Antigua, Penny, Puce / They Hanged My Saintly Billy

Antigua, Penny, Puce, a barbed tale of sibling rivalry, owes its title to a never-issued one-penny puce-and-white stamp from Antigua with George VI's portrait on it and three puce pigs eating at a puce trough. Jane and Oliver are the siblings who fight for possession of the stamp. Bringing the fight into their adult lives, and after a series of venomous letters, they begin a lawsuit to determine the rightful owner of the penny puce. But whatever the outcome, both are destined to lose. This work can be read as a political parable about colonialism and the conflict in Spain between Communists and Fascists. They Hanged My Saintly Billy was Graves's last major novel, and like much of his fiction, is based on fact. In this case the life of a notorious surgeon, racehorse owner, and confessed forger who got girls into trouble, doped horses, and robbed a few people is the subject of the Graves pen. But, this novel asks, was he a poisoner? The doctor's trial takes place in 1856, and the novel has all the immediacy and spiciness of contemporary life. It is told through interviews with the doctor's friends and foes, and all are involved in piecing the tale together.


Genre: Literary Fiction