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‘The Flight of Gemma Hardy’ by Margot Livesey

Book Review

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 22, 2012|By Meredith Maran

Margot Livesey has pulled off the daunting task of writing an homage that…

Born in Yorkshire in 1816, dead by age 38, Charlotte Brontë left behind a seemingly timeless, improbable oeuvre that longer-lived authors can only envy: two books of poetry and more than a dozen novels, best known among them, written under the pseudonym “Currer Bell,’’ “Jane Eyre.’’ It was clearly admiration, not envy, that moved Scottish-born author Margot Livesey to write an homage to the proto-classic, proto-feminist tale of a female protagonist who suffers but never seeks rescue.

An homage is an ambitious undertaking, rife with risk, even for an author with Livesey’s credentials and chops. For starters, writing an homage means producing a book that “stands next to the pretty girl,’’ as we used to say in junior high, inviting comparison to one already anointed as a beauty. Write a book that’s not enough like the honoree, and readers and reviewers will accuse the author of delusions of grandeur, or worse. Write one too much like the original, and critics will ask why the author bothered. Words like “derivative’’ and “unoriginal’’ will be used.

But not by me. Not this time. Because with “The Flight of Gemma Hardy,’’ Livesey has pulled off the near-impossible task that the homage begs an author to do: create an original, fresh work that shines in its own light, while bringing an established, esteemed work to the attention of new readers, and showing off previously unseen facets to its fans.

“ ‘The Flight of Gemma Hardy’ is, in my mind, neither my autobiography nor a retelling of Jane Eyre,’’ Livesey has written. “Rather I am writing back to Charlotte Brontë, recasting Jane’s journey to fit my own courageous heroine and the possibilities of her time and place.’’

Livesey places her reinvigorated heroine not in 19th-century London but in Scotland during the early 1960s. Like Jane, Gemma Hardy is orphaned, then sent to live with a loving uncle and cruel aunt. When her uncle dies, so does Gemma’s hope for happiness; and the feisty 10-year-old orchestrates her own escape. She gets herself admitted to a posh boarding school called Claypoole, where the girl embraces great expectations of a much-improved life. Within moments of her arrival, those hopes are dashed.

“Your aunt has warned me that you are prone to lying and daydreaming,’’ the headmistress, Miss Bryant, greets Gemma. “At Claypoole you will find that, between your lessons and your other duties, there is no time for either . . . Your work does not begin to pay for your board, let alone tuition.’’