Lady Jean [Paperback]

Noel Virtue (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2001

Jean Barrie is an enormously successful, award-winning singer who spends her time in self-imposed retreat in her huge, dark St. John's Wood home. Here she wanders around the empty rooms drinking gin and vodka. Upstairs in the attic lives her mysterious lodger, The Fallen Nun. Beyond the house, Jean's narrow world is inhabited by her octogenarian Aunt Dizzy, who smokes hand-rolled cigars, wears blood-red hot pants, and gave up aerobics at 79; Jean's best friend Freida—the self-styled Devils Dyke; and Christopher—a 17-year-old with a Bible-bashing mother and a passion for his Uncle Fergus—who tends the garden and cleans the house. But Jean's solitude is about to be invaded: the house rapidly becomes a haven for eccentric souls drawn to her by chance or design, and sudden death and revelations of past horrors dart in from unexpected directions. A satisfying gem of offbeat humor with dark tragedy, Lady Jean is Virtue at his best, as he skillfully weaves his narrative into a unique tapestry. A romantic novel from one of New Zealand's most revered writers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

New Zealand-born Virtue (Among the Animals; Sandspit Crossing, etc.) isn't well-known in the U.S., but his excellent novels have been published to considerable acclaim in Britain since 1987. "Lady Jean" Barrie is a legendary British blues singer who retired for mysterious reasons at the height of her fame and now lives, semireclusively, in a big manse on Acacia Road in London. Publishers have hired a young ghostwriter, Anthony Hibbert, to try to coax her life story onto tape and into a book. Unbeknownst to Jean, her elusive tenant, Catherine Truman (nicknamed the Fallen Nun by Jean's best friend, an outrageous lesbian named Frieda), is also listening in, her intentions less than honorable. In Jean's 58th year, her house suddenly fills up. First, she takes in her Aunt Dizzy, a wealthy, endearing oddball with a checkered past. The management of the exclusive hotel to which Aunt Dizzy had retired have gotten fed up with her eccentricities, which include "hanging her rinsed undies out the windows of her rooms." Then Christopher Harcourt, Jean's teenaged handyman, needs a room, having been abruptly thrown out of his home by his evangelical mother when she discovered him in the arms of her brother, Fergus. Next, having found her ex-husband's father, Ivan Fitzpatrick, puttering around in a seedy apartment in Bath grieving his dead wife, Jean invites him to stay in the house in Catherine Truman's now vacated room. Frieda, temporarily hiding from an overbearing girlfriend, moves in, too followed by Mr. Harcourt, Christopher's father. Like Henry Green in Loving, Virtue immerses us in the folkways of an enormous household, letting the humor emerge from the gradual accumulation of juxtaposed eccentricities. The result is a delightful conglomeration of high spirits, Wildean wit and rattled optimism.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Noel Virtue is a master of true comedy, that fine blend of the forlorn and the poignant wth the outrageously funny. Lady Jean maay well be his best novel to date . . . to be read slowly and with growing appreciation."  —Ruth Rendell

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0720611334
• ISBN-13: 978-0720611335
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,888,213 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Important Book to Come Out of New Zealand in Years, September 6, 2001

By 

"tofutirarama" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lady Jean (Paperback)

I first discovered the work of Noel Virtue on a trip to New Zealand years ago and immediately became faithful reader. Eventually I have read his entire body of work. There was some serious searching online and in used bookstores. It is a challenge to find many of his books in the U.S., but certainly worth the effort. It is hard to understand why Noel Virtue hasn't received the recognition he deserves in America. I chanced upon Lady Jean earlier this year in London. I am delighted that it is being offered on Amazon - it'll be my gift of choice this year at Christmas.
Readers familiar with Noel Virtue's works will recognize a number of themes and character types from earlier works. They are familiar, but it certainly is all very new and fresh. Reaching the end of Lady Jean you have not merely finished a story, but feel you know an entire household of characters as intimately as a group of your own close friends. The only regret is that just as you feel you get to know these wonderful and interesting people, the book comes to an end. The story is told in Virtue's familiar and straightforward style. Like his previous work, the genius of his style is that Lady Jean seems to just read like a good book, when in truth it is a highly refined, important work of literature. It is Virtue's, clean, unpretentious writing with the ability to tell a good story that reminds me of one of my other favorite authors - Willa Cather. Anyone who has enjoyed his earlier works, will certainly adore Lady Jean. For first time readers, it would be a fine introduction to Noel Virtue. Though be warned, you'll often find yourself hoping to get lucky in the "V's" of every used bookstore's fiction section.
While I would recommend a number of Noel Virtue's works, Lady Jean is in a category by itself. It's the most significant work of literature to come out of New Zealand since Keri Hulme's The Bone People. Lady Jean confirms Noel Virtue's status as one of New Zealand's leading writers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best so far, September 2, 2001

By 

Helen L McNidder Sinclair (Brighton, East Sussex United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lady Jean (Paperback)

I am a devotee of Mr Virtue's books and was lucky enough to obtain this one as soon as it came out. The quirkiness of the characters is a joy to read; each one is different and so well observed, it is as tho' one is present and eavesdropping in the background. The writing has an air of comedy and mystery about it; a cross between Charles Dickens in its delineation of the characters and Oscar Wilde in its wit. I am lucky in that I have lived in both St Johns Wood and Brighton and know the big houses in the former and the slight seediness of the latter. Eccentrics abound in both places and Mr Virtue has captured the essence of both. I wanted the book to go on and on far beyond its final page; the writing is so full it makes one want to know more about all the characters. A veritable tour de force. A must for anyone who appreciates true literature.

Helen L McNidder Sinclair, Brighton, UK

5.0 out of 5 stars Lady Jean - witty and sharply observed., April 6, 2008

By 

Reginald (Noosa, Queensland, Australia) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lady Jean (Paperback)

Jean has a past that clouds the present. She shares her house with a bizarre cast of characters -- an eighteen year-old homeless lad in love with his uncle, a slightly dotty geriatric aunt, a lesbian friend, her ex-husband's father and, eventually the lad's father... The novel is beautifully written, quietly funny, sharply observed and a font of the sort of tolerance that would make the world a much more pleasant place, were it practised by everyone.