Even though the structure of Marie Benedict’s THE MITFORD AFFAIR is to rotate voices amongst Nancy, Diana and Unity, three of six eccentric sisters who flourished during the inter-war years, the protagonist is really Nancy Mitford.
This volume starts strong with Nancy Mitford’s well-known charm, wit and acute observations of society around her. But as Diana and then Unity come out into society, her voice is overlaid by theirs.
So who were these women?
Nancy Mitford (1904-1973) is a celebrated author, best known for her tomes on Frederick the Great and Madame de Pompadour. I encountered her as a teenager when I read her book Voltaire in Love, which is one of my favorite biographies (and I don’t like biographies as a general rule.) Her writing is breezy, charming and succinct. She has a real talent for bringing the past to life and for glossing over all the boring bits. She is also a novelist. In THE MITFORD AFFAIR we hear about her early novels Wigs on the Green and Pigeon Pie, but her best work comes later, at the end of the war, with Love in a Cold Climate and the Pursuit of Love, both satirical exposes of the upper classes.
Diana Mitford (1910-2003) is the Society Beauty. At age 19, she married Bryan Guinness, heir to the Guinness fortune and became fabulously wealthy. After giving him two sons, her attention strayed from her husband and became caught by the charismatic Oswald Mosley, Leader of the British Union of Fascists (BUF). The seemingly apolitical Diana became a staunch supporter of Mosley, becoming his mistress and later his wife. In THE MITFORD AFFAIR, she is depicted as being the brains behind the BUF, making numerous journeys to Berlin to cut deals with Hitler. As in her other novels (LADY CLEMENTINE comes to mind) author Marie Benedict goes overboard in giving her female protagonists more agency and more intelligence than they may have possessed. In the process, the actions of the men become too muted. Just as Churchill in LADY CLEMENTINE comes across as weak and stupid, so does Oswald Mosley in THE MITFORD AFFAIR. In both cases, I think the men were more intelligent and decisive than Ms Benedict gives them credit.
Then there is Unity Mitford (1914-1948.) Tall and blonde she comes across as the Ideal in Aryan Womanhood. But it becomes clear in Ms. Benedict’s sensitive handling of this character that there is something very wrong with Unity. It is not just that she is gruff and charmless in an era when there was enormous societal pressures not to act that way. It is also evident that Unity has the mind of a child. She thinks in extremes, and has no grasp of the complexities of life. So when, at the age of 25, she is informed that Britain will go to war with Germany, she crumbles. And never recovers.
If you want to read a gem of a novel about the Bright Young Things and the rumbling approach of World War II, read THE MITFORD AFFAIR. You won’t be disappointed. Five Stars.
