BOOK REVIEW: Troy Chimneys by Margaret Kennedy

If you’re interested in reading a historical novel set in Regency Era England that is not a Regency Romance, you can’t do any better than Margaret Kennedy’s 1953 book, Troy Chimneys. Written as a somewhat fortuitously discovered cache of an ancestor’s papers (papers located in 1879, authored in 1818 about a life lived 1782-1818), this work of fiction can easily be mistaken for a real-life tale.

The protagonist, Miles Lufton, is a good-looking, intelligent, talented “nobody.” His father was a country parson and his mother was a sweet-natured parson’s wife. As a boy, Miles lived so sheltered and happy a life, that he didn’t realize his lack of birth and property would condemn him always to being seen as an inferior by gentlemen and ladies (even by quite minor gentry.) His own cousin, Ned, is a country squire and therefore, a cut above, even though Miles feels himself superior in every tangible way. It isn’t until he is sent off to school that he begins to learn the unfair, unkind ways of the world. He discovers that in order to be even a hanger-on in the company of his “betters,” he can’t lead the leisurely lifestyle that they do. He needs to make a living. So early on, he adopts a charming, worldly, and very ingratiating persona that allows him to circulate in aristocratic company. He earns the nickname “Pronto,” a name that galls him, but that he nevertheless answers to. And ever afterward, he leads two lives. He makes his way up to MP (member of Parliament) thanks to the preferment of friends. He has a good income. He even buys a house. (This house is “Troy Chimneys.”) But writing his memoirs while recuperating from a fall, Miles tries to separate his real self from the false self that he both despises and leans upon. During the course of this memoir, the reader learns of a terribly misguided love affair in Miles’ youth. And a heart-breaking thwarted love in his adult life. And everything circles around to a tremendously sad ending. The life of an almost forgotten man. And yet, this novel is infused with humor and pithy insights throughout -- it is not a depressing book at all.

The narrative is framed by letters about Miles, but in the context of looking for information about someone supposedly more important and interesting. And the narrative itself consists of a couple of Miles’ letters, and his attempts at writing an autobiography, a journal, and his memoirs. The artistic device reminds me somewhat of Hernan Diaz’s Trust, a novel I also thought was superb. 

I love when older novels are brought out again for new generations to enjoy. Troy Chimneys was re-released in 2022, so it’s readily available. I found it through an instagram post. Though I can’t remember whose, I’m grateful for it. This is a book I’d like to turn right around and read again