A Mixture of Frailties

The first-rate … abundantly funny conclusion to the Salterton Trilogy, following Leaven of Malice and Tempest-Tost (The New York Times). Louisa Bridgetower, the imposing Salterton matron, has died. The substantial income from her estate is to be used to send an unmarried young woman to Europe to pursue an education in the arts. Mrs. Bridgetower’s executors end up selecting Monica Gall, an almost entirely unschooled singer whose sole experience comes from performing with the Heart and Hope Gospel Quartet, a rough outfit sponsored by a small fundamentalist group. Monica soon finds herself in England, a pupil of some of Britain’s most remarkable teachers and composers, and she gradually blossoms from a Canadian rube to a cosmopolitan soprano with a unique–and tragicomic–career.

Davies is equally familiar with the world of the Canadian provinces and with that of musical London, and portrays both with rich humor and sympathetic understanding. –Chicago Tribune

Something of a virtuoso performance, this relies more on its wit than its warmth, but the musicianship is very knowledgeable and the fingerwork light. –Kirkus Reviews