As Deputy Editor of The Paris Review and an ambassador of New York’s creative culture, few litterateurs are as versed in the niceties of social discourse as Sadie Stein. The young sophisticate’s tact invokes that of Mildred Lathbury, protagonist of Barbara Pym’s 1952 comedy of manners Excellent Women. Can the seemingly unflappable Lathbury maintain composure as her paranoid hostess, Mrs. Bone, rails an insane vendetta against The Dominion of the Birds? Watch, and try to keep from giggling into your sherry.
CLICK FOR STEIN’S Q&A ABOUT THE SUBTLE HUMOR OF BARBARA PYM.
Illustration from ‘Orrible Murder: Victorian Crime and Passion, by Leonard de Vries
