Trif and Trixy: A Story of a Dreadfully Delightful Little Girl and Her Adoring and Tormented Parents, Relations, and Friends

The title announces everything: this is a book that knows exactly what it is. Trixy is seven years old, irrepressible, and wise beyond her years as only an only child of doting parents can be. Yet her family persists in calling her "the baby" - until her legendary deeds compel them to acknowledge she has a proper name after all. John Habberton captures something achingly true about the way families mythologize their children, refusing to see them grow until reality forces the point. Through Trixy's candid misunderstandings and devastatingly honest observations about the adults around her, the novel finds its comedy in the gap between what families believe about themselves and what a sharp-eyed child sees. Her mother Trif manages the exhausting, endearing work of raising a daughter who is both glorious and impossible. Around them orbits Trif's sister Fenie, whose romantic misadventures provide additional comedy, and a cast of relatives and friends whose pretensions crumble before a seven-year-old's unblinking gaze. The humor remains remarkably fresh, because the dynamics have not changed: families still adore and torment each other in equal measure, and children still see what adults work so hard to conceal. For readers who love Victorian domestic comedy, precocious child characters, and fiction that knows exactly how ridiculous families can be.