Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights

Case’s debut novel is a leisurely paced, highly ambitious, and somewhat overlong work based on Emily Brontë’s classic Wuthering Heights. The housekeeper Nelly Dean retells the popular saga in a lengthy, chatty letter addressed to Mr. Lockwood, who briefly rented the nearby Thrushcross Grange estate before leaving for Italy and later London. Fourteen-year-old Nelly lives with the affluent Earnshaws at Wuthering Heights and plays with their children, Hindley and Cathy, when the “queer, filthy” orphan lad Heathcliff is adopted into the family. After Mr. Earnshaw expels Nelly for her dereliction of duty, her mother, Mary, intercedes to have her rehired as a paid house servant and rescues her from the attacks of her violent father, Tom. As the years pass, Nelly grows more intertwined with the Earnshaws’ dysfunctional household, through her pregnancy with Hindley, his empty promise to marry her, and her miscarriage. Fortunately, she befriends her family doctor’s son, the level-headed Bodkin, who sagely says to her that “you are not obliged to keep working here.” Passionate fans of Brontë’s masterpiece will find much to admire in Case’s richly textured novel, while casual readers may find the pace too plodding and the gold-hearted Nelly too accommodating. (Feb.)