This is where Hons and Rebels ends. Decca reveals nothing about the subsequent weeks and months, about joining her husband in Toronto, his transfer to England in August 1941, or his death only three months later, shot down during a bombing raid over Hamburg. It was not until nearly twenty years later that her remarkable memoir was published, by which time she had long been settled in California, had remarried and become the mother of two more children, as well as a famously fanatical crusader against right-wing movements and what she regarded as the corruption and injustices of the American way of life.

Hons and Rebels - Jessica Mitford - Google Books Hons and Rebels - Jessica Mitford - Google Books

By the time of her first London season in 1935, Decca was smouldering: she hated the world into which she had been born and now longed to leave. A committed socialist, her mind was firmly focused on running away, and an irresistible opportunity presented itself the following year with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The war profoundly divided the Mitfords, Unity and Diana passionately proFranco, while Decca immediately became a committed Loyalist, determined somehow to leave England and join the fight in Spain. ‘Fortress aspects of life at home now came to the forefront with a vengeance,’ she recalled. ‘I was in headlong opposition to everything the family stood for.’ Si tengo que ser totalmente sincera, más que por interés real por lo que cuenta, escogí este libro para poder comparar la forma de escribir de Jessica Mitord con la de su hermana Nancy, una autora que me encanta cómo escribe y cuyas novelas disfruto totalmente. Y, para que mentir, por la curiosidad de leer sobre las estrafalarias hermanas Mitford y sus polémicas vidas. Pero al final eso no ha sido lo decisivo para que esta lectura me haya agradado tanto. La historia de Jessica es realmente apasionante y adictiva. Fue una mujer increíblemente valiente; ejemplo claro de lo que es hacerse a uno mismo con todas sus consecuencias, sean buenas o malas. Relations with her English family remained complex – relatively peaceful over the years with Nancy, Debo and Pam, unrelentingly hostile towards Unity, who died in 1948, and towards Diana, whose fascist sympathies she was unable to forgive. After the success of Hons and Rebels, Decca wrote several more books, including The American Way of Death, an investigation into the deceptions and dishonesty of the funeral industry. But it is Hons and Rebels for which she rightly remains best known, a remarkable portrait of an eccentric family depicted by one of its most eccentric members. In fact, the anti-Tuddemy campaign, which raged through­out childhood, was merely the curious Honnish mirror-world expression of our devotion to him. For years, he was the only member of the family to be ‘on speakers’ with all the others. In spite of frequent alliances of brief duration for Boudledidge or Honnish pursuits, or for the purpose of defeating some common enemy – generally a governess – relations between Unity, Debo and me were uneasy, tinged with mutual resent­ment. We were like ill-assorted animals tied to a common tethering post. Tom, our only brother, occupied a rather special place in family life. We called him Tuddemy, partly because it was the Boudledidge translation of Tom, partly because we thought it rhymed with ‘adultery’. ‘Only one brother and six sisters! How you must love him. How spoilt he must be,’ strangers would say. ‘Love him! You mean loathe him,’ was the standard Honnish answer. Debo, asked by a census-taker what her fam­ily consisted of, replied furiously, ‘Three Giants, three Dwarfs and one Brute.’ The Giants were Nancy, Diana and Unity, all exceptionally tall; the Dwarfs Pam, Debo and me; the Brute, poor Tuddemy. My mother has to this day a cardboard badge on which is carefully lettered: ‘League against Tom. Head: Nancy.’The Mitfords were a family of very minor English aristocrats who nonetheless became the center of the so-called Mitford industry in England from the 1930s on. There are Mitford documentaries, Mitford biographies, even a Mitford musical. Their scandalous escapades seemed to function as the reality TV drama of their era, even as they made real political and artistic contributions to the world. I tried reading this book once before, but struggled to get past the sheer selfishness of both Decca and Esmond. When I first read this book I disliked both intensely, despising Esmond for driving a wedge between Decca and her family, and Decca for being so complacent.

Hons and Rebels – New York Review Books

On the day war was declared, Unity went to the Englischer Garten in Munich and shot herself. She survived, but was left with permanent brain damage. Hitler arranged for her to be moved to a hospital in Switzerland, whence her parents collected her. Muv nursed her devotedly, but Farve was so upset he went off with the parlour maid and in effect ended the marriage. The Mosleys were, meanwhile, imprisoned for most of the war, with Decca warmly urging Churchill not to release them. Tom was killed in Burma; Unity died of meningitis in 1948. But the Cotswolds get even further around as the book progresses – as Decca moves to America. Here’s an example both of her early sheltered life, and the wit with which she writes. It is often a very amusing book. I'm not an enemy of the working class! I think some of them are perfectly sweet!" she retorted angrily. I could almost see the visions of perfectly sweet nannies, grooms, gamekeepers, that the phrase must have conjured up in her mind. Shouldn’t think of it. I hate the beastly Fascists. If you’re going to be one, I’m going to be a Communist, so there.” Mitford] has a most unusual talent for recapturing the past….There is a feeling of immediacy, as if it were all being written on the spot, at the time, by the teen-ager it was happening to. It is a fascinating book.”Many people know about the Mitfords, but if you don’t, here’s the brief run-down: Nancy the novelist wrote The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate (both highly recommended), along with other novels; Diana married the leader of the British Union of Fascists; Unity was fascinated by Hitler and shot herself at the start of WW2; Jessica (‘Decca’) was the communist who lived in America most of her life; Deborah (‘Debo’) became the Duchess of Devonshire. The remaining siblings Pam and Tom didn’t acquire quite so much press.