Mimi Pond’s graphic biography of the Mitford Sisters contains all the ingredients of a social, cultural, political and familial potboiler. The upper crust of English society, its curious mores and morality—including its lean toward Nazism during World War II—is embodied in each member of this sextet, from fascist-sympathizing parents to the parade of eclectic men who married and divorced the sisters. Born with pedigrees, the Mitfords were no strangers to lies, intrigue or scandal like so much of the manner born. Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica and Deborah were, in various degrees, duchesses of dirt.
Pond’s hefty cartoon biography breaks many of the graphic novel conventions. Panel narratives explode into lettering extravaganzas as she jumps from sister to sister in their guided and misguided pursuits with men, ideas and aristocratic conventions. I’ve long been fascinated by the Mitfords’ hijinx—the schism within their own family between fascist and communist, for one. And then there’s Jessica Mitford’s progressive commitment as activist, journalist and social critic.
This is, at times, not the easiest book to navigate, but it’s well worth the effort. I asked Pond to explain more about her passion for the material and why, if at all, she identifies with the family on some deep level. Her responses are as enjoyable as the book itself.
You worked for six years on this book. Why did you devote yourself to this subject?
As I said in the book, my parents read [Jessica Mitford’s expose] The American Way of Death when it came out in 1963, and never shut up about it. They joined the Neptune Society and my mother, a class-A tightwad, saved 90% on the cost of her own cremation. They LOVED Jessica Mitford. So I read the book. I was an adult living in NYC before someone said to me, “You know, there are other sisters …” I began reading Nancy Mitford’s books, and then, as they came out, all the other books about and by them—Hons and Rebels, The Mitford Girls, The Six, the various bios of them individually, Deborah Mitford’s Wait for Me, the collected letters. Frankly I was so obsessed with them it was putting a strain on my marriage because I wouldn’t shut up about them when people came over. I finally decided to channel the obsession.
As family sagas go, the Mitford clan and those adjacent offer a lot of meaty material. What are the most significant parts of their lives for you?
I think Jessica’s was significant from beginning to end! Unity’s of course was her involvement with Hitler. Diana’s was once she got involved with [Union of British Fascist founder] Oswald Mosley and was eventually imprisoned. They were the most hated couple in Britain for a while—then, in her dotage, everyone decided to give Diana a pass because she was so beautiful. Do search Diana Mosley Desert Island Discs on YouTube. Her accent makes the Queen sound like Dolly Parton. Nancy really took off after Pursuit of Love, living her dream in Paris with hit after hit—even if her love life was sub-prime, she was doing exactly as she pleased. Debo’s masterminding the restoration of Chatsworth House and turning it into a profitable concern really brought out her managerial talents, as well as her flair for design. And Pam? Pam is an enigma but I’d have to say her late-in-life lesbianism probably helped her define herself, though she never spoke a word about it. That’s when she became such a poultry expert!
A friend of mine was friends with Decca Mitford in San Francisco. They were both involved with left-wing causes. You seem to have spent considerable time exploring her life. Was she the most compelling personality for you?
Decca was the most compelling to me because unlike her sisters she was not “of her time.” She was so far ahead of the times it wasn’t funny. She could see that racism was bad for everyone. She hated inequality. She toiled ceaselessly for civil rights. She fronted for Black families buying homes over and over. She was a very hard worker in everything that she did. Even with the loss of a husband and two children and two siblings, she just kept going. She saw the absurdity of the aristocracy when all her other sisters were willing to just go along with it because it worked for them. She had no problem having friends of all colors. She embraced America and democracy. She became very American, and yet she was smart enough to work the posh accent when it suited her! She was opportunistic in the best way. The audacity of her waltzing into Bennett Cerf’s office and charming him with that accent as he baldly indicted himself—he’d already published American Way of Death, he should have known better!
Your visual narrative is expressed in many different ways; you use the traditional panels of a comic but also employ newspaper tropes to help advance your words. What were your reasons for so much visual diversity?
The Pinterest app has become my best friend. People think of it as a place you go to plan your wedding but it’s just a digital cork board. Here’s the thing no one talks about: Most graphic biographies are nothing but endless panels of talking heads. I wanted to avoid that as much as possible and I wanted to keep the reader hooked, so I wanted as much variety as I could manage to keep people turning the pages. Once I began collecting images that inspired me, the algorithm and I became friends. Even when I was out of ideas, I could go to Pinterest and scroll and it would eventually show me something that got me going again. Sometimes it was a matter of wordplay that suggested images. Also, I love type and typography and graphic design, and I needed to convey emotion when appropriate, and there are so many good ways to do that.
There are points along the way when you include flashbacks of you as a grammar schoolgirl. What was the reason, or what was your personal connection to the Mitford story?
I thought it was important for me to show a personal connection to the subject matter. I’d always romanticized the English—maybe it was the Beatles—but also the fantasy of the royal family appealed to me because it was so utterly opposite to my life. My life lacked pageantry. I was kind of obsessed with the idea of rich people because I didn’t know any at all. It seemed pretty relatable. I had done that story about the Prime of Miss Jean Brody and showed it to a few people and they were insistent that I work it into the book. Also let’s face it, the contrast between 1960s working-class San Diego and Britain between the wars?
I thought Decca’s entire story was worth telling, but particularly the whole fascism vs. communism thing and the insane audacity of Unity successfully stalking Hitler and being his little pal is so beyond imagining—and then Nancy dropping a dime on Diana and Diana not finding out about that until Nancy was dead is really killer.
There are so many characters (with so many nicknames) that add both color and confusion to a complex story. What aspects of the Mitford sisters’ lives did you find most important to convey?
I went to art school, so my entire imaginary doctorate is studying these women and learning all about 19th- and 20th-century history through that lens. I prefer to hear the stories of women in history because that’s when history is relatable. All those dull lessons about dates and places, battle strategy and troop movement are so much white noise to me. I would say it’s personalities that make history come to life. If I’d learned in high school that DeGaulle was just this one really weird guy who got called “the asparagus” in high school, stood up to fascism and said, “I’M FRANCE,” it would have been so much more compelling. So I hope this book brings people around more to appreciating history because history is so much fun! And I hope they appreciate that women contribute as much to history as men do. And I hope they appreciate how much these 6 sisters were in every way involved in just about every aspect of the entire 20th century.
What do you hope the reader will take away from your book?
I’m still utterly flummoxed by the very idea of the aristocracy, and it’s still got an iron grip on their imagination. I mean, for some Brits it totally floats their boats that someone is from this family or that lineage. I enjoy reading about royal family drama because it’s a juicy fairy tale and so utterly fucked up, but it’s the same as reading movie star biographies—something so far out of your realm that you can only imagine, and who knows what’s really true? So, for British culture the royals and other aristos are their most enduring celebrity culture, but here, any asshole who wants it desperately enough can propel themselves into celebrityhood and it doesn’t matter who their parents were. It’s the good old American way!
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