Man at the Helm

January 1, 2015
Divorce leaves an unreliable mother and her three concerned children adrift in an unfriendly village in this first novel from Stibbe, whose memoir (Love, Nina, 2014) was an acclaimed comic debut.Narrated in a naive yet confident voice by 10-year-old Lizzie Vogel, the middle child, the book traces an unconventional family's progress after marital derailment in 1970s England. Filtered through Lizzie's idiosyncratic perspective, the sad and serious prospect of a household falling apart as the mother struggles with loneliness, depression, drink and pills shades away from tragedy toward the absurd. The family relocates from comfortable suburbia to a new village home where Lizzie and her sister find themselves not only unpopular, but also, they fear, in danger of being made wards of the court. While attempting to take care of their mother, they decide their job is also to find her a boyfriend, a new man at the helm to steady and safeguard the ship of family. Making a list of local candidates, with no concern about whether they're already married or not, the girls set up romantic encounters by writing letters in their mother's name. The results are predictably chaotic. Ridiculous episodes, like a pony climbing the stairs, are interspersed with more perturbing developments, including financial disasters and the nervous problems of younger brother Jack. And yet, despite increasing poverty and the move to another, smaller home, the family's fortunes eventually shift, with the helm being taken by a man almost as eccentric as the Vogels themselves. Charming and bittersweet, with a very English flavor, this social comedy is distinguished by Stibbe's light touch and bright eye.

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Starred review from December 15, 2014
The lives of nine-year-old Lizzie and her family are turned upside down when her father's affair is discovered. Mother and children are forced to move from their posh London digs to a small English village. Any thoughts of tranquil country living disappear as the locals shun the entire family for being a single-parent household, without a man at the helm. Lizzie and her sister decide to find one, creating a list of eligible local bachelors, one of which they hope will be perfect for their mother, whose apathy following the divorce has manifested itself with heavy drinking, pill-popping, and obsessive playwriting. The family contends with village politics, nosy neighbors, changing finances, assorted charismatic pets, and a parade of potential suitors who are, unfortunately, just plain unsuitable. There could be no better narrator than Lizzie. She is bright, witty, and charming, an object of both sympathy and admiration. Stibbe gives her and her siblings a sense of self well beyond their years and the dialogue to accompany it. This is an impressive first novel, a combination of P. G. Wodehouse pacing and the eccentricity of Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals (1956). An extraordinarily well-written, deeply satisfying read about an unusual, highly entertaining group of people.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

October 1, 2014

Stibbe, whose memoir Love, Nina gave us a wonderful tour of life as a nanny in 1980s literary London, returns with another tale of scampering children: ten-year-old Lizzie Vogel enjoys everything her upper-crust upbringing has to offer until her father divorces her mother and shoves the family off to dreary little Flatstone. Because divorcees and fatherless children are a no-no there (it's the 1970s), Lizzie decides that she's got to find a man for her mom. With a five-city tour.

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