Stephanie Barron, best known as the author of the intriguing Being a Jane Austen Mystery Series, here undertakes, with mixed results, a fictional account of the life of Jennie Jerome, the American mother of Winston Churchill, notorious in her day for courting scandal as the wife of a dissolute British aristocrat and intimate of the Prince of Wales' set.
The lifestyle of the British aristocracy during late Victorian and Edwardian England is so different from our own times that it's hard to fathom or sympathize with many of Jennie's choices; in particular her indifferent and distant relationship with her young sons. But taken in the context of her time and class, she was not all that unusual. Aristocratic women of her day spent most of their time cultivating social relationships that would improve the status of their husbands and families. That was, in a sense, their reason for being. Children were consigned to the care of servants, and sent away to school at an early age. They might not see their parents for weeks or even months on end. Seen in that light, the ambitions and constraints that shaped Jennie's choices are more understandable.
Marriages were not love matches, but social, political and economic bargains. Lord Randolph Churchill was not the only British aristocrat who married for money because his family could not otherwise afford to continue a lifestyle they considered their birthright.
Lord Randolph Churchill died of syphilis in 1895. His widow continued to attract notoriety. In 1900, Jennie Churchill married George Cornwallis West. He was the same age as her son Winston. They divorced in 1914. In 1918, she married for the third time, to Montagu Phippen Porch, a man three years younger than Winston. Jennie died in 1921. Porch lived until 1964, a year before Winston Churchill's death in 1965.
Would Jennie Jerome/Lady Randolph Churchill still be so intriguing to us if she had not been the mother of Winston Churchill? Probably not --- but by her son's own witness, she had a lasting influence on one of the most pivotal men in western history.
Click HERE to read the New York Times review.
Click HERE to read the review in Publishers Weekly.
Click HERE to read the review in Kirkus Reviews.
Click HERE to read the review from austenprose.com
Click HERE to read the review from the Magic of History blog.
Click HERE to read about Jennie Churchill;s life from Wikipedia.
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| Lady Randolph Churchill, c. 1880 |
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