The Evolution of Jane [Paperback]

Cathleen Schine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

From the bestselling author of The Love Letter, comes a playful and evocative exploration of the nature of friendship

"Classy, intelligent fun." --People

Six hundred miles off the Ecuadoran mainland, just south of the equator, the Galpagos Islands are home to diverse species of exotic wildlife--and tourists of every stripe and feather. It is here that Jane Barlow Schwartz embarks on a quest as urgent as Charles Darwin's one hundred and fifty years before: to find out why her childhood friendship with her cousin and soul-mate Martha ended; and what unknown event, family feud, or unintended slight caused the happiest part of her life to become extinct. Along the way, amid blue-footed boobies, red-lipped batfish, and various species mating, squabbling, separating, and coming together again, Jane ponders the origin of her own colorful and peculiar heritage, a secret history of natural selection, and the flawed and fascinating evolutionary process that makes us all who we are.

Praise for The Evolution of Jane

"A tour de force . . . witty. Consistently amusing and provocative . . . a great pleasure to read."--The New York Times

"We should rejoice in a rare novel like The Evolution of Jane. A beautifully descriptive travelogue of the Galpagos . . . wrapped around a rollicking family saga tinged with hints of sexual intrigue. Three cheers."--Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times Book Review

"Hilariously rendered. In her smart, funny, and moving book, Schine weaves a tight bond between natural processes and human love, and reveals to us the spiritual metamorphosis that is life itself."--San Diego Union-Tribune

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a Cathleen Schine heroine goes off in search of her origins, she's likely to travel farther than most--and bound to come up against more than the average obstacle. Jane Barlow Schwartz, for instance, heads not for her New England childhood home but for the consolations of the Galapagos Islands. "You're searching for your roots," her father quips. "On a dormant volcano?" And this is only one of the thousands of witticisms on offer in Cathleen Schine's novel of lost friendship, the perplexing power of the family feud, and more than one shipboard mystery. When Jane, 25 and a brand-new divorcée, arrives in Ecuador for her ecological tour, she instantly recognizes the guide as her relative and childhood best friend. Martha, the cousin in question, however, takes several beats longer--a clear signal that both still have some evolving to do. As Jane quickly reveals, Martha was the real grand passion in her life, and now she's determined to get to the bottom of her idol's disenchantment, not to mention explore the evolutionary value of friendship. Charles Darwin is definitely much in evidence in The Evolution of Jane, and Schine has some serious fun with Jane's confusion when it comes to species survival. But her fifth novel is also filled with some provocative, perfectly timed aperçus on natural, romantic, and most definitely familial selection. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

A writer of witty comedies of manners, Schine (Rameau's Niece; The Love Letter) combines the intellectual curiosity of a philosopher with a lively sense of the absurd. Her latest comically misadventurous, existential inquiry is set in the Galapagos, and Darwin's Origin of Species serves as a framework for protagonist Jane Barlow Schwartz's search for identity. Newly divorced Jane arrives at the islands off Ecuador to find that the park ranger who will guide her group is her estranged cousin, Martha Barlow, her dearest friend when they were growing up in Barlow, Conn., the town named for their family's founders. Jane has been grieving for years because Martha suddenly ended their "twinship" without explanation. Suspecting that Martha's rejection may be tied to the mysterious family feud that the elder Barlows will not explain, Jane speculates about the ways Darwinian theory can be applied to human relationships. For Jane, the question of "the transmutation of friendship" takes on the urgency of a scientific quest, which she pursues in whimsical fashion, inadvertently getting herself into hilarious situations?especially when she thinks she is competing with Martha for the attentions of an attractive young man in her group, one of many vividly realized characters who, to Jane's eye, are colorful examples of species diversity. But Martha's essential difference from Jane, her confident, pragmatic and unimaginative personality, becomes clear to the reader before Jane gets a clue. Cleverly, Schine follows Jane's epiphany about friendship and self-knowledge with a truly surprising revelation about the Barlow family feud. The sophisticated narrative, sparkling with playful intelligence and resonating with poignant insights about the ways girls and women bond, is Schine's best novel yet. Agent, Neil Olson of Donadio & Ashworth. 75,000 first printing; author tour. (Oct.) FYI: A movie titled The Misadventures of Margaret, based on Rameau's Niece, will be released in the fall. The Love Letter is in production from DreamWorks.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Plume (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452281202
• ISBN-13: 978-0452281202
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,661,194 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cathleen Schine is the author of The New Yorkers and The Love Letter, among other novels. She has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting depiction of different ways of looking at past, August 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Evolution of Jane (Hardcover)

I enjoyed reading Ms Schine's novel and I'm interested in all the negative reader reviews. I found much of the story improbable but I was still fascinated with the evolution of Jane which was her realization that Martha had not seen events in their early life in the same way. The combination of Darwin's theories and life was interesting to me also but probably many readers just want a story line. I may suggest this book to my book club; I think it will be a good one to discuss.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evolution of the Novel, October 2, 2000

By 

"cr8tv" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Evolution of Jane (Paperback)

My book group read this book and will meet next week to discuss it. I found it to be a welcomed break-away from a conventional novel. The balance of Non-fiction/fiction was superbly crafted. Ms Shine's wit and wisdom is both provocative and entertaining. Don't we all know a Jane somewhere? Or perhaps have a little of Jane's quirky narcisism lurking in ourselves that we cringe to acknowledge? I would venture that it's this dark truth, along with the risk-taking departure from conventional format, that readers find disturbing. But if you shake off preconception, it's a terrific read. Bravo!

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Evolution: It's only a theory, after all, March 11, 2000

By 

Lauren E. Knopf - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Evolution of Jane (Paperback)

Up to the penultimate chapter of the book, I was extremely enthusiastic about The Evolution of Jane. It is the first novel I've read by Schine, and I was impressed by the mixed voice of levity, sentimentality, and great human sensitivity. Most of all, lines and whole passages caused me to laugh out loud. A few of her tropes, however (her mother's catchword "Chaos," the pivotal pool tragedy, Darwin's "nature red in tooth and claw," and Jane's general whininess), began to chafe with repetition. Most disappointing was the ending. It came in a rush, without much reflection or discourse, an abrupt departure from the previous flow of the book, which at its best philosophized lightly and at its worst dwelled. The onset of Ecuadorean illness, which I will spare both past and future readers, was particularly sickening. The book, in my opinion, DE-volved from this episode on. Most irritating, however, was Martha. Martha's irritating-ness served a purpose up to Jane's epiphany about thier lost friendship, but after the epiphany Martha continued to be irritating - her aloof, intractable, affable yet grating indifference to one and all - and this made the novel and the heroine both... irritating. Yet, this is not intended to be a wholly negative review. I do recommend the book for anyone in the mood for a very engaging read that is nevertheless not sustainable.