Undermajordomo Minor

by Patrick Dewitt

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From the bestselling, Man Booker–short-listed 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 bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Sisters Brothers.

Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury.… (more)

From the bestselling, Man Booker–short-listed author of The Sisters Brothers comes a brilliant and boisterous novel that reimagines the folk tale

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 being 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 for whose love he must compete 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 humanity 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.

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Fiction Literary American and Canadian literature

Editorial reviews (4 reviews)

Washington Independent Review of Books : Undermajordomo Minor (September 22, 2015)

The story is surprisingly straightforward and unadorned, though the prose oozes with that odd DeWitt charm that makes it compelling.

The New York Times : Patrick deWitt’s ‘Undermajordomo Minor’ (September 17, 2015)

My take on Patrick deWitt is that he is a thrilling writer likely to last past our own soon-to-be-bygone time.

SF Gate : ‘Undermajordomo Minor,’ by Patrick deWitt (September 17, 2015)

One of deWitt’s great strengths is to breathe life into characters with just a few quick strokes; yet in a story with dozens of characters, only a few are onstage long enough to gain much emotional weight.