Muv: The Story of the Mitford Girls’ Mother

This slippery account from journalist Trethewey (Mothers of the Mind) seeks to reevaluate Sydney Bowles Mitford, the mother of the six “eccentric” Mitford sisters. Trethewey pushes back against previous depictions—some penned by her own daughters—that cast Sydney (1880–1963) as foolish or cold, while also wrestling with the implications of her lifelong support for Hitler. Beginning with her youth spent in thrall to her “charismatic, self-made” father, Trethewey paints Sydney as stubborn but loving. She tracks Sydney into marriage—to the irascible David “Farve” Mitford—and early motherhood, attempting to show that the Mitford home was mostly happy by favoring the more upbeat recollections of the younger daughters as opposed to elder girls’ discontent, and humanizing the well-heeled family by poking fun at Farve’s poor business insticts. But as WWII looms, the author’s insistent evenhandedness begins to strain—Sydney’s open support for Hitler is chalked up to a fundamental naivete, though elsewhere the author defends her shrewdness. Throughout, this history presupposes a false binary between good parenting and bad politics, and between the readers’ capacity for censure and sympathy. Trethewey’s central argument, that Sydney’s “maverick inheritance” and “genuine devotion” had a powerful effect on her daughters, tracks—but the notion that Sydney herself “had the potential to be a rebel” is not convincing. It’s an uneven attempt at an unnecessary reclamation. (Mar.)