I’m torn on this one. I think maybe I wanted to dislike it. Overall, it wasn’t a waste of time. And it was very well-written–enough so that I read it long after I should have on any given night. Sometimes it’s nice to get pulled into a story that way. But at the end I was frustrated and a bit dissatisfied.

It’s post-WWII in England, largely. A young American woman working in England who loves Jane Austen runs into a girl who claims that her relatives live near a house that was the inspiration for Pemberley. So the American girl visits one weekend, mentions her Jane Austen interest and gets pointed in the direction of a couple who live in a little town not far from the manor who have been compiling a history and records of family that had lived there for centuries and who they believe Darcy and Elizabeth were. There are some very nice touches of letters and diary entries shared throughout the story that are quite delightful to imagine as the truth behind the story. And surprisingly, they round out several characters like Mary Bennet, for example.

As the vehicle for this discovery and sharing of all things P&P, the American girl forges a friendship with the family such that she becomes almost a surrogate daughter to them and their history and story also become important for the girl to learn. There are letters and visits back and forth from the small town to London, where she meets and falls in love with an ex fly boy with commitment issues. Your heart breaks a little bit for her as you see her heading down the tunnel vision for marriage and he clearly doesn’t have that on his mind. But at the end, I wanted to throttle her for behaving EXACTLY THE SAME WAY!!!!!!!!! She didn’t really deserve the quality guy she ends up with because it turns out that she is nearly as obnoxious as the fly boy. And the really irritating thing about it is that she simply doesn’t see that.

From a view back into history, it was eye-opening. There are lots of lovely details about how long England was saddled with rationing even post-war and just how that affected their daily lives and considerations. And I adore most stories where I can be a fly on the wall in that type of setting.
If you’re a Jane Austen freak, sure, read it. It’s not a total waste of time. And prepare to be mad at the girl at the end. If you like Austen and have nothing better to read, again, it’s probably worth your time. If you’re wondering who I’m talking about and whether it’s something to do with that strange movie that Keira Knightley was in, uh, this isn’t for you. I would take the time to read something else by Simonsen again though–her writing really is gripping. ( )

couldn't continue - nothing grabbed me to draw me in...and after 1/3 of the way in, it should have connected with me someway! sadly , no, it didn't have any appeal to this jane luver...
this author seems unaware of the golden rule of 'show don't tell' . searching for pemberley is wordy like a documentary rather than story. no character connxn with this reader - always feeling at arms length rather than heartfelt... ( )

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“Of course, they’re fictitious, but they were based on real people. I grew up in Stepton, which is about five miles from Montclair, or Pemberley, as Jane Austen called it. It’s the ancestral home of the Lacey’s. They’re the ones Jane Austen called the Darcy’s… if you really love the novel so much, you should at least go see Montclair.”

Which Janeite wouldn’t be tempted? Set in the aftermath of WWII Maggie Joyce is from the rural mining town of Minooka in Pennsylvania. During the war she had a job in Washington D.C. doing her bit to help the war effort and not wanting to go back to the monotony and joblessness of her hometown she volunteers to enter the AAFES where she’ll be stationed in Germany for two years then transferred to London, a place she’s always longed to go to...

Continue reading: http://novembersautumn.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/book-review-searching-for-pember... ( )

Following the end of World War II, young American Maggie Joyce is living and working in war-torn London. Desperate not to return home to the tiny Pennsylvania town where her family lives quietly and uninterestingly, Maggie has made her way through Europe and settled in England, where she makes new friends through her work with the American government’s administrative offices abroad and visits the countryside.

It’s on one of these outings to a historic home in Derbyshire that Maggie first hears a story behind a story: that of the “real” Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, beloved characters from Jane Austen’s classic novel Pride & Prejudice. Desperate for something to distract her from the trials of the post-war world, Maggie goes off in search of Beth and Jack Crowell, an English couple who claim to have ties to Elizabeth and Darcy — or Elizabeth Garrison and William Lacey, as they were so called. Beth shares letters and diary entries with Maggie, somehow desiring to prove what they claim is real, and Maggie eagerly devours the information — all while entertaining the interests of the Crowells’ son, Michael. A hot-and-cold romance with an American pilot adds another dimension to Maggie’s life, simultaneously delighting and frustrating her.

And me, as a reader.

My desire to love Mary Lydon Simonsen’s Searching For Pemberley was palpable, but I never quite got there. To start, I realized something dangerous about the book almost right away: I don’t want to believe Jane Austen’s characters were based on real people.

Isn’t part of the intrigue of Austen that this clever, intelligent and witty woman wrote some of the most lasting novels in the English language — books that are still read and loved more than one hundred and fifty years later — and never married herself? That she lived with her sister and mother until her untimely death, and that her manuscripts were largely crafted in her very own room? That we have no substantial evidence of any great romance in her life, save one hastily accepted (and then rejected) marriage proposal in her twenties? That she knew so much of love, and could articulate it so well, but we can never quite know what was in her own heart?

I’ll tell you, it is for me — and reading a book that suggests, but not in an unkind way, that Austen “borrowed” the stories of a real family, the Garrisons, and made both their follies and triumphs public actually hurt me. Hurt me. Though the romantic in me wants to believe Darcy was a real person, when I actually sit down and think about my fantastic Miss Austen merely lifting a true story and changing it slightly, I’m bothered. Just the suggestion bothers me.

Putting that aside, Searching For Pemberley functions, for me, far better as historical fiction than any sort of romance. As a character, I found Maggie flat and unemotional — and Simonsen’s writing, while skilled, lacks the nuance I would expect from a love story. The novel is full of telling and less showing, and if I were to play a drinking game whereby I took a shot every time a character launched into a monologue? I’d be sloshed by the 100-page mark. Or sooner. I can’t speak to the “dialogue” because there really wasn’t any — it was mostly Jack launching into a story about his romance with Beth, or Rob talking about the horrendous things he saw during World War II. As a reader, I didn’t feel engaged with what was happening — it was like putting on a documentary and sitting back with a cup of coffee. I wasn’t in the action.

The novel works better as a look at post-war life in England than as an Austen story, even, and I hate to say that . . . but it’s true. I was most interested in the stories of Beth and Jack Crowell because, unlike William and Elizabeth’s tale, they weren’t ones I already knew. And while I wanted to cheer for Maggie and hoped she would find true love, I simply found it difficult to care about her. For as reserved and unemotional as she was and seemed, I reserved my own emotional attachment.

But there is plenty going on — and plenty to discuss. Simonsen certainly knows her subject, and her details about life during the world wars are specific and heartbreaking. For readers interested in World War II and life for the citizens it most affected, both in the fighting and at home, there’s plenty of material to process and digest. And for literature fans who don’t shudder at the thought that Elizabeth and Darcy really were two proud, prejudiced people? This one might make a nice addition to your Austen library. ( )