Lives on the page
This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.
The second of our guest blog posts by independent publisher Slightly Foxed is about a biography of the real Mrs Miniver, Jan Struther. Written by her granddaughter Ysenda Maxtone Graham and shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography of the Year Award 2002 when it was originally published by John Murray, the reviews of the book pose intriguing questions about what makes a good biography. How can the biographer appeal to the emotions of the reader without marring the subject with sentimentality? What brings a historical period to life while keeping it relevant to the present?
Ysenda Maxtone Graham has written for newspapers and magazines as a features writer, book reviewer and columnist and is the author ofThe Church Hesitant: A Portrait of the Church of England (Hodder and Stoughton, 1994).
When Ysenda Maxtone Graham first approached John Murray publishers with a manuscript about her life of her grandmother – the writer and journalist Joyce (known as Jan) Struther – it seemed the perfect synergy of subject and author and so it proved to be. The hardback, when published in 2001, received glowing reviews. It was reprinted and brought out in several different paperback editions. Slightly Foxed already publish Ysenda’s book, Mr Tibbits’s Catholic School and looking to add to their limited edition memoir series, there was no question that The Real Mrs Miniver would be ideal.
The life of Jan Struther at first sight appeared to be a charmed one. In 1937, happily married with two boys, Jan, who already wrote poems, hymns (her most famous was ‘Lord of all hopefulness, Lord of all Joy’) and comic sketches for Punch, was asked by Peter Fleming to help cheer up the Court pages of The Times with occasional pieces about a fictional character – ‘just an ordinary sort of woman who leads an ordinary sort of life. Rather like yourself.’ The Mrs Miniver pieces appeared every fortnight for two years and were collected in book form in October 1939. Like a latter day Bridget Jones, Mrs Miniver became a national institution. She was an important figure in wartime propaganda – the perfect British wife and mother, cheerful, stoical, happily married, longing to share her tranquil enjoyment of life with thousands of anxious readers. Jan Struther toured America, flying the flag for ‘plucky little Britain’. In the public’s eyes she and Mrs Miniver – soon to be the heroine of a famous wartime film – were one. The film Mrs Miniver, starring Greer Garson, was a wartime classic. It took America by storm and won five Oscars. In 1942 even isolationist Americans were stunned. Winston Churchill said Mrs Miniver would do more for the Allied cause than a flotilla of battleships.
Everyone assumed that Jan Struther, was writing from life and was the model for the exemplary middle-class housewife, but the reality was very different. Joyce’s once happy marriage to golf-loving Tony had run out of steam and she had begun an affair with a penniless Viennese Jewish poet and refugee called Dolf Placzek. While she was touring the US, giving uplifting speeches to rapt crowds of Americans, she and Dolf were having passionate secret meetings. Ysenda draws a deeply understanding but unsentimental portrait of this contradictory woman, whose own creation ultimately forced her to lead a painful double life. As her granddaughter she brings to the book an understanding available only to one so close. It’s a poignant story, laced with sharp humour and unforgettably told.
The reviews when the book was first published were superb, Valerie Grove called it ‘A perfect biography, an utterly marvellous book.’ Alistair Horne in the Financial Times said ‘Maxtone Graham tells this other story simply and un-demonstratively. Her style is as clear-eyed, elegant and humorous as that of the grandmother she never knew. The Real Mrs Miniver is the most moving book I have read this year’ and Kathryn Hughes in the Daily Telegraph said ‘In this outstandingly accomplished biography, Ysenda Maxtone Graham peels away the layers of confused myth-making to reveal the small, sharp woman who stands at the heart of Mrs Miniver … she does far more than simply recover the forgotten history of a minor writer. She musters all the wit, charm and emotional curiosity of the grandmother she never met to create a fascinating study of middle-class female experience during the last century’s most difficult decades.’
Published: 11 March 2013, £16 cloth hardback, www.foxedquarterly.com
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Thank you for alerting us to this biography. At one time I knew only of the film, having seen it decades ago. But I picked up a second-hand copy of the collection recently and was delighted by it – so much less sentimental than the film, and a fascinating account of life in England during the war. I gained real respect for Jan Struther from reading it. Now I can look for the biography and learn about the story behind the story.
I’m glad this post has inspired you to read something new, Robyn. Let us know what you think about the new biography.Slightly Foxed will be interested too.