Sloane Hall

Libby Sternberg's Sloane Hall, a reimagination of Jane Eyre set in the Hollywood silver screen age had been just published:

Sloane Hall 
by Libby Sternberg
Five Star, September 2010,
Hardover
ISBN: 9781594149177

The author herself describes her book for BrontëBlog, which will publish a review in the next days:

I conceived of the idea of writing a retelling of Jane Eyre, one of my favorite books, nearly ten years ago. At the time, I merely wanted to recreate—almost for my own reading pleasure—the story that so moved me every time Charlotte Brontë told it to me during my numerous re-readings of the original. I wanted the emotional journey of the book to be fresh again, to feel as if I’d never encountered it.

But as I worked through various iterations of Sloane Hall, I took to heart the advice of an editor who rejected an early version. While praising my writing and storytelling, she also cautioned me that it had to be a fresh story in order to be effective.

She was right. As I’ve noted elsewhere, if people want to read Jane Eyre, they’ll read Jane Eyre. While they might come to a retelling (or “inspired by…” book) expecting to see parallels to the original, they will still want to be surprised and entranced anew by characters they’ve never met or known before.

That’s how Sloane Hall was born, with its new setting, new characters, and, in some fundamental ways, new story. I realized it wasn’t enough just to be clever, throwing in this “tip of the hat” to the original Jane or that subtle homage to Brontë’s storytelling. Cleverness doesn’t ignite emotional responses (except, in some cases, annoyance!). Cleverness doesn’t move readers.

So in Sloane Hall, I explored the characters I’d created and let them lead me down their own paths, while also trying to stay true to Bronte’s emotional arc. I discovered during this journey that one of the things that had bothered me about Jane in the original was that she was almost too forgiving of those who’d wronged her. So in Sloane Hall, John Doyle struggles mightily with the idea of forgiveness. It becomes, in many ways, his transforming journey as he searches for how to bestow it on those who’ve hurt him.

I also thought a great deal about whether contemporary readers experience Jane Eyre in the same way that its nineteenth century readers did. And when I thought I could identify possible differences in those reactions, I sought to recreate what I thought might have been a nineteenth century reader’s emotions.

For example, today’s readers have different sensibilities about mental illness than those in the nineteenth century. Despite calls for mental asylum reform at the time, nineteenth century readers probably viewed Bertha Mason with some measure of scorn and disgust as well as sympathy. I attempted to ignite that same reaction in my handling of the big revelation scene.

Was I successful? I hope so. Some early reviews have been lovely, and I’m hoping that readers will embrace this new story with warmth and affection. It’s published in hardcover now by Five Star/Cengage, an American publisher that markets primarily to libraries. But it’s available through online retailers and will be up in digital format soon for Kindle and other ereader owners.

I’m doing a “virtual book tour” to promote the book by guest blogging at the following sites (sometimes a free book is given away at these visits!):

September 23: Thoughts in Progress: www.masoncanyon.blogspot.com (Topic: a secret in Sloane Hall is revealed)
September 28: www.BooksandNeedlepoint.blogspot.com (Topic: why I chose 1929 Hollywood as the setting for the book)
September 29: BrontëBlog
October 1: www.BookBinge.com
October 6: www.LoveRomancePassion.com
October 11: www.freshfiction.com (Topic: Writing women’s fiction from a male point of view)
October 20: Stuff and Nonsense: http://marlyn-stuff.blogspot.com/

For more on Sloane Hall, Jane Eyre, and old Hollywood, please visit my blog at www.LibbysBooks.wordpress.com! My website is www.LibbysBooks.com. Friend me on Facebook at Libby Sternberg. And do let me know what you think of the book by emailing me at Libby488 (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre