Widower Major Ernest Pettigrew, a veteran of Her Majesty’s Service and a staunch upholder of all things British, is attracted to Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani matron who runs the village shop. No reader will be surprised that the members of the Major’s golf club aren’t impressed by his choice, nor is Jasmina’s family pleased that she has a British suitor. Ernest is expected to marry the local spinster (after a little not too genteel nudging by the ladies' circle) and Jasmina’s in-laws are expecting her to relinquish her shop to her nephew and ‘retire’ to the safety and servitude of family obligation. However, this is less a story of the plot than a character. And Simonson does an excellent job of rendering each of her characters - from the upright and moral major and his sometimes greedy and consistently unsure son Roger with his flip yet sympathetic American girlfriend to the lovely and wise Jasmina and her serious, scholarly, and equally greedy and unsure nephew Abdul - with great depth and flair.
The story of Major Pettigrew is one of the overcoming strict cultural norms to assert one’s humanity. Simonson treads carefully over cultural stereotypes, sometimes stepping over them, as she traces the unlikely friendship between a Pakistani shopkeeper and a crusty aging Englishman. The latter’s grief opens up a door unexpectedly, while the former’s generosity and wit lead her through it. To the horror of those around them, it threatens to develop into romance.
