An escape to Austen’s Chawton village
Author’s works were lessons in resilience and calm for former Oakville bookstore owner Jane Austen wrote all her classics in the charming British village of Chawton. “The Jane Austen Society,” Natalie Jenner, St. Martin's, 320 pages, $23.99
Every year, thousands of literary tourists flock to Jane Austen’s cottage in the charming British village of Chawton where the beloved author wrote all her classics, including “Pride and Prejudice” and “Emma.”
Natalie Jenner is one of those diehard Janeites. Jenner knows enough Austen lore to be considered an expert, but talks about her enthusiastically, like an old friend. She’s visited the Chawton museum several times, unknowing that one day, Austen and her home would change her life. A book borne out of pain, Jenner’s debut novel, “The Jane Austen Society,” pays homage to this enduring legacy and the importance of having such touchstones.
Jenner’s personal story has its own Austenesque plot twists. In late 2015, she took over Archetype Books, a cosy bookshop in Oakville that had been without an owner since 2010. But her longtime dream of becoming a bookseller was cut short less than a year later when Jenner’s husband was diagnosed with a serious lung disease.
While coping with the trauma, Jenner took solace in rereading her favourite books. In particular, Austen’s later works such as “Persuasion” provided comfort.
“I felt like I was getting these new lessons from her in resilience and calm,” says Jenner, who took away a sense of hope and a desire for a moral life. “Being compassionate towards yourself, as well as towards others, and being authentic and owning what you really want and need out of life.”
Jenner made her first trip to Chawton as an undergrad. Years later she was being dragged out of the museum by her family on a vacation to the U.K. But it was Jenner’s solo visit in 2017 on the 200th anniversary of Austen’s death — an occasion marked worldwide on social media with its own trending “janeausten200” hashtag — that set her novel in motion.
“I was in the real murky mist of dealing with my husband’s diagnosis and the implications of that the previous year,” says Jenner. “I took that trip to get away and to really pay homage to Jane Austen.”
That pilgrimage led to another deep immersive reread, and some ideas began to percolate. A year later, once her husband’s condition stabilized thanks to some recent drug treatments, Jenner began writing the manuscript for “The Jane Austen Society.”
Set in Chawton after the Second World War, the heartfelt novel follows a motley crew of eight characters who unite to preserve Austen’s home, which is under threat of being sold. There’s a doctor, a farmer, and a glamorous movie star who gets involved after purchasing Austen’s ring at auction. (Singer Kelly Clarkson actually bought Austen’s turquoise and gold ring in 2012, but the sale was thwarted by the museum which launched a campaign to bring the valuable piece back home to Chawton.)
Jenner — who already had a stack of five unpublished manuscripts in the proverbial desk drawer — didn’t have any dreams of publication. The book was to be a gift for her and her husband.
She began jotting down potential characters, listing their ages and occupations, each of whom have personal reasons for being so passionate about their cause. Some are driven by grief and find comfort in Austen, much like Jenner.
As Jenner developed her cast of characters and their relationships, she knew she had to cut a few stragglers, but purposely maintained an even split by sex.
Austen’s notable crew of female protagonists — not to mention the cult around Mr. Darcy, her fictional brooding paramour — has relegated her works to the “women’s stories” category. But Jenner says that men were among some of Austen’s most ardent early fans.
“(Men) were much more present in the media, they were more present in academia, and their voices culturally would be heard more often because of that. But they just didn’t have that chick-lit bias,” says Jenner. “When I started this book, I remember very consciously that I wanted to reclaim her for everybody.”
One man that Jenner didn’t have to try hard to convince was her New York agent, Mitchell Waters, whom she coldcalled after researching agents who had worked with similar kinds of historical fiction, or St. Martin’s Press executive editor Keith Kahla, who bought the book at auction.
Although Jenner is losing out on promotional opportunities for “The Jane Austen Society” during COVID-19, she seems to be taking the situation in stride. She’s connected online with other Canadian women authors who are showing her the ropes, and planned a quiet launch-day celebration with her family featuring champagne, steak frites and a Betty Crocker cake.
The biggest reward will be if her book provides some distraction and comfort, and maybe guide readers back to Jane Austen’s words.
“I know how much of a help she was to me in a very similar time,” says Jenner, who admits she’s in the middle of yet another reread. “She is a wonderful tonic and provides a wonderful world to escape into.”