Age has indeed withered the proprietress of London's Temple School for child actors, but custom has yet to stale her infinite, cadging variety. Freddie--born Frieda Wentworth--is Penelope Fitzgerald's most marvelous sacred monster, a woman insanely devoted to her art. Over several decades she has foiled debt collectors, creditors, and bailiffs at every turn. What matter if Freddie's Covent Garden redoubt is freezing and falling apart, her own office-cum-bedroom a haven for must and dust, mold and mothballs? When one would-be financier has the temerity to display a balance sheet, she orders him to put it away, "in the tone she used to the local flasher." After all, this force of theatrical nature can always rely on actors and theaters for desperate, last-minute donations. On the other hand, it is 1963, and the school is threatened by others specializing in film and TV training, but so far Freddie is sticking to her Shakespearean guns.

The Temple's permanent staff consists of an unskilled handyman and Freddie's assistant and dresser, the possibly malevolent Miss Blewett. Its acting coaches include a man who's made his career out of understudying Nana, the dog-nurse in Peter Pan. Needless to say, the students are not impressed. To further trim expenses, Freddie has hired two new teachers from Northern Ireland. One, Hannah Graves, is qualified; the other, Pierce Carroll, decidedly not--but Freddie hires him for other reasons: "She had heard in his remarks the weak, but pure, voice of complete honesty. She was not sure that she had ever heard it before, and thought it would be worth studying as a curiosity." These two innocents are in academic charge of the young thespians, an egomaniacal, mostly mendacious lot. (In a stage school, after all, insincerity is a good thing.) But Freddie's does house one genius: 9-year-old, unknowable Jonathan Kemp. Even his guinea pig inherits his bad luck, and is soon devoured by one of the theater district's roving felines. Jonathan seems destined to be overshadowed by Mattie Stewart (later Stewart Matthews), a showoff who at least has the grace--even if it is manifested in spurts of violence--to know himself inferior. Meanwhile, we watch Pierce fall in love, hopelessly, with his colleague. Alas, he hasn't a chance against the dissipated actor Boney Lewis, though Hannah tries not to destroy him: "At the corner, she gave him a hug and a kiss, as one does to a cousin, or to the inconsolable."

At Freddie's, Penelope Fitzgerald's 1982 parable of the talents, constantly shifts between such despair and high comedy. Many Fitzgerald-philes feel that she reached her apex in her three European novels--Innocence, The Beginning of Spring, and The Blue Flower. In fact, she had already arrived there with this perfect novel of ideas, ideals, and oddities. --Kerry Fried


Sunday Times, London
At Freddie's is strong, supple, human, ripe, generous, and graceful.


Anthony Thwaite, Observer
Mrs. Fitzgerald's special talent is stylistic, a mannered comic dryness that relishes absurdities without dwelling on them too long: she moves at speed, is full of dry observations and inventions, and at her best is very funny.


The Washington Post
Fiztgerald is a deft and nimble writer...[who] displays the English gift for understatement. Her apt phrases are tossed off casually; her humor is flicked at us airily. [At Freddie's] is intriguing to the end.


Review
"Mrs. Fitzgerald's special talent is stylistic, a mannered comic dryness that relishes absurdities without dwelling on them too long: she moves at speed, is full of dry observations and inventions, and at her best is very funny." -- Anthony Thwaite


The Boston Herald
At Freddie's is a charming novel, witty and engaging, and just the thing for a lazy summer afternoon.


Judy Astor, Listener
Occasionally one picks up a book and knows by the bottom of the page one that nothing but pleasure lies ahead. At Freddie's falls into that category. In three lines and a snatch of dialogue Penelope Fitzgerald can nail a character, in a paragraph conjure up a place and an atmosphere.


Francis King, Spectator
The ability to pace herself with the finesse of an Olympic gold-medallist is something Penelope Fitzgerald happily possesses. With At Freddie's she has both extended her territory and consolidated it. It is a true and strong work.


Review
"Mrs. Fitzgerald's special talent is stylistic, a mannered comic dryness that relishes absurdities without dwelling on them too long: she moves at speed, is full of dry observations and inventions, and at her best is very funny." -- Anthony Thwaite


Book Description
"Freddie's" is the familiar name of the Temple Stage School, which supplies London's West End theaters with child actors for everything from Shakespeare to musicals to the Christmas pantomime. Its proprietress, Freddie Wentworth, is a formidable woman of unknown age and murky background who brings anyone she encounters under her spell -- so common an occurrence that it is known as "being Freddied." At her school, we meet dour Pierce, a teacher hopelessly smitten with enchanting Hannah; Jonathan, a child actor of great promise, and his slick rival Mattie; and Joey Blatt, who has wicked plans to rescue Freddie's from insolvency. Up to its surprising conclusion, At Freddie's is thoroughly beguiling.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Freddie's" is the familiar name of the Temple Stage School, which supplies London's West End theaters with child actors for everything from Shakespeare to musicals to the Christmas pantomime. Its proprietress, Freddie Wentworth, is a formidable woman of unknown age and murky background who brings anyone she encounters under her spell -- so common an occurrence that it is known as "being Freddied." At her school, we meet dour Pierce, a teacher hopelessly smitten with enchanting Hannah; Jonathan, a child actor of great promise, and his slick rival Mattie; and Joey Blatt, who has wicked plans to rescue Freddie's from insolvency. Up to its surprising conclusion, At Freddie's is thoroughly beguiling.

FROM THE CRITICS