Medium Cool is a weekly series related to popular culture, mostly film, TV, and books, with some music and games thrown in. We hope it’s a welcome break from the anger, hate, and idiocy we see almost daily from the other side in the political sphere.
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Three by Tey!
by Subaru Dianne
This week, we’re concentrating on three wonderful stand-alone mysteries by Josephine Tey. Along with her extraordinary The Daughter of Time, which we’ll discuss on August 27th, these three are longtime favourites — eminently re-readable!
Miss Pym Disposes (1947) — when is it moral and appropriate to take action, no matter who may be hurt? Or is it better to take no action, no matter who may benefit? Miss Pym’s Hamlet-like waffling is central to the way this mystery unfolds.
The Franchise Affair (1948) — although the book is 75 years old, it resonates today with its exploration of mob mentality and malicious media misinformation. (Yes, for the purists, Inspector Grant is present, but in a minor and adversarial role, so I’m categorising it as a stand-alone.)
Brat Farrar (1949) — this is the story of a charming imposter who insinuates himself as heir into a prosperous county family. A criminal action, yes — but he uses his assumed persona to expose and bring to justice the far more serious crime of murder.
In all, Tey gives us richly-drawn settings, engaging and memorable secondary characters, and thought-provoking moral challenges. I look forward to a lively discussion!
War for Ukraine Day 536: The Russians Bombard Kherson
WaterGirl
Shoutout to Subaru Dianne who is back for part 2 of the Josephine Tey series. Thank you, SD!
SiubhanDuinne
In 1954, The Macmillan Company collected these three titles and anthologised them under the omnibus title Three by Tey. The book was so successful that they followed it with Four, Five, and Six by Tey.*
*I wouldn’t swear to the Oxford Comma, and the book is in another room. I’ll check later.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
My pleasure! I’m looking forward, as always, to some incisive comments and provocative questions!
Liminal Owl
Help! I can’t find the link.
(answered in comments below)
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Hunh. I checked.
Not only did Macmillan not employ the Oxford Comma in the second anthology title — it employed no commas whatsoever!!
The book title is Four Five and Six by Tey [sic. sic. sic.]
SiubhanDuinne
@Liminal Owl:
But you’re here! It’s not a Zoom, just an ordinary Medium Cool post.
Steeplejack
@Liminal Owl:
There is no link. This thread is the discussion.
Having said that, I have not read any of the three current books, but I have started The Daughter of Time for next time.
Liminal Owl
@SiubhanDuinne: Aha! Thanks; I (obviously) thought it was a discussion.
I’ve (re)read about half The Franchise Affair since this afternoon, finding that I remember almost none of it. Except I have a vague sense of whodunnit [ETA: or howdunnit]which is probably leftover from reading the book many years ago rather than putting things together now. Enjoying it very much, though.
I do still get irritated by Tey’s characters’ fondness for phrenology or something like it.
Liminal Owl
@SiubhanDuinne: LOL. (Or rather IJBOL, which I gather is how the young folk say it now.) I was visualizing only the spine of the hardcover in my father’s library and couldn’t have told anything about the commas.
I read both “Three” and “Four Five Six” to pieces, back in the day, and have no idea what happened to the volumes after my father died.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steeplejack:
Well, I hope there aren’t too many spoilers for you — but in the broadest sense, none of tonight’s three books is a WHOdunnit, anyway. The mysteries, such as they are, lie in HOW the deed was done, and WHY. Tey’s character portrayals throughout are little gems, IMO.
Liminal Owl
@Steeplejack: Thanks! And I hope you enjoy The Daughter of Time; it was my intro to Ricardian thought, and to historical misinformation, and perhaps even to mysteries.
Liminal Owl
@SiubhanDuinne: Also her satire of other literary forms. I have always adored her description of Grant’s readpile in the hospital, and today I’m also giggling (ruefully) at the Ack-Emma.
SiubhanDuinne
@Liminal Owl:
Phrenology, face-reading, eye colour, etc., seem to have been very popular during this period. Sayers also has a couple or few references to such things, although not to Tey’s extent.
Suzanne
I can’t participate, as I’ve never read these. But they sound fantastic. I love mysteries and spy thrillers. I get so many great recommendations here. Truly a full-service blog.
Liminal Owl
@SiubhanDuinne: Isn’t it only incidental in Sayers, though? Tey makes those beliefs key to the mystery, in some at least. Betty Kane’s blue eyes, Richard III’s face (which has forever influenced my viewing of the classic portrait; I can only see him as tragic)…
SiubhanDuinne
@Liminal Owl:
The Ack-Emma particularly fascinates me today, as it is such a cesspool of journalistic (or “journalistic”) insinuation and malice, whipping the readership into a frenzied mob — decades before Rupert Murdoch and his ilk came on the scene. What we see on Fox and in the supermarket tabloids is nothing new.
Liminal Owl
@Suzanne: Side note, but I will also recommend (and please forgive me if I’ve already done so elsewhere) the “Lady Sherlock” series by Sherry Thomas, starting with “A Study in Scarlet Women.”
Liminal Owl
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, exactly. Hence the rueful giggling.
hmm. Not much discussion tonight, I guess. I’ll go back to Franchise and refresh periodically to see whether more is happening. So sorry I didn’t read enough in time, but I promise to do better before your next evening.
SiubhanDuinne
@Liminal Owl:
You’re right, it’s not in any way central to Sayers. But the very fact that she references it tells me it was part of the Zeitgeist. I don’t think you’d find it in a contemporary mystery or detective story.
BellaPea
I read Miss Pym Disposes many years ago. An interesting book. Borrowed it from my grandmother, who loved mysteries.
SiubhanDuinne
@Suzanne:
The omnibus volume is readily available, used and inexpensive, and all of Tey’s individual titles are in print (dead tree and ebook). I think you’d find much to admire about them.
ETA: And when did a dearth of familiarity with the subject matter ever stop someone from participating in a BJ conversation!?
SiubhanDuinne
@BellaPea:
I adore the book. Every single student and faculty member is really individualistic and memorable. The setting of the physical training school was closely modelled on a similar institution which Tey attended in her youth. And even the accident which resulted in a student’s death in the book was based on an incident that happened to Tey in real life.
Jess
@Liminal Owl: Agatha Christie also leaned heavily on this. I see it as the ripple effect of the obsession with scientific typing in the preceding century. Racial stereotyping as well, although I don’t recall much in Tey’s work.
Liminal Owl
@Jess: Ah, thanks. It’s been even longer since I read Christie, and I don’t think I ever reread one of hers.
Jess
I’ve always loved Brat Farrar ever since I read it as a young teen. I was horse crazy, and my English-by-marriage honorary aunt gave it to me.
Suzanne
@Liminal Owl: Thank you for the pro-tip!
I learned about the Inspector Gamache books from the jackals. I just read the second in the series on my beach vacay. Y’all do not steer me wrong!
Jess
BF always made me wonder if such an impersonation would actually be possible. I don’t think it would be; I think individuals have their own distinct “flavor,” and if you’ve been close to them when young, you still remember them on some primal level when you meet again years later.
zhena gogolia
Sorry I haven’t read any of these!
SiubhanDuinne
@Jess:
Tey uses the term “race” a lot, although she’s generally referring to things like “the Celtic ‘race’” or “different ‘races’ of Scots.” But as Liminal Owl mentioned, she also indulges in the kind of careless, thoughtless antisemitism that we have previously seen in Sayers, Christie, and other writers of the period.
It is extremely disconcerting to 21st-century sensibilities.
Jess
@Suzanne: I just discovered that series last year. I love it, but I recommend you don’t read it all in one fell swoop, though. Otherwise her formulas become too obvious.
Liminal Owl
@Jess: I’m not so sure that it’s impossible. Yes, individuals have their own flavor, but seeing them after many years can make one doubt oneself. Or at least it has done so for me, when people reappeared in my life after decades.
Also, I read a book later in my teens that seemed to me a possible plagiarism of Brat Farrar; it wasn’t interesting enough for a re-read, and i don’t know how it would seem now. Anybody know The Other, by Thomas Tryon IIRC?
SiubhanDuinne
@Jess:
I always thought it was very telling that Brat was dead set against presenting himself as the long-lost son until he heard there would be horses he could ride.
Liminal Owl
@Jess: Yes, my husband and i read the first three and then the others as they come out. And I could do with less of the romance theme, but that’s my eternal bias. Still a lot of fun otherwise, especially when I catch the allusions-to and twistings-of the Holmes canon.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jess:
Which is exactly what happened with Brat and the vicar — his childhood schoolteacher!
Liminal Owl
@SiubhanDuinne: Miss Pym is the one I am most eager to reread, because there was so much I missed when younger. Well, and BF because I loved it so much.
I am really enjoying the character portrayals, as you mention above. The Sharpes are wonderful.
Jess
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes. It’s interesting to see how a general cultural belief plays out in different individuals’ writing. I think all three of these authors are sympathetic to humanity in general, and are certainly not hateful towards other ethnic groups, but still channel the prevailing attitudes. I think it provides us some insight into the people today who have been raised with certain racist attitudes but who do not think they themselves are racist.
Liminal Owl
@Jess: Nice point!
Jess
@SiubhanDuinne: Right! I had forgotten about him!
Jess
@Liminal Owl: I think this is what I love most about mysteries; they’re really about the mysteries of human nature, framed around some of the oldest problems; good and evil, justice and mercy. Who would cross that line into murder, and why. Tey’s generation of writers really milked the genre to explore this through their characters.
evap
I love all three of these books, but Brat Farrar is my favorite of all. The characters in these books, but especially Brat, are so vivid and real. Tey has a knack of making you really care about the characters, more so than, say, Agatha Christie. I’m not sure how she does it.
I have an old paperback copy of B. F. which I re-read every few years. Now I really want to re-read the Franchise Affir.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jess:
I don’t have the exact quote handy, but at some point Sayers was criticised for her antisemitism. Her response was an indignant (paraphrased) “But all my Jews are respectable, sympathetic characters!” She never seemed to understand that the hooked noses, difficulties with the sibilants, and swarthy complexions, were offensive.
Jess
I missed the last Tey discussion, and I’m curious about how Tey was chosen as a subject. I’m so used to being only one in the room who has read her, so I was really (pleasantly) surprised.
Liminal Owl
Tey’s pretty savage about liberals, isn’t she? The Bishop and his daughter, et al. I wonder what she’d make of the jackaltariat? Or maybe she’s aiming at Bernie Bros and those of their ilk. That’s what I’m trying to tell myself, anyway.
Jess
@SiubhanDuinne: Exactly. But I can see where she’s coming from; back then, in Europe, the Jews mostly kept themselves separate as an ethnic group (as well as a cultural one), so they did look distinctly Other. Even in America a generation later, both Jews and non-Jews were discouraged from intermarriage; my mother ran into this problem with her Jewish BF in college. Both families were okay with them dating, but also made it clear that marriage was off the table. I was so confused when, in the 80s, my grandfather was so bent out of shape when I married a Jewish guy.
Jess
@Liminal Owl: I don’t remember those characters–are they in Franchise? I’ll have to reread that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jess:
I think a few months ago when we were doing the Medium Cool series on Christie and Sayers, a number of people said “What about Josephine Tey? Could we also have a little series on Tey?” I think that’s how we ended up with Tey. You can thank WaterGirl.
zhena gogolia
@Liminal Owl: I read it and saw the movie, but don’t remember anything except the pitchfork!
Is Brat Farrar related to the Tichbourne case?
ETA: I guess it’s Tichborne, and it looks as if maybe it is related. That’s a wild story.
SiubhanDuinne
@Liminal Owl:
Hmmmm. I have always seen it as her being savage against hypocrisy, not against liberals or liberalism per se. It’s fun to watch Nigel’s transformation :-)
Jess
@Liminal Owl: I’m guessing she (and the other authors) would always be center-left in whatever society they lived in. It’s a mentality more than a political ideology. So today, they’d probably be interested in BJ as it was about 15 years ago, when it was a more diverse group. As much as I like this place, it has gotten more tribal over the years, and the range of opinions have narrowed.
Liminal Owl
@Jess: They are, and quite major characters. And I recommend a re-read; as I told SiubhanDuinne earlier, I hadn’t reread Franchise in decades and remembered nothing about it but am enjoying it immensely.
FWIW, my family is Jewish–ethnically, and not the slightest bit religious except for me–but was not happy with my string of non-Jewish boyfriends. But my mother was quite happy, shortly before she died, to meet the non-Jewish man I ended up marrying. Of course, at that point she had given up hope that I’d ever get married.
Liminal Owl
@zhena gogolia: I don’t know. I never saw the movie, and I haven’t reread any of the books except The Daughter of Time in maybe four decades.
Jess
@SiubhanDuinne: Cool! I had a crazy year or two, and so wasn’t paying much attention to anything that wasn’t actually on fire. I guess I missed a lot.
zhena gogolia
@Liminal Owl:
It’s in Wikipedia so must be true.
zhena gogolia
I’m going to have to read this one. It sounds very intriguing. As I mentioned last time, we started The Man in the Queue, but it turned me off for some reason. But I did like others I read a long time ago, so maybe I’ll try this one. Unfortunately time for leisure reading is about to be severely curtailed.
arrieve
I somehow missed the Alan Grant discussion last week and so I spent the week rereading some of those (at least I think it was re-reading–I honestly had no memory of having read them before.)
I have always loved The Franchise Affair, for many of the reasons mentioned above–the portrayal of tabloid journalism and the mob mentality are chilling–but I also just love the details of daily life in small English towns during that time. For example, that Betty Kane could spend her days going from one movie theatre to another, saving enough money by going to the morning show to pay for her fancy tea in the afternoons. And Robert’s clients and predictable workdays in his small law office before the Sharpes came into his life. (I reread it a few years ago when it came up as a plot point in one of Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexler mysteries, so it’s pretty fresh in my memory.)
I’ve yet to get to Brat Farrar, but I read Miss Pym Disposes this weekend and enjoyed it very much. The characters and setting are so well done, which makes the twist at the end so surprising and yet completely plausible.
Jess
@Liminal Owl: Haha! In one of my favorite films, Lone Star, an interracial couple is considering marriage, and the (Black) woman says her family is so concerned that she might be a lesbian that they’ll welcome her White boyfriend with open arms. “It’s always so heartwarming to see a prejudiced defeated by another, stronger prejudice…” After my marriage ended, I entered into a LTR with a Black guy, but did not introduce him to my grandfather, having learned the limits of his tolerance.
Torrey
@Liminal Owl:
I read The Other years and years ago and recall really liking it. I’d already read Brat Farrar at the time (which I also really liked–I loved all of Tey’s mysteries) but didn’t think to connect the two.
So now I ‘m thinking I should re-read the Tryon book to see if it fits in connection with BF.
Jess
@zhena gogolia: The Man in the Queue was quite the interesting study in justifiable homicide. I recommend you give it another try.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
If I had started with The Man in the Queue, I might never have read another book by Josephine Tey! I have read it many times, and there’s much in it that I have come to admire if not to love, but IMO it is by far the weakest of her eight mystery novels, and is definitely my least favourite. If you’re willing to try her again, do pick up one of the three we’re discussing tonight, or The Daughter of Time.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
It always bothers me when both Tey & Sayer are “accused” of being “classist”. Tey gets it especially for The Franchise Affair which I love. Here’s the thing. British society of the time was classist & to a certain extent still is.
The Franchise Affair was based on the historical Canning Mystery & just like for The Daughter of Time people have been arguing over whether Tey got it right or wrong since ever. Gives me a chuckle, actually, because this is just one woman’s opinion.
For me the underrated Brat Farrar is less a mystery than a character study. I love, love the relationship that forms between Aunt Bee & Brat. Until recently, I had no idea that it was also based on a historical case, The Tichborne Case.
Jess
@Torrey: I haven’t read it, and am now interested to check it out. Although BF has such a special place in my heart that I’ll have to be careful not to judge The Other unfairly.
I loved all the characters in BF, but especially the portrayal of Simon as a charming sociopath. The cat-and-mouse play between him and Brat was so well done.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jess:
I agree with you. I also find the younger twins, Jane and Ruth, absolutely delightful.
Suzanne
@Jess: I don’t get enough peaceful free time to read anywhere near as much as I’d like. I read the first book in the series last year and then the second one this year. So at the rate I’m going, I won’t remember any of the characters at all. ;)
arrieve
One thing that interested me in the Alan Grant books as opposed to The Franchise Affair and Miss Pym is the witty narrative voice Tey uses. I enjoyed it, but especially in The Man in the Queue it sometimes felt like she was using up clever observations she’d been saving for years.
She doesn’t do this at all in Miss Pym Disposes–she could have been clever at the expense of some of those characters, but she sticks with Miss Pym’s POV and the characterizations are much better as a result.
This is the kind of thing I mean–from The Man in the Queue:
From A Shilling for Candles:
Jess
@Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom: Just read up on the Tichborne case. What a crazy story! I can see it inspiring Tey, but I really don’t see how BF was based on it, except in the broadest sense. The characters and timing are so different. It’s somewhat believable that an adult could convincingly pose as a lost 13-year-old boy, especially since Brat had such a strong family resemblance. But once a person is a fully formed adult, I can’t see them successfully being impersonated by another to family members. The mother in the Tichborne case must have been so blinded by her longing for her son that she couldn’t see the absurdity of the imposter.
Jess
@arrieve: Good call! I agree. It’s been so long since I’ve read anything but BF that I can’t compare. But there’s a reason I haven’t reread the others as often…
Jess
@Suzanne: Well there you go! There are plenty of recaps in the books following, which get annoyingly repetitive if you read them one after the other. Some of the character arcs get too extreme for me; I feel like the narrative is driving the characters rather than the other way around. But they’re still a wonderful read. Has anyone read the book she did with Hilary Clinton? Is it worth a read?
Jess
Checking out now to eat my (belated) dinner…
Cheers!
Jess
Torrey
@Jess: Caution, though. Tryon leans a bit towards the horror side rather than pure mystery. Or rather, his mysteries contain a dose of horror. Not of the Stephen King type, where the horror hits you over the head. Rather, his stories leave one unsettled precisely due to the addition of horror as a sort of seasoning, an ingredient, to use a culinary metaphor, but not the main one in the dish. It’s been noted that one of the things one looks for in the traditional (Golden Age type) mystery, of the Christie/Sayers/Allingham/Tey type is a feeling of relief at the end when a solution is found and order is restored. (Well, order of a sort, as we’ll see in a couple of weeks.) Tryon’s mysteries don’t leave one feeling entirely relieved. At least, that’s been my experience.
stinger
Miss Pym Disposes and Brat Farrar, as well as DoT, have always been my Tey faves.
Daphne du Maurier also tackled the subject of look-alikes in The Scapegoat. I loved The Other — when I got to the last page, I shouted “HOW did he DO that?” (the “he” being Tryon) and immediately turned back to p. 1 and reread most of the book. It’s a different treatment of impersonation and how much the reader is privy to than either Tey or du Maurier — I like all three!
Feathers
Read Brat Farrar a decade ago. Adored it. Apparently the Hammer horror film Paranoiac was “loosely” based on it. Saw that probably two decades ago. Had no recollection of it when I read Brat Farrar.
Read The Franchise Affair last year. Did enjoy it. The village life was fascinating to read about. I had unmarried great aunts who all retired to the family home and lived together, so the sisters felt very real. Most books botch the irresponsible person who causes all the trouble, but Tey handled it well.
The Franchise Affair is based on the Elizabeth Canning case. If anyone wants to learn more about that, the SheDunnit podcast has an episode on it, as well as a biographical one on Tey, and one on the Tichborne case. In the episode Crampton talks about how it inspired all sorts of someone coming forward to claim an inheritance mystery novels. Sometimes the inspiration is just in the setup for the story. There are quite a few episodes on crimes that inspired mystery novels. These murders are mentioned quite often in other books of the time, so knowing about “the brides in the bath” does come in handy.
Read Miss Pym Disposes last week. Quite a remarkable book. I must confess that I reread The Daughter of Time before the last discussion and found I truly disliked a book which I had previously loved. I think some of that rubbed off on my reading of Pym.
Pym is a very strange book. Miss Pym is famous for writing a bestselling book (textbook?) on psychology, although she has no training or experience in the field. That didn’t worry me as people, especially women, were shunted away from serious study, and psychology is a field where a talented amateur can often be as insightful as a highly trained professional who has no knack for understanding their fellow humans. But Miss Pym turns out to be wrong about almost everything. I didn’t feel an authorial commentary behind it, that she was being offered for our edification. Her racism about the Irish, the Welsh, Latins, and anyone who deviated from being the proper British upper middle class was disconcerting. I know we see it in Christie, but if you look at which characters are being awful, they are usually the sorts of people I would expect to hear racist garbage from today. But we are seeing the novel through Miss Pym’s eyes, so there really isn’t any authorial distance from these views. It’s fascinating that Desterro, the ‘nut tart,’ is far more insightful than Miss Pym about the psychological goings-on at Leys. The ending is utterly tragic, but Miss Pym seems to be even more attached to “character as betrayed by facial characteristics” than she was at the beginning of the book. Frustrating read, but the tragedy of it, combined with the learning nothing from it, will stick with me.
@arrieve: If you like the look at life in a small English town, I recommend E.C.R. Lorac’s Fell Murder. Note: ‘fell’ here is the land above the timberline, in the UK usually scrubland used for common grazing. The book is set in Lancaster, near the Lake District. Published in 1944, it really is a wonderful portrait of a way of life about to disappear. There ends up being two detectives working on the case (one Lorac’s series detective on vacation), one of whom is able to gain the villager’s trust, the other completely alienates them.
Tehanu
It’s been a long time since I read any of these, but I always loved Brat Farrar — not because of the “mystery,” but because the characters are so distinctive and memorable, and the way Tey shows how Brat’s arrival up-ends everything for the family — both those who want him there and those who don’t. The only false note to my modern ear — and as I said, it’s been a long time & my memory may not be quite accurate — is the portrayal of Tony, the Italian kid taking riding lessons, as basically a rather mean comic stereotype. I do remember, on a trip to England back in the 1980s, a woman who was a sort of personal tour guide for me at the Henley Regatta, telling me the expression “NQOSD” — which stood for “Not quite our sort, dear.” After Brexit I think there definitely is still quite a lot of that classist stuff around, 40 years later.
H.E.Wolf
@SiubhanDuinne:
Thank you for continuing the Tey series of posts!
Whenever I re-read The Man in the Queue, I remind myself that an author’s first book is not necessarily their strongest; and in addition, The Man in the Queue (published in 1929) is a long way in time from our present moment.
I remind myself of those two points when I re-read Whose Body? (1923) by Dorothy Sayers, as well.
I still like both of those books more than the other English mystery novels of the 1920s that I’ve read. And granted, taste in reading material is a very subjective thing – my closest friends don’t always like the same books that I do.
Jess
@Torrey: I like unsettled! I’m even more likely to check it out now!