Mary S. Lovell

Mediocre pop history of the Hello! magazine varietal. It’s billed as a look at the high-society set that was drawn to the French Riviera roughly between the 1910s and the 1960s, told through the history of a single villa: the Art Deco Château de l’Horizon. If Mary Lovell had actually done that—paired the letters and diaries of the rich and famous with, say, oral histories or recollections from the local people employed to wait on them—this might have been a fascinating book.

Instead show more this is an unwieldy, patchwork effort which uses even tenuous connections to the villa to discuss people whom Lovell clearly finds charming and entertaining. I was not similarly enamoured. Frankly, I thought most of them sounded like assholes. Maybe assholes who were beautiful and with good taste in clothes and decor, but I’m not sure how that makes them inherently that much more interesting than an Instagram influencer. Less tacky, maybe, but no less vulgar or shallow.

And then there’s Lovell’s failure—whether through reluctance or inability—to demonstrate any clear-eyed assessment of her subjects. The Duke and Duchess of Windsor are treated sympathetically rather than as the snobbish crypto-fascists they were; Winston Churchill is given a treatment that borders on the hagiographical; the Aga Khan’s obscene wealth (derived ultimately from the donations of followers largely based in developing countries and compounded by the fact that he pays basically no taxes in his country of domicile, France) is handwaved as fine because, well, he gives a lot of money to charity.

To be fair, Lovell also seems unwilling to take a critical look at many of those likely to read this book. Writing about Winston Churchill’s son, Randolph, Lovell notes that he was “convinced that he would emulate Pitt [the Younger] and be Prime Minister by the time he was twenty-five”, but that English people’s “natural distaste of bumptiousness” and Randolph’s lack of “humanity and […] common sense” (101-102) meant that he would never achieve his aim. It was quite the trip to sit there as an Irishperson alive during the premiership of Boris Johnson and read about how English people could never be so distasteful as to elect a self-important buffoon with no fellow feeling for others. Entertaining, but probably not in the way that Lovell intended. show less

This is probably the best biography I have ever read - certainly the the most entertaining about a truly remarkable person. Beryl Markham would have been worthy of remembrance for her looks and her presence, but her achievements as an early aviatrix, as a horse trainer and a writer (pace the doubters) are all outstanding. Mary Lovell does a stellar job of delineating Beryl's life, her demanding nature and rackety admin not excluded, nor her many relationships with men. Beryl could clearly be show more most difficult, often explained by her upbringing (or lack of it), or illness, yet those who knew her best coped with all that and loved her besides. show less

A Nazi, A Fascist, A Communist, A Novelist, A Countrywoman, A Duchess---All Mitford Sisters. That was the headline of a NY Times review of a book about the Mitford sisters released in 2016. It caught my eye and I knew I had to read about them. After reading Nancy’s most well-known novels and Decca’s (Jessica) memoir I finally chose this 2002 bio about the Mitford family because it was fairly highly rated here on LT. I’m glad I did.

Is there a more fascinating family living in the show more 1930s-2000? I don’t think so. The first part of the book dealt with the early years of the sisters, their childhood experiences, their development, their aristocratic, yet somehow not really very wealthy, lives. The author smoothly glided from one of the sisters to another, moving the story of their lives along through the years. Most of the info about their early years I already knew from Decca’s memoir, Hons and Rebels. But once she moved past their “coming out” and the sisters moved into adulthood, their lives got to be really intriguing.

Lovell did a masterful job exposing their lives and some of their questionable decisions, through letters the sisters wrote to each other and outsiders. That seemed to put the reader right in the thick of it. And Lovell answered all my questions. What in the world was Unity’s attraction to Hitler? How did Diana end up married to the head of the British Fascist Party? And then how did she end up in a British prison for three years during WWII? How did Debo know from the time she was a young child that she would be a Duchess? How did Decca, an avowed Communist, become a U.S citizen in mid-century? And what about the one brother, Tom? Why is so little known about him? And what exactly is a countrywoman, as Pam is described?

Fascinating stuff. And I loved every bit of it. I don’t think I’m done with the Mitfords yet. I’m not sure when I will be. Of course they’re all dead now but the're just so…..fascinating. Very highly recommended for those who enjoy family dynamics. show less

Beryl Markham's [West with the Night] is one of my all-time favorite books, and [[Mary Lovell]] made a career out of biographies of aviatrix from that time, so this was an easy choice. Lovell divides the stories up by who she speculates may have contributed to them, deciding the last few were, at best, collaborations between Markham and her husband or others. Interestingly, the earlier stories are the better of the bunch, suggesting that the collaborations may have done little more for show more Markham than obscure her own talents. All of the stories feature strong women; many feature aviation; and some feature horses - again cementing Markham's influence whether she wrote every word or not, and I'm betting she wrote them all only relying on her collaborators for editing.

The collection, and the individual stories, are not up to the quality of [West with the Night], but that shouldn't argue against reading the book if you're interested in Markham and her exploits. Lovell's interludes explaining the impetus for the stories and how they fit into Markham's life are worth the read alone.

4 bones!!!!
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