- Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day by Winifred Watson
This is a rather entertaining period piece, published in 1938 and reprinted by Persephone Books in 2000.
A charming Cinderella story about a 40 year old poverty-stricken spinster, Guinevere Pettigrew, jobless and about to be made homeless and terrified of ending up destitute in the workhouse, being sent for a job interview at the wrong address. She is an out of work governess and winds up at the flat of the impossibly glamorous Delysia LaFosse, nightclub singer. Many wonderful adventures ensue during the day - she has to disentangle Miss LaFosse from two unsuitable lovers and matchmake both her and her friend Miss Dubarry. She ends up acquiring some wonderful new friends and even an admirer of her own.
It is such a delightfully happy fairytale of a story but with some rather risque storylines for a novel of that time - a woman with three lovers, one of whom takes cocaine, much drinking, all-night partying and casual sex. It is, however, very witty and stylish and I love the many glamorous illustrations.
But, there is one thing which bothered me (and it has been mentioned in other reviews on Goodreads) - there are two incidences of anti-semitism. It made me feel very uncomfortable, and leaves a nasty taste in the mouth, particularly in the light of when it was written and what was happening throughout Europe. That shocked me. I would much rather they had been edited out in the reprint (would have preferred them not to have been there in the first place either). On balance, I decided to review the story as if those remarks were not there, though, rather than let them affect the rating of what was an otherwise enjoyable novel.