"Alice" is a fictional character, the author, Fay Weldon, signs her letters to this nonexistent niece "your aunt Fay" and most of the book reads more like essays than a novel. Sounds ghastly, right? It probably is if you read it at the wrong moment.
Like many people who loved this book, I received it as a gift, put it aside, and then started reading one day when I was in the right mood. And BAM! I was hooked and read this short piece in an afternoon (127 pages in this edition). It definitely helps to like Jane Austen; it's hard to imagine someone who hasn't read Austen or doesn't like her work enjoying this book.
Most of the "story" consists of Aunt Fay "explaining" Austen's life and times to her niece, a young woman of eighteen who has dyed her hair punkette style (the book was first published in 1984) and who has to read Austen for school--and isn't looking forward to it. The conceit is cleverer than it sounds, and there's a neat twist at the end. Fay delivers some lofty and, for some readers, pretentious-sounding passages on the meaning of Great Literature, while discouraging her niece from writing a novel before she has had anything in the way of a life.
