By Norah Woodsey
Jane Austen, a writer who produced six classic novels in her short life, is often considered a romance novelist. There is love, certainly, and her protagonists’ happy endings often require marriage. But Austen always engages in social commentary. Friendships, families, the dynamics of class all take part in her exquisite world-building.
The estates, towns, and cities feel real, even two hundred and ten years later. And, there is a singular villain – the rigid misogynistic structure of Regency-era England. We are fortunate to not have this same oppressive force today. Women can inherit property, get bank accounts, make their own living arrangements, and run countries. Most countries, anyway.
A challenge I faced while writing ‘The States’, a modern retelling of Jane Austen’s ‘Persuasion’, is explaining why protagonist Tildy Sullivan supports her spiraling, conceited father when society offers social and economic escape routes. She went to college. She has a career, an apartment, and freedom to travel alone, whenever she wants.
Her father, Patrick Sullivan, is a mirror image of Sir Walter Elliot; vain, more concerned with his image than his spending habits, and careless with the needs of others. Why would a modern young woman abandon the love of a man who respected her, to go back to a father and family who seem to despise her?
When I took on this retelling, I knew this would require an explanation. Our society is too different now. In an effort to honor the original I needed to think carefully about why Tildy, my modern Anne Elliot, would voluntarily act upon an obligation that would’ve been common sense in 1816. I picked up a fresh paperback of Persuasion and marked up the book. I was looking for what Austen included, yes, but also what was missing.
The negative spaces left by a master storyteller are crucial for seeing the full picture. What stood out to me was how little the reader learns of the late Lady Elliot, Anne Elliot’s mother. She was admired by her neighbors, kept her husband’s excesses in check, beloved by her husband, but was “not the happiest of creatures” before her death.
What would make a sensible woman marry a man like him? Was it economics, her own vanity, or was it something we would identify as abuse? Answering why Tildy left her true love became, to me, a question of how she was raised by these two people. The sorts of children who come from a household where one parent is calm and rational, and the other is a arrogant narcissist, look very much like the Elliot daughters.
Some children model themselves after the narcissist, seeking their unbridled authority, and others after the kind politician. With these observations in mind, I restructured my modern Anne Elliot’s backstory with a greater emphasis on her childhood and her mother.
Lady Elliot is a phantom haunting the chapters of ‘Persuasion’, influencing conversations and hopes, without ever being tangible. Making the character more solid in ‘The States’ made the story something more than a romance, in a way that I hope is reminiscent of Austen.
There are friendships and catty sisters and a troubling handsome admirer, but there is a message, too, of what we lose when we give up too much of ourselves to someone unworthy. Not just for ourselves, but for those who come after.
Tildy Sullivan is the middle child in an elite yet fading Manhattan family. Her quiet practicality hides her deep, profound longing for childhood summers in western Ireland. She also carries a secret regret. After her mother’s death 8 years ago, she was persuaded by her family to abandon Ireland and the love of a local boy. Now she believes happiness is lost to her.
When Tildy volunteers for a lucid dreaming experiment, it gives her all she wants – a life lived for her family during the day and a secret, perfect Ireland of her own at night. Will she face reality, or succumb to the ease of her dreams?
‘The States’ is a modern reimagining of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, a story of love, obligation, and second chances. You can pre-order the book HERE, and read the first chapter online at Norah’s website.
NORAH WOODSEY is the author of The States, The Control Problem, Lifeless, and When the Wave Collapses. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, she currently lives with her husband and children outside of San Francisco. Find out more about her at norahwoodsey.com, and follow her on Instagram and BlueSky.
