Nelly Dean

November 9, 2015
Case’s debut novel is a leisurely paced, highly ambitious, and somewhat overlong work based on Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights. The housekeeper Nelly Dean retells the popular saga in a lengthy, chatty letter addressed to Mr. Lockwood, who briefly rented the nearby Thrushcross Grange estate before leaving for Italy and later London. Fourteen-year-old Nelly lives with the affluent Earnshaws at Wuthering Heights and plays with their children, Hindley and Cathy, when the “queer, filthy” orphan lad Heathcliff is adopted into the family. After Mr. Earnshaw expels Nelly for her dereliction of duty, her mother, Mary, intercedes to have her rehired as a paid house servant and rescues her from the attacks of her violent father, Tom. As the years pass, Nelly grows more intertwined with the Earnshaws’ dysfunctional household, through her pregnancy with Hindley, his empty promise to marry her, and her miscarriage. Fortunately, she befriends her family doctor’s son, the level-headed Bodkin, who sagely says to her that “you are not obliged to keep working here.” Passionate fans of Brontë’s masterpiece will find much to admire in Case’s richly textured novel, while casual readers may find the pace too plodding and the gold-hearted Nelly too accommodating.

November 15, 2015
Housekeeper Nelly Dean tells a multigenerational saga of wild weather and impossible love at Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Wait, didn't Emily Bronte already write that book? Most retellings of Great Novels at least change the narrator. Not this one: it's still the down-to-earth Nelly, still bending the ear of Mr. Lockwood, this time in a letter explaining that she left out a few things the first time around. Once you get past the artificiality and hubris of the setup and an awkward first chapter or two, though, you'll find both an interesting critique of Wuthering Heights and an absorbing, convincing, and historically sensitive novel. In this version, Case's debut, Nelly has relatively little time for Heathcliff and Cathy Earnshaw, the star-crossed lovers of the original. Instead, it's her own story that absorbs her: her childhood at the Heights, her position as something between a servant and a child of the house, her education, the tragic passion that grows between her and Cathy's drunken brother, Hareton, and the burden that falls on her--as the only sober, intelligent, and capable member of the household--to keep the Earnshaw family from falling into ruin. Case explores every permutation of pregnancy and motherhood, populating Nelly's story with illegitimate, abandoned, miscarried, adopted, and aborted babies and fetuses. Her central and final revelation--about the shared parentage of important characters--is an interesting gloss on the original story, but she hints about it so strongly at the start that by the end it's no surprise. Themes of violence, drunkenness, incest, and the supernatural evoke Emily Bronte--as you'd expect in a book that borrows its outline and setting from hers--but Nelly's combination of competence and passionate self-restraint can seem more like something out of a novel by her sister Charlotte. Although its obvious audience is Bronte lovers, this well-written historical novel brings enough depth and new material to stand on its own.

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Starred review from October 1, 2015

Debut author Case crafts a masterly reimagining of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights by casting Nelly Dean, the housekeeper, as the central character, with Heathcliff and Cathy in peripheral roles. Nelly grows up with the Earnshaw children, practically a member of the family, until the master brings home young Heathcliff, pushing Nelly onto the path of dedicated servant to the only family she has ever wanted. Like Bronte's novel, Nelly's story is full of passion, violence, betrayal, revenge, and especially suffering as she endures the thoughtless cruelty of the gentry she serves. To see the familiar characters of this classic through the eyes of Nelly, who knows all their fears and faults so well, is an eye-opening experience. But is she a reliable narrator, given prejudices engendered by her callous treatment at the hands of those she loves? VERDICT Case's skilled reworking of Bronte's masterpiece is a fabulous companion to the original as well as a wonderful stand-alone read. Bronte fans and readers who delight in literary fiction fashioned as 19th-century novels will eagerly snap up this book--and may be tempted to reread Wuthering Heights just for the pleasure of comparing the two novels. Perfect for book clubs.--Barbara Clark-Greene, Groton P.L., CT

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