LITERATURE + LECTURES

Blue Willow Bookshop presents Helen Simonson, Tuesday, January 11 at 7pm. Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand was a staff favorite in 2010, so we are delighted to welcome its author, Helen Simonson. She’ll be in town to celebrate the novel’s paperback release.

Set in the fictionalized community of Edgecombe St. Mary in the English countryside, Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand centers around Major Ernest Pettigrew, a most honorable though slightly irascible gentleman whose safe and predictable life is forever changed when his relationship with the enchanting shopkeeper Jasmina Ali evolves into something more than friendship.

Eccentric, funny and set in their own ways, Simonson’s colorful cast of village characters—the Major’s social climbing son, the meddlesome country club ladies, and the local Lord who may just be plotting to sell Edgecombe St. Mary to the highest bidder—try to stand in the way of the Major and Mrs. Ali. But with the perfect balance of wit and wisdom, Helen Simonson has created a world where happiness, while not necessarily preordained, is surely possible.

The Author writes:
"I have lived in America for over twenty years. I have been a long-time and proud resident of Brooklyn and have recently moved with my family to the Washington D.C. area. However, I was born in England, and when I was a teenager, my family achieved the English dream - to move to a house in the country.

East Sussex, with its sleepy villages, medieval smuggling towns, and unique pebble-bank shores is my vision of 'home.' My family lives near Rye, a 14th Century smuggling port on a cobbled hill, from which the sea receded long ago. It is marooned in the Romney Marshes (where Charles Dickens' Pip grew up) yet clings to its designation as a member of the Cinque Ports. Close by are the seaside towns of Hastings and Eastbourne and to the west, the Downs swell up into a ridge of grassy hills topped by the hundred mile trail known as the South Downs Way. It is literary country - Henry James at Lamb House, Rye; Kipling at Batemans, Burwash; Virginia Woolf at Monk's House, near Lewes - and this heritage was always a great inspiration to me.

As a young woman, I could not wait to go to college in London, or to move three thousand miles away from home to America. Yet I have always carried with me a longing for England that will not fade. I think this dichotomy - between the desire for home and the urge to leave - is of central interest to my life and my writing". —Helen Simonson

This Blue Willow Bookshop event is free and open to the public. In order to go through the signing line and meet Helen Simonson for book personalization, you must purchase Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand from Blue Willow Bookshop. If you cannot attend the event but would like a signed copy of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, give us a call at (281) 497 8675.