Unsuitable Attachments

Categories: Romance , Rediscoveries , Staff Picks , Fiction

I bought Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate, two long novellas generally published together, in Italy on a drizzly day, and stayed in bed reading them even after the sun came out.  Nancy Mitford was a genius, and these books are her best fiction.  They're based on her own family, which has spawned several exuberant biographies: The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family and The House of Mitford.

Unsuitable Attachments and Love in a Cold Climate tell the stories of sensible Fanny Logan's eccentric cousins and of the wealthy and ancient Montdore family.  Fanny's quiet life could hardly be more different than her beloved cousin Linda Radlett's, and also than that of her friend Polly Montdore. The Radletts' terrifying father Matthew hunts his chldren when foxhounds are not available (and also when they are) and writes down the names of the many people he dislikes on pieces of paper and puts the papers in a drawer, believing this will cause something bad to happen to these enemies.

During World War II, Fanny and her children stay with the Radletts in the country, while Matthew Radlett boobytraps the property.  Linda is pregnant by her third lover, a member of the French Resistance.  He writes her a letter, but it is in French, and no one in the family can decipher the handwriting; still, she carries the letter with her everywhere.  One of Linda's sisters, enamored with a minor American actor, decides to seek him out and marry him.  So you can see there's a combination of humor and great pathos here.

Nancy Mitford's novels are thinly disguised autobiography, and in fact the real Mitfords were at least as eccentric as the Radletts.  One of Nancy Mitford's sisters was Jessica Mitford, the liberal journalist perhaps best known for The American Way of Death.  Another sister, Diana, was imprisoned after World War II because of her support for fascism.  A third sister, Unity, moved to Germany because of her admiration--some say romantic love--for Hitler and shot herself upon realizing that Germany and England would go to war.  The Mitford children's defeated parents moved to an island and spent the rest of their lives caring for Unity, whose suicide attempt left her with serious brain damage.

Like her sister Jessica, Nancy Mitford was a prolific author; in addition to other funny novels, she wrote biographies of Madame de Pompadour, Louis XIV, and Frederick the Great.

You can spend months researching the Mitford family (Nancy had three other siblings I haven't mentioned)--though I'm not sure if it's the best possible use of your time.  On the other hand, maybe it is.