The Hierophant

A new novel with Jane Eyre as background (working title: The Hierophant) is the upcoming project of Michael Shilling, whose latest book is Rock Bottom. Interviews with the author have reveal several details:

Lansing City Pulse:

Shilling said his next book would be quite different; It’s a historical novel revolving around the life of Jane Eyre. “Gothic has always been a fanatic interest of mine,” Shilling said. “On some level I wanted to get away from ‘Rock Bottom,’ and in the new book I can’t use the F-word,” You can still expect a mighty twisted look at Ms. Eyre. (Bill Castanier)

Hachette Book Group:

Care to share what you’re working on?
I’m writing a novel set at the crossroads of Regency and Victorian England — the late 1820s — involving some of the characters and incidents from Jane Eyre and set at Thornfield Hall, but existing in a completely different narrative context with a whole new cast of strivers, connivers, grotesques, and romantics. I am trying to combine the dark fairy-tale fabulism of Angela Carter with the plot driven, hard- boiled push- and- shove of James Ellroy, all the while keeping in mind British class dynamics to create, as Ellroy called it, a reckless verisimilitude. The beauty of a story like this is connecting the desires and motivations of all the characters — from the lowest scullery maid to Rochester himself — while keeping the plot organic and fluid. It’s a large undertaking, but I like a challenge. If I go down in flames, at least it’ll be in a blaze of glory.

And probably the most interesting one. Fiction Writers Review:

You had touched on your next project, which is set in 1820s England, and described by you as Jane Eyre meets The Wire—
Though not as good as either, I’d just like to quickly point out. (Laughs.)

Fair enough. So I guess that a) I would like to know what that means, and b) why you decided to go in such a vastly different direction.
The working title is The Hierophant, which is a tarot card character. The Hierophant is, among other things, the connector between differences, and between heaven and earth. And many other things, because tarot cards have many meanings depending on who’s reading it. So, when I say Jane Eyre meets The Wire, the Jane Eyre part is that there are characters from Jane Eyre in the book. Rochester is in it, Bertha’s in it, Miss Fairfax, those three. Grace Poole is in it. And it involves those characters, though Jane is not currently in it. She might end up in it later, as a minor character. It takes place before the story of Jane Eyre, so it will end up involving a couple of incidences. But it’s mainly just taking existing characters and making something anew of them, kind of like Wide Sargasso Sea does with Bertha, although Wide Sargasso Sea is also a masterpiece, and one of the most totally successful books I’ve ever read without a shred of humor. It’s utterly humorless but it’s totally fucking brilliant. And The Wire part, what I mean is that it is a large ensemble cast in which each of the characters have very specific desires. And all the other characters are both getting in the way of those desires and—strangely and surprisingly, through shared shades of past—intersecting with those desires.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Sequels