Snobs

By: Julian Fellowes

Narrated by: Julian Fellowes

Julian Fellowes, creator of the Emmy-Award winning TV series Downton Abbey, established himself as an irresistible storyteller and a deliciously witty chronicler of modern manners in his first novel, Snobs, a wickedly astute portrait of the intersecting worlds of aristocrats and actors.

"The English, of all classes as it happens, are addicted to exclusivity. Leave three Englishmen in a room and they will invent a rule that prevents a fourth joining them."

The best comedies of manners are often deceptively simple, seamlessly blending social critique with character and story. In his superbly observed first novel, Julian Fellowes, winner of an Academy Award for his original screenplay of Gosford Park, brings us an insider's look at a contemporary England that is still not as classless as is popularly supposed.

Edith Lavery, an English blonde with large eyes and nice manners, is the daughter of a moderately successful accountant and his social-climbing wife. While visiting his parents' stately home as a paying guest, Edith meets Charles, Earl of Broughton, and heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, who runs the family estates in East Sussex and Norfolk. To the gossip columns he is one of the most eligible young aristocrats around.

When he proposes. Edith accepts. But is she really in love with Charles? Or with his title, his position, and all that goes with it?

One inescapable part of life at Broughton Hall is Charles's mother, the shrewd Lady Uckfield, known to her friends as "Googie" and described by the narrator---an actor who moves comfortably among the upper classes while chronicling their foibles---"as the most socially expert individual I have ever known at all well. She combined a watchmaker's eye for detail with a madam's knowledge of the world." Lady Uckfield is convinced that Edith is more interested in becoming a countess than in being a good wife to her son. And when a television company, complete with a gorgeous leading man, descends on Broughton Hall to film a period drama, "Googie's" worst fears seem fully justified.

Includes a bonus interview with Julian Fellowes, the Academy Award-winning author of Gosford Park.©2004 Julian Fellowes (P)2005 Audio Renaissance

Critic reviews

“Provocative, titillating, and seductive.” —The Spectator

“Sparklingly rompish...As long as this world does still exist, Fellowes is a delectable guide to its absurdities.” —Sunday Times (London)

“Illustrated with some cherishably nasty, Gosford Park-style scenes of aristocratic point-scoring...[One] of those books one imagines being sent up to Balmoral...where it will be proclaimed divinely funny and quite amazingly true to life.” —The Guardian

The grass looks greener

Portrait of unhappy housewife who doesn’t appreciate reaching her fantasy of living with the upper classes.

Mr Fellowes is the best...

Who better to read Julian Fellowes’ words than Julian Fellowes himself? I especially appreciatw the brief interview at the end.

Entertaining perspective on privilege from one who knows the subject matter

Fellowes paints a truly modern landscape of the yearning for status and approval in English society At times his narrator displays a maddening detachment from the troubles surrounding people who wrestle with their inner demons. But, in spite of one's discomfort at the story's straying toward the unfortunate - and cruel - means by which social and romantic agendas are put forth, the story fulfills the listeners needs to eavesdrop onto a scene that is outside most people's usual daily orbit. Snobs has its share of laughs, mostly due to Fellowe's deft reckoning of how time shapes and changes the physical and emotional meanings of heartache and love.