Review: The Jane Austen Society

The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Did you know that Jane Austen's novels were often prescribed reading for those suffering from trauma after WWI? It might seem odd but many a writer has pondered this. Austen, who wrote during the era of the Napoleonic Wars, has only passing references to military service as part of the fabric of British life, society, and work in her novels. Her novels highlight relationships that are civil, nurturing, and often even quite affectionate. They were viewed as a tonic for the soul after a war and an influenza pandemic that caused great loss for many people.

(Her) model, (her) vision of human life, was not disturbed or agitated or changed by war. — Virginia Woolf on Jane Austen in "The Leaning Tower," in Virginia Woolf: The Moment & Other Essays

Natalie Jenner's debut novel The Jane Austen Society is a lovely book that illustrates how curative Jane Austen's novels are for a group of residents of the village of Chawton, Hampshire. We see the residents, and some of its famous visitors, find that reading (and rereading!) their most famous resident's works can heal broken spirits, hearts, and rekindle community. The novel begins in 1932 when actress Mimi (the name's really Mary Anne) Harrison encounters Adam Berwick when she becomes lost near Chawton looking for Jane Austen's residence, at which the Knight family, descendants of Jane's brother Edward Austen Knight, still resided. It is during this chance meeting that Mimi encourages Adam, who had lost two brothers in WWI and his father during the great influenza pandemic of 1918, to read Austen. Adam does indeed and finds that reading Austen makes the long winters with his difficult mother much more bearable. A decade later, Adeline Lewis, a teacher at Chawton who regularly encourages her students to read Austen, loses her husband in WWII. She is in her first trimester of pregnancy and leaves her teaching position not for lack of love of teaching but in advance of what she assumes will be her firing by the school board. Her physician, Dr. Benjamin Gray, is a widower who mourns the loss of his wife Jennie, who died from head trauma following a fall. He keeps an eye on Adeline but it isn't enough to spare her further loss and emotional devastation. Meanwhile, in the Knight residence, Frances Knight is increasingly withdrawn from society. Her miserable father is in the last years of his life and resents Frances for not having married and produced an heir in spite of his having derailed the marriage she wished to make. That beau, Andrew Forrester, is now her father James's lawyer and he is dealing with the heavy burden that Frances' father is making changes to his last will and testament that will not be kind to Frances. Meanwhile, her housemaid Evie, a young woman of only seventeen, has been meticulously cataloging the Knight family library late at night, examining the treasures of the original Austen-Knight library, following the inspiration of her beloved former teacher Adeline. The interface of all these characters forms the novel's rich story of people healing one another through their love of all things Austen.

This is a wonderful book to read in these strife-filled and uncertain times. It is gentle and filled with hope. It will make you want to go back and read Jane Austen's novels.

The audiobook is sublimely narrated by actor Richard Armitage. The audiobook has a bonus conversation between author Natalie Jenner and Kathleen A. Flynn, author of The Jane Austen Project.

I received an Advance Review Copy of this novel in digital and paperback form from the publisher, and the audiobook via Libro.fm in exchange for an honest review.

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