It's not something I'm overly proud of, but it's a fact of life for an Austenite: we buy anything published with the name "Jane Austen" on it, regardless of whether it be good or bad, and especially if it's fanfiction (for that's exactly what it is). Excitement heightens if it's a continuation of one of her existing novels (imaginary glances into a life at Pemberley after the Darcy wedding bells have ceased to clang, for example), a continuation of one of her unfinished fragments, or a modern retelling/inspiration ala the 90s film Clueless, or the more recent Lost in Austen.Having snagged a cheap copy of one such "published fanfiction" at a used bookstore, I just finished reading the Family Fortune by Laurie Horowitz this very night, a "radiant" (according to the book's cover) modern retelling of Jane Austen's "august masterpiece" (according to me) Persuasion. While I started out with mixed emotions, I was fully inclined to like the book, but by the time I'd gotten to the end, the author had succeeded in fully alienating me and planted the seed of desire for a gleeful and snark-filled review.Consider yourself warned--herein much snarking ensues.The basic premise of this retelling is as follows:Jane Fortune's fortunes have taken a downturn. Thanks to the profligate habits of her father and older sister, the family's money has evaporated and Jane has to move out of the only home she's ever known: a stately brick town house on Boston's prestigious Beacon Hill. Thirty-eight and terminally single, Jane has never pursued idle pleasures like her sibling and father. Instead, she has devoted her time to running the Fortune Family Foundation, a revered philanthropic institution that has helped spark the careers of many a budding writer, including Max Wellman, Jane's first—and only—love.Now Jane has lost her luster. Max, meanwhile, has become a bestselling novelist and a renowned literary lothario. But change is afoot. And in the process of saving her family and reigniting the flames of true love, Jane might just find herself becoming the woman she was always meant to be.This is lifted directly from the back of the book, by the way. "Lothario"? Really? I had to look it up, and snickered once I read the description. Not being versed in the arts of using a thesaurus to search for "nouns to describe a romance novel hero", that should've been my first clue. The book begins well enough; not overly promising, but maybe it's just slow in getting started, so I keep going. We're treated to an inside look at Anne Elliot's Jane Fortune's mildly successful, yet somehow-dull literary life as editor of a renowned literary magazine that she herself created. In the spirit of honesty, I do have to say that I rather enjoyed these bits of the story. I like seeing the art of authorship being depicted in media, and putting a spin on Persuasion to include professional writers was a clever idea. Sadly, any ingenuity on the author's part ends there. If you're not familiar with Jane Austen's cast in Persuasion, I'll just tell you there is a rich family who's not so rich after spending too much money, so much so that they have to rent out their big house and rent a smaller one. There's an empty-headed, vain father who thinks he's handsome and important (he isn't), and his three motherless daughters. The eldest is a female version of her father; the middle daughter is our heroine (Jane Fortune, in this story), and the youngest a spoilt hypochondriac who's the only married sister of the three. The thing that annoyed me most? None of the sisters in The Family Fortune refer to their father as such. He's simply "Teddy" and is even introduced in the first chapter as, "my father, Theodore Henry Adams Fortune III, whom everyone simply refers to as 'Teddy'". That's it. No explanation, no we-don't-get-along-so-I-prefer-to-use- his-given-name, no he-thought-endearments-were-uncouth, no nothing. No explanation for something so very out of the ordinary that surely warrants an explanation, something that would make an interesting tidbit of backstory, something that most people just don't do, but when they DO do it, they generally have a pretty darn good reason for it. For the duration of the book, Anne Jane (his daughter and our narrator in the 1st person point of view), as well as both of his other offspring, exclusively refer to him as "Teddy", and it drove me to veritable distraction. Just when you've gotten used to it, Horowitz decides to have the eldest daughter take to calling her father "daddy" during the last fourth of the novel. Why?! "Teddy" becomes "daddy" just as pointlessly as he's denied the endearment for the majority of the book. Even better than the name Teddy, is a twenty-something fortune hunter (Austen's Mrs. Clay for those of you who've read "Persuasion") named--wait for it--Dolores. That's right, folks, we have a woman of my generation with a name robbed from the Social Security Death Index. I really have to hand it to the author on choosing an entire plethora of ridiculous names for her various cast of characters; "Winnie" is her choice for Austen's Mary Musgrove, and our heroine, Jane, gets away with an old-fashioned name since it also happens to pass of as a tribute to Jane Austen. Okay, I lied. So there's one other thing that bothers me even more than the hokey names. If there's one thing that drives me positively batty in fiction, it's short, choppy sentences. And these certainly abound. Like rodents. Everywhere. (Oh dear.) I'm seriously not making this up--the author routinely utilizes what can only be an attempt at "modernizing" Austen's generally lengthy sentence structure into something that tries to be witty and instead comes off as more of a short trip into the depths of editorial hell. (Hah.) Honestly, coming from someone who can't help but spot flaws and misspelled words in any form of printed matter (it's a curse, I tell you), I wanted to take a red pen and scribble commas between half of her sentences. Nothing makes your work read like a fourth-grader's book report like splitting up reasonably sized sentences into little pint-sized doses of brevity! Even better than all of the sentences spat out by a Cuisinart (sprinkled only slightly with profanity) is the way Horowitz sums up the romantic climax, The Big Reveal, the moment when Captain Wentworth "Max Wellman" reveals his undying love for Anne Jane Fortune by writing her a swoon-inducing, passion-infused letter that would make even the hardest-hearted of women melt. No, this little priceless gem is what we are given for our efforts in slogging through page after page of painful prose (and I quote): And he was kissing me and kissing me again and it was the same kiss when I was twenty-three and the years peeled away and the two of us were on a beach in Hull and we were young and nothing had happened to us yet."I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP! (But oh, how I wish I was that clever. How I wish I was making it up. I wasted hours on this book.) Seriously! It's Chapter 36, page 269, very bottom of the right-hand page. Go to Barnes & Noble and look for yourself if you don't believe me. The only thing longer than that sentence is the Bath Marathon in ITV's 2007 adaptation of Persuasion starring Sally Hawkins (someone really needs to make a YouTube video of that scene using the theme from Chariots of Fire). No letter, no breathless moments where you are swept off your feet right along with her as she realizes all is not lost. Just a RUN-ON SENTENCE with no less than seven (seven, count 'em, SEVEN) uses of the word "and". Bonus points for starting the sentence with the word "and". (Wasn't that, like, ohmigosh, a big no-no in English class? But then again, your bag doesn't have to match your shoes any more, and you're free to wear white after Labor Day, so maybe that rule has been cast along the wayside, too.) Not one single comma in a sentence so laughably bad I actually did laugh, put down my book, and snort, rereading the offending passage aloud to my mom so that she could see why I was so loudly slamming my book down. Excuse me while I go transcribe my elementary school creative writing projects; I think I've got some prose just waiting to rake in all the big literary awards. Ugh. Just ugh. /snarkOn a more serious (and slightly adult) note, there is a brief but eye-searingly awful sex scene on pages 185-186. Now, I'm sorry, but I don't make a habit of reading about (or watching) naked people about to do things to each other in bed; if I (unfortunately) come across it, I skip over the offending passage and skim along until I find where it's ended, then pick up where I left off. Most of the time authors are courteous (eloquent?) enough to lead gently into "the moment" where their characters actually, well, do it, but Laurie Horowitz subjects her readers to a horrifically unromantic, unflattering, downright distasteful description of a male character's male anatomy in an awkward scene that is entirely without artistic merit even by the very loosest of standards. I did not appreciate the mental picture she provided so bluntly, and without any anything to redeem it. It was neither romanticized, nor clinical; all I can say is that if you are at all inclined to dislike that sort of thing, just skip those two pages (and consider yourself warned). Another thing I noticed is how Jane Fortune has given up her love and exchanged a life with him, for a life of literature, hewn by her own hands out of nothingness. Is it supposed to be a not-so-subtle reference to Jane Austen's single state and chosen creative outlet? I don't know, and I'm not sure that Laurie Horowitz knows, either, since I rather doubt she put that much subtlety into her novel. After all, she practically brags in her post-novel appendix that she spent only "about a year" working on the majority of the book. Again, if you don't believe me, it's in the very back on page 294. I was also further irked by Laurie Horowitz making what can only be deemed rather smug remarks about her own writing ability. Considering what I've shown you so far of her "talent", read what she has to say about herself: "I have almost every book on writing ever written[...] I guess the writing ones helped."Not relavent to her skills as an author, but further testament to what I'm inclined to categorize as hubris is this tasteless quip on the issue of religion: "I'd like to find God, but I don't know where to look. I keep thinking I might find God in an expensive designer handbag, but so far, no luck." Is that supposed to be funny? I think there's something else she's having "no luck" in succeeding at--something that begins with a w-r-i-t and ends with an i-n-g. But hey, maybe that's just me. In closing, can't believe this thing gets mostly 4-star reviews on Amazon. Then again, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies is rated only a fraction of a star less, so I suppose that's not that far off from where this novel stands in my estimation. It's a pity, too, because I started out enjoying it, and I really was willing (and tried SO hard) to ignore the "Teddy" thing and the grade-schooler sentences. Personally I prefer creative, elegant prose that's not too long, but not too short, that flows naturally and doesn't put one to sleep. But perhaps that's just too much to ask from someone who thought Clueless was "astounding", didn't like Northanger Abbey, and says of Lady Susan "if you've run out of Austen, this will do in a fix". (Page 295. Read it and weep.) What, pray tell, IS Lady Susan if not Austen? You've run out of Austen, so here, try Austen! Oh gosh, and here all this time, I thought I was reading AUSTEN! You mean to tell me there's MORE Austen where that Austen came from!? Oh HOW can I have been so BLIND? Really, if you're going to try and make money off of Jane Austen's name, do please try and be respectful to her, and those of us who actually value her contribution to literature. I'm rolling my eyes even as I type this review, and having stayed up past my bedtime to get through a book I kept thinking would get better in "just one more chapter", it's off to update my GoodReads account and finally acknowledge to the world that I've wasted my time on drivel disguised as Jane Austen. Or rather, something lifted from the glaring white pixels of a fanfiction website and printed on hard matter in an effort to wile the unwitting Austen-loving public out of their hard-earned money. Then again, we bring it on ourselves, rushing out to buy/rent/see anything with her name plastered on it, so maybe we deserve lumpy fiction shelved along side our starched, pressed, pristine literary genius of Jane.
I liked it. I’m not certain that I would go so far as to say that I loved it, but I really, truly liked it. And I was bitter at having to put it down a few times today to clean the house and what not. That is a good sign.The Family Fortune is a modern retelling of Persuasion by Jane Austen, and it does a fabulous job. I’ve seen a couple of fan fic type Persuasion stories that do odd things with the character of Mr. Elliot (the junior one who wants Anne) since he is “family” but hot to trot for Anne, as was totally normal in olden times, but really icky these days. The author has thoughtfully updated every aspect of this story.I typically don’t care for changing the characters’ names. I usually feel like it’s a coverup–they aren’t yours, we know they aren’t yours, so don’t try to pee on them to mark your territory by making Elizabeth Bennet into Gloria Beauvais, for example. In this story, it worked. Anne Elliot is transformed into Jane Fortune. One of the things I think Horowitz does a really excellent job at is making Jane into the spinster (in her very late 30s) that Austen made Anne. Too many Persuasion knock offs put Jane in her mid to late twenties, and frankly that’s just not the “hopeless” state that Austen had in mind for Anne Elliot.Horowitz is rather inventive and departs from the more canonical story by making the Captain Wentworth character (in this version: Max Wellman) actually get his start on his fortune and career success directly from Jane’s influence. Jane has a foundation she establishes on behalf of their family that puts out a literary review. She’s a raging success and doesn’t realize it. She’s a classic shrinking violet, and you love her to pieces. Max is the same idiot that Wentworth is when he first reappears on the scene–hellbent on causing a little pain for Jane as she hurt him all those years ago.Jane grows to be more independent than Anne in this version, but I think it’s more of Horowitz’s very clever updating of this story: there are simply more ways we would expect to see Jane break away from her family.There were two characters that I questioned in this version: first is that of Captain Benwick (Basil in this version) and second is the younger Mr. Elliot (Guy in this one). Basil isn’t sympathetic in the slightest. He’s a little too full of himself. I never had the impression that Benwick was anything other than a man unfortunate enough to feel too deeply. Basil is just a self-absorbed “tortured” artist. I guess I’ve always felt that if things hadn’t worked out with Anne and Wentworth, Benwick would have made Anne a deserving second place (for a FABULOUS fan fic of that plot line read: Love Suffers Long and Is Kind–don’t read it if you can’t stomach watching Wentworth marry Louisa). By the end of the story, I felt like the characterization of Guy was fine. Maybe the writing thing could have come out sooner?? I don’t know. It was slightly off, but he was definitely the right blend of charm and creepy persistence.My biggest beef with this book is the overly short chapters that seem grouped together in chunks of the book. It made those areas a wee-bit choppy.Overall, this is a great Austen fan-fic and well worth the read. From what I was able to find, it seems like this is Ms. Horowitz’s first book, and I hope that she is currently being inspired and that we’ll have something else from her soon, Austen or not.Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure, if I hadn’t read Pride and Prejudice first, discovered that Darcy was the perfect man, and that in my more inspired moments, I am Elizabeth Bennet, Persuasion would easily have been my favorite Austen book. In fact, if I leave my sentimentality out of it, Persuasion is my favorite. It was Austen’s last complete work, and you can see her maturity, her thoughtfulness. The story is rich, the emotions of the characters completely full. It’s a treat to see Austen deal with the theme of regret so beautifully.
Do You like book The Family Fortune (2007)?
Based on Jane Austen's Persuasion. Jane Smith's. She loved it. Bleh.It never got good. Jane Fortune comes from a snobby Boston family and I couldn't care less for any of them. She "discovers" new writers and Max (the love of her life) was her first and now popular. She discovers a new (Jack Reilly) writer that I thought was gonna make the story interesting, but didn't.I wasted a day. Bleh.
—Jane
I'm not a fan of Jane Austin retellings, I'm just not. The originals are so dear to me and I have yet to come across a modern adaptation that has blown me away, this included.When you bring a story into a modern day setting, you have to take some liberties. You just have to. Horowitz did not, making it hard to relate to any characters in this story. The thoughts and behaviors of the protagonist didn't mesh with the modern day Boston background, even with mentions of "form fitting jeans and t-shirts".With that being said, I didn't hate it. Would I recommend it? No. Would I read it again? No. Was it just ok? Yes.
—Janelle
You’ll often find Jane Fortune – a member of one of Boston’s most prestigious long-standing moneyed families at home on a Saturday night, curled up with a book. Although her vain father Teddy and pretentious sister Miranda are happiest attending parties and being seen among society’s elite, Jane is perfectly content to stay out of the limelight. She’s of the literary variety and works hard to run the family’s foundation and publish the Euphemia Review, which has launched the career of several authors.After reading only a few entries of this year’s granting round, Jane’s found “the one”, the winner who seems more promising than most. But writer Jack Reilly is nowhere to be found. While this apparently homeless writer is a surprise, Jane is unsurprised when the family lawyer delivers the news that their fortune is dwindling, forcing the Fortunes to vacate and rent out their historic home. Compounding Jane’s situation further is the news that Max Wellman, the first recipient of the foundation and Jane’s first love is back in Boston. Now a successful bestselling novelist and ladies man, Jane is sure she will wilt in Max’s presence. But perhaps he’s all she needed to see her self-worth as a single, thirty-something woman and regain her luster for life.Reading this Austen retelling of Persuasion was an experiment for me. I’ve read books inspired by Austen but not anything approaching a sequel, prequel, or retelling. Call me a coward but each of Austen’s novels are on a pedestal of which I thought nothing, continuation or retelling, could measure up. Jane Eyre also belongs on that shelf and my recent read of Jane, April Linder’s brilliant retelling gave me hope that there are some out there which stand up to their origins as both a successful retelling and an entirely new story.Fortunately (no pun intended) The Family Fortune is successful on some fronts. It is a commentary on manners and there is wit in many of the dialogues. For the most part the secondary characters translate well. Teddy and Miranda are just as superficial and conceited as you could hope for. Jane’s hypochondriac sister Winnie and her husband Charles are spot on. I loved their scenes with Jane which reminded me, just for a moment, of reading Persuasion for the first time. I also liked Jane, the perfect modern interpretation of quiet, helpful, and practical Anne. Her literary bent was fitting and I loved viewing her as both a reader and a promoter of struggling writers. I missed the degree of introspection and description present in Persuasion but still connected with her. Priscilla (Lady Russell) and Guy (Mr. Elliot) were the least generously characterized and are a lot more worldly in the modern sense but I still didn’t mind their very amoral standards.Unfortunately when it came to Max (Captain Wentworth) I didn’t feel that way. The first half I read with anticipation for his and Jane’s upcoming encounters and the last half with slight let-down when I read the actual exchanges themselves. Maybe Max was underdeveloped but either way I never really understood Jane’s undying love for him. It may have had something to do with his womanizing reputation, but I know it also had something to do with the lack of subtlety in their short, spaced interactions. Instead of having any grand, epic moment of declaration or realization their feelings for one another were expressed little by little – more gradually and earlier than I expected. As a result their romance felt anti-climatic and the book overall felt like it was missing some spark. Perhaps it’s because Persuasion is not only my favorite Austen novel, but if hard-pressed the answer to the all-time favorite book question as well so I’m a hard fan to please. Although there was an urgency to see how it all ended up compared to the original I ultimately wished that I had just read Persuasion instead. The Family Fortune may have not worked for me but I’d still recommend it to fans of Austen retellings and fans of the original as I appear to be one of the few truly disappointed readers out there.
—Holly
