BOOK REVIEW: The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner

I received this book for free from Netgalley. That did not influence my review.

You don’t have to be a Jane Austen fan to love The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner, but if you are, you’ll love it even more.

In this gentle, sweet historical novel, set in the small English town of Chawton during the second world war, a group of six Jane Austen fans come together to preserve the legacy of the famous author.

Chawton is the one-time home of Jane Austen and of the Knight family, who adopted her brother Edward in order to have an heir. Austen’s works fell out of favor after her death. By the time interest in her life and works revived, many Austen artifacts and much memorabilia had been discarded or disbursed. Nevertheless, a trickle of diehard fans made pilgrimages to Chawton to try to connect, in some way, with the woman.

Dr. Benjamin Gray is the village physician, a man of young middle-age, who lost his wife to an accident several years before. Adam Berwick is a farmer, slightly younger, who lost his two elder brothers in WWI. Adeline Grover is a young schoolteacher, whose husband dies in the war shortly after their wedding. She’s pregnant, but miscarries the baby and nearly dies. Francis Knight is the last in the Knight line, living in the old house, waiting for her cruel, miserly father to die. Evie Stone is a whipsmart schoolgirl, forced to leave school when her father is injured in a tractor accident and can no longer support the family. She takes a job in the Knight home. And finally, Mimi Harrison is a beautiful Hollywood movie star, involved in a trainwreck of a relationship, whose love of Jane Austen brings her to Chawton first as a tourist and later as a member of the “Jane Austen Society.”

The lives of the Chawton villagers are intertwined. They’ve grown up with one another and know many, but not all, of each other’s secrets. Sometimes they understand each other better than they understand themselves.

As in Austen’s novels, the romances between various characters give the novel its heart. The goal, preserving Austen’s home as a museum, is secondary in importance to bringing hurting people together to heal. They will often break into discussions of their favorite characters or scenes, which grounds the book delightfully in its Austen-ian roots.

It’s a beautiful book. Highly recommended.