A Jane Austen retelling that actually has something new to say

Book review This Motherless Land By Nikki May Mariner Books: 352 pages, $30 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. Loosely based on Jane Austen’s most explicitly political and critically controversial novel, “Mansfield Park,” Nikki May’s “This Motherless Land” explores clashes of custom and class in a contentious Nigerian and English family. Crude cousin Dominic, Liv’s brother, is another story — he calls Funke “Zebra.” And their mother, Aunt Margot, is racist and resentful of Funke’s talents, which recall Funke’s dead mother. Even Liv looks at Funke — whom the Stones eventually call by her more British and socially acceptable middle name, Kate — like she’s an exotic creature: “Kate was the first Black person Liv had got up close and personal with.” To Liv’s mind, “The biggest shock was how ordinary she was. She’d conjured up a wild, ferocious creature, jet black with beads in her hair, hefty and strong, a beautiful but frightening lioness.” Still, in due course, despite relegating her to the attic of the Stones’ crumbling estate like the help, everyone but Dominic and Margot warms to the talented, hardworking Funke.