The Austen Connection

Hello friends,

Today we continue the conversation with fabulous sisters Leah and Bea Koch, co-owners and founders of The Ripped Bodice, the romance-only bookstore in the Los Angeles area. They also work with Sony Pictures in the development of romance-to-screen adaptations. Bea Koch is the author of Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency, which was published during the pandemic. 

In the first part of our conversation we talked about Regency women, romance, racial diversity in romance publishing, history, and so much more. 

And our conversation continues - in this edition, Leah and Bea talk with me about feminism and the romance genre and what it all has to do with Austen and with our lives today. Also, we got their favorite Jane Austen novels, some of the interesting retellings they love, and some of their favorite films and characters from Austen and the Regency era. 

Enjoy this excerpt from our conversation. 

Plain Jane

Let me ask something: You two are young and feminist, and bring ... in some ways, diversity, and also, you're very, very well educated. You've got fancy degrees … But you love romance. You love romance reading, you've always loved romance reading. So what draws you to romance? And also, do you feel like you are a typical romance reader? Are you an example of readers of romance? 

Leah Koch  

Very much. .. I think you have to spend - pre-pandemic - an hour in our store to sort of just see the parade of humanity that that comes through. I think that's something really valuable that the store offers that's just really different. I mean, obviously, not everyone's going to sit in the store ... people-watching. But I just feel like for so long there was this notion that romance readers are white women in their 60s - and not that they don't read and love romance, we have many wonderful customers of that age - but  … to me the biggest thing that's wrong about the stereotypical romance reader is age. We really see 12 to 90 …  just the entire entire age spectrum, whether that's young people getting interested in young adult books and sort of reading their first books that have kissing in them, or … one of the things I hear all the time is, “I just graduated from whatever, high school, college graduate, law school ...Now I get to read for myself again, and I'm going to return or start romance.”

Bea Koch  

I hear that all the time. I think it's what's so amazing is to hear what's bringing people to romance now is what brought us to romance as young women. And that is that these books center internal thoughts of the characters. And as young women as young people - I'm sorry, this is not a gendered thing, but I will speak from my own experience as a woman - you're told your emotions are too much all the time. Don't be so loud. Don't be so emotional. Don't fall in love. That's the wrong thing to do. You're getting all of these signals from society that you're too much. And romance is about all that too much being like the best part. Yeah, emotion is the best part of a romance. And I always think of the movie Inside Out. Sorry, like, I’m off on another tangent! But when I saw Inside Out as an adult - it wasn't available to me as a child - I was like, “What an amazing movie for kids to have now, to be able to talk about all their emotions and really feel like that's important.” And to me as a young woman, my romances - [and] the relationships my friends were having - that was my whole world. And so to find a whole genre where that was the most important thing and was so central and never denigrated, it made romance so important to me. And I love to hear new generations finding it for that same reason.

Plain Jane 

So you're bringing me now to a little bit of Jane Austen. So something that Jane Austen did that's so powerful is to center this interior life, feelings of a woman. She also made damn sure to make it a very intelligent woman  - her heroines are the smartest people in the room. And Jane Austen is always there letting you know how whip smart they are.

Bea Koch

… They are surrounded by other women and we get to see dumb women and other smart women as well. Something I always love about Austen is I think you can see her own love for her sister in her writing. And in the way the sisters - of course, like Pride and Prejudice sisters - but in all her books, sisters and friendships play out. I think we even see it in romance. Of course, the central love story is so important. But many of my favorite romance novels focus just as much on the friendships surrounding the couple and the way love changes not only your relationship with your partner, but your relationship with your sister and your best friend. And if you're building your family and bringing all these people in, and I think the idea that Austen still to this day connects to people in that way and makes you feel instantly like those sisters our are your sisters, and you're in that drawing room with them and feeling their squabbles and their love for each other and how they'll be there for each other even when one makes a mistake. It's just so universal. Not only the love between Lizzy and Darcy but the love between Lizzy and Jane and - Leah’s favorite - Mary.

Plain Jane 

Leah: Who's your favorite? Mary?

Leah Koch

Mary [laughing]

Plain Jane

You love Mary? Because you know, I actually kind of like Mary because she's the one - she's sitting and reading all the time. And she is a rebel in her own way. She refuses to be pleasant. And if she wants to be self righteous then she can. Why do you love Mary, Leah?

Leah Koch  

She's so annoying … she's such an a*****e. I always picture her as Goth, like she would be like dressing Goth now. ...

Plain Jane

Love. It. She's Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice.

Bea Koch  

I think Leah always associated with Mary because … of course, I'm always like, “I'm such a Lizzy.” Like I totally am. And then there's this other kind of version of which is Leah, which is like, “[I’m] the rebel. I'm not the cool one to be.”

I think the idea that Austen still to this day connects to people in that way and makes you feel instantly like those sisters our are your sisters, and you're in that drawing room with them and feeling their squabbles and their love for each other and how they'll be there for each other even when one makes a mistake. It's just so universal.

Plain Jane

Okay … now that we're on to Jane Austen. What is the relationship between Jane Austen and romance novels where you're concerned? Because, you know, scholars will tell you, Jane Austen was part of the Romantic period, Bea as you point out helpfully in your book, but was kind of anti-romance in some ways in her writing. She wanted women to think for themselves and she wanted us to carry our brains like armor, you know. So what how would you describe that relationship? She's influenced a lot of Regency romance. Would you say she has been foundational to Regency romance? 

Bea Koch  

I would certainly say she's foundational to Regency romance - I think not only in her actual stories, but literally the history of Regency romance is a pastiche of true fact and fiction. [Georgette Heyer’s] role, I think, in the history of Regency is really much more complicated than Austen because of some of the anti-Semitism and other stuff in her work. But she was an obsessive scholar of Austen and her research notebooks are her doing all this research on a lot of stuff she read about in Austen. 

Leah Koch  

Isn't there like a phrase that you said never existed but people think is real?

Bea Koch

Yes, there is. There are a couple things from Georgette Heyer’s work that contemporary romance novelists have referenced as though it is a true Regency fact. But it was made up in the 1930s by Georgette. And it's called, I want to say it's like the Bunbury Incident.

Leah Koch  

That sounds right. Yeah.

Bea Koch  

So I learned about this. When I was at Yale, I took a class about…

Dear friends,

Our second podcast episode is out! 

And it’s a treat. In this conversation with superb sisters Leah and Bea Koch, co-owners and founders of Los Angeles romance-only bookstore The Ripped Bodice, we get into the questions about what Jane Austen has to do with romance (a lot, friends), diversity and equity in the romance business from representation to pay, and real women of the Regency era. (Spoiler alert: They’re mad and bad! ) In next week’s conversation we’ll get Leah and Bea’s favorite romance tropes and themes … not to mention some of their favorite Austen retellings. So stay tuned!

Those of us who are romance readers know that the romance industry is a billion-dollar industry with a huge demand in readers - including many of us in the Austen world, and also including Leah and Bea Koch themselves. The sisters say they have always loved romance novels. They also have serious academic degrees in their fields, and they work with Sony Pictures to find books that can be adapted for the screen. 

So for these sisters, as for the industry itself, romance is serious business.

Bea and Leah have also noticed that like much else in our culture, the romance industry has a diversity problem - so they have produced an annual State of Racial Diversity in Romance Publishing Report - gauging the numbers of books being published by BIPOC authors in traditional romance publishing.

Besides running a business through the pandemic, Bea Koch also published a book exploring little-known Regency women from marginalized backgrounds in her book Mad & Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency. 

I caught up with Leah and Bea Koch by Zoom a while back. We talked about how the Regency era has been whitewashed not only in romance storytelling but in so much of our cultural discourse. 

And when it comes to Regency stories, history, romance, how these stories are presented historically and how they might more accurately reflect the actual racial diversity of the era - they have some thoughts!

They began by talking about how challenging the pandemic year had been. But there was an upside - people from all over the world were joining their bookstore events, virtually. 

Here’s an excerpt from our conversation. 

Plain Jane  

So, Leah, it sounds like ups and downs, as you say [during the pandemic]. But one positive might be the community - people are searching out community, people are searching out books. Have you found increased interest or just sort of connecting?

Leah Koch  

Yeah, well, and I think possibly one of the only silver linings is the real sort of expansion of our community on a global sense. Because I think before people were still excited about the store, but it was sort of like, “Oh, maybe when I go on vacation to California someday, I would get to come.” And I think we every once in a while did a live streaming event if the author really wanted to, but it just wasn't something that we did a lot. So now anyone can come to a Ripped Bodice event because they're all virtual. So if you live in Singapore, you can attend the virtual Ripped Bodice.

Bea Koch  

And I think we're excited about - now that we've learned all that - using that to make us more inclusive, moving forward so that more people can attend our events in different ways and figuring out ways to make that exciting.

Leah Koch

I agree, I don't see virtual events just completely going away. I mean, we will return to some amount of in-person because it's fun. But yeah, that's been really nice to sort of include more people that way. And you know, make make them feel like they're at the store, sort of from people's living rooms.

Plain Jane

Yeah, that's great. I know, as a reader, I've really appreciated those kinds of events. Bea, you also, in addition to getting married during the pandemic, you've also published a book during the pandemic: Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency. And you explore Regency romance, actual heroines, actual Regency women. And you find that they're more radical and lively and more challenging and more colorful, and diverse in all kinds of ways - as was the Regency world - than people tend to think. 

Why did you take undertake to broaden out our idea of the Regency with this book?

Bea Koch

I mean, my love of the Regency comes from Romance novels. And I am a “trained historian,” you know, I'm putting that in quotes - because, what is a trained historian? I went to school for it, and I studied it for a long time. But I think, like so many people, I have a real love of history from fiction. And what I was really searching for, as I wrote my book, was a way to talk about the fiction element that I loved so much: What it gets right, and then also, where it could expand. 

And one of those areas, of course, is in featuring more women who are not white, Christian, cis-het women. And there are so many examples of people like that in the Regency who were thriving. And I was so thrilled to have the opportunity to highlight some of them in the book. There are the names that I think will be very familiar to fans of the period, and then maybe names that [you] may think, “Oh, I've heard of them, but I've never quite explored their story.” So it's really fun to dive into some of those.

Plain Jane

Well, who are some of those women who stand out for you?

Leah Koch  

As a reader of the book in many iterations, but in its final iteration, someone I knew nothing about before I read the book was Mary Seacole. So that's my suggestion. Tell us about her.

Plain Jane 

Well, why Leah? Why Mary Seacole?

Leah Koch

I just had never heard of her before. I mean, if you spend enough time around Bea, you will know a lot about queens. And I think there's a real  - correct my history if I'm wrong - but obviously there's a very British focus to the Regency. But it did involve people from other countries.

Bea Koch

Yes, I think the Regency gets a little confusing for people. The Regency refers to a specific ruler and time in England when Prince George took over as Regent for his Father [from 1811-1820]. His father had succumbed to, potentially, a blood disorder and was exhibiting signs of what they called madness. So his son had to take over and there's a [approximately] 10-year time before he actually becomes King that he is the Prince Regent. And that tiny little 10-year period is this time that holds such huge sway in our imaginations for so many reasons. 

And I love that you brought up Mary Seacole, Leah, because I think she's a great example of the way history can shine a spotlight on one woman. And in doing so, unfortunately, we lose the tales of the women around her. And so ... Florence Nightingale is a name that so many of us are raised with - this brave, young, privileged white, Christian woman who went to the frontlines of the war and started modern nursing as we know it. Right alongside Florence Nightingale was a woman named Mary Seacole, who had been trained by her mother who was also a doctor and she owned a boarding house, where she practiced her medicine - traditional techniques. 

And Mary Seacole wrote an autobiography later in life, explaining her training through her mother, her search for education, her whole life and then her own journey to the Crimean War. And her contributions to the war effort, even going so far as to ask Florence Nightingale if she could join her battalion of nurses and being turned down. ...

Mary Seacole was British Jamaican. And Florence Nightingale was white and her battalion of nurses was all white. Mary Seacole was the first woman of color we have evidence [of] that … asked to join and was rejected. And in her autobiography, Mary Seacole writes very movingly of her experiences with racism, and she names it very clearly, what she's experiencing. 

And then later historians kind of whitewashed Mary Seacole’s experience: “Oh, she couldn't …

Hello, dear friends!

It’s here! Episode One/Season One of the Austen Connection podcast. You can press play and listen or stream from any device, and it’s also available (we hope) on Apple podcasts. Enjoy, and if you like it, share with your Janeite and bookish friends. Thank you for being here and joining this conversation!

One of the most exciting things about Jane Austen is how her stories travel - across continents, across cultures, across time. Like her spiritual brother Shakespeare, her stories contain a universality and also a lot of fun of the sort that works like a passport across these boundaries - and perhaps no one else but Shakespeare comes so close to providing us with stories that connect - if you will - so strongly today. 

And one thing that a lot of us find exciting, as so many of us are questioning and exploring issues of race and inclusivity in all of our cultures - is how this author who is important to us is also important to so many of our sisters and brothers across continents and cultures. It’s just downright exciting.

So it’s a thrill to share with you a conversation that I had with the author of a book that happens to be a favorite Jane Austen retelling of a lot of Janeites, and scholars, and readers alike: Soniah Kamal’s Unmarriageable: A Novel.

Unmarriageable tells the story of heroine Alysba, or Alys, Binat and the Binat sisters, who live in Pakistan, teach at an English school, and avoid getting married - that is until the arrogant, wealthy and handsome Darsee comes along and shakes things up. I think you know how this is going to go.  

When I reached Kamal she was visiting Pakistan, the place of her birth. Growing up, she also spent time in England, Saudi Arabia and currently lives in Georgia. But in this conversation you could hear Pakistan - its streets and soundscapes - in the background. 

Kamal and I spoke about why Mansfield Park is her favorite novel, how religious communities that teach Purity, from conservative Islam to Evangelical Christianity, make ideal contemporary settings for Jane Austen’s themes, and why she says that ever since she first read Pride and Prejudice at the age of 16 she’s always known that Jane Austen was Pakistani. 

This is the first Austen Connection podcast episode - you can listen here and subscribe to the podcast on Apple.

Meanwhile, if you prefer words to sounds, here are edited excerpts from our conversation. Enjoy! 

-------------------------------

Plain Jane:

Let me start with a really simple question: When did you first encounter the novels of Jane Austen? When and where and how have Austen and her stories shaped your life ever since?

Soniah Kamal: 

I was first given Pride and Prejudice when I was, I think, around 12, 13, 14 ... by an aunt of mine. And what she gave me was, this was I believe, around the ‘70s. And she gave me a really beautiful red leather-bound copy with gold lettering on it. And I opened it up, and I read the first sentence, which is, you know, “It's a truth universally acknowledged …” etc, etc. And I promptly shut the book and said, “OK, I'm not reading that.” … And I remember thinking, “I don't know what this is, what I just read, I'm not reading this book.” 

And then I think I was 16 when I finally opened the novel, and I like to joke It must have been a rainy day. But I don't know why I opened it. I started to read it, and I read it cover to cover. And it was a quintessentially Pakistani novel. I mean …  it could have been set in Pakistan completely. I mean, Jane Austen didn't know she was Pakistani, and I actually started calling her Jane Khala in my mind - Khala means maternal aunt ... I just loved the novel. And I actually grew up in Saudi Arabia for a while and went to an international school there. And my library had books from the US and the UK … But the one thing that I never could find back then was a book written in English but set in Pakistan, and English is my first language. English is the official language of Pakistan, it became so in 1947, even though we know the origins of it are not that delightful. But reading Jane Austen at that [time] at 16 … what I started to do, in a lot of my reading was flipped settings and stuff. So like bonnets would turn into buttas, sandwiches would turn into scones and stuff. So when I read Austen at 16, it just seemed, you know, it didn't seem other … Which is why I say that it was a quintessentially Pakistani novel. My brain was already doing that, you know … So just seeing the dialogue, the scenarios, the characters, the concerns, the thematic material. And it's all very relevant to today. 

Plain Jane

And that is what we do when we're reading novels. We’re using our imaginations to recreate our own world, which is what's so powerful about it. So funny to think about a young Soniah Kamal reading that first sentence that we love, “It is a truth universally acknowledged …” I have some teens in my life, and they have emptied my shelves of Jane Austen, because I press Jane Austen on them. But the thing I'm very careful to say, and you’re reminding me, as I always say, “She's sarcastic!” 

Soniah Kamal 

I think maybe that's what fascinated me, or at least definitely caught me was that … Yes, it's funny. But the humor is … sarcasm, you know, even the irony and sarcasm are closely related. And I think what I had sort of done to be able to survive myself in the society that I found myself living in, was sarcasm also. 

So Austen, she was just perfect for me. Her wit, her quips, her social insights. But it wasn't just that she had social insights. ... And she has such an astute understanding of characters, of people. She doesn't mock people; she mocks institutions. And her irony and sarcasm are her medium - of her humor … and I really, really related to that. I really love that. But she wasn't making fun of people. She was making fun of the institutions and the ideas that had given birth to these people. 

Plain Jane

Let's tackle that. I mean, she's not just funny, not slapstick funny, as you say, right? She's wickedly funny because she's taking on these incredible institutions. And she's demanding to be listened to. … Soniah, you tackle a lot of themes in the first few pages of Unmarriageable - I could see that you were tackling so many of the themes that people don't actually associate with Austen: Things like you've just mentioned, like class oppression, gender oppression, hypocrisy of society, things that were not only annoying to women in the Regency era, and in Jane Austen's world, but are dangerous - and are still dangerous today. And really, it's all right there in Unmarriageable in the first few pages. So tell me about how conscious this was for you. 

Soniah Kamal 

It was very, very conscious. In fact, what I wanted to do with the first chapter was set up all the thematic material that I felt was in Austen, as well as in Unmarriageable. And Unmarriageable works on two levels. It's a completely stand-alone novel. So if you know nothing about Jane Austen or not coming from Pride and Prejudice, it's still a stand-alone novel in its own right. However, it's also an homage to Pride and Prejudice. I mean, it's a postcolonial parallel retelling, and parallel because it follows the original plot and all the characters are there. And it's a postcolonial retelling because I was trying to remap the linguistic history of British Empire. So this was very much a project for me, rather than just something fun that I thought I would do, you know. And I was very intimidated by what I was setting out to do. I don't know if there's any parallel retelling actually out. I haven't come across one -I think this may well be the first one. But because I was taking on British Empire and postcolonialism also, that was intimidating. 

I was very intimidated by what I was setting …