We are introduced ever so gently to the tiny bucolic village of Chawton (pop: 377) in Hampshire, England. A young farmworker is snoozing atop a stone wall early one summer morning, having already completed a day’s worth of work when he is startled awake by an American voice.
This is the opening scene of The Jane Austen Society, the fictional account of how a group of Chawton villagers came together before, during and after World War II to pay tribute to their village’s most illustrious resident –– ever!
These locals, all devotees of Jane Austen’s works and from all levels of village society, decide to create an organization in her name and perhaps even save for posterity the modest cottage where Jane had once lived and written three of her novels. And, in doing so, this disparate group unknowingly help each other recover from heartache and the long years of war.
Click to purchase Natalie Jenner's debut novel - Click to purchase Natalie Jenner's debut novel - The Jane Austen Society - $34.45
The Jane Austen Society is a gentle novel, yet it is no milquetoast but ‘a good read’ with a strong narrative drive, a tangible sense of place and an intriguing thread of ‘what happens next’. However, it does help to have at least a passing knowledge of say, Pride and Prejudice or Emma, as characters in both books are often quoted by Chawton’s band of Austen devotees.
The Jane Austen Society is author Natalie Jenner’s debut novel and she lives here in Oakville. Ms Jenner has created an engaging story about the fashioning of a society dedicated to a lauded author of the early nineteenth century. It isn’t what really happened during the formation of the real society, as Ms Jenner makes clear, but it is nice to think this is how it could have come about.
(In the interest of full disclosure I am an overseas member of The Jane Austen Society that celebrates its 80thanniversary this year, but I have yet to visit Chawton.)
Ms Jenner was born in England and came to live in Canada as a child. She attended St. Mildred's-Lightbourn School, an independent all-girls school (known locally as ‘Milly’s) here in Oakville. She won the 1990 Gold Medal in English Literature at St, Michael’s College, University of Toronto. Ms Jenner then obtained a law degree, was Called to the Bar in 1995 and practised as a corporate lawyer.
Oakvillians may remember her brief foray into bookselling, as founder of Archetype Books, which she gave up due to family illness.
So, why yet another book dedicated to an English spinster who wrote just six novels during the English Regency about life among the middle class? After all, countless books have already been written about Austen and dozens of movies produced, either attempting to faithfully portray her timeless characters or poking fun at them.
Indeed, every nuance of the life and works of Jane Austen, who is said to be as beloved as William Shakespeare, must by now have been thoroughly explored.
And yet, not a year goes by without a book about, or inspired by, this incomparable writer, so enduring is her fame.
Could it be that precisely because Jane Austen’s characters are universal yet what the woman herself was really like remains something of an enigma, that the longing to learn more proves irresistible. In which case The Jane Austen Society, by Natalie Jenner, is a worthy addition and merits such well-deserved recognition as National Bestseller here in Canada and elsewhere; Amazon Best Books of the Year So Far
; Goodreads Top Ten Debut Novels of the Year So Far, plus many other accolades.; Goodreads Top Ten Debut Novels of the Year So Far, plus many other accolades.