Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford (1960)

A memoir of growing up Mitford.

Nonfiction Review: Hons and Rebels begins as a series of reminiscences of a quirky childhood in rural England between the wars. All told with much humor as seen through the eyes of a member of an aristocratic family (her father was a baron) of six sisters and a brother, notably writer sister Nancy, a couple sisters who espoused fascism, the "little sister" who became a duchess, and poor Pamela who barely rates a mention and simply lived her own life. Fellow "pink" Nancy comes in for the sharpest digs and the brother comes off best. What is little explored is what kind of parenting created this menagerie. Or the raft of sublimated emotions, as discussing intimate family matters just wasn't done at the time. And maybe it is all in there with the blustering, somewhat racist father and the vague, somewhat hands-off mother. "This silly germ theory is something quite new," their mother asserted, "doctors don't have any idea what really causes illnesses, they're always inventing some new theory." The second half of Hons and Rebels presents Mitford absconding with her first husband as two fervent communists set on saving the world. The couple ends up in America living a kind of hand-to-mouth existence that always comes right in the end. The memoir ends as her husband volunteers to fly for Canada in the war while the author prepares to give birth. She later became involved in the U.S. civil rights movement (as did her daughter) and wrote books that mattered, most notably The American Way of Death (1963). If I'd first read Hons and Rebels in my romantic teens I might've seen it as a sort of blueprint for life (without the aristocratic trappings, of course). It presents a picture of England in a certain time and place, which to an American eye is reminiscent of the (seemingly exaggerated) British movies of the time. This was my first foray into the Mitford cult, which led me to read sister Nancy's (semi-autobiographical and similar) novel The Pursuit of Love, while the family biography, The Sisters, (2001) by Mary S. Lovell, sits on my shelf.  [3½★]