Jane Steele
Lyndsay Faye, 2016
Penguin Publishing
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399169496
Summary
A reimagining of Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer, from the author whose work the New York Times described as "riveting" and the Wall Street Journal called "thrilling."
Reader, I murdered him.
A sensitive orphan, Jane Steele suffers first at the hands of her spiteful aunt and predatory cousin, then at a grim school where she fights for her very life until escaping to London, leaving the corpses of her tormentors behind her.
After years of hiding from the law while penning macabre "last confessions" of the recently hanged, Jane thrills at discovering an advertisement. Her aunt has died and her childhood home has a new master: Mr. Charles Thornfield, who seeks a governess.
Burning to know whether she is in fact the rightful heir, Jane takes the position incognito, and learns that Highgate House is full of marvelously strange new residents—the fascinating but caustic Mr. Thornfield, an army doctor returned from the Sikh Wars, and the gracious Sikh butler Mr. Sardar Singh, whose history with Mr. Thornfield appears far deeper and darker than they pretend.
As Jane catches ominous glimpses of the pair’s violent history and falls in love with the gruffly tragic Mr. Thornfield, she faces a terrible dilemma: can she possess him—body, soul, and secrets—without revealing her own murderous past?
A satirical romance about identity, guilt, goodness, and the nature of lies, by a writer who Matthew Pearl calls "superstar-caliber" and whose previous works Gillian Flynn declared "spectacular," Jane Steele is a brilliant and deeply absorbing book inspired by Charlotte Bronte’s classic Jane Eyre. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Raised—Pacific Northwest, USA
• Education—B.A., Notre Dame de Namur University
• Currently—lives in Ridgewood, Queens, New York City
Lyndsay Faye is the American author of several crime novels with an historical-fiction bent. She was born in Northern California, raised in the Pacific Northwest, and graduated from Notre Dame de Namur University in the San Francisco Bay Area with a dual degree in English and Performance.
Her early career kept her in the Bay Area working as a professional actress, "nearly always," she says, "in a corset, and if not a corset then… heels and lined stockings." In 2005 she made the move to Manhattan to audition for acting jobs, working in a restaurant as her day job...until it was bulldozed to the ground by developers.
Novels
Sans restaurant job, and with more time on her hands, an initial foray into writing payed off. In 2009 Faye published her first novel, Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson. The book pays tribute to Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick Watson, the duo whose adventures first captivated Faye as a child.
Faye's innate curiosity next spurred her to delve into the history of the New York Police Department, by which she learned that the department's founding coincided with the Irish Potato Famine in 1845. That research inspired her three Timothy Wilde novels—The Gods of Gotham (2012), Seven for a Secret (2013), and The Fatal Flame (2015). The novels follow ex-bartender Timothy Wilde as he learns the perils of police work in a violent and racially divided city during the pre-Civil War era.
Her next novel Jane Steele, released in 2016, re-imagines Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer who battles for justice with methods inspired by Darkly Dreaming Dexter.
Faye has been nominated for an Edgar Award, a Dilys Winn Award, and is honored to have been selected by the American Library Association's RUSA Reader's List for Best Historical. She is an international bestseller and her Timothy Wilde Trilogy has been translated into 14 languages.
Lyndsay and her husband Gabriel live in Ridgewood, Queens, a borough of New York. They have two cats, Grendel and Prufrock. She is a member of Actor’s Equity Association, the Adventuresses of Sherlock Holmes, the Baker Street Babes, the Baker Street Irregulars, Mystery Writers of America, and Girls Write Now. And always, she is hard at work on her next novel. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Jane Steele, an orphan turned governess, is a "murderess five times over." Perhaps more unforgivable, her crimes are wonderfully entertaining.... How can a serial killer also be a heroine? The answer lies in [Charlotte Bronte's words in the second edition of Jane Eyre:]...Conventionality is not morality....” Jane Steele adopts these words as her moral compass, slaying seemingly respectable villains who actually commit heinous deeds.
Abigail Meisel - New York Times
An entertaining riff on Jane Eyre.... [S]heer mayhem meets Victorian propriety.
USA Today
Jane Eyre gets a dose of Dexter. In a story that's equal parts romance, thriller, and satire, the Bronte heroine is made over into a fighter with a shadowy past.
Cosmopolitan
Set in Victorian England, this intriguing tribute to Jane Eyre from Edgar-finalist Faye reimagines Charlotte Brontë’s heroine as a killer.... The arresting narrative voice is coupled with a plot that Wilkie Collins fans will relish.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Young Jane Steele's favorite book, Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, mirrors her life both too little and too much....In an arresting tale of dark humor and sometimes gory imagination, Faye has produced a heroine worthy of the gothic literature canon but reminiscent of detective fiction. —Jennifer Funk, McKendree Univ. Lib., Lebanon, IL
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Faye’s skill at historical mystery was evident in her nineteenth-century New York trilogy, but this slyly satiric stand-alone takes her prowess to new levels. A must for Bronte devotees; wickedly entertaining for all.
Booklist
Each chapter begins with a short excerpt from Charlotte Bronte's work, and Jane's interpretation of the classic novel lifts her story out of standard romance and into conversations about identity, guilt, and truth.... A novel that explores great torment and small mercies.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When Jane Steele sets out to write her confession, she says she is doing so because she is reading Jane Eyre, and the work inspires her to "imitative acts." Has a book ever directly inspired you to create something yourself? If so, was this when you were you a child or an adult?
2. From the beginning of the novel, Jane is threatened by men who pose a direct danger to her. If you are female, did you find this peril realistic or unrealistic? If you are male, did you think Jane’s vulnerability rang true, or did it seem like melodrama?
3. The sadistic-headmaster trope, here embodied by Vesalius Munt, was very popular in the Victorian era among social justice writers. At the time, children were expected to be silent, obedient, and hardworking. Children are treated very differently today. What do you think a Victorian childhood would have been like? How would it have affected you?
4. Jane is convinced from the day she kills her cousin that she is irredeemably evil. Do you agree with her that she "murdered" her cousin? Why or why not? Do you think Jane’s later murders would have occurred if she had never caused Edwin’s death?
5. When Jane discovers erotica, she is repulsed by Mr. Munt’s letters, but she greatly enjoys the book published by Clarke’s family in which consensual polyamorous relationships are explored. Do men and women experience the erotic differently? If so, in what ways?
6. Jane Steele and Clarke have a passionate friendship, one that eventually puts both their lives on the line. The theme of "best friends" is common in literature, for instance Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, and Aibileen and Minny in The Help. Which friendships in fiction do you most identify with?
7. In London, Jane makes her living writing last confessions of the recently hanged. Many people are fascinated by the macabre; are you? Why or why not? Why are darkness and death such popular subjects when they are actually unpleasant topics?
8. Jane Steele enters the mysterious Gothic mansion thinking herself the owner, while Jane Eyre arrives as a governess. How does the power dynamic change the sorts of actions each of these characters takes after arriving? What are the biggest contrasts between Jane Steele and the character she loves? What are the greatest similarities?
9. Highgate House is full of mysteries—men with a dark past, unexpected and sinister visitors, and a forbidden cellar not unlike the forbidden attic in Jane Eyre. What is it we love about Gothic mansions? Can a house itself have secrets? A major component of the plot is the contested claim to Highgate House. In what ways may the property be considered a character?
10. Charles Thornfield and Edward Fairfax Rochester are both Byronic men plagued by their pasts, and yet they react to trauma in very different ways. In Jane Eyre, which lover is the pursuer, and which the pursued? What about in Jane Steele?
11. Sardar Singh is disgusted by the tragedy that befell his empire, and at one point he asks Jane which is worse, a rapist or a pimp—meaning the East India Company or the Sikh royalty who betrayed their country. How would you answer his question? In what ways has Sardar turned his back on his culture, and in what ways does he still cherish it?
12. There are many types of love in this novel—among others, the romantic love Jane feels for Mr. Thornfield, the unrequited love Clarke feels for Jane, the platonic love the asexual Mr. Singh feels for Mr. Thornfield. What other varieties of love are evident, and how do they drive the characters' actions? Which are the most compelling to you personally? Do you think making choices that are morally wrong is excusable if it is done for the sake of a loved one? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)