Well, no better time than the present to start a new Molly Keane novel--particularly so since I failed to read a single one in 2010. I feel like I have some catching up to do this year. Although the setting of Mad Puppetstown seems very familiar--sprawling country house in Ireland, orphaned or semi-orphaned siblings and the usual sporting life, this story seems quite different than Taking Chances. This is a good thing, if only to avoid any samey-ness of stories since I am reading her books back to back.
Puppetstown is the name of a country house in the fictional county of Westcommon, where the Sorrier family lives, and by the way where Peter and Prudence (who make appearances in Taking Chances) of Young Entry also live. This time around it's the early 1900s and the story begins with eight-year-old Easter Chevington and her slightly older cousins, twins Basil and Evelyn, growing up in this very large house. Easter's mother is no longer alive, so she is raised by her father and two aunts and there are the servants and Patsy (the boot boy) to keep her company. It seems a charmed environment filled with carefree days, but Ireland's troubles are not far away.
I'm not far into the story yet, but according to the blurb the family all flee to England, but Aunt Dicksie and Patsy decide to remain in the house. I suspect Easter is going to return when she's grown and that's where the story will really take off. My teaser, or teasers as I am going to share a couple, are going to give you a glimpse of Easter and her cousins.
"Easter was a small, mousey-looking child. Her nurse scraped all her hair straight back off her forehead and away from her ears, plaiting just a very little of it on top of her head, and tying this unattractive morsel with an infinitesimal piece of brown ribbon. The rest was allowed to lie in straight uninteresting strands down her back. This unbecoming method of hair-dressing laid bare every inch of Easter's forehead which was high and intellectual and bulged hard and round like a cricket ball. Her eyes were grey and very shortsighted so that they always appeared to be screwed up into slits."
Not very complimentary is the description, is it? I do hope she improves with age. Her cousins are old enough to have been sent away to school, but their mother keeps holding them back for yet another and another term.
"Last time it was because they had caught ringworm in their heads through kissing calves, and you cannot let people embark on the most cruel adventure of their short lives while their heads are shaved as bare as marbles. Not that Basil and Evelyn seemed to take their leprous condition in a properly sensitive spirit. Each had painted a face of alarming ugliness on the back of his brother's shaven head, artistic achievements lacking merit only to the eye of authority. Thus for one sweet summer more they kept wild holiday at Puppetstown."
I like Keane's sense of humor very much and already I am happily losing myself in the story.