The Flight of Gemma Hardy

“Writing back” is the phrase Ms. Livesey uses to describe her novel’s relationship to Jane Eyre, that beloved novel from her childhood. In this version, Gemma’s uncle turns up in her native Iceland to take the orphaned girl to live with his family in Scotland. Years later, when her uncle also dies, Gemma is left in the care of her resentful aunt and cruel cousins. At boarding school, she’s bullied mercilessly by the headmistress, her teachers, and fellow pupils. Things seem to take a turn for the better when she accepts a position as an au pair to the 8-year-old niece of a mysterious Scotsman, owner of a rambling estate on the Orkney Islands. You may think you know how this story turns out but—trust me—you don’t!

Because The Flight of Gemma Hardy reminds us that Jane Eyre’s story, like Cinderella’s, is one for the ages.

Margot Livesey grew up in a boys’ private school in the Scottish Highlands where her father taught and her mother was the school nurse. After taking a B.A. in English and philosophy at the University of York in England, she spent most of her 20s working in shops and restaurants, and learning to write. She’s the author of 10 works of fiction, including Eva Moves the Furniture, Banishing Verona, The House on Fortune Street, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, and, most recently, The Boy in the Field. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and lives with her husband, a painter, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

“I didn’t realize how cruel Rochester is sometimes to Jane,” says Margot Livesey, about the process of re-reading Jane Eyre after finishing The Flight of Gemma Hardy. This conversation with Ms. Livesey is available in audio and/or video.

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Join us

Margot Livesey will be at Colgate on Thursday, Nov. 16, at 4:30 p.m. EST. Join us physically in the Persson Hall auditorium or join us virtually via Zoom. The in-person audience will be able to participate in a post-reading Q&A and book-signing. Everyone is welcome. Admission is free.

Want to find out what thoughtful readers are saying about The Flight of Gemma Hardy? Join Colgate faculty and students on Monday, Nov. 27, from 7-8 p.m. EST for a conversation about all three November Living Writers books. (No preparation is required.) Register here.

Go beyond the book

“Livesey is drawn to literary gambles, and there’s no question that modeling her new book on a classic is a risky move,” writes Sarah Towers in this New York Times review.
“I also recognized that part of the enduring appeal of Jane Eyre is the way in which Charlotte Brontë very skillfully stole from her own life, and I thought, well, if I set the novel in a period that I had lived through, when roughly the same age as my heroine, then I could steal as well.” Listen to the rest of this National Endowment for the Arts podcast featuring Jo Reed and Margot Livesey.