Mad World by Paula Byrne
Harper Press, $28.99
Paula Byrne says she set out to write this book to redress what she believes is the misrepresentation of Evelyn Waugh as "a snob and curmudgeonly misanthropist".
Whether she succeeds is a matter of fine judgment. I'm not sure that someone who, in his earlier years walked some distance to make sure his letters were postmarked Hampstead rather than Golders Green or who cited the proportion of noblemen as one reason for preferring the army to the navy, can entirely escape a guilty verdict on the snobbery count.
But if Byrne is not wholly convincing as a defence counsel, she is entirely successful in producing a sharp, witty and entertaining read about a great writer, his times, which now seem as remote as the Middle Ages, and the inspirations for his most popular book, Brideshead Revisited.
As was well recognised as soon as Brideshead was published, the country house family which fascinates Charles Ryder is based on the Lygons and their main home, Madresfield, a combination which produced what can only be called a love affair for Waugh.
Byrne is at pains to point out that Waugh's writing is not merely reportage and, given the nature of the Lygons, a straightforward portrayal might have stretched credulity.
Waugh first encountered them through the second son, Hugh, a handsome, gay young man of little intellect but considerable charm. But his real enchantment began when he was admitted to the whole family circle of three boys and four sisters, three of the type described as "society beauties", although it is remarkable how often this fails to translate into the published photographs.
Their country seat of Madresfield had been in the family for eight centuries, resting in a glorious setting and an architectural wonder of many remodellings including an extraordinary chapel.
The patriarch of the glamorous clan was Lord Beauchamp, a great traveller and art enthusiast, known within the family as Boom.
While he looked at Florentine art, son Hugh read the Daily Sketch racing pages. The peer took a suitable role in public life and at 27 became Governor-General of New South Wales where one of the benefits was being able to gaze at the tanned bodies of the Sydney lifesavers.
When interviewing male staff in Britain "he would pass his hands over their buttocks making a similar hissing noise to that made by stable lads when rubbing their horses down".
But his sexual proclivities were his undoing and, driven by the antagonism of the Duke of Westminster, his brother-in-law, Beauchamp was forced into a divorce and enduring exile, "the last authentic case of someone being hounded out of society".
But, apart from the oldest son, the family stayed loyal to their father and remained extraordinarily close.
Waugh was something of a serial pursuer of other people's families and in the Lygons he found the perfect attachment, staying devoted to the sisters even as their lives messily unravelled in later years.
Whether the relationships were essentially a case of Waugh chasing the honourables or, as the Lygons and other aristocratic friends insisted, a case of the toffs pursuing Waugh because he was so amusing does not alter the fact that his friendships were vital to him.
Without Waugh, the "great family", as the Daily Mail calls them, would have been sad individuals, a tiny footnote in history.
They even failed in that basic aristocratic duty of producing male heirs and the Beauchamp title is now extinct. But transformed by Waugh's genius, the Lygons will live on for generations.
John Gardner is an Auckland reviewer
