I Could Write a Book: A Modern Variation of Jane Austen's Emma

by Karen M Cox

  Usually, divorce makes at least one person unhappy, and there’s almost always some collateral damage on both sides. I suppose it’s inevitable when people are troubled about their own relationships to ask how I’ve managed to stay married to the same woman for such a long time. When they do ask, I simply tell them the truth—or at least, I tell them what’s been my truth:

  I, George Bryan Knightley, married my best friend.

  Occasionally, I get odd looks when I say it. And boorish comments, like, “Where’s the passion in that? The romance? The spark?”

  Although I know passion and friendship may not always coexist, my own experience also tells me that neither are they mutually exclusive.

  It took me a while to believe but eventually it did sink in, and that realization allowed me to seize my chance with a woman who was my intellectual equal but not exactly like me. A woman who understood my past and still wanted to share my future. She intrigued and amused me but expected nothing less of me than the development of my best self. And, to top it off, she was—and is—stunningly beautiful, inside and out.

  It’s hard to believe, but we’ll be celebrating our fortieth anniversary next month. What anniversary gift goes with year number forty? Marble or emeralds or some such thing? I’m not sure.

  That’s the kind of little factoid my wife would know. All those little details are organized and filed in that brain of hers, in tidy, little neuron drawers. I’m no slouch in the brains department myself, but I believe my wife may be the most…competent woman I’ve ever known.

  Not that she never makes mistakes. When she was young, she made some real humdingers. But then, as I look back, so did I. And I continued to make mistakes a lot longer into my adulthood than she did. A few of those mistakes almost cost me the love of my life. I’m thankful every day that I caught on before it was too late.

  I don’t mean to sound smug, because I know, without a doubt, that fortune played a significant role in our happiness. It’s hard for an analytical guy like me to admit it, but luck was one of the ingredients in the recipe that made life-long lovers out of the best of friends.

  And that key I gave her for her charm bracelet? Well, I didn’t actually lie about what it meant, but I didn’t tell her the whole truth either. It was to remind her that she held the key to her own future, but it also meant something more to me. I gave it to her after I finally realized she would forever hold the key to my heart.

  Questions for Book Clubs, Happy Hours, or Spirited Discussions

  1. Austen wrote, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like." In comparing Austen's "Emma" to your "Emma," why do you think this modern Emma might be more likable to a modern reader?

  A lot of readers, even those who love Austen as a writer and Emma as a novel, don’t care for the main character. I, myself, have always loved Emma—I’ve known too many women like her over the years to not like her. So, one of my goals for I Could Write a Book was to write an Emma that readers could relate to and, hopefully, could like—even as they watched her struggle, falter, and ultimately grow. I did this by giving more background and exploring the dynamics in the Woodhouse family. By modern standards, Emma’s been through a lot in her short life, and she deserves some kudos for it. I also wrote from Emma’s first person point of view so readers could really get inside her head and see what makes her do the things she does.

  2. When was the moment you think George started to fall for Emma?

  I think he takes that first baby step when they have the argument at the Christmas Party about her return home from college. It’s when he says, “Perhaps.” But the point of no return is when he believes he has some real competition for her in the form of Frank Weston. George Knightley is an almost perfect gentleman, but he’s also a man with the very common foible of not knowing what he wants until he thinks someone else wants it.

  3. How do you think the charm bracelet symbolizes both Austen's Emma and this modern Emma?

  The charm bracelet itself was a relatively late addition to the story. I needed something that represented Emma, but what one thing could convey the complexity of her outer life and inner mind? That’s when the idea of a charm bracelet occurred to me. It symbolizes both the original Emma and this modern one because it represents all the different facets of her life—the arts and projects she dabbles in, but never quite becomes proficient at, and the many roles she assumes in her young life: daughter, sister, aunt, homemaker, friend. In I Could Write a Book she’s also a niece, cousin, and a student. Like many women, she wears a lot of hats.

  4. Why did you choose to keep many of the original names yet chose to change Harriet's to Mary Jo?

  I thought with our twenty-first century colored glasses, looking back on the 1970s and the South, that the name Mary Jo conveyed a lot about the character right away. Even Emma makes some pretty big assumptions about her at the beginning. Harriet seemed just a tad bit too old-fashioned in a way that Emma, Frank, George and Jane did not. I also changed the Miss Bates character’s name from Hetty to Helen, for much the same reason.

  5. It has been suggested that Emma is the female equivalent of Darcy. If she is, why do we more easily forgive Darcy for his pride and officious ways?

  In my opinion, there are two reasons. One is that gender bias, though in the process of changing, is still alive and well in our culture. Emma has some characteristics that aren’t stereotypically feminine, especially for her time in the Regency. She’s not reserved; she speaks her mind. She isn’t retiring; she directs people, or tries to. These qualities in a female still carry undercurrents of social rejection. So, when we read Pride and Prejudice, we’re much easier on Darcy. He says, “I was given good principles, but was left to follow them in pride and conceit” somewhere near the end of the book, and we rush to forgive him. But when Emma is left to follow her principles in pride and conceit, she’s often seen as a snob and a shrew. They aren’t behaviors that are changeable, like Darcy’s. They are part of her personality, static and stable faults that will endure. Or so many readers believe.

  The second reason is that I believe Austen almost wrote Emma too well for female readers. What I mean by that is we see a little of ourselves in her—our foibles, our snap judgments, our selfishness when we think we’re being selfless—these are characteristics we might not want to face in the person we see in the mirror each day. It’s excruciating to watch Emma screw up because we can relate to it, a little too well for comfort. Austen was all about growth in her characters, and she wrote Emma with a no-holds-barred bluntness that forces us to look at her main character’s faults, and sometimes it feels icky. But when you dig into Emma, the novel, you also see her admit her mistakes, accept the consequences, and try to do better. In the end, what better role model is there? That Miss Austen—she knew what she was doing.

  About the Author

  Karen M Cox is an award-winning author of novels accented with romance and history including 1932, Find Wonder in All Things, Undeceived, and an ebook novella, The Journey Home. She also contributed a short story, “Northanger Revisited 2015”, to the anthology, Sun-Kissed: Effusions of Summer, and a story titled “I, Darcy” to The Darcy Monologues.

  Karen was born in Everett WA, which was the result of coming into the world as the daughter of a United States Air Force Officer. She had a nomadic childhood, with stints in North Dakota, Tennessee and New York State before finally settling in her family’s home state of Kentucky at the age of eleven. She lives in a quiet little town with her husband, where she works as a pediatric speech pathologist, encourages her children, and spoils her granddaughter.

  Channeling Jane Austen’s Emma, Karen has let a plethora of interests lead her to begin many hobbies and projects she doesn’t quite finish, but she aspires to be a great reader and an excellent walker—like Elizabeth Bennet.

  Connect with Karen:

  Website: www.karenmcox.com

  Amazon Author Page: www.amazon.com/author/karenmcox

  Visit
with Karen on several of the usual social media haunts such as Facebook, (karenmcox1932), Twitter (@karenmcox1932), Pinterest (karenmc1932), Instagram (karenmcox1932), and Tumblr (karenmcox).

  Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed I Could Write a Book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. Reviews help other readers decide if they, too, would like a story.

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  Happy Reading!