The Mistress of Nothing
-
-
4.1 • 8 Ratings
-
-
- $13.99
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
Kate Pullinger's Governor General's Literary Award-winning novel about a lady, her maid and the man that comes between them.
Lady Duff Gordon is the toast of Victorian London society but when she contracts tuberculosis, she and her devoted lady's maid, Sally, set sail for Egypt and an entirely new life. Sally and Lady Duff Gordon thrive in their new and exotic surroundings, learning Arabic, adopting native dress and visiting the tombs of ancient pharaohs.
Soon, Sally adapts to this new world and to the heady freedom she's never known before. But freedom and romance are luxuries a lady's maid can ill afford. When Sally yearns for more than her status entitles her to, she receives a brutal reminder that she is the mistress of nothing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Based on the real Lady Duff Gordon's journey to Egypt with her maid in the mid-19th century, Pullinger's novel brings a broiling desert landscape to life through the eyes of the working classes. Maid Sally Naldrett jumps at the opportunity to travel to the Middle East with her lady, but her fairy tale grows even more exquisite when she falls in love with the lady's interpreter and guide, Omar. The blithe domestic scene takes a turn for the worse when Sally becomes pregnant, much to Lady Duff Gordon's disappointment. As Egypt's lower classes rise up against the tyrannical khedive, Sally's position grows tenuous, forcing her to fend for herself and her half-English, half-Egyptian child in Cairo, a budding tourist town quickly shedding its history. Incorporating actual quotes from the real Lady Duff Gordon's letters, and endowing Sally with tremendous character, Pullinger successfully imagines an ordinary life in extraordinary circumstances.
