Doggedly researched and resolutely modern ... Refuses to reduce this most beautifully messy and complicated of Mitfords to bon mots, but her contributions to the language echo on past its rich footnotes.
The sisters...feel appealingly literary — not just in their florid antics but in how they expressed themselves: glibly and colorfully. Their writings are composed of a densely referential, strangely alluring family argot, rich with nicknames and idioms ... To enter the Mitford industry in 2025 is to risk drawing prickly fact checks from devotees steeped in the lore.
Significant ... An apt time for such a book to emerge, particularly from an American historian ... Kaplan quickly dispenses with this generic figure of resistance and dives into what made Decca’s radicalism so singular.
Kaplan emphasizes that these remnants of her class, always awash in Mitford humor, proved assets in the path she carved in America ... As Kaplan shows, Decca found her legacy in the light: in her ebullient personality, her fight for social justice, the delight she took in her triumphs, and her deep connection with other people.
Exhaustively researched and thorough ... Kaplan’s account is solid, even-handed and, in the end, impressive. It confirms the fact that Decca was surely the only one of all the Mitfords worth taking seriously.
