The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

one another. It was Allegra who finally spoke. “Good as the secondary characters are, I do think Austen gets better at them in her later books. The women—Mrs. Jennings, Mrs. Palmer, and that other one—are kind of a mishmash. Hard to keep straight. And I loved Mr. Palmer’s acid tongue, but then he reforms and disappears very disappointingly.”
    In fact, Allegra had instantly recognized herself in the sour Mr. Palmer. She, too, often thought of sharp things to say, and she said them more often than she wished. Mr. Palmer didn’t suffer fools and neither did Allegra, but it wasn’t something she wasproud of. It didn’t spring, as Austen suggested, from the desire to appear superior, unless lack of patience was a superior quality. “Plus”—Allegra allowed herself one more moment’s irritation over the silencing of Mr. Palmer—“I do think Sense and Sensibility stretches our credulity at the end. I mean, the sudden marriage of Robert Ferrars and Lucy Steele! The later books are more smoothly plotted.”
    â€œIt requires some hand-waving,” Grigg agreed. (That stern moment of silence utterly lost on him! What would it take?) “You see, of course, the effect Austen’s going for, that moment of misdirection, but you wish she hadn’t had to go to such lengths for it.”
    The Austen-bashing was getting out of hand. Sylvia looked to Jocelyn, whose face was stoic, her voice calm but firm. “I think Austen explains it very well. My credulity remains unstretched.”
    â€œI don’t have any trouble with it,” Sylvia said.
    â€œPerfectly in character,” said Prudie.
    Allegra frowned in her pretty way, chewing on a fingernail. You could see that she worked with her hands. Her nails were short, and the skin around them rough and dry. You could see that she took things to heart. Hangnails had been teased loose and then stripped, leaving painful peeled bits by her thumbs. Prudie would have liked to take her somewhere for a manicure. When your fingers were long and tapered like that, you might as well make the most of them.
    â€œI suppose,” Allegra conceded, “if the writer’s not allowed to pull an occasional rabbit out of a hat, there would be no fun in writing a book at all.”
    Well, Prudie thought, Allegra would be the one to know where writers found their fun. Prudie herself had no problems with girl-on-girl. She opened her mouth to tease Allegra about her book-writing girlfriend, which would certainly make this point, as well as alert Grigg to the lay of the land.
    But Grigg was agreeing again. Really, he had become very agreeable where Allegra was concerned! He was seated next to her on the couch, and Prudie tried to remember how this had come about. Had it been the only seat left, or had he schemed for it?
    Usually Allegra managed to work her sexuality into any conversation. This was a point of contention with her mother, who thought it rude to press sexual details onto slight acquaintances. “Your paperboy doesn’t need to know,” she’d say. “Your mechanic doesn’t care.” Allegra would never believe that homophobia wasn’t at the bottom of this. “I won’t be closeted,” she declared. “It’s not in my nature.” But now, just when the information might be usefully shared, she was suddenly, irritatingly silent on the subject.
    â€œHow’s Corinne?” Prudie asked impishly. “Speaking of writers.”
    â€œCorinne and I have gone our separate ways,” Allegra answered, which Prudie then remembered she’d been told. Allegra’s face had turned to stone. But that business with Corinne had been months ago, surely. Prudie trusted that it wasn’t too sensitive a subject to be raised now. No one had told her they were never to mention Corinne’s name, because she was certainly capable of holding her tongue when necessary.
    Grigg was