Product Description

MY LITTLE BLUE DRESS is the sort of book publishers dream about. The memoirs of a female centenarian, born on 1 January 1900, one hundred years old on the first day of the new millennium, it is a life story to stretch the reader's imagination: the tranquillity of rural England at the turn of the century, the excitement of Paris in the 1920s, London during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the New York arts scene of the 1960s. And yet ...for a woman who claims to have lived through the twentieth century, our narrator, from the outset, seems not to know very much about its history. Or, for that matter, about being a woman. All is revealed as her story unfolds and the author's startling secret comes to light ...A love story and a murder mystery, MY LITTLE BLUE DRESS is a satire of Nabokovian cleverness and a glorious introduction to an exceptional literary talent.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #366477 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
A wonderfully entertaining debut novel that purports to be the memoirs of a female centenarian born on January 1, 1900 - and her life story takes in the tranquillity of England at the start of the century, Paris in the exciting 1920s, London in the depressed Thirties and the New York Arts scene of the 1960s. All is revealed as the story unfolds and the author's startling secret comes to light in a genuine tour de force.

The Guardian, May 2001
Excellent

Independent , May 2001
Original, inventive, ambitious, playful, funny and a million miles away form the current stereotype of the laddish Bloke's First Book

Customer Reviews

Something Old, Something New
"My Little Blue Dress" appears at first to be the literary equivalent of "The Sixth Sense," i.e. a work with a twist so baldly foreshadowed that only a Grisham fan could fail to be underwhelmed. But wait.

The cleverest thing about "My Little Blue Dress" (and there is no drought of cleverness in this book - Crichton lovers better watch out too) is that the surprise ending is not the expected surprise. This means at least that I can talk about the expected surprise without anyone going "boo, spoilsport!" (except the Archer readers, but the less said about them the better).

Ostensibly, "My Little Blue Dress" is the memoir of a female centenarian, born on 1 Jan 1900 and with many a tale to tell of the times this land forgot. She grew up in Murbery, England, where she was a cert for May Queen by the age of five; fell in love with a local boy who deserted her for the trenches of the First World War; went to France in the 20s where she associated with the artists of the Left Bank; became a nanny in the thirties; and -

What's that? All sounds a bit formulaic? Well, yes, it does - and that's where the jokes start. You see, the unnamed narrator doesn't know an awful lot about, well, anything (an Anthony Trollope aficionado, no doubt) and her account of the times she lived in could have been written by anyone. Her speech, too, is over-sophisticated, her worldview frankly out of synch, and all I can say about her sexual peccadilloes is that they might at least provide a way into this book for Jilly Cooper fans.

And here's the "twist" (close your eyes if you don't want to know) - "My Little Blue Dress" is actually being written by the old woman's neighbour, a certain Bruno Maddox, twentysomething young man who has (possibly) killed her to reap the publisher's cool million. This is the heart of the book, and it works like a charm - the witty juxtaposition of Maddox's ignorance of the early 20th century with his expectations of what it might have been like is always hilarious. When his old woman was a nanny, he quotes Mary Poppins; when she moves to the USA in the fifties, it's Stepford. And he is ever ready with a handy excuse for the apparent contradictions: she is "allergic to the Past" her "grandda" tells her darkly as a child; when Maddox cannot imagine what it is like to be in love with a man, he makes her a lesbian; her (his) all-encompassing ignorance of history is explained by a rare condition known as "information phobia."

It's superb. But. After the first hundred pages, the "old woman" starts to tell us about her present day life and more and more the book becomes the recent diary of Bruno Maddox. And not since Martin Amis played chess with John Self in "Money" has an author so brazenly cameo'd in his own work. And we keep reading this with relish for a time, wondering what his motives are, trying to guess how he is going to cover up her murder. There's nothing, after all, so nourishing as an unreliable narrator.

Unfortunately the book stays with Bruno Maddox and of the subsequent 200 pages, it is really only the last few, where the *real* twist becomes clear (which I am definitely not going to tell you - hell, why should I be the only one to suffer?), that are truly satisfying. Of course Maddox, still in character as the old woman, has the good grace to apologise for having "wasted so much of your time." It's not enough, though, and smacks of Dave Eggers's truthful admission in "A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius" that from page 109 "the book thereafter is kind of uneven." At least Eggers had the grace to tell you that *before* you read the book.

What "My Little Blue Dress" ends up as, then, is a sort of pale imitation of Nabokov's "Pale Fire:" this too is a great idea which is best left as an idea and only weakens and dilutes itself when written down and read. But I am giving it four stars anyway, mainly for the first hundred pages, which really are priceless and brilliant; but also, secretly, for having the balls to disappoint.

A Big Surprise!
I bought this book after reading a review in the Guardian- and it really was a good investment. Buy this if you're not too demanding of your novels, if you don't mind being caught up by an expert-amateur of an author, and if you aren't too rigid in your views of what a novel should be. This book takes post-modernisim to its very edges, and completely subverts any genre, making it almost impossible to classify. It doesn't even seem to warrant the only possible (and rather weak) classification of 'fiction'. Overall, if you're easy-going, and like a fun, but intelligent novel, this is for you. I couldn't put it down once I'd started- and my only disappointment is that Mr. Maddox doesn't seem to have written any other novels!

Lovely surprise
I bought this book in a rush at a railway station with no idea what it was about- a really good way, as it turned out, of stumbling across it. By the time the five year old rural lass walks into her grandfather's house in 1905 announcing 'This isn't a social call', I was laughing out loud on the train, completely hooked.

Unfortunately I liked the ill-informed old lady stuff a bit more than the contemporary New York stuff which was good, but not as original and brilliant as the period interludes- 'and it turned out it *was* jet lag''- and I would have loved to have followed the old lady all the way through the decades, especially given the hilarity of the chapter outlines.

BUT, line for line it is still the funniest book I've read in ages, smart, selfconscious, and, by the end, oddly sweet.

Great. You won't be disappointed.