All That's Left to Tell (Lowe)

All That's Left to Tell 
Daniel Lowe, 2017
Flatiron Books
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250085559


Summary
All That's Left to Tell "celebrates not just the power of storytelling but the deeply human need for it in even the most dire situations. Alternately gripping and dreamy, Daniel Lowe’s debut imagines what the stories we tell reveal about ourselves, and how they may save us.”
—Stewart O’Nan, author of West of Sunset

Every night, Marc Laurent, an American taken hostage in Pakistan, is bound and blindfolded. And every night, a woman he knows only as Josephine visits his cell.

At first, her questions are mercenary: is there anyone back home who will pay the ransom? But when Marc can offer no name, she asks him a question about his daughter that is even more terrifying than his captivity. And so begins a strange yet increasingly comforting ritual, in which Josephine and Marc tell each other stories.

As these stories build upon one another, a father and daughter start to find their way toward understanding each other again. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—rural Michigan, USA
• Education—M.F.A., University of Pittsburgh
• Currently—lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania


Daniel Lowe is an author and professor of creative writing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was raised in rural Michigan and received his MFA in fiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh.

His fiction and poetry have appeared in West Branch, Nebraska Review, Montana Review, Wisconsin Review, Writing Room, The Bridge, Paterson Literary Review, Ellipsis, Blue Stem, Midway Journal, and The Madison Review. All That’s Left to Tell is his debut. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
The spirit of Scheherazade animates this first novel…. [A] dramatic case for the importance of stories as a way to deal with life’s tragic events. Despite one too many meta-games with the reader, the characters here remain real and memorable, a credit to Lowe’s storytelling skill.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Luscious…. Compelling. Lowe’s elaborate tapestry showcases humankind’s reliance on the power of stories to comfort, correct, and clarify both our hidden feelings and exposed fears. With its shifting points of view and emotional authenticity, Lowe’s masterfully crafted first novel will be a surefire hit with book discussion groups.
Booklist


[H]aunting…. captivating…. Lowe's prose is evocative, the plot gripping, and the attachment that reaches across the alienation between these characters reaches out to the reader as well. A story about storytelling, stirring and effective.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for All That's Left to Tell...and then take off on your own:

1. Marc Laurent is hardly the lucrative executive that captives would hope for in a kidnapping—it's unclear that anyone would ransom him. What in Marc's life or his personality has led to this estrangement? How would you describe him?

2. Who is Josephine and what is her function in the novel?

3. In reading this, is it possible to untangle what's true from what is not? Which story, or whose story, can you believe in?

4Follow-up to Question 3: Daniel Lowe's novel is about storytelling. In what way does the author turn the conventional novel and the reader's need for, or expectations of, verisimilitude on its head...and why?

5. Talk about the alternative lives that Marc and his daughter Claire have in this novel. How do those stories provide comfort? In what ways does the novel suggest we use the stories that we tell ourselves and others to find comfort in life?

6. What is the significance of the book's title?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

top of page (summary)