Winifred Watson
1938
Around 235 pages
After Nausea, an upbeat novel that includes a makeover is just what this blog needed. In the tv biz, we'd call this a breather episode. Our next title has the word "death" in it, so it looks like it's business as usual next time.
As the title suggests, the novel's action takes place over the course of a single day, which I always love as a technique. I think authors thrive when they put those kinds of parameters on themselves. Miss Pettigrew is what some might call a forty year old spinster, what others, ahem me, might call a blueprint for their middle age. Her employment agency sends her to Delysia LaFosse, a nightclub singer and a socialite, to be a governess, although it turns out she only needs a maid. Delysia is impressed by Miss Pettigrew's deft handling of one of Delysia's lovers, so she adopts her as a friend/companion. Delysia is one of those wonderfully pushy characters that drags a protagonist on an adventure. I wish I met more of those people in real life.
Miss Pettigrew is a great character, and I was rooting for her happiness from the beginning. Female writers in the 1930s killed it.
RATING: ****-
Interesting Facts:
The German translation was called off because of the War.
Interesting Facts:
The German translation was called off because of the War.
Watson struck a deal with her publisher to write a country drama if they would publish Miss Pettigrew.
UP NEXT: After the Death of Don Juan by Sylvia Warner Townsend
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