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The Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler
Viking
Reviewed by Sheila Forbes (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

Although the book club consists of fans of Jane Austen, this novel is more about the six club members than the author.

Ranging in age from 28 to 67, it would be difficult to imagine a more disparate group of people, yet they are all struggling to come to terms with their particular problems.

They are invited to join by Jocelyn, a middle-aged spinster who runs a kennel and breeds Rhodesian Ridgebacks. Her primary motive is to offer some distraction to her lifelong friend Sylvia, whose husband has just asked for a divorce. With Sylvia comes her rather brittle daughter Allegra, who has just ended a long-standing lesbian relationship. The oldest member is the much-married, kindly and talkative Bernadette; the youngest Prudie, insecure despite a happy marriage, and irritatingly given to dropping French phrases into the conversation at every opportunity. Then there is the only male, Grigg, who has grown up in a matriarchal family with three sisters and is described by his father as the most "girlie" of them all.

There are no dramatic happenings, but their stories gradually emerge during the course of the monthly meetings, and by the end they have all in some way changed. Many of the problems have been resolved and there is even a hint of romance in the air.

It is not necessary to have read all of Jane Austen's novels to enjoy this book, though it does make the allusions more meaningful to have done so. There is in any case a brief outline of each story at the end. I found especially fascinating the quoted comments from other authors, critics and family friends about Jane Austen, from Sir Walter Scott's: "That young lady had a talent for describing the involvement and feelings and characters of ordinary life which is to me the most wonderful I ever met with," to Mark Twain's: "Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone," and every shade of opinion in between.

An unusual and very readable book.