Mr. Golightly's Holiday (Vickers)

Mr. Golightly's Holiday
Salley Vickers, 2003
St. Martin's Press
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312423803

Summary
Many years ago, Mr. Golightly wrote a work of dramatic fiction that grew to be an astonishing international bestseller. But his reputation is on the decline and he finds himself badly out of touch with the modern world. He decides to take a holiday and comes to the historic village of Great Calne, hoping to use the opportunity to bring his great work up to date.

But he soon finds that events take over his plans and that the themes he has written on are being strangely replicated in the lives of the villagers around him. As he comes to know his neighbors better, Mr. Golightly begins to examine his attitude toward love and to ponder the terrible catastrophe of his only son's death—so, too, we begin to learn the true and extraordinary identity of Mr. Golightly. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—1948
• Where—Liverpool, UK
• Reared—Stoke-on-Trent and London
• Education— Cambridge University
• Awards—judge, Booker Prize (2002)
• Currently—lives in London, UK

Salley Vickers is an English novelist whose works include the word-of-mouth bestseller Miss Garnet's Angel, Mr. Golightly's Holiday, The Other Side of You and Where Three Roads Meet, a retelling of the Oedipus myth to Sigmund Freud in the last months of his life. Her books touch on big philosophical themes of religion, art, creativity and death. She also writes poetry.

She was born in Liverpool in 1948. Her mother was a social worker and her father a trades union leader, both members of the British communist party until 1956 and then very committed socialists. She was brought up in Stoke-on-Trent and London, and read English Literature at Cambridge University. Following this, she taught children with special needs and then English literature at Stanford, Oxford and the Open University and was a WEA and further education tutor for adult education classes.

She then trained as an Jungian analytical psychotherapist, working in the NHS and also specialised in helping people who were creatively blocked. She gave up her psychoanalytic work in 2002, although she still lectures on the connections between literature and psychology. She now writes full time and lives in London.

Her father was a committed supporter of Irish republicanism and her first name, 'Salley', is spelled with an 'e' because it is the Irish for 'willow' (from the Latin: salix, salicis) as in the W B Yeats poem, "Down by the Salley Gardens" a favourite of her parents.

She has two sons from her first marriage. In 2002, her second marriage, to the Irish writer and broadcaster Frank Delaney, was dissolved.

In 2002, she was a judge for the Booker Prize for Fiction. (From Wikipedia.)

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Book Reviews
Salley Vickers, though treading perilously close to the edge of whimsy, is not a "cute" writer, and this book is more readable and modern— also darker and more serious—than a description may make it sound (though I have to warn that it does have a cutish ending and a few other lapses into near-coyness).
Alice K. Turner - Washington Post

Mr. Golightly's Holiday invites you to sit back and consider the large issues of remorse, redemption, and creation."
— The Boston Globe

Written in elegant understated prose, her work probes the human condition, while encompassing myth, metaphysics and spirituality, and embracing the big themes of life and death, good and evil along the way.
Christie Hickman - Daily Telegraph

Vickers writes quietly and confidently about the relationship between nature, humanity and the numinous. Mr Golightly’s Holiday is simultaneously funny, sad and surprising, as fresh and hopeful as one of Shakespeare’s comedies and for similar reasons. Vickers is never less than original and, when conveying her understanding of human frailty and potential, she can be sublime.
Pamela Norris - Literary Review (UK)

A compulsively readable novel from the word-of-mouth bestseller.... Salley Vickers’ latest is much more than a slightly eccentric and humorous tale about the small things in life. In fact, it gradually becomes apparent that its significance couldn’t be greater .
Observer (UK)

Vickers’ third novel contains all the elements of humour and expert story-telling but the author is far too subtle and intelligent to announce outright what she is really about to do; that is to deal with the intricacies of human emotion and answer some of humanity’s fundamental questions. It is a testimony to Vickers’ skill as a narrator that she manages to produce a hugely readable and uplifting piece of prose out of such difficult and delicate themes. It would seem she takes a certain delight in selecting deliberately weighty subject matter and simplifying it into light-hearted witty prose."
Clare Sawers - Scotland on Sunday

English author Vickers (Miss Garnet's Angel) has a light hand with themes that touch on issues of faith and sin, and her tale of Mr. Golightly, taking a break from his labors in a Devonshire village to see if he can create a worthy successor to his hugely popular and influential first book, begins with wonderful promise. Mr. Golightly's real identity, as well as that of his magnum opus and his chief business rival, is hinted at with delightful delicacy; and the fact that he chooses not to create any supernormal happenings, but to deal bemusedly with the people of his creation just as they are, makes him particularly endearing. Vickers is on sure ground with her creation of the more raffish of Golightly's new neighbors, but the introduction of a ravaged widow, Ellen Thomas, moves the book into murkier psychological waters. After a while the book's good humor begins to evaporate, and there is a highly melodramatic climax, followed by a weird chapter of discussion between Golightly and his rival that is reminiscent of the conclusion of The Brothers Karamazov and seems quite jarringly out of place. Vickers has a delightful if occasionally overwhimsical wit and writes charmingly of nature, human and otherwise, but the book fails to live up to its highly original central conceit.
Publishers Weekly

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Discussion Questions
1. What is the significance of the name “Golightly?” Is Golightly a character light of touch? Explain the serious side to his personality. What is the meaning of the epigraph?

2. Golightly’s identity is not revealed until page 250. Discuss the many disguised biblical references that reveal who he is. How were you able to figure out his identity?

3. Golightly has taken a holiday to “rewrite his great work into a soap opera, which he had decided to call That’s How Life Is.” What does this working title say about what he is trying to recreate? Why would his masterpiece need to be rewritten as a soap opera?

4. During his holiday, Golightly meets many interesting characters, all of whom face some type of adversity. How are individual issues confronted by the characters of Great Calne a microcosm of today’s society? What are the positive and negative attributes of Great Calne?

5. As Golightly watches an adult raven try to feed its young he questions the “notion that a creator had influence over the objects of its creation.” What does this say about Golightly’s presence and influence in Great Calne? How does this explain how he sees mankind?

6. Golightly becomes a father figure to the troubled Johnny Spence, a young man who does not have a stable family life and hides around town. How does Golightly’s relationship with Johnny help him deal with the“catastrophe” of losing his son? Discuss how Golightly feels about and deals with the “catastrophe.” How is he a different person because of it?

7. Ellen Thomas, who was told by a gorse to “tell people...about love,” has an extension built on her house to hide a convicted sex offender who is being hunted by Brian Wolford, a prison officer. Consider how Ellen and Brian are different. What are the defining differences in their characteristics and what they represent? How and why do their paths cross at the conclusion of the novel?

8. Golightly’s rival antagonizes him with a series of email messages that Golightly himself “asked of the righteous Job.” How is the story of Job an influence in the novel? Why would Golightly feel that because“he had not been tested by life” he is “poorer thereby?” Consider the suffering that Ellen has experienced. How is she similar to Job? How is this theme reflected in the lines by Keats on the last page?

9. On the night before Ellen Thomas’s funeral, Golightly sends an email to his rival asking to meet. Why did Golightly have a need to talk to his rival? Why are they seemingly friendly with one another? How does the meeting show the necessary balance between good and evil? What are their thoughts on comedy and tragedy? What do they learn from one another?

10. Golightly learns many things about humanity during his holiday, but before leaving he realizes that“the beam of the universe, though slow, found its own level...but he, nor his rival was the agent.” Do you agree with this explanation of who is in control of the balance of the universe? How does this reflect what Golightly has learned during his holiday?

11. How does Luke’s new work reflect what Golightly tried to achieve with his recreation of his masterpiece? Do you agree with Paula’s need for a happy ending? Would you consider Mr Golightly’s Holiday to have a happy ending?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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