Jane Errr

This is a new collection of stories by Aimee LaBrie which includes a Brontë-related one:

Rage & Other Cages

by Aimee LaBrie

ISBN: 9781948585927

Leapfrog Press

June 2024

In her award-winning collection of short stories, Rage and Other Cages, LaBrie offers lessons on grief, loneliness, and relationships that examine what it means to be female in today's America. 

The characters range from a former child actress turned real estate agent who yearns for her past, to a nurse who must convince a murderer to donate his girlfriend's organs, to a bartender at Ray's Happy Birthday Bar who is kidnapped by a customer searching for a mysterious key. Bad dates, bad jobs, and bad situations force these characters to use their wits and wiles to survive. In a voice akin to Lorrie Moore meets Mary Gaitskill, LaBrie has her readers laughing on one page and raging on another. Her voice is memorable, raw, and undeniably skillful.

Bomb Magazine interviews the author and gives more details:

Lindsay Haber: Tell me about “Jane Err.” While most stories are grounded in their contemporary universe, this is a satirical piece—the reimagining of a classic, if you will. Are you a Brontë fan?AL: I am a fan, but I wish Jane had found a better partner. “Jane Err” is based on the prevalent (and longtime) belief that every love story must end in a marriage. It feels like even now, most romance stories are based on the foregone conclusion that, “Reader, I married him,” which is also a line from Jane Eyre. If you think about it, Rochester was a terrible partner. Jane probably should not have married him, but then, of course, she didn’t have much choice.  

So, in this flash piece, each scene is created from that line, and each scenario is an example of a more terrible wedding day. One wedding takes place near a beached whale, and the smell of the dead whale is carried through the ceremony. This story is essentially playing with, Oh yes, I married him. It was so wonderful, though everyone at the reception died from food poisoning. 

Most of my stories don’t wrap up with the woman coupled up. They almost always end with the person alone but not in a defeated way. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband, but marriage does not fix things. It complicates them. I don’t want everyone to think that they have to get married, like Jane Eyre. I want there to be other choices, and this story was my way of expressing that idea.