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Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - Helen Simonson

Major Ernest Pettigrew's spends his retirement at his family house in the tiny village of Edgecombe St. Mary in England; however, this comfortable world is shaken when he receives the news that his younger brother unexpectedly passed away.  Major Pettigrew tells this to the first person he sees, Mrs. Ali, the Pakistani women who innocently knocks on the door for purposes unrelated this tragedy.  To show how off kilter this event is to Major Pettigrew's normality, he answers the door to Mrs. Ali's knock in his deceased's wife house coat, something the reader can understand, he wouldn't normally do.

Answering the door in his dead wife's housecoat Major Pettigrew is the least of his problems.  His only child, Roger, a rich, yuppie businessman from London, and he are not the closest of father and sons.  His son, sister-in-law, and niece want to sell the Major's most cherished possession, a set of shotguns given to his father during his service in British India, which the Major fully intends to be a family heirloom to be handed down for generations.  And, of course, he must thank and apologize to Mrs. Ali for his appearance at such a weak moment.

However, in her first novel, Simonson lets all of these problems almost become secondary to the tale of the new Britain of the 21st Century.   I would almost say it suffers from too many subplots.  This is a novel is hard to describe except that it feels timely, as it touches on so many different issues: differences between the generations, the melding of cultures and religions, love, and with a sometimes veneer, sometimes overt racism in even the small-town society.  


Major Ernest Pettigrew is an enjoyable character who at times almost feels like an anachronism....almost.  He could easily be described as "old school," with formality and the right thing to do always at the forefront of both his mind and actions.  At times his inner-monologue felt pleasantly as engaging (if not more so) than Lee's in Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep (which, while I haven't reviewed it on this site yet, I liked). The Major is an enjoyable character who almost drives the novel.



For some reason, despite seeing some favorable reviews about this book and seeing it's cover and title at my local library, I had veered away from it until the time was right.  It was definitely memorable, but felt a bit too sacchariny at the end, with lots of things feeling like they resolved quite quickly.  It wasn't so sacchariny that I feel I need to rush out to the dentist, but it was on par with the dentist making sure to remind me that I really do need to floss more often.

And with that....I recommend Major Pettigrew and look forward to Mrs.Simonson's next work.

Rating: 4 of 5.