Do you know Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons, published in 1932 and made into a very good movie in 1995? It is a delicious spoof of a British country Gothic, still quite popular at the time of the novel's original publication, usually involving some innocent sent down to stay with mad relatives with.. a... dark... secret.
"I saw something nasty in the woodshed." repeats Aunt Ida Starkadder, again and again.
Pictured is our own Sir Ian McKellen as Amos Starkadder,-- "Ye're all damned!" -- one of the mad Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm. Amos is a preacher for the Church of the Quivering Brethren, and it is this that made me think of the book and the film as a suggestion for further, fun reading. Poor Jeanette's Mother would be right at home among the Quivering Brethren, though I don't doubt she'd soon give them a good reason of her own for all that carrying on in Church.
Check it out.
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