BINGO: Rec’d, I suppose, as this was one of my birthday gifts this year–funny to go full circle from receiving books in elementary school because I had to invite my entire class and no one knew anything about me as I wasn’t friends with them, to receiving books for my [cough cough] from friends who know I read and are anxious to find things I haven’t! h/t to Ryan 🙂
and Lee Pace
in my head
(and yes, Frances McDormand as well, I just can’t find a gif of her which is scandalous in its own way).
SO: the book does indeed take place over the course of 24 unevenly plotted hours (people do seem to travel instantaneously in this book a lot). Miss Pettigrew, a subpar governess who is getting worse in her dottage (she’s 40, people), sees a posting for a governess at her temp agency and steals it, knowing that she has no other way of getting a new posting after her series of disasters. She shows up at the abode of Delysia LaFosse, whose life is most kindly described as chaos with a capital ‘C’. Delysia immediately asks Miss Pettigrew if she can whip up some breakfast for her gentleman caller–Phil. And then shuffle Phil out because Nick is arriving. And then there’s also Michael…
Throughout it all, we see Miss Pettigrew face every challenge thrown her way with aplomb, even thought being in her head we know that she’s winging it as she goes based on snippets of movies that she’s seen or novels that she’s heard of (oh, okay maybe she’s read them as well). More to the point, we see her blossom in the company of people who appreciate her and eventually come to adore her for who she is, even if she mis-attributes it to the speedy makeover that she receives. Delysia and her friend Miss Dubarry are painted funnily but with great fondness–they might be a bit airheaded, but behind the glitz and glamor are two rather fearless women out to get what they deserve and have some fun along the way. No wonder they get along well with Miss Pettigrew, who has been soldiering on with much less joy for much longer–if she can do it, so can they, and perhaps learn from some of her mistakes as well. In this way, Miss Pettigrew is more of a cool sister than a matron aunt, a lifetime of being browbeaten rather firmly erased.
A call out that there are two time-“appropriate” (??) bits of racism that spoil this otherwise frothy fest–the first when Michael (whom we’re meant to root for) disparages his romantic rival Nick as being a brown foreigner or some such on account of an Italian great-grandfather. That’s sort of funny and less harmful than the second, which involves Miss Pettigrew (or maybe Miss Dubarry, but I’m pretty sure it’s Miss Pettigrew) enumerating prior men she might have married and noting that one might have had “a bit of Jew” and that “better to marry within one’s ethnicity.” The copy I have (a gift!) is a UK edition, and so there’s no disclaimer etc in the front either, so bit of a nasty shock to catch it.