The Self-Seeding Sycamore

A short story by Lionel Shriver from the collection Reader, I Married Him: Stories inspired by Jane Eyre.

In ‘The Self-Seeding Sycamore’, a widow wages war upon her neighbour’s garden, and makes a surprising discovery.

Edited by Tracy Chevalier, the full collection, Reader I Married Him, brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

Reviews

Praise for the full collection, READER, I MARRIED HIM:

‘Dazzling’ DAILY MAIL

‘The success of this book owes much to [Chevalier’s] enthusiasm … it’s quite amazing to see the quality of work on show’ EVENING STANDARD

‘A terrific set of stories by some of our leading novelists, each of whom engages with a chosen aspect of Jane Eyre’ THE NEW STATESMAN

‘A clever idea well-executed; a treat for fans of short fiction and for Brontë's many ardent fans’ KIRKUS REVIEWS

‘Exemplary…written by some of today's best female writers’ THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE

‘These pieces create a beguiling picture of women and men and desire, in which everyone is searching, like Jane, for happiness and wondering whether marriage is really an answer. The book acts as a prism spreading all kinds of literary and historical refractions, and it’s a reminder that Charlotte Brontë, too, has many sides’ GLOBE AND MAIL

About the author

Lionel Shriver’s novels include the National Book Award
finalist So Much for That, the New York Times bestseller
The Post-Birthday World, the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin and the Sunday Times bestseller
Big Brother. She won the BBC National Short Story Award
in 2014. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian and
the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and many
other publications. She lives in London and Brooklyn,
New York. Her twelfth book The Mandibles: A Family,
2029–2047 is forthcoming in 2016. Shriver has not read Jane
Eyre since her teens, and admits sheepishly to dependency
on multiple mini-series to refresh her memory – having
avidly watched more than one.