What's a girl of fourteen to do when she finds herself alone in the world with no one to guide her? Why, follow the Victorian self-help guide, A Young Lady's Miscellany, of course! The trouble is, the advice it offers proves less than helpful in a modern context. Muddling through, often with disastrous results, she finds a friend in her recently widowed grandmother, the door to whose small house is always open. Inept at any job she is able to get and pursued by a slew of unsuitable suitors, she must instead spend a decade navigating her own miscellany in order to come of age.
It's my pleasure to be hosting the blog tour for A Young Lady's Miscellany today. Many thanks to Auriel Roe, Dogberry Books and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours for inviting me and for sending me a copy of the book.
It's been a while since I've read a memoir although I have read several in the past. However, I really enjoyed Auriel Roe's previous novels, A Blindefellows Chronicle and Let The Swine Go Forth and so was intrigued by the singular title of this non-fiction book.
I wasn't surprised by the affectionate, descriptive wit but this is also a more candid book which follows the author's memories from her childhood, through her more challenging years into adulthood and the start of her career as a teacher. The book opens with a description of her two grandmothers, May and Manda and it is they who are arguably the most significant figures in her earlier life. I must be a similar age to Auriel Roe and enjoyed her recollections of her grandparents' houses; though known as the front room rather than parlour, my own maternal grandparents also kept a room for Christmas and special occasions only. I spent many hours at the houses of both sets of my grandparents, fascinated by their ornaments and knick-knacks, so I loved this nostalgic reminder of my childhood.
Manda was the more gregarious of Auriel's grandmothers and her house later becomes a refuge and a place of solace during a particularly troubling time in her teenage years. However, as a younger child she spends a lot of time at the stricter, more rigid May's house and it's here that she finds a copy of A Young Lady's Miscellany, a book 'chock-full of cautionary tales concerning young ladies facing dire situations who triumph when they kept their moral wits about them' and while there is never the sense that this tome became a guide for the young Auriel, it does provide a loose framework of sorts for her flowing, loosely chronological memories.
It's perhaps not surprising that an author of two school-based novels should explore her own years in various educational institutions in such detail. However, unlike the public schools in her fictional work, her own schooling was in comprehensives and of varying quality. It quickly becomes apparent that her childhood was rather disjointed, due in part to her father frequently changing jobs, resulting in the family moving house several times. A little later her parents split which leads to her moving away again. Her account of her school years is by turns amusing and quite poignant; from her initially disastrous efforts in her cookery class to the bullying she endures at a different school, this is an honest, self-aware coming-of-age chronicling which includes her most difficult period when she effectively dropped out of school altogether and as mentioned above, came to rely on the loving presence of her grandmother, Manda.
Nevertheless, despite going through this troubled phase, it's abundantly clear throughout that she values education and knowledge even though she is unsure where she wants it to lead. Her memories of her later teenage years and time at university recall a young woman trying to discover who she is and it's noticeable that others seem to view her differently than she sees herself. As she experiments with her appearance, often inspired by her various literary leanings, she describes her tentative forays into dating and sexual encounters with self-deprecating candour.
In a world where celebrity memoirs focus on scandal and achievement, it's refreshing to read of a more ordinary life. From her year as a student in the Netherlands. to an uncomfortable trip to New York, her observations of other countries are as interesting as her recounting of her assorted jobs. Her recollections of her role supporting a woman with cerebral palsy and later of working with women prisoners on remand are told in a straightforward, unassuming manner which nonetheless indicate her curious, empathic nature which undoubtedly comes through in both her fictional and non-fiction works.
A Young Lady's Miscellany is a thoroughly enjoyable, introspective collection of memories told with an immersive sense of time and place. I recommend it to anybody with an interest in social histories, especially the latter part of the twentieth century.
A Young Lady's Miscellany is published by Dogberry Books and can be purchased here.
Don't miss the rest of the blog tour, details are below.
About the Author
Auriel's second novel, 'Let The Swine Go Forth' follows the misadventures of a group of teachers in a new international school out in the desert of a totalitarian state. It is due to be republished with Dogberry Books in 2021.
Trivia: Auriel Roe is the fourth cousin of Margaret Atwood and direct descendant of Pendle "witch" Alice Nutter.
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