There are excellent biographies of Nancy Mitford (1904-73), but Laura Thompson’s sparkling study is the gold standard ... This elegant and incisive life does full justice to her astringent humor, her undeluded authorial voice and her championing of 'the pursuit of small-scale human happiness' over some of the 20th century’s worst abstractions.
If anything can swing opinion away from what Thompson calls 'the po- faced brigade' of Nancy-haters, it will be this shrewd, passionate book. A warning, though; it has an irritating stylistic tic ... why, dear Miss Thompson (she uses this form of address herself, unfortunately), do you have to keep dropping into schoolgirl colloquial? ... Lapses of style apart, the book is a gem: fresh, intelligent and assured, and moving in its appreciation of the heroic lightheartedness with which Nancy confronted a grim and, in its final stages, agonising life ... Magnificent in her account of Nancy’s last years, in the hideous home in Versailles where she grew touchingly concerned about a tortoise, Thompson is best at separating fiction from life.
Laura Thompson...vividly evokes the swarm of brilliant and beautiful sisters, and their lone brother, growing up carefree in a succession of country houses in Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire ... The politics of the Mitford sisters followed their romantic attachments, in Thompson’s patronizing view ... A stylish and well-informed writer, Thompson brings a snobbishness of her own to her sympathetic account of Mitford’s life. One’s heart sinks with every mention of 'nowadays,' a sure signal that a reactionary opinion is about to be aired ... It’s a relief to return to Mitford’s less heavy-handed opinions.
Faced with a subject whose internal life often remains elusive, Thompson herself adopts an essentially Mitfordian approach. Rather than fixate on Nancy’s bruised psyche, she provides a breezy account of her many misfortunes and belated triumphs as the daughter of a tyrannical father and neglectful mother ... In an effervescent style that seems to channel Nancy’s own writing, Thompson challenges us to embrace the Mitfords’ singular sense of fun ... Thompson’s scrupulousness in separating fact from fiction is paralleled by her attentiveness to Nancy’s flaws ... The final third of Thompson’s book...becomes a bit humdrum. But in her account of the author’s eccentric upbringing, romantic travails, and politically charged family feuds, she captures the essence of the Mitford spirit—'so light and airy, so dark and remorseless,' as Thompson puts it—that Nancy both defined and transcended.
A life story nearly as witty and provocative as the English author’s delicious novels and own biographies ... British journalist Thompson...takes a refreshingly personal and opinionated approach to Nancy Mitford...making a nice contrast with Selina Hastings’s serviceable but flat 1985 portrait. Thompson’s breezy but stylish prose perfectly suits her subject, a woman who loved clever people, fashionable clothes, and a good laugh ... Among the best of the many books about the notorious Mitfords: sympathetic but shrewd, warmly appreciative of Nancy’s ability to snatch happiness from even the most tragic circumstances.
Literary biographer Thompson...evocatively depicts English writer Nancy Mitford...in this stylish account ... Thompson is affectionate toward but candid about her subject, arguing that Mitford’s wit and self-awareness overcame the snobbery of her background and enabled a 'populist stance on her own elitism' that appealed to a wide audience. This sparkling and probing biography will please Mitford’s many fans.
