Millionaire Housekeeping: A Novel

Under the guise of writing a handbook for the "elegant conduct" of a "millionaire philanthropist's" household, Mary-nicknamed Minette by the mistress's French maid-recounts her rise in one such New York establishment, from a fourteen-year-old dining hall maid in the 1930s to the superintending housekeeper by the 1960s. She's no Mrs. Hughes of "Downton Abbey," but fans of that show will see much that is familiar here: the author borrows extensively from the (real) 1903 handbook Millionaire H...