I always wondered about Mary Bennet, the middle Bennet daughter, originally introduced to us in Pride and Prejudice. She gets very little time on stage and, when she does, she’s generally committing some kind of social faux pas. She’s not close with her any of her sisters. We never get a chance to see things from her point of view. Janice Hadlow fills that gap with The Other Bennet Sister, a very moving, deeply thoughtful bildungsroman. This book is one of the best stories I’ve seen to build on Austen’s work1. Hadlow’s pitch perfect prose is absolutely astonishing.
Mary Bennet knows from a very young age that, first, she is plain, and, second, her parents do not like her. Her sisters outshine her personality and appearance. If her parents were more empathetic, Mary might’ve been rescued from a lot of intentional and unintentional cruelty. Her father tolerates Mary, as long as she’s quiet. She’s too afraid of upsetting him to ask him for the guidance she desperately wants. Her mother, well, there’s a reason Mrs. Bennet is a literary laughingstock. The primary action of The Other Bennet Sister begins shortly before Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy arrive in Hertfordshire (the beginning of Pride and Prejudice). The first almost-half of Hadlow’s novel presents Austen’s tale from Mary’s perspective. We see why she became so bookish, and why she’s the only Bennet sister willing to give Mr. Collins a chance. We also see why she was so ambitious at the piano at the Netherfield ball. More than once, I was mortified on Mary’s behalf. If only someone had bothered to really listen to her! The only person who talks to Mary is Charlotte Lucas, but this isn’t a good thing given how miserable and desperate Charlotte has become over the years.
Once Hadlow’s novel catches up to the end of Pride and Prejudice‘s plot, she leaps ahead two years. All of the Bennet girls except Mary have found husbands. Mr. Bennet has passed away and Longbourn is now the home of the Collins family. Mary travels from home to home–from Jane’s home with her mother, to Pemberley with Elizabeth, and to Longbourn with the Collinses–but cannot settle. She’s even more out of place than she was before she and her mother had to leave Longbourn. It’s only when Mary moves to London, to live with her aunt and uncle Gardiner that she can finally, finally leave the past and its disappointments behind. In London, Mary has the space to find out who she is, where she’s not overshadowed by her sisters or her mother. Best of all, she might have a chance to find the kind of love Elizabeth has with Darcy or Jane with her Bingley.
I’m struggling to write this review without just gushing. I usually do with books I love as wholeheartedly as I do this one. But I loved all of the references to Austen’s other works, the role of Romantic poetry and the awe of nature, and, most of all, the way that Mary at last has a chance at real happiness without having to compromise or pretend to be someone different. This book is therapy and a warm hug and nerdy literature joy. I really did love every part of it. Fellow readers, I hope you pick up The Other Bennet Sister and find the same delight I did.
- My other favorites are Longbourn, by Jo Baker, and Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James. ↩︎