The Jane Austen Book Club
by Karen Joy Fowler
Viking $108
'All Jane Austen, all the time' is the motto of this Californian book club. Its founder, Jocelyn, is in her 50s and has never married. Sylvia, her best friend from childhood, has learned that her husband is leaving her. Sylvia's lesbian daughter, Allegra, has just suffered a break-up. Prudie, a French teacher, is unhappily married. Bernadette, 67, has had multiple husbands. Grigg is in his early 40s (and surely in need of a wife, the women believe). Fowler is hilarious in revealing the attitudes of the club members. There's horror when one character refers to the deity as Jane: 'That was more intimate, surely, than Miss Austen would wish. None of the rest of us called her Jane, even though we were older and had been reading her years longer.' The author also captures typical book-club talk and the silent dialogue that rages beneath everyone's efforts to be appreciative - no matter how idiotic the other participants' opinions.