Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

He has preferred a style of such extreme correctness and gimlet-eyed detachment that all it takes to give this book its comic perspective is to present his point of view.Īs the story hums along, it contrasts change for the better with change for the worse. This 68-year-old widower, a man who has taken some of his greatest satisfaction in reading and rereading his will and is proud to grow a type of clematis vine that his neighbors think is worth stealing, has long been immune to human companionship. Grief is what it took to make the rigidly correct Major notice Mrs. That “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand” opens at a moment of heartbreak has no sobering effect whatsoever. Simonson’s funny, barbed, delightfully winsome storytelling. It’s the reader who is apt to be susceptible: read this one page, and you may find you’ve fallen head over heels for Ms. Since these two are not strangers, they cannot be experiencing love at first sight, even if discreet sparks fly between them. She has been blending tea specially for him at the local convenience store. Major Pettigrew dimly knows this woman as Mrs. He opens the door and casts a tearful eye on the dignified, elegant, foreign-looking woman who will win his heart. Distracted by grief, he happens to be wearing a red, flowery housecoat when he answers a ring at his front door. Ernest Pettigrew has just learned of his brother Bertie’s death. A starchy retired British Army officer named Maj. On the first page of the first chapter of her first novel, “Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand,” Helen Simonson invites her readers to experience love at first sight.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson