Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

an almost Austenian comedy of manners. How do you feel about such comparisons?

HS: Jane Austen was able to take the tiniest of villages and the most circumscribed of lives and create satire that reflected the whole world. I am honored by even the slightest comparison.

RHRC: Just as the Major has Kipling and his works, is there a particular author or book that you hold most dear?

HS: I am a huge fan of Edith Wharton, who wrote of the bitter side of social manners in a way that is also timeless. Her The Custom of the Country should be required reading for all those contemplating a career in reality television.

Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion

1. At the outset of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, the Major is described as feeling the weight of his age, but on page 320, the morning after his romantic evening with Mrs. Ali at Colonel Pres-ton’s lodge, Simonson writes that “a pleasant glow, deep in his gut, was all that remained of a night that seemed to have burned away the years from his back.” Love is not only for the young, and, as it did the Major, it has the capacity to revitalize. Discuss the agelessness of love, and how it can transform us at any point in our lives.

2. A crucial theme of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand is that of obligation. What are the differences between the Pettigrews’ familial expectations and those of the Alis'? What do different characters in the novel have to sacrifice in order to stay true to these obligations? What do they give up in diverging from them?

3. Major Pettigrew clings to the civility of a bygone era, and his discussions with Mrs. Ali over tea are a narrative engine of the book and play a central role in their burgeoning romance. In our digital world, how have interpersonal relationships changed? Do you think instant communication makes us more or less in touch with the people around us?

4. Much of the novel focuses on the notion of otherness. Who is considered an outsider in Edgecombe St. Mary? How are the various village outsiders treated differently?

5. First impressions in Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand can be deceiving. Discuss the progressions of the characters who change the most from the beginning of the book to the end.

6. The Major struggles to find footing in his relationship with his adult son, Roger. Discuss the trickiness of being a parent to an adult child, and, alternatively, of being an adult child to an aging parent. How does the generation gap come to impact the relationship?

7. Major Pettigrew and Mrs. Ali connect emotionally in part because they share the experience of having lost a spouse, and in part because they delight in love’s having come around a second time. How do you think relationships formed in grief are different from those that are not?

8. For Major Pettigrew, the Churchills represent societal standing and achievement, as well as an important part of his family’s history. However, as events unfold, the Major begins to question whether loyalty and honor are more important than material objects and social status. Discuss the evolving importance of the guns to the Major, as well as the challenge of passing down important objects, and values, to younger generations.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

HELEN SIMONSON was born in England and spent her teenage years in a small village in East Sussex. A graduate of the London School of Economics with an M.F.A. from Stony Brook Southampton, she is a former travel advertising executive who has lived in America for the last two decades. A longtime resident of Brooklyn, she now lives with her husband and two sons in the Washington, D.C., area. This is her first novel.

Copyright

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Helen Simonson

Reading group guide copyright © 2010 by Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Random House Reader’s Circle and Design is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Simonson, Helen.

Major Pettigrew’s last stand : a novel / Helen Simonson.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-1-58836-965-9

1. Country life—England—Fiction. 2. Retirees—Fiction. 3. Widowers—Fiction. 4. Widows—Fiction 5. Pakistanis—England—Fiction. 6. Interracial friendship—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3619.I56294M35 2010

813’.6—dc22    2009022231

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