Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

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Now Roger has started spending weekends in a country cottage in Little Puddleton with a brash American girlfriend (“Good heavens, is it Christmas in Hades? The book has a couple of broadly vulgar American characters, and they turn up in the Major’s village in what he regards as disturbingly rapid succession.

Simonson has been so trained (perhaps overtrained) by American writing groups and programs (she has an M.That “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” opens at a moment of heartbreak has no sobering effect whatsoever.

There’s nothing more corrosive to character than money,” the major tells his son in a heated moment. Many assumptions and prejudices are challenged in the course of all this: especially about race and age, but also gender. He was a handsome main with thick short hair and large brown eyes, but his head was slightly small and was stuck well into the air as if the man were afraid of his own shirt collar. Their friendship blossoms, then is almost derailed by an episode of cultural appropriation and prejudice.

Through interactions with friends and family in this small English village, the author sheds light on intolerance in its many forms, such as race, class, sex, age, religion, and ethnicity. Major Pettigrew’s manners and standards hearken from a more gentlemanly era, yet it’s as though he’s a one-man time warp surrounded by modern incarnations of rudeness and overt materialism – his son is breathtakingly selfish and shallow, his relatives are vulgar and grasping, and the local squire has class snobbery but no sense of heritage. In the interest of full disclosure I must admit that the main character of the novel is a man about the same age as me which is very unusual for a romance novel.

In her polished debut novel Helen Simonson has created a charming story of village politics, multicultural conflicts, the value of good manners, and the zest in a jolly good turn of phrase. He is an affable man, thinking or saying under his breath his ripostes to the clunky statements of his neighbours, or the patronising attitude of his solicitor. As the music segued into an even more raucous tune, the Major was astonished to see a large drunken guest whip off his turban, hand his hooka pipes to his girlfriend, and throw himself across the heaving mass of assailants as if it were all a game. Her debut novel, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, was a NY Times bestseller and was published in twenty one countries.For 27 weeks it stayed on the New York Times Bestseller list, are being translated into 16 languages, and the movie rights have been sold. While this was an enjoyable read, i felt her second book "The Summer Before the War " to be an improvement. the Major asks, upon seeing the black brush-shaped fake tree that constitutes their idea of clever holiday décor) and has pretentious tastes in everything, including cuisine. The plot follows an elderly English widower, retired from a military career, who is very concerned about doing things in the proper way.