You know that behind the scenes of any Regency England story, there is an entire cast of characters who do essentially all the work. You know it, but you don't really THINK about what THAT life would be like, if you were the girl who had to wash Elizabeth Bennett's laundry or drive the carriage taking the Bennett girls to Netherfield Park for a ball. In Longbourn, Jo Baker takes us to that world and leaves us there, that world of chilblains and slop buckets, hot ovens and cleaning floors by scattering wet tea leaves and then sweeping them. Sarah is a servant, overseen by Mrs. Hill the housekeeper. Her life and work, her dreams and despairs, as well as her fellow servants, are at the crux of this novel.
What we learn belowstairs (figuratively speaking) is a whole lot that isn't actually in Pride and Prejudice, for all that it is a book in the Bennett's home. I was able to enjoy it for what it was because I didn't expect it to be a perfect correlation between Austen and this extension of her world. But if you are an Austen Purest, there will be a lot to drive you crazy. Oh yes, characters have darker sides that can feel uncomfortable to watch and there is a couple "truth" bombs dropped that felt like a stretch and never really seemed to have a point. It's missing the wit of the original and it's really quite depressing but despite that, I was engaged enough to finish it and appreciate where it took me. Also, some of the writing was just really good, in a literary sense. It was interesting to learn about this harder life in the context of something so familiar.
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