He sees himself as the hero of a story, but doesn’t know what it will be about. Lucy is weedy, cowardly and an inveterate liar, but he is also immensely likeable. The novel tells the story of Lucien “Lucy” Minor, a young man who, on the death of his father, leaves his village to take up a job as “undermajordomo” at a nearby Gothic castle. It’s also a place in which the limits of genre are explored: where The Sisters Brothers took as its source the western, Undermajordomo Minor is a kind of uproariously perverted fairy tale. DeWittland is a place of exaggerated, creeping horror a place populated by unfeeling characters who engage in bouts of baroque violence above all a place suffused with grim humour. With Undermajordomo Minor the contours of the deWittian landscape have come into sharper relief. And Lucy must be careful, for love is a violent thing.The Sisters Brothers, Patrick deWitt’s critically acclaimed second novel, was a hyper-violent western told in a deadpan style. It is an adventure story, and a mystery, and a searing portrayal of rural Alpine bad behaviour with a brandy tart, but above all it is a love story. Undermajordomo Minor is a triumphant ink-black comedy of manners by the Man Booker-shortlisted author of The Sisters Brothers. Lucy must stay safe, and protect his puppy, because someone or something is roaming the corridors of the castle late at night. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of human behaviour is laid bare for our hero to observe. He also meets Klara, a delicate beauty who is, unfortunately, already involved with an exceptionally handsome partisan soldier. When Lucy accepts employment assisting the majordomo of the remote, forbidding castle of the Baron Von Aux he meets thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and a puppy. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, he is a compulsive liar and a melancholy weakling.

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

Undermajordomo minor review