Do admit! The Mitford sisters and me

One of modern history's most flamboyantly dysfunctional families comes to gossipy life in this irresistible biography from Pond (The Customer Is Always Wrong). Born to an aristocratic but insolvent English family in the first decades of the 20th century, the six Mitford sisters grow up sharp-witted, strong-willed, and eccentric. "Deborah, as a child, spent many hours in the family chicken house practicing the exact expression of a hen about to lay an egg," Pond notes in one of countless bizarre anecdotes. In adulthood, the sisters become a novelist and historian (Nancy), a Communist and muckraking journalist (Jessica), a duchess (Deborah), a poultry breeding enthusiast (Pamela), and Nazi sympathizers (Diana and Unity, whose personal connections with Hitler were scandalous at the time). "They each had a talent for shaping entertaining narratives and for making their lives seem epic," Pond writes, "which they were." Pond intermittently compares the Mitfords' soap-operatic lives with her own upbringing in Southern California in the 1960s and '70s, dreaming of glamour and longing for even one sister. Her witty art, drawn in inky blue, imbues the characters with personality, and the ingenious page layouts comment on the subject matter: the sisters' finishing school days, for example, are represented with machinery processing girls for the marriage market. It's an off-kilter trip through the 20th century that readers won't want to miss. Agent: Paul Bresnick, Bresnick Weil Literary. (Sept.)

Six insouciant sisters captivate the author. Cartoonist Pond (Over Easy,The Customer Is Always Wrong) weaves glimpses of her own life into an entertaining group biography of the notorious, eccentric Mitford sisters--Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah. Growing up in suburban Southern California in the 1960s, Pond envied girls who had sisters rather than her boorish brothers; she envied, too, the Mitford girls' rebelliousness, glamour, and sophistication. Born between 1904 and 1920, the sisters spent their childhood isolated on their family's vast estate, each inhabiting "an island unto themselves." Politically, they emerged with diametrically different views: Diana and Unity became unabashed fascists. At the age of 22, Diana divorced her husband to carry on an affair with Oswald Moseley, head of the British Union of Fascists, whom she eventually married. Unity, an ardent admirer of Hitler, went to Germany to meet him and soon, to her family's horror, published a scandalous letter denouncing Jews. Jessica, on the other hand, touted communism and socialism. With Esmond Romilly (a nephew of Winston Churchill), she left home to aid in the Spanish Civil War. Defying her furious parents, they married and moved to the U.S.; she became a widow when Esmond was killed during World War II, and she later married a lawyer who shared in her labor and civil rights activism. Jessica made her name writing exposés, the first beingThe American Way of Death, skewering the funeral home industry. Nancy was the first to make her mark as an author, writing satirical novels that offended several members of her family. Pond recounts the sisters' marriages, divorces, affairs, pregnancies, miscarriages, occupations, and preoccupations, all set in the context of the turbulent times in which they lived: "Across the scope of the entire 20th century," Pond writes, "was the Mitford Circus." Whimsical cartoons reveal passionate lives. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.