Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

My friend Liz had an open house for her 80th birthday at which she asked everyone to take a minimum of 5 books from her vast and excellent collection. I was happy to find Helen Simonson's first novel, Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, as one of my "gifts." I was afraid it would be too precious--and the first page wasn't very reassuring--but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and can't wait to see what else Simonson writes. At 68, the British army major, or as he puts it, Major Ernest Pettigrew, Royal Sussex, retired. Rose Lodge, Blackberry Lane, Edgecombe St. Mary, loses his brother and falls in love almost simultaneously. He has complicated feelings left over from his relationship with his brother, some unresolved resentments over a divided inheritance, specifically in the form of a pair of rifles given their father by the Indian Maharajah, pre-independence. His new romance is also fraught with complications, namely in the form of object of his interest. Mrs Ali is not only Pakistani but a mere shopkeeper. Scandals all around, in both a British and inter-generational way.

What's wonderful is that Simonson is never condescending to any of her characters. Just when you think she'll resort to a bit of caricature, she pulls back and comes at the character in a different and unexpected way. I love that the poor Major, who could easily have been a buffoon of a "proper British gentleman (or a harmless old git, as one character calls him), but instead he is a polite man who gets pulled into increasingly difficult social situations and uses his politeness and his ready wit to sail through. He is a cautious man and resents having to deal with every new complication with his increasingly unhinged extended family and his new Pakistani friends, but feels he has no choice and so always does the right thing. His caution extends to the slow, almost painful courtship of Mrs. Ali. After inviting Mrs. Ali's dour and potentially fanatical nephew to stay in his guest room (thus, he hopes, further entwinning himself with the woman), he wants to celebrate, but he can barely allow himself this pleasure. He was tempted to celebrate his own boldness with a large glass of scotch, but as he reached the kitchen he decided that a large glass of sodium bicarbonate would be more prudent.

At times, the major appears more elderly than his 68 years, but as his life becomes more complicated with duck shoots gone awry, a vehement save our neighborhood contingent, the half-crazed sister-in-law, the naked greediness and social climbing of his son, and perhaps most disastrously, the annual dance and dinner at The Club, the major holds true to himself. In the end (his last stand), he seems more his age--solid, smart, and ready for action. His wit never deserts him so that in the most dire moments, he still responds in a British way, "I do try to avoid killing ladies, no matter how psychotic they may be."

And he gets on with his life.