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Title: Undermajordomo Minor

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Patrick deWitt

Narrator: Simon Prebble

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-15-15

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 181 votes

Genres: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Fantasy: Paranormal

Publisher's Summary:

From the best-selling, Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Sisters Brothers comes a brilliant and boisterous novel that reimagines the folk tale.

A love story, an adventure story, a fable without a moral, and an ink-black comedy of manners, Undermajordomo Minor is Patrick deWitt's long-awaited follow-up to the internationally best-selling and critically acclaimed novel The Sisters Brothers.

Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, Lucy is a compulsive liar, a sickly weakling in a town famous for producing brutish giants. Then Lucy accepts employment assisting the Majordomo of the remote, foreboding Castle Von Aux.

While tending to his new post as Undermajordomo, Lucy soon discovers the place harbors many dark secrets, not least of which is the whereabouts of the castle's master, Baron Von Aux. He also encounters the colorful people of the local village - thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and Klara, a delicate beauty whose love he must compete for with the exceptionally handsome soldier, Adolphus. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery, and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of human behavior is laid bare for our hero to observe.

Undermajordomo Minor is an adventure, a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behavior, but above all it is a love story, and Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing.

Members Reviews:

Great yarn and very well read

Superior reading makes this funny bit of magical realism all the more enjoyable. Would make a good intro to the world of audible books

Sometimes a train is just a train

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a hole is just a hole. Sometimes a book is just meh.

If I were to choose one word for this novel it would be underwhelmed. If I were to choose two words for this novel the second would be cute. Cute works for puppies. It also works for babies. For me, however, cute doesn't work on its own for novels.

Look, I don't want to be too hard on Patrick deWitt. I really liked both 'Ablutions: Notes for a Novel' and 'The Sisters Brothers'. That is why I read the d@mn thing. And there were parts of it I liked. It just seemed a bit too trite, too uneven, boring, and again too cute. Even a candle in @ss (I won't delve deeper to ruin the surprise) in this book seems cute. The debauchery of castle elites just isn't what it used to be. The thrill is gone. The castles are closed. The holes hide no hermits.

So, if you've never read deWitt. Go read 'The Sister Brothers'. It is a better book and keeps the style, but drops the cute.

meh

I wasn't a fan of any of the characters. The storyline was weak BUT it wasn't long.

LUST AND LOVE

Human lust and love simmer in Undermajordomo Minor. From a males point of view, Patrick deWitt has written a fantasy about an ancient time of castles, counts, and countesses reflecting on lust and love through the ages. The story suggests men are liars, and women are enablers; with the sexes meeting in lust and, at least in one case, growing into love.

The main character is a man named Lucy. Listeners meet Lucy as an unloved child nearing death. Lucy is visited on what appears to be his deathbed by a mysterious stranger that asks him what he wants out of life. Lucy says he wants something different.