Mary B: The Plain Bennett Sister's Story

Mary Bennett begins her story with, "A child does not grow up with the knowledge that she is plain or dull or a complete simpleton until the accident of some event should reveal these unfortunate truths," later adding "It was therefore acknowledged" that all beauty and goodness and intelligence had been given to Jane and Lizzie, while Kitty and Lydia had ignorance, and Mary herself plainness.

The child Mary saw her future as an old maid, dependent on the charity of her married sisters, unloved and lonely, living in the shadows of life--like Miss Bates in Jane Austen's Emma.

In Mary B, author Katherine J. Chen often mirrors some of Jane Austen's most well-known epigrams and she uses the characters from Pride and Prejudice, but reader beware: this is not Jane Austen's Bennett family.

And that's alright with me. As much as I love Austen--and my adoration goes back 40 years--I enjoyed Mary B on its own merits.

Mary Bennett in the 1940 movie version of
Pride and Prejudice

Society finds Mary a boring, untalented, and an ugly object of derision, expanding on Austen's comic scene where Mr. Bennett stops Mary's public entertainment. I felt the instances of people bullying and denigrating Mary were too frequent at the beginning.

Jane and Bingley barely figure in this retelling, but Lizzie and Darcy are key characters. Just as Cassandra and Jane Austen spent time at the home their brother Edward Austen Knight, Mary spends months with Lizzie after her marriage to Darcy.

I thought the idea of Lizzie being a slob hilarious. She does, after all, walk through the dirt and rain to see Jane when she became ill while visiting the Bingleys. She had lack of pride and vanity in that scene, sisterly love more important than making an impression. In Chen's imagination, Lizzie is just a slob strewing clothes and jewels across the floor of her room.

Chen gives Lydia and Lizzie endings that will offend some Austenites.  The married Lydia and Lizzie both become examples of the real world evils left out of Austen: Sexual relations = pregnancy = potential for maternal illness and death and/or the death of the baby. Lydia's ending is actually quite probable.

At times we see a hint of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre in the action, particularly in scenes between Mary and Col. Fitzwilliam.

We--as well as several menfolk in the novel-- discover that Mary is observant, thoughtful, and creative. Several men confide in her and we learn their back stories. She is a voracious reader and writes to entertain herself.

Mary relates a life that is fuller than she could have imagined as a child. She has loved three times. She has a fulfilling sexual romance. And she finds a way to be independent. Her story becomes a Feminist bildungsroman.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Mary B: A Novel: An Untold Story of Pride and Prejudice
by Katherine J. Chen
Random House
Pub Date 24 Jul 2018 
ISBN 9780399592218
PRICE $27.00 (USD)