The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper by Phaedra Patrick is an adult contemporary novel. It follows the story of Arthur Pepper, who mourns for his dead wife but knows his mourning needs to end at some time or other. When he cleans out his late wife’s belongings, he finds a bracelet that takes him on a journey across the globe to find healing. Published in 2016 by MIRA, this is Patrick’s debut novel, which has since been widely critically praised. It has been optioned for television.

The novel opens with a day in the life of Arthur Pepper, a seventy-something widower who is struggling to move on from his wife, Miriam’s death a year ago. He sees very little of his two children, one of whom lives in Australia. All he has is his daily routine, which he can rely on to stay the same. His only companion is Bernadette, a younger neighbor who is waiting for her son to go off to college.

Arthur remembers it is the one-year anniversary of Miriam’s death and decides this is the right time to clean out her things and to try to start moving forward with his life. He finds one of Miriam’s boots and looks inside it where he discovers a bracelet he does not recognize. The bracelet has eight different charms: an elephant, a flower, a book, a painter’s palette, a tiger, a thimble, a heart, and a ring. Arthur does not understand the significance of the bracelet or the charms and wonders why she had it. But when he looks at it more closely, he discovers a telephone number engraved onto the elephant.



Arthur is compelled to phone the number to see who answers. A young man from India picks up and reveals Miriam was once his nanny. Miriam never told Arthur she lived in India and he begins to wonder what else she kept hidden. He wants to find out what else the bracelet stands for and decides to investigate. Bernadette accompanies him on his journey.

His journey takes him all over England. He spends a lot of time looking for clues behind the charms. Bernadette’s son is impressed by his spirit and his dedication to finding out more about Miriam. In this way, Arthur proves himself a good influence. Arthur even tags along with Bernadette’s son on trips to look at universities and a cross-generational friendship develops.

While in England, Arthur meets back up with his daughter, Lucy. He also meets a whole host of characters who played a role in Miriam’s life, once upon a time: a French novelist, an Indian doctor, an illegal immigrant, a tiger-obsessed nobleman, a homeless man, a French boutique owner, and a meddlesome neighbor. Arthur is determined to understand why each one was important to Miriam, or she was important to them.



He discovers a whole past Miriam did not tell him anything about. For example, one charm leads him to discover she had an affair with a French novelist, and another reveals she was a passenger in a car the night her boyfriend died. Arthur confides in Lucy that he is shocked Miriam hid so much from him, and they both wonder why she chose to do that.

What Arthur learns, upon reflection, is that the past did not mean much to Miriam, or at least not as much as the bracelet suggests. She moved on from it. He comes to accept that there was no malice in her choosing to simply not tell him details of her early life and that the past can and should remain in the past.

He then receives letters from an old friend of Miriam’s – the one who drove the car that fateful night. These letters are all love letters from Miriam to her boyfriend, telling him how much she loved him and wanted to be together forever. Arthur must decide how he feels about these letters and whether he truly believes the past is irrelevant to his life with her.



In the end, Arthur accepts that he needs to move on and burns the letters. He does not burn them out of badness, but rather as a symbol of his letting go of Miriam and everything. He is now ready to move on with his life and enjoy what remains of it. Arthur makes plans to visit Australia at Christmas to see his son, Dan, and Lucy will go with him. But first, Arthur journeys to India, where it seems it all began, to meet the boy Miriam once looked after.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper explores what it is like to let go of the past and what it means to love someone. In the end, Arthur puts his life back together and rebuilds his relationship with his children when he stops living in the past and focuses on the future. He is a positive influence on others within the novel and achieves what he set out to achieve.