"Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day"
Written by: Winifred Watson
Published by: Persephone Books
Reviewed by: Moira Richards
ISBN: 1-903155 10X
Genre: Fiction
This book reminds me of my girlhood — of those rose-coloured days from way back when I believed in fairy tales and magic and when books provided me with sustained doses of the warm fuzzies.
The entire story takes place within the space of eighteen hours in the life of one Miss Pettigrew, a middle-aged, rather proper, out-of-work governess. And what an eventful few hours the reader finds herself drawn into!
Miss Pettigrew sets out one dull morning to a job interview and somehow ends up in a racy new world of impropriety (we're in the 1930's, remember) with beautiful actresses, gorgeous men with cruel mouths and all sorts of goings-on that she's never even dared to dream about in her spinster nights. How Miss Pettigrew reacts and responds to this whirlwind of experiences in which she finds herself, forms the basis of the tale. The reader soon becomes caught up in this trail of serendipity and wishes like Miss Pettigrew herself, that it never comes to an end - wishes like Cinderella, that all the clocks might stop forever before the first stroke of midnight.
Winifred Watson first published Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day in 1938 and she lived just long enough to see Persephone Books revive and republish it more than sixty years later. As per usual with Persephone's publications, the book carries a preface that contextualises the story and gives a little background to it. This one's preface brings with it the extra sparkle of including a reflective chat with the author about her story written so many decades ago and in a world so very different from today's.
Google 'Moira Richards' to find links to her essays on Women Abuse, her reviews of woman-authored books as well as to other writing and editing work she does for various print and e-publications. She can often be found lounging about the staff rooms ofwomenwriters.net, absolutewrite.com and moondance.org - usually sipping tea, sometimes Jack Daniels.
Off-line, she teaches accounting and other numberly subjects to students at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa. And writes a poem or two.