Letters to Alice: On First Reading Jane Austen

Inspired by a series of instructive letters written by Austen to a novel-writing niece, Letters to Alice is an epistolary novel in which an important modern writer responds to her niece’s complaint that Jane Austen is boring and irrelevant. By turns passionate and ironic, “Aunt Fay” makes Alice think–not only about books and literature, but also life and culture.