Laurie Graham:The Unfortunates

Reviewed by Elizabeth Jones*

Poppy Minkel is heiress to her Jewish grandparents' fortune made producing Minkel's Mighty Fine Mustard. She is a misfit growing up in the early 1900s who has naturally wiry hair, a too-yellow neck and protruding ears, which presents a difficult case for "the great husband hunt". But Poppy also has an independent mind and doubts whether marriage is for her. Her maiden cousin's life seems more interesting than her married sister's, as she "often suspected that marrying had caused a softening of Honey's brain".


Her father's death on the Titanic changes her mother's perceived future role for Poppy from forming a suitable marriage to being a companion for her old age and spending her mustard inheritance "making donations and helping with worthy causes". But Poppy has different plans: "I intended spending mine on silk harem pants and a gasoline-powered automobile and cake." World War I changes her mother's plans and Poppy's life moves in a completely different direction.


Chapter one had me hooked. I read it twice before moving on. A refreshingly new type of heroine was introduced to us, with enjoyable wit. It certainly lived up to the recommendation from the Independent comparing Graham's writing with that of Nick Hornby and Helen Fielding. But I was disappointed that once Poppy became an adult, the author opted for a familiar plot.


Thankfully, Graham doesn't let us down entirely. The pace picks up once more as Poppy waltzes through a life of no responsibility, with the ability to throw money at any problem and leave.


Her life spans three countries and covers two marriages, two children and careers as a clothes designer, aviatrix and art-gallery owner.


It's a hard-to-put-down book comprising 63 small chapters, so I was tempted to read just one more, then maybe another, and then one more before turning off the light.


By the end, the title left me puzzled. "The Unfortunates" is a term all Poppy's family use when referring to lower classes though, as Poppy notices when visiting one such family, "the simple concord of a family working together" suggested to her "that these so-called unfortunates were a good deal better off than I".


And don't let Poppy's mother put you off reading: "Careless reading can cause the setting in of ugly permanent facial lines. For this reason my mother never risked opening a book."


* Elizabeth Jones is a Herald editorial assistant.

HarperCollins Publishers $31.95