Charlotte Bronte and Sherri Browning Erwin,
Jane Slayre (Gallery Books, 2010)
When you first picked up a copy of Jane Eyre did you expect Gothic Horror instead of Gothic Romance? Was the madness of Bertha Mason not enough for you after hearing about the "shocking secret" Mr. Rochester kept? Well, if you always wanted more ghoulies, ghosties and long-legged beasties from this piece of classic lit, Jane Slayre is just what you've been looking for.
You'll get that there is more to this Victorian Era than the usual flickering candle and squeaking doors right from the get-go. The story starts off quickly -- too quickly in fact. Readers are plunged into the thick of things without so much as a basic introduction to the place and period. Even the book itself throws readers headlong into the fray, with the first page of Chapter 1 starting immediately opposite the page of bibliographic information. Once situated though, the tale takes off. This book is just as captivating as the original, with the twists and tweaks to the classic making it fresh enough to keep readers' interest. In fact, I found myself halfway through the book without realizing how fast I'd been reading.
Fans of Jane Eyre will easily pick out chunks of material from the original story (which include leaving most of the big Jane/Rochester scenes virtually untouched). I caught myself playing a game of "how'd she do that" several times, as I admired her ease in slipping the supernatural into the tale. Surprisingly though, pausing to think about how a passage was reworked doesn't take away from the overall flow of the narrative. That could be because the original story is so dear to me -- it's in my top three, with Stephen King's The Stand and Dante's Divine Comedy -- or, more likely, it's that Erwin took great pains to make sure outrageous additions like zombies, werewolves and vampires didn't take the focus away from the basics. The love story between Jane and Rochester, along with the overall themes of the original work: Victorian-era restrictions based on class and gender, religion versus faith, and Jane's longing for real family are still easily seen in this satire, even with the bloodshed and green goo.
All the characters in Jane Slayre are pretty much the same as in the original work, with perhaps a tweak here and there. The first Mrs. Rochester, Bertha Mason? Now has to deal with lycanthropy as well as her madness. Mr. Brockelhurst, the hard-hearted, selfish headmaster of Lowood School becomes Mr. Bokorhurst, a man who has a much more sinister plan for the poor girls at his school. And Mrs. Abbot is a perfect maid . . . when her limbs don't go missing.
But how does a Victorian-era heroine fight vampires? Quite well, thank you. Jane does get in the odd Buffy-esque quip now and again, as every Slayre ought, and she's got a mean roundhouse kick despite the petticoats. Erwin does keep Jane's comments of-the-period for the most part, though her christening of a multi-staking weapon the "stake-o-matic" is an eye-roller even in this send-up.
What stands out most is the payback that is dealt out. As much as I love Jane Eyre, I hated how some characters never did get the comeuppance they so richly deserved. Sure, it's a more accurate portrayal of the period, but still. In Jane Slayre, however, almost every loathsome character in Jane Eyre gets their just reward, and then some. With vampires turning to dust (a nice nod to Buffy mythology) and zombies leaking green goo rather than blood, gore is kept to a minimum, another way to keep focus on the main storyline while still having fun.
After Oprah and films like The Jane Austen Book Club made reading hip again (thank goodness), "readers guides" -- questions and discussion ideas for folks looking to amp up their book discussions -- started popping up everywhere. With the classics, re-issues often contain a readers guide at the end of the text. Jane Slayre is no different. And since this is a spoof of the classic tale, the discussion items are equally tongue-in-cheek. There's also a mention of Sherri Browning Erwin's Web site, for readers interested in finding out more about her, or who would like to dip into one of her less classically based paranormal romances.
As a parody of the original piece, Jane Slayre is a better fit to the original's genre than a few of the other "monster spoofs" out there, like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters. With Jane Slayre, the original work is Gothic, so this spoof just seems dialed up a notch rather than simply added to twist the original. Jane Slayre is a fun read for horror or classics fans looking for a bit of lighthearted fun, but anyone looking for a well done satire can't go wrong with giving this new Jane a try.
