Janny

by Jane D. Abbott, Emlen McConnell (Illustrator)

"Spirits soaring — with courage to face the world — came Janny from Painted Post, Canada. And she had need of all her courage to face her haughty aunt..."

288 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Jane Ludlow Drake Abbott (1879-1962) was an American author who began her career writing for adolescent girls, and went on to write adult romance. Born in Buffalo, New York, to a family involved in the shipbuilding industry of the Great Lakes region, she was educated at Cornell University, and married Buffalo attorney Frank A. Abbott. Most of her twenty juvenile titles were published under the name Jane D. Abbott, although a few were released under the name Jane Abbott. Her adult titles were all released under the name Jane Abbott.

Reviews

[Abigail · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fifteen-year-old Janice Bartley - Janny for short - had lived most of her life in Painted Post, Canada, in the woods north of Lake Superior. Orphaned six years before, when her prospector father had died, she was raised by Doctor John and Mother Faire until the day her Uncle Nicholas arrived from New York State, and took her home with him to Newton. Here Janny found that life was not entirely happy and loving, in the affluent Bartley home on Maple Avenue. Her Aunt Maddy was cold and distant, something of a snob, and prone to headaches. Her cousin Carol wanted nothing to do with such a "gawk," going out of her way to be unpleasant and even cruel, while Carol's twin brothers, Charlie and Kevin, were indifferent and hostile, respectively. Uncle Nicholas himself seemed to care for her welfare, but he was often absent, and not very involved in her day-to-day life. Only her friendship with Cousin Amy, another "poor relation," and her school life kept Janny from total despair. When tragedy struck the Bartleys however, it provided just the "shaking up" that Cousin Amy said they needed, leading to many changes, both in individual members of the family, and in their relations with one another...

Having now read a number of Jane Abbott's novels for girls, published in the 1920s and 30s - Highacres , Merridy Road , A Row of Stars - I found that Janny was in many ways true to form, when it comes to the author's storytelling style, and her thematic concerns. Although not without her own class consciousness - like usually finds like, in Abbott's stories - the author often argues against overt, money-based snobbery in her novels, emphasizing the importance of real family love and friendship, as opposed to affluence and social standing. This holds true here, as the experiences of the wholesome, somewhat naive Janny allow the reader a contrasting view of the simple life in Painted Post, where conditions might be primitive, but where people are honest and sincere, and the more complicated existence of Newton, where there is greater social stratification - the wealthy set, the middle sort, and the mill workers - and where people are often insincere and worse, unkind. Although Janny herself is at first unable to understand what is wrong around her, being ill-equipped to grasp the idea of false friendliness, or a lack of love and concern for one's fellows, she is cognizent from the first day that something is not right in her uncle's house. Later, when the grim realities of her life as an unwelcome poor relation become apparent to her, she begins to see the emptiness of the family relationships around her. The narrator tells us that "she vaguely felt the luxury of her uncle's house as only a shell beneath which were inharmonies that jarred in the ceaseless bantering of the young people, in Celia's grumblings, Kevin's scowling, Aunt Maddy's complaining, even in Uncle Nicholas' profound absorption that must be worry. Something that had lived in Doctor John's cabin was lacking in this home, where money had spread comfort and beauty with so lavish a hand." The events through which this empty shallowness of the Bartleys' lives is made whole and deep, provide the solution to Janny's unhappiness, and thus, to the central dilemma of the story.

All in all, I found Janny to be an enjoyable and engaging tale, particularly as, having read other stories by Abbott, I went in knowing what to expect in the way of irritants. As a heroine, Janny sometimes felt unnaturally good and overly forgiving, and there were moments when I wanted to shake her, especially as it related to her hero-worship of Charlie, despite his obvious obnoxious qualities, or her frequent sympathy for Carol, despite the fact that every bit of her "suffering" was deserved, and self-inflicted. I also felt that the reform of the family, accomplished through the hardships attendant on Nicholas Bartley's nervous collapse, after a severe financial setback involving a bad investment, was a little too quickly achieved, and a little too pat, especially in Carol's case. The depiction of Celia, the Bartley family's black maid, is uncomfortably dated, and reminiscent of Abbott's handling of the character of Ol'Phemia, another black maid, in her The Young Dalfreys . All of that said, I did (as already mentioned), find this one quite enjoyable. Abbott manages to involve the reader emotionally in Janny's story - perhaps explaining why her abundance of tolerance was so frustrating - and she handles certain social issues related to class distinctions in an interesting and democratic manner. Recommended primarily to Jane Abbott fans (if there is such a creature), and to readers interested in vintage Ammerican girls' fare from the early twentieth century.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fun account of Janny's day to day adventures in her small town, but this book lacks a strong story ark and the ending seems random and sudden.