and is now on my TBRR (To Be Re-Read) list. I’ve also read Guestward Ho, The Loving Couple, and The Joyous Season, which is one of my favorite books of all time, surpassing even this, his most well-known work. The Joyous Season is out of print and rarely mentioned when the subject of Patrick Dennis and his books come up in my poking around the internet. The reason why has always been confounding to me. I absolutely adored the 10-year-old narrator Kerry and his 6-year-old sister Missy whose upper-crust Manhattan parents’ marriage blows up one disastrous and hilarious Christmas Day. Besides the laughs on every page, I loved the romantic comedy aspects to it. I’ll stop there because otherwise this review of Auntie Mame will turn into trying to convince readers to read The Joyous Season instead. (But then read Auntie Mame, because it is a comedy classic and the basis for an award winning Broadway play and Hollywood movie for good reason.)

I listened to this on Audible and the narrator, Christopher Lane, was fine, although I would have wished for a more youthful voice as the book is narrated by Patrick whose adventures with his eccentric Aunt start when he is orphaned in 1929 at 10-years-old and ends around 3 years after his graduation from University. Mame Dennis’s guardianship is abruptly curtailed early on by his conservative trustee when young Patrick is discovered in an avant-garde school where all of the students and two teachers are racing around naked. From then on Mame only gets her “depraved” hands on him Christmases and summers.

I have seen the movie quite a few times and fairly recently. Most of the scenes play out much the same, with the book having the advantage of Patrick’s loving but sometimes acerbic narration and commentary on his and Mame’s life together. And of course the hilarious if sometimes harrowing episodes in their lives are unabridged. The first 3 chapters about Patrick’s and Mame’s first meeting up to when he is shipped off to boarding school for his own protection are pretty much the same. After that we are only favored with Patrick and Mame together only sporadically, while Patrick fills us in on what he knows about her adventures while he is safely at school. With the stock market crash and Auntie Mame “ruined, ruined, ruined!” (not by a long shot), she is forced to keep up with her expenditures by relying on her considerable social contacts for gainful employment. Her adventures on the stage with her great friend, Broadway star Vera Charles, down to her adventures selling roller skates at Macy’s, are almost identical to the movie. It is at Macy’s that she meets the love of her life, the fabulously wealthy Beauregard Pickett Burnside III, one of the “big, genial, easygoing, lovable” southerners. The movie only slightly curtails her clash with the old-time southern culture of Beau’s family and friends in the horsey set revolving around Peckerwood, Beau’s Georgia plantation. However, in the book, (trigger warning) horses die. I had forgotten that. After Beau’s untimely death (kicked in the head by a horse rather than falling off a mountain) Auntie Mame, as his widow, inherits all and is free to indulge her eccentric and lavish lifestyle once again. Upon Patrick’s prep school and then college years things start to diverge from the movie in plot, but not in spirit. The Agnes Gooch affair is much longer and set in Apathy, Massachusetts, home of Patrick’s St. Boniface Academy. Patrick is up to his neck with Agnes while trying to keep her and his aunt isolated from the school authorities to avoid possible expulsion. Agnes’s fate is a much happier one in the book. While in College (Ivy League, of course) we have Patrick entangled with a stripper named Bubbles, and Mame trying to recapture her youth by adopting Patrick’s social set as her own. Patrick’s engagement to the caricature of shallow wealthy WASP-dom, Gloria Upson, and her even more offensive family in the Connecticut suburbs are almost word for word. Except that in the book, they are even more racist, ridiculous, and pompous. Patrick as a young man is not as lovable as Patrick as a child. He takes way too long to rid himself of Bubbles, and to wake up to Gloria and her family. How he ever got engaged to her is a mystery other than she is beautiful and “stacked.” Wouldn’t be the first time, I guess. Moving on to WWII, Auntie Mame takes in some British War Orphans who are nothing more than thugs and reprobates who leave her with a permanent white streak in her hair. This is not in the movie at all, and Patrick’s meeting with his future wife, Pegeen, is completely different. Book Pegeen is a hoot. Patrick was a lucky guy, and sorry to say, given his history with women, I was somewhat amazed he had the good sense to nab her. As in the movie, everything comes full circle with Auntie Mame “kidnapping” their son Mike for an educational summer in India(Ha!).

Mame and Patrick become entwined with any manner of humanity likely to be ensconced in New York or environs from 1929 to 1945. And all are skewered in equal measure be they elite or common, liberal and avant-garde or conservative and stuffy. Some with affection, some not. Only two escape Patrick Dennis cynical wit: Beau, Mame’s late husband, and Pegeen (and maybe her father, Mickey the Mick.)

Despite their devotion to each other, Patrick is under no illusions as to Mame’s foibles and sometimes foolhardy impulses, And this applies to Mame’s insights into Patrick’s youthful follies and sometimes unfortunate tendencies. But the bottom line is that she raised a good man which we know by reading between the lines. Despite his understandable frustrations and complaints, he is always there for his Auntie Mame, and she for him (although as a master manipulator she is too wise to always lay all of her cards on the table.)

Rating: 5 out of 5.

I Hope This Finds You Well

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by Natalie Sue

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Jolene recalls the time she brought juice and milk instead of coffee and soda to an office potluck and they think it’s funny:

After that, I decided that limiting my interactions was the best way to keep people from hating me. But over time, embarrassment became resentment. I was annoyed that Rhonda had me buy drinks if coffee and the watercooler would’ve done it. That was the first step down a road. The thing about annoyance is that once there’s a spark, you can find more things to stoke it. It grew and amplified between me and them. And eventually the abyss stared back.

This was an entertaining and funny read with serious overtones. The darkness mostly stems from having to do with a heroine who has social anxiety and other damage due to a childhood tragedy that she was wrongly blamed for. She suffers from guilt that her family had to move to another city to escape the gossip and blame. Her mental state is not helped by an overbearing mother whose ill-judged parenting skills create stress and expectations she can not hope to meet. Therefore she lies about her career success and her romantic life, creating more stress. She is a bitter and very unhappy person.

She works in an office and to say that Jolene does not fit in is an understatement. Her office mates try to ignore her weird ways but are also hostile and hateful. They speculate on the chances of her going postal with a deadly weapon at some point, and they are half serious. And I’m not sure that I wouldn’t feel the same way about her (though I hope I wouldn’t be hostile and mean).

Her personal life is not any better. Her apartment is filthy and she is a borderline alcoholic. But since we are privy to her interior life and funnily sarcastic and incisive if black takes on the world and the people around her, I couldn’t help but like her while shaking my head at her self-sabotage. And I knew from the get-go that the book would be about Jolene’s journey out of the depths to happiness and health. So I was willing to put up with quite a bit from her.

The crux of the novel is how Jolene, due to some kind of computer foul up, is suddenly able to secretly read all of the private emails of her work mates and bosses. She finds out that massive layoffs are coming, and she will probably be first on the chopping block due to her, well, everything about her. She starts to play the social and political game to save her job. In the process, she finally gets to know the people she works with and everything that is going on beneath the surface. Needless to say, some people confirm her low opinion of them, and some do not. She gets to know Cliff, the new HR guy with whom she has to meet regularly for Sensitivity Training. He is a wonderful guy, and she starts to fall for him, and for some reason, he for her. With him, she is quick witted, funny, and nice with a refreshingly rebellious yet well-founded cynicism that he relates to.

There are many aspects of this book that are 5 star worthy. By itself, the premise of Jolene’s access to the secret thoughts and professional and personal lives of everyone in her office was a rich trove of humor and horror. There are revelations galore which made for quite the page turner. Eventually we know there will be hell to pay on many fronts when the truth comes out. We fear for Jolene while recognizing that justice is not on her side. But to me, Jolene’s growth came too late and then, too quickly in the book. I didn’t feel her journey was well managed. I was impatient with her constant negative attitude towards the good people in her life, especially Cliff. She always assumes the worst. I hoped that her relationship with Miley, a neglected little girl who lives in her apartment building would be the making of both her and Miley but the connection never really delivers on its promise.

The ending was satisfying and happy, just the way I like it. But I can’t give it 5 stars. Jolene disappointed me too often, until she didn’t.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Wedding People

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By Alison Espach

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Having not read a novel I really really liked in forever unless by one of my core favorite authors, which are few and far between, I thought I’d branch out a little. This had won several awards, received a lot of hype, and going by the reviews and the description of the plot, it seemed like it would fit the bill. It’s described as heartwarming literary fiction with dark humor, wisdom, wit, hope, and maybe a bit of romance. And it was all of those things.

We meet our main character, Phoebe Stone, as she arrives alone at the grand Cornwall Inn in Newport RI. Curiously, after reading the reviews and the first pages of this book, I had the idea that Phoebe was in her 50s or 60s. But she is only maybe 42. We also learn she is an adjunct English professor at a small college in St. Louis, Missouri. She is still haunted by her divorce and we learn that she has also wrestled with fertility problems. She has been isolated and lonely, her only companion being her cat, Harry, who has just died of cancer. Fed up with herself and her life, and armed with a bottle of Harry’s pain pills, her plan is to commit suicide. But the hotel, which she has longed dream of visiting, has been taken over by a lively wedding party which has the whole place exclusively booked for 6 days. Phoebe, as usual, is an outsider. But what does she care? After a nice dinner in the best room in the place, she plans to do the deed that night anyway. She meets the Lila bride in the elevator, and, since Phoebe really has nothing left to lose, frankly tells her, when questioned, why she is there. Lila is upset about that, not out of compassion or empathy, but because she does not want a dead body to ruin her perfect wedding. She follows Phoebe to her room to try to get her to change her mind. Or at least wait until after her wedding is over. Phoebe has always led a controlled, careful, and small life, never wanting to rock any boats. But now that she just doesn’t care anymore, for the first time ever, she is honest and fearless in her interaction with the spoiled bride. And she likes it. We find out that Lila, brash and not afraid to show her true self to Phoebe, is an entirely different person with her friends and family. Lila’s confidences spark Phoebe’s curiosity. After Lila finally leaves Phoebe to join her party beneath Phoebe’s balcony, she finds she doesn’t want to die just yet.

The crowd laughs, and Phoebe wonders if Lila is laughing…. But Phoebe will never know what happens—by the time Lila’s mother is finished talking, Phoebe will be dead. Phoebe will not get to know how the speech ends—or how anything ends. And Phoebe does not like this. Phoebe always finishes a book or a movie, even a bad one.

Energized by the freedom of being herself with Lila, she decides to hang around a while. (The feline pain pills proving to be ineffective.) She is drawn into Lila’s world and gets to know many of the wedding party, eventually agreeing to be Lila’s maid of honor. She is liked and respected by all for her common sense and wit. Lila is not the only one who seems to want to seek her out and confide in her.

Phoebe has nothing to lose here. She is not part of this family. She is not part of anything anymore. She is free in a way none of them are, so she kneels down and looks directly at the girl, as if it’s her from many years ago.
“We do ask that you keep all your belongings inside the boat,” the captain says softly. Juice looks at Phoebe as if she is making a choice about who to be, and Phoebe makes a choice, too. “Go ahead,” Phoebe says, because fuck it. If she is going to live, she’s going to live differently this time. “Let’s have our funeral.”

I really (really) liked this. Phoebe and Lila’s backstories added to their portrayal, and there were some twists and surprises which are always welcome. I loved the gossip and the peeks behind the curtain of the rich and privileged. Although not a very admirable character, I learned to care for the outrageous and unpredictable Lila as well as Phoebe. We are introduced to the important characters and fraught relationships in Lila’s life through her eyes, and, no surprise, learn there is a lot more to them than we may have thought. Phoebe’s inner observations are smart and funny, and there is plenty of situational comedy as well. As the actual wedding day approached, I found myself fervently hoping for certain outcomes and I was not disappointed.

Unfortunately, the book did lag in the middle, largely due to Phoebe’s unending learning curve. Her constant introspection and little insights into her life and why she acted the way she did were repetitious. It seems like nothing would do, when the author made a point, but for her to make it another dozen times in another dozen ways. Some entertainingly, yes, but some just overkill.

But her excellent writing carried the way past these patches and even though a little tiresome, I was always entertained.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Grand Sophy

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by Georgette Heyer

“You are shameless!” he said angrily.
“Nonsense! You only say so because I drove your horses,” she answered. “Never mind! I will engage not to do so again.”
“I’ll take care of that!” he retorted. “Let me tell you, my dear Cousin, that I should be better pleased if you would refrain from meddling in the affairs of my family!”
“Now, that,” said Sophy, “I am very glad to know, because if ever I should desire to please you I shall know just how to set about it. I daresay I shan’t, but one likes to be prepared for any event, however unlikely.”

There are few strong Georgette Heyer heroines that match Sophy for their spirit and agency, but none that have her combination of sangfroid, confidence, and levelheadedness. Serena? Too hot-tempered. Deb? Too impulsive. Judith? Too bullheaded. Babs? Too tempestuous. Yes, they are all formidable. But Sophy is a “fixer.” She will stop at nothing to prevent people from going down their chosen path if she knows it will only lead to misery. To the point that she will take out her ladylike pistol and shoot someone for their own good. Luckily. she is always right or she would be intolerable.

“Resolution is all that is needed!” she said. “One should never shrink from the performance of unpleasant tasks to obtain a laudable object, after all!”

Plus she is wise, kind, brave, charming, and witty. Is she my favorite heroine? Surprisingly, No. That would be Arabella. I listened to this book on audible and my enjoyment and admiration for the book was increased by the narrator who got my attention by imbuing the energetic Sophie with a languid tone that gave her a new dimension.

Most of Heyer’s male characters are the kind of heroes that the reader feels are so “Master of the Universe” that every other character seems like they are dancing to their tune. Sophie is the only female character that I think matches her male heroes in that kind of power and leadership. When Lady Ombersley welcomes “little cousin” Sophy into her home for the season, Sophy discovers a lively and charming family of nine, three of whose members have seemingly put themselves on paths to an unhappy future. Her new temporary family discovers that Sophy’s father’s description of her as “a good little thing…not an ounce of vice in her” doesn’t even begin to describe the force of nature that is Sophia Stanton-Lacy. It isn’t long before Sophy discerns what ails them. Cecilia, the eldest daughter, has turned her back on the perfect man and has fallen head over heels for a dreamy (in looks and spirit) poet who will never amount to anything and never be able to support a wife. The second oldest son, Hubert, has gotten himself into trouble with a moneylender and is afraid to tell the de facto head of the household about it, his older brother Charles. And Charles, under the strain of rescuing the family from his father’s gambling debts, has, longing for respite, gotten himself engaged to a very proper and sensible woman of good family but who, under her facade of kindly helpfulness, is a cold and spiteful prig. Charles, against his better nature, but encouraged by his fiance, has kept too tight a rein on his family in an effort to repress the careless and irresponsible behavior that has nearly driven them into disaster. He’s become a bit of a tyrant, and as a result, His mother and the 2 oldest of his 6 siblings have become fearful or hostile towards him.

Sophy has her work cut out for her and sets about putting everything to rights. It takes her the whole book, but by the end, Cecelia is disentangled from her poet and engaged to the right man, and Hubert’s troubles have been uncovered and the moneylender has been dispatched at the point of Sophie’s gun. Charles himself, trapped by propriety to remain engaged to a woman whose unpleasantness, thanks to Sophy, he has finally come to discover, has been rid of her without scandal. And thoroughly in love with Sophie. And vice versa. I assume. But it’s hard to tell. The book concludes with Charles hauling Sophy away in his curricle and Sophy protesting, “Charles! You cannot love me”, and Charles kissing her and “savagely” responding “I don’t: I dislike you excessively!” And that is my one quibble with this book. I wish there had been more romantic interaction between the two. It seemed obligatory only that the two ended up together. Even for Heyer, the “happily ever after”, though a given, left a lot to the imagination.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

His Official Fiancée

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By Berta Ruck

After listening to the dodderings and drivels and despairs of girls who aren’t cold, I’m rather thankful that I am. At least I can be fond enough of people in a sensible sort of way. I could be of Sydney. I suppose it will end in my getting him to marry me….But not yet. I haven’t even got his address!

If a girl were the least bit inclined to fall in love with Billy Waters—and I see now that some girls might be; though not, of course, any girl of my type, capable of this kind of frank friendship that puts anything else out of the question!—well, if she were, she’d find it much easier to complete the process here at Porth Cariad than anywhere else that I can imagine him. Some men—generally the nicest—are so much more themselves in the depths of the country. He is.

It is important to remember that this book was written and set in 1913, shortly before WWI. Otherwise the actions and feelings of our heroine make little sense. More than once, I wanted to box her ears. I didn’t get her passive aggressive resentment of her likable fake fiance. I didn’t understand her fits of umbrage that led her to sulk and goad him with constant microaggressions hidden behind a sweet and humble facade. Especially since she was otherwise such a likable and rather admirable girl. Monica is a formerly wealthy society girl, who due to her late father’s debts and her brother’s profligacy is now forced to work for a living. She calls her change of fortune “The Smash.” She is just one of a typing pool and known as a hard-worker but not all that good at her job, though popular enough. When the boss, William Waters, known by the girls as “Still Waters” due to his reserved and formal “fault-finding automaton” personality calls her in to his office, she (and everyone else) assumes she is going to be fired. Instead, he has quite the proposition to put in front of her. He needs a fiance for a year for an unspecified reason, and he offers Monica 500 pounds to put herself at his disposal and take on the purely business assignment. For a girl slaving away for 25 shillings a week this is quite the temptation. I looked it up and it is as someone scraping by on 125 pounds a week was offered almost 50,000 pounds. Even so, Monica plans to refuse because such a proposition is beneath her dignity and quite improper. But when her irresponsible brother calls her from South Africa and tells her he has gotten into hot water (again) and needs 100 pounds desperately, she agrees to Waters’ proposition.

The book is in first person and I found Monica’s tone to be quite modern: open, confiding, and humorous. She shares her more rebellious thoughts with the reader about her situation while outwardly putting on a demure and proper facade. She does not understand William Waters, and doesn’t particularly like him because he is so different from the rich and idle young men she grew up with. That all starts to change when she is invited to stay with his family in the country so they can get to know her. It turns out that his mother is warm, lovely, and welcoming and far from the steely aristocratic matron she had envisioned He also has two sisters who are bright and lively and who immediately take to Monica (or Nancy, as they know her-William told his mother he was engaged to a girl from his office but since he did not even know Monica’s name, he just said her name was Nancy, when he was asked.)

While there at Sevenoaks, his family home, she starts to realize that there is more to “Still Waters” than she originally thought. Although she won’t admit it to the reader or herself, he compares quite favorably with the man she was almost engaged to in her other life. When her father died and “The Smash” happened, Sydney Vandeleer “coincidentally” went off with his mother to Europe, never sealing the deal with the suddenly poor Monica. At the beginning of the novel, she still has hope that he may still come up to scratch. He does seem to still pine for her, but she soon realizes, as she spends more time with “Billy” and his family that he is nothing but a weak artsy-fartsy dilettante.
She is happy being back in the kind of comfortable household she was raised in, with all of the little luxuries, but it adds to her resentment of William because it is only a temporary respite from the hardscrabble life she will have to go back to once the year is up. Also his family is so nice that she is embarrassed to have to lie and deceive them. Finally, William gets tired of her games and they have a showdown with the result that they agree to be friends and work together. She is invited along on a family vacation to the Welsh seaside where she finally falls in love with “Her Official Fiance,” though she won’t admit it. That is, until she thinks she might lose him to a pretty flirty French girl.

I picked this up because I like vintage novels and this one was described as having a very modern feel, and rather unconventional for the times. I saw that right away and was rather enjoying it, but it was easy to put down. I took about a 2 month break in the middle to read other books and during that time, I happened to re-watch the movie, A Room with a View. That movie, a real favorite, was set during this exact time period with the same class of people, and the same type of environment.It helped me to picture the world and relate to the ways of the characters in this novel a little better. In the context of the movie, I returned to the book having a better understanding of and liking for Monica and I happily finished it in a couple of days. It must have been a very popular book in the day, because in 1919 they actually made a Hollywood movie out of it. It was Berta Ruck’s (Mrs. Oliver Onions) first novel and she was to go on to write 89 more. Born in 1878. she lived for a 100 years. In 1970, she was interviewed by the BBC and you can find the interview on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv6V1… I recommend it.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5.

Angels

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by Marian Keyes

But the point I’m making is I wasn’t playing it safe when I married Garv, This is the way I really am!”
Plain yoghurt at room temperature?”
“Um…”
Plain yoghurt at room temperature and proud of it?” “…With Raspberry puree at the bottom?”
Yes! I might even get a T-shirt saying it” “Two. One for Garv as well.”

Had I read the Walsh Family Chronicles in order I would have probably looked upon Maggie’s story as a relief after Claire’s marriage drama and Rachel’s hard-fought and very entertaining journey out of denial and into sobriety. I don’t remember too much about how I felt about it on my first read, by which time I was well into Marian Keyes’ oeuvre, which included many of her standalone novels. When I came to my second Walsh novel, at first I didn’t even realize I had read about these characters before. I remember I liked Angels better than most people did. This time on Audible, I liked it pretty well. After reading all of the Walsh sisters’ stories including sequels, I was very familiar with how the rest of her family view Garv and Margaret. I was interested in how Keyes would find much fodder in the boring life of boring Maggie and her even more boring husband Garv. He is accepted only grudgingly in the first go-round with the Walshes. Except Anna, and that’s a whole other story. They love and respect Margaret but she is somewhat of an outsider, being sensible, responsible, and stable compared the rest of the family’s batshit-in-a-blender lives and times. As I got to know Maggie and learned about her life, I realized she was no different from the usual likable, funny, and good-hearted heroines of Women’s Fiction or Romantic Comedies. She was “every woman” and not boring at all.

After she finds out her husband has cheated on her and she is fired from her job, Maggie flees from Ireland to Los Angeles to visit her best friend Emily. As the white sheep of the family who never strays from the straight and narrow, this unexpected turn of events is quite the shocker. As Maggie experiences life in California and meets many of their strange peoples, we also learn a little more about her teen years, her first love, Shay Delaney, whom she has never quite gotten out of her system, her happy marriage to Garv, and what has caused their marriage to fracture and then break. Her life there with her friend Emily, a struggling scriptwriter, is one curveball after another. But nothing of lasting importance happens to her there in Los Angeles, and most of the book is about Maggie meeting and interacting with various Los Angeles stereotypes. It has even less of a plot than Watermelon. She also meets Shay there, but there is no fear that he will be any more important in her future than the rest of the other large cast of characters. By that time, we understand what a wonderful man Garv is, how happy they both were in their marriage, and how much Maggie still loves him. But he doesn’t show up in the book live and in person until the 95% mark. By this point, I was half in love with myself and I was very happy to see him, hear his side of the story, and have him get Maggie away from her well-meaning but overbearing family. Yes, Mammy Walsh, Mr. Walsh, Anna, and Helen show up in L.A. late in the book and bring their own special brand of crazy and hilarious to the unsuspecting Angelenos. Most of the book is an affectionate send-up of Hollywood culture seen through Maggie’s Irish eyes. The only real people of any depth were her old friend Emily and her new friend Laura. Some of the book is quite dated and exaggerated, though there is also a lot of truth in it, I imagine.

I didn’t love it but I liked it, and I also enjoyed Gerry Halligan’s reading even if the accents of the American characters seemed a little exaggerated and “off.” Weirdly, she pronounced Rodeo drive like it was a cowboy contest and “4-1-1” as 4-eleven. Even those little quirks had their charms.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Wild Strawberries

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by Angela Thirkell

From their earliest days the Leslie children had thought of their mother as doing or making something, handling brush, pencil, needle with equal enthusiasm, coming in late to lunch with clay in her hair, devastating the drawing-room with her far-flung painting materials, taking cumbersome pieces of embroidery on picnics, disgracing everyone by a determination to paint the village cricket pavilion with scenes from the life of St Francis for which she made the gardeners pose. What Mr Leslie thought no one actually knew, for Mr Leslie had his own ways of life and rarely interfered. Once only had he been known to make a protest. In the fever of an enamelling craze, Lady Emily had a furnace put up in the service-room, thus making it extremely difficult for Gudgeon and the footman to get past, and moreover pressing the footman as her assistant when he should have been laying lunch.”

I enjoyed this as much or more than many of Angela Thirkell’s books. It was fairly short and the world in which I found myself was fairly confined and not bursting with various characters which were hard to keep straight, nor was I roaming from one country house or family circle to another. I was most definitely helped by my trusty copy of Angela Thirkell’s World, which traces all of the characters in her Barsetshire Novels from the early 1930s, through WWII to the late 1950s.

So when Dodo Bingham and her twin daughters show up for Martin’s 17th birthday party,  learning that the carefree David actually married one of those twins in book 15 , Peace Breaks Out, it was a laugh. Wild Strawberries is book #2 in the Barsetshire universe.

We are introduced to the Leslie Family: Lady Emily, her curmudgeonly husband, and their grown children, John, Agnes, and David. Also, their grandson, Martin, whom they are raising since his father was killed in WWI. His mother is not in the picture. Apparently not in a bad way, necessarily, because according to ATW, the future children of Martin’s Uncle David stay with her in America. Visiting for the summer is Mary. A meek and mild second cousin (reminded me of Jane Austen’s Fanny Price), she is young, pretty, and very nice. The book centers around her crush on David, the Leslies’ entitled and irresponsible younger son. Her heart is destined to be broken but for David’s very responsible and very good older brother John. As the book opens, he is  a sad widower,  but when he falls for the shy and reticent Mary as she plays and sings at the piano when she thinks no one is paying attention,  the path to the happy ending becomes clear. All is straightened out, as well as some other unrelated developments,  on the night of Martin “Thanks Awfully” Leslie’s 17th birthday party.

But that bare bones of a plot, if you can call it that, is really just foundation to sketch, reveal, and affectionately skewer the personalities of the family and their friends. I grew fond of all of the Leslies but my favorite characters were Lady Emily (who reminded me of an older Laura Morland), Agnes, and Martin. I didn’t care for or approve of David much, but we aren’t meant to. He is the type who, instead of being gainfully employed like his older brother, fancies himself a novelist. Luckily for him he has an independent income “owing to the ill-judged partiality of an aunt.” He doesn’t doubt that his awful novel will be a bestseller, and although it isn’t even finished, is already confidently planning a play and a film script. Lady Emily, the benign and gentle matriarch, floats through her home, Rushwater, swathed in myriad shawls and scarves, frequently calling on her adoring family and protective servants to retrieve them and any other various accoutrements that she realizes she has mislaid. Usually they are within arm’s reach.  When she inevitably trails a scarf through her soup, she rinses it in her wine glass. Her daughter Agnes, married to the always absent Colonel Graham, is lovely and sweet-natured. She dotes on her 3 lively children, and nothing can shake her out of her calm and placid approach to life. When her children cause upset in the house, whether it is which cereal they will or will not eat or falling in the goldfish pond, her response is to laugh “Oh Wicked Ones!” with pride and affection and call for Nannie. In a bit of a side plot, she is totally oblivious to the wild passion she has inspired in the 19-year-old son of the Leslies’ new French neighbors. This is a common Thirkell trope. He’ll get over it.

Wild Strawberries is the type of book where several pages are devoted to a servant’s relationship to the dinner gong. If you’re up for that type of book, you will find yourself transported to another world of which you might certainly disapprove and even look upon with disdain. But while disapproving, you are in the hands of a very talented writer. So you might also find yourself chuckling and being charmed by the frivolity of it all. In 2024 it is a fantasy world, but it’s important to remember that less than 100 years ago it was an authentic slice of life.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Pineapple Street

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by Jenny Jackson

“Oh, no! I left my Cartier bracelet in Lena’s BMW and she’s leaving soon for her grandmother’s house in Southampton!”

Sasha felt wrong-footed 90 percent of the time but also simultaneously felt she was Molly Ringwald in an eighties movie and everyone else was the preppy villain.

This book seems to be in the “love it or hate it” category with many readers. I loved it. It was funny and insightful, and I was invested in our three main character’s admittedly first-world problems and daily lives. This book is about rich people. Specifically, A family that lives in the Fruit Street area in Brooklyn Heights, an exclusive old-money enclave where many celebrities now live. When we are first introduced to the family, we are given the impression that this family is of the worst kind of rich people: Arrogant, snobby, shallow, insular, you name it. They do not make a good impression. They are all of that indeed, but, they also have some good and endearing qualities. That seems to rub some readers the wrong way. Some readers are suspicious that the author is a major force in the publishing world. Some even seem to think that they were drawn in against their will by the gorgeous cover and the evocative title. The other main criticism of this book is that “nothing happens.” Well, I’m used to reading books where nothing much happens. Some of my favorite authors write books in which nothing much happens other than living their daily lives. Well, I guess things do happen because they grow and change, have realizations and insights, go down unexpected paths, and achieve happiness and success. But it’s not because they do things like triumphing over evil, escaping death by inches, solving a mystery, weathering a tragedy, or doing anything that most would consider particularly exciting or adventurous.

The three main characters are Darby, Georgiana, and Sasha. Darby and Georgiana are trust fund babies and the daughters of Chip and Tilda. Despite their pampered existence, both are actually quite likable aside from the way they treat Sasha. Sasha is a middle-class, borderline blue-collar, girl from a raucous loving family who marries Cord, the scion of the Stockton family. Sasha and her attempts to navigate the social and family mores of his insular family are the heart of the book. Although treated politely on the surface, she is kept firmly on the outside of the family circle. But rudeness on their part is unconscious and unintentional, for the most part. And her husband Cord, who also has very likable qualities and is a good guy, doesn’t see it or want to see it.

“I’m not sure what I did wrong, but I just feel like your sisters don’t like me.” “What are you talking about? That’s not true.” Cord patted her back and tried to leave the room. He was a WASP through and through, deeply uncomfortable with conflict.

Oooh not good. But then we have this private moment between Cord and Sasha:

“Did you ever feel that way as a kid?” she asked. “So intense and confused?” “Yeah, totally. I was in love with Little Debbie,” he confessed. “Who’s that?” Sasha asked, running a finger along his bare chest. “A neighbor?” “No, the little girl with a hat on the box of snack cakes.”

How can you not like that guy?

Cord and Sasha love each other, but Cord does not have Sasha’s back while she wrestles with death by a thousand cuts and Sasha prefers a partner that loves her but does not need or depend on her for his happiness. She had that kind of love before and it almost derailed her life.

 She had seen what all-consuming passion looked like, how it felt to ride the currents of intense adoration and fury, and she didn’t want it. She wanted someone stable, someone easy, someone who loved her but not enough to lose himself entirely.

When Darby and Georgiana experience some havoc in their lives, it turns each of their worlds on its axis. Darby’s beloved husband is fired from his important and high-paying job. He is made the scapegoat for a screw-up that was not his fault because he is Korean and without influential family connections. Georgiana falls in love and betrays her personal code by continuing the affair even after she finds out that he is married. Then something tragic happens and she spirals.

Thanks to a nasty confrontation at a family party, Sasha finally reaches the end of her rope and opens a can of you know what on their you know whats. Finally, it comes to a head. All of the secrets and secret feelings come out. But things don’t change until Sasha’s Dad gets sick and she leaves to be with her family. One thing leads to another which leads to a family who finally finds harmony and understanding of themselves and each other. At least the kids do, anyway. Tilda and Chip don’t really change, but they change toward Sasha. And Sasha gets to leave the creepy shrine to the Stocktons and their ancestors on Pineapple Street.

I got a real kick out of this book. The writing was witty with a keen sense of the ridiculous. I liked reading about these strange rich people who live in a whole other universe and seen through the eyes of a normal girl. I also appreciated that even though few would approve of their attitudes or the way they led their lives they were not painted with a wide brush as human beings. The author wanted us to understand them and I found that they were worth understanding. I do wish we had seen more inner workings of why things progressed the way they did. For example, how did Sasha and Cord get over the Pre-Nup crisis? One minute Cord tells her he chooses his family over her, they are on the verge of a break-up, Cord is wrecked, and the next they are happily married. Why do the Stocktons accept Malcolm, Darby’s husband, so easily but not Sasha who is also successful and well-educated? And what made Cord finally see the light and show up in Sasha’s family’s kitchen? After the party disaster at the end, one minute Cord thinks Sasha overreacted and the next he finally has her back.

Interestingly, the author, Jenny Jackson’s, “Acknowledgments” set my teeth on edge a bit. “I wrote half this novel in my apartment on Pineapple Street….” they begin and continue for a paragraph which I found rather smug. Maybe it’s just me. It was strange and ironic given the theme of the book. Or is it possible she was having a laugh? I almost took my rating down but I didn’t because who does that?

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Here One Moment

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by Liane Moriarty

It has just occurred to me that I haven’t yet introduced myself. I apologize. One should always introduce oneself quickly!

Investing in life insurance does not increase your risk of dying. Correction: Investing in life insurance may increase your risk of dying if you are married to a murderer. I’m not trying to be funny. Just accurate.

It’s interesting when you suddenly behave out of character. An example: I went tandem skydiving for my sixtieth birthday. It was exhilarating! Obviously, I will never go skydiving again. Not if you paid me. I still have nightmares about it.

I’ve read all of Liane Moriarty’s books. They have all kept me engaged although, of course, I have liked some more than others. But I know when I pick one up, though bad and sad things might happen it will all come together in the end to a satisfying conclusion full of hope. This one kept me on the edge of my seat. Things looked pretty dark for some of the characters this book centers on, but my faith in the author was rewarded in spades.

On a shortish flight from Hobart, Tasmania to Sydney, Australia, an older woman gets up from her seat almost in a trance-like state and goes from passenger to passenger implacably predicting their time and cause of death. This book centers on 6 of them and their families, as well as Cherry, who comes to be known as“The Death Lady”. In Liane Moriarty’s signature fashion, the tension mounts as we jump from one main character to another, learn their stories, and how the prediction clouds and complicates their lives. But we spend the most time getting to know Cherry. At first, I was impatient with that because I was so worried about the other characters, whose deaths, except for one, were predicted to be imminent and shocking. That exception was the prediction for the baby son of a young mother. Her boy will drown at age 7. We see the forces of their doom gathering even as we come to care about them and their loved ones. But it was not long before I was caught up in the life of the brilliant and funny Cherry, who, it turns out, was well worth knowing. Even more than learning the fates of our principal characters, we wonder throughout what in the world possessed her to stand up in that plane and do something so devastating and so out of character.

Are Cherry’s predictions to be taken seriously? As three people on the flight die exactly as predicted, it seems maybe so. But are the apparent fates of those that remain preventable? Will believing the predictions to be true become a self-fulfilling prophecy? What about free will? Or are our futures ruled by determinism? There is lots to think and wonder about in this novel besides the gripping plot and masterful character development. How does Chaos Theory come into it? It’s the cover of the book! Or The Many Worlds Interpretation? We learn about the Monte Carlo Fallacy(or the Gambler’s Fallacy), The Call of the Void (or The Vertigo of Possibility), and The Just World Fallacy. (There’s no such thing as Karma? Shoot!) Why does Cherry look so familiar to one of the passengers? What is the significance of her strange brooch? How odd that we don’t remember the 4th person who dies. And what about Cherry’s famous fortune-teller mother? Will her beautiful predictions for Cherry come true or was she a well-meaning charlatan? What are the notebooks she speaks of?

After coming to it’s moving and satisfying (even triumphant) conclusion, I thought back on all that occurred in the book. I was amazed at how Liane brought it all together like an intricate puzzle successfully solved. She really outdid herself. Many seemingly insignificant details are important clues but I didn’t grasp their meaning and how they all came together until the end. Liane Moriarty leaves none of her signature devices and tactics by the wayside and they certainly worked to keep me enthralled. Here One Moment was brilliantly crafted and hugely enjoyable.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Crown Publishing for a free Uncorrected Digital Galley of this book in return for an unbiased review. This book will be published September 10, 2024.

Rating: 5 out of 5.