Jane Austen’s beloved Sense and Sensibility has moved to Westport, Connecticut, in this enchanting modern-day homage to the classic novel

When Joseph Weissmann divorced his wife, he was seventy eight years old and she was seventy-five . . . He said the words “Irreconcilable differences,” and saw real confusion in his wife’s eyes.

“Irreconcilable differences?” she said. “Of course there are irreconcilable differences. What on earth does that have to do with divorce?”

Thus begins The Three Weissmanns of Westport, a sparkling contemporary adaptation of Sense and Sensibility from the always winning Cathleen Schine, who has already been crowned “a modern-day Jewish Jane Austen” by People’s Leah Rozen.

In Schine’s story, sisters Miranda, an impulsive but successful literary agent, and Annie, a pragmatic library director, quite unexpectedly find themselves the middle-aged products of a broken home. Dumped by her husband of nearly fifty years and then exiled from their elegant New York apartment by his mistress, Betty is forced to move to a small, run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage. Joining her are Miranda and Annie, who dutifully comes along to keep an eye on her capricious mother and sister. As the sisters mingle with the suburban aristocracy, love starts to blossom for both of them, and they find themselves struggling with the dueling demands of reason and romance.

Schine's Austenesque novel of manners translates delightfully to audio, thanks to the witty, character-centric writing and Hillary Huber's empathetic narration. Huber's nuanced performance makes the listener feel for elderly, abandoned Betty and her two beleaguered daughters, and the creative character voices (ranging from frail Betty and Yiddish-accented Cousin Lou to Valley Girl Amber, snippy Felicity, and adorable three-year-old Henry) brings the colorful cast to vivid life. Best of all, as expressive as she is, Huber is never histrionic: even when selfish characters like gold digger Felicity present their points of view, Huber plays it straight, allowing the characters' patently self-serving words to speak for themselves and the listener to judge them, resisting the urge to overplay the obvious hypocrisy. This audio is a pleasure to listen to—a perfect marriage of novel and narrator. A Farrar, Straus & Giroux hardcover (Reviews, Dec. 21). (Mar.)

Categories:

• Literature & Fiction
  
  
  • Women's Fiction
    • Contemporary