Mrs. Queen Takes the Train
After decades of service and years of watching her family's troubles splashed across the tabloids, Queen Elizabeth needs some proper cheering up. An impromptu visit to the place that holds her happiest memories - the former royal yacht, Britannia, moored in Leith, Scotland - is just the cure she needs. Hidden beneath a skull-emblazoned hoodie, the limber Elizabeth (thank goodness for yoga) walks out of Buckingham Palace, into the freedom of a rainy London day to catch the train to Scotland at King's Cross. But an unlikely sextet of royal attendants-a lady-in-waiting, a butler, an equerry, a mistress of the Mews, a dresser, and a clerk from the shop that serves the queen's cheese - join together to find their missing monarch and bring her back before her absence sets off a national scandal.
Mrs Queen Takes the Train offers a fresh new look at a seemingly arcane institution, and a woman who wonders if, she, too, has become a relic of the past. William Kuhn paints a charming yet biting portrait of British social, political, and generational rivalries - between servants and royals, the monarchy and the government, the old and the young. Humorous and poignant, fast-paced and clever, this delightful debut tweaks the pomp of the British monarchy, going beneath its rigid formality to reveal the human heart of the woman at its center.
Review: I won a copy of this book as a giveaway on Goodreads.
Mrs. Queen Takes the Train is a quirky and comedic imaginary tale of Queen Elizabeth's impromptu jaunt outside of the palace and royal life for a day. Disguised in a hoodie, The Queen sets off alone to visit her formal royal yacht, Brittania. Meanwhile, she creates quite a bit of alarm amongst her household staff, six of which come searching for her including Shirley MacDonald, Lady Anne Bevil, Luke Thomason, William de Morgan, Rajiv Laroia, and Rebecca Rinaldi. These individuals serve as her ladies' maid, lady in waiting, equerry, butler, cheese shop employee, and mews employee respectively.
I did not anticipate the almost Downtown Abbey-esque quality of this book, where significant portions of the narrative are from the perspectives of The Queen's staff and the reader gets to learn a lot about six of her household members. However, this was my favorite part of this book and I think it both humanized the royal household and give a fictional insider perspective of how the royal household operates and the social structure within the palace. I felt a lot of empathy for the servants, who almost all of which seemed to have lonely lives without spouses or children and faced a retirement with little resources. For example, ladies' maid Shirley looks after her aging grandmother, who was a laundress for the royal household, forcing Shirley to confront what her own old age might look like: "All the kitchen surfaces were sticky. The plastic flowers had a permanent layer of dust on them. The cotton bathroom mats in cheerful colors smelled faintly of pee" (96).
This novel had an interesting, non-linear structure which allows the reader to see flashbacks where The Queen is talking to a young Charles and Diana as their marriage dissolves and see William de Morgan being interviewed as a young butler by The Queen's sister, his first royal appointment. I think in some ways this novel humanizes The Queen and makes her seem less like the institution we know and more like a woman doing her best at the job she was given: "She is the emblem of everything we associate with continuity and correctness. In a secular era, she is the last thing that is sacred" (157). By showing the Queen strolling about a black hoodie with a skull and crossbones emblem, and reminiscing on her life, she seems more real and not simply a symbol.
Yet while parts of this make The Queen more human, such as when she reflects on her marriage ("But it wasn't a sentimental romance. It was more like a battered estate wagon in which they bounced along together" (170)), at other times her character seems more like a caricature that is being used for comedic affect. She becomes a perhaps confused, definitely eccentric old woman wandering around without consideration of others. "She felt a sudden revival of clarity about who she was and what she was doing. What she had done. 'You were all looking for me, weren't you?'" (310). Poking fun at the queen by having her possibly senile and being mistaken for homeless surely cannot please the actual Queen herself and could easily be considered disrespectful to the living monarch.
Kuhn has tried to imagine how a woman who has been treated as royalty her life would respond to the real life of the United Kingdom. Although his interpretation, where Elizabeth blunders with money, transportation, and understanding everyday social conventions is likely accurate for someone's first go at trying out the real world, it does result in making the queen seem foolish and the main source of comedy. In return, it makes her household staff seem like much more well-rounded and accessible characters. On the other hand, I recognize that Kuhn's use of The Queen as comedy is also largely intentional, such as when she loving calls her dogs darling and frequently references yoga poses: "Happy Baby. Yes. Yoga pose. You roll on the floor, while holding your legs in the air and massage your back. Relaxes you no end" (320).
I was sort of puzzled by the inclusion of around 15 pictures in this novel. Some, such as a picture of the Queen on holiday, are referenced in the text and make sense to include. Yet others, such as a picture of a badger when it comes up in the narrative, and a picture of a sink filled with dirty dishes when The Queen is shown cleaning up a kitchen, make this feel like a picture book. The inclusion of these pictures, in addition to The Queen's imaginary journey, reminded me of the typical plot of a children's book.
Review: 3 stars
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