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Local mystery writer revives Jane Austen
Hard as it is to crack the very tough book business and make it as a published novelist, there are several Dayton-area writers who have pulled it off. Some, such as the literary writer Katrina Kittle and mystery writer Sharon Short, are pretty well known in town and have gotten a good amount of press.
One you may know not know quite so well is Carrie Bebris, who is pretty far along a witty series of period novels she calls the “Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mysteries.”
Yes, Jane Austen fans, that Mr. Darcy. Bebris has reimagined the characters created in “Pride and Prejudice” and has recast them as amateur sleuths who pursue villains admist the moors and mansions of 19th-century Britain.
Mysteries always need a twist, and about five years ago when she was trying to come up with one, “I started with what I like to read. Jane Austen has always been my favorite author, and I wondered what kind of premise I could build off her, like a murder at a Jane Austen convention…
“And then I was rereading ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ and I realized Elizabeth predicted a lot of what happens in the action, and Darcy was a man of society who had the connections and resources to move about in the world and make things happen. So imagine what they could accomplish after their marriage! They could become involved in intrigue, they could meet other Jane Austen characters…”
And indeed, they have. First came 2004’s “Pride and Prescience,” and from there she’s had the intrepid, fast-talking, incurably romantic pair moving through mysteries that have spun off each of Austen’s books.
Bebris, 40, lives in Washington Twp. with her husband, Oakwood Public Safety Director Alexander Bebris, and their two kids. They moved here from Wisconsin about three years for his job, and Bebris now writes full-time, with the Darcy mysteries — published by Tor/Forge — front and center.
With an English-lit degree from Marquette, and once worked as an editor for TSR, the company that made the “Dungeons and Dragons” games. She started writing fantasy novels, tired of doing battle scenes and decided mysteries were more her style.
The fifth Darcy novel, “The Intrigue at Highbury,” just came out, and she’s enjoying the sales reports from the new paperback editions of her third and fourth in the series. Her Web site, www.carriebebris.com, has the details. The books are big in Italy, which amuses her, and she’s brainstorming the next one, which will be based upon Austen’s “Persuasion,” Bebris’ favorite.
She realizes, happily, that she’s riding a recent wave in renewed Austen interest, visible on movie screens and in other novels, such as the recent zombie knock-off that got some buzz.
“Every time I read her, I find something new,” Bebris says. “There’s a gentility and decorum in those books that’s been lost in our society. We live in a society where people go on reality TV and bare their souls for attention; I think a lot of us would rather live in a world where people held back some of themselves, out of propriety, like Mr. Darcy.
“She’s very contemporary in terms of talking about things that still matter. Plus, she’s very funny.”
Austen left six novels, of which “Persuasion” was the last, but Bebris expects to mix, match and combine characters from them all for future plots. “I don’t think we’ve quite seen the last of Mr. Wickham, do you?” she says with a laugh, referring to the scoundrelly soldier who keeps after Elizabeth Bennett and her younger sisters until Mr. Darcy saves the day, and her heart.
“As long as people continue being interested, I’ll keep writing them,” she says. “There are plenty more to come.”
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Comments
By vick
October 23, 2009 5:18 PM | Link to this
Good stuff, Ron. Thank you.
By gary mitchnerl
October 23, 2009 5:07 PM | Link to this
But no one mentioned the Dayton chapter of the Jane Austen Society of North America — email me and I will fill you in on the mystery.