Eligible
Curtis Sittenfeld's 2016 novel is the standout of the Austen Project, a series in which contemporary literary novelists update Jane Austen's six finished books for the present. Liz Bennet is a thirty-eight-year-old magazine writer in Manhattan, called home to Cincinnati along with her older sister Jane when their hapless father has a heart attack and the cracking finances of the Tudor-style family house become impossible to ignore. Into town, in his rented Audi, comes the recently anointed reality TV bachelor Chip Bingley, dragging behind him his disapproving best friend, neurosurgeon Fitzwilliam Darcy. Sittenfeld threads in CrossFit, fertility crises, a transgender storyline involving Mary, and a frankly funny lampoon of Cincinnati society, while keeping the architecture of Pride and Prejudice almost beat for beat. Sharp, generous, and surprisingly faithful, it was the rare update Austen readers actually defended.
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What you might want to know about Eligible
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
In modern Cincinnati, the Bennet sisters in their thirties and forties move home when their father has a heart event. New transplant Chip Bingley has just been the lead on a reality dating show called Eligible.
Yes. Eligible is part of the Austen Project, in which contemporary novelists update Jane Austen's novels to modern settings. Curtis Sittenfeld sets Pride and Prejudice in present-day Cincinnati with Liz as a women's magazine writer and Darcy as a neurosurgeon.
No. Eligible works as a standalone, though readers familiar with Pride and Prejudice will recognize the parallel beats and references. It can also serve as a gateway to the Austen original.
Eligible was written by Curtis Sittenfeld, published in 2016 by Random House.
Eligible is 528 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Eligible takes most readers 8 to 11 hours to finish.
Eligible is a standalone novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, not part of a series.
Eligible is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
