Flight of Gemma Hardy (Livesey)

The Flight of Gemma Hardy
Margot Livesey 2012
HarperCollins
447 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062064226 


Summary
When her widower father drowns at sea, Gemma Hardy is taken from her native Iceland to Scotland to live with her kind uncle and his family. But the death of her doting guardian leaves Gemma under the care of her resentful aunt, and it soon becomes clear that she is nothing more than an unwelcome guest at Yew House.

When she receives a scholarship to a private school, ten-year-old Gemma believes she's found the perfect solution and eagerly sets out again to a new home. However, at Claypoole she finds herself treated as an unpaid servant.

To Gemma's delight, the school goes bankrupt, and she takes a job as an au pair on the Orkney Islands. The remote Blackbird Hall belongs to Mr. Sinclair, a London businessman; his eight-year-old niece is Gemma's charge. Even before their first meeting, Gemma is, like everyone on the island, intrigued by Mr. Sinclair. Rich (by Gemma's standards), single, flying in from London when he pleases, Hugh Sinclair fills the house with life. An unlikely couple, the two are drawn to each other, but Gemma's biggest trial is about to begin: a journey of passion and betrayal, redemption and discovery, that will lead her to a life of which she's never dreamed.

Set in Scotland and Iceland in the 1950s and '60s, The Flight of Gemma Hardy—a captivating homage to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre—is a sweeping saga that resurrects the timeless themes of the original but is destined to become a classic all its own. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 24, 1953
• Where—Perth, Scotland, UK
• Education—B.A., University of York, England
• Awards—L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award
• Currently—Boston, Massachusetts, USA


Margot Livesey is a Scottish born writer. She is the author of eight novels, numerous short stories, and essays on the craft of writing fiction.

Livesey came to North America during the 1970s where she worked to get her fiction published, reportedly because her boyfriend at the time was also a writer.

Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and a number of literary quarterlies. She is also the Fiction Editor at Ploughshares, a renowned literary journal. Livesey served as a judge for the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction in 2012.

She currently lives in the Boston area and is the writer-in-residence at Emerson College and at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has formally served as a professor at Boston University, Bowdoin College, Tufts University, Carnegie Mellon University, Brandeis University, Cleveland State University, Williams College, and at the University of California, Irvine. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/16/2016.)

When asked by Barnes and Noble editors in 2004, what book influenced her the most, Livesey had this to say:

This sounds self-centered but the book that had the biggest impact on me as a writer was the novel I wrote when I was twenty-two and traveling around Europe and North Africa. When I reread it at the end of the year I was amazed at how completely I had failed to be influenced by the many wonderful books I'd read. My characters were unbelievable, their conversations preposterous, the plot simultaneously dull and far-fetched, etc., etc. Seeing the enormous gap between the books I loved and my own was what made me want to be a writer in a serious way.

Book Reviews
Livesey's appealing new novel, is, as she has explained, a kind of continued conversation, a "recasting" of both Jane Eyre and Livesey's own childhood…Livesey is drawn to literary gambles, and there's no question that modeling her new book on a classic is a risky move. For the most part, she succeeds. It's a delight to follow the careful dovetailing of the two novels…Livesey is a lovely, fluid writer.
Sarah Towers - New York Times Book Review


Readers…will appreciate Livesey’s smooth and lucid prose. She’s a fine storyteller who can maintain the antique flavor of her tale with far simpler sentences and an updated vocabulary.
Ron Charles - Washington Post


The talented Livesey updates Jane Eyre...taking care to home in on the elements of this classic story that so resonate with readers.... Despite readers’ familiarity with the story line, they will be held rapt.... A sure bet for both book clubs and Bronte fans.
Booklist


“[An] original slant on a classic story.... Within the classic framework, Livesey molds a thoroughly modern character who learns to expect the best of herself and to forgive the missteps of others. The author has a gift for creating atmosphere.
Library Journal


A clever orphan girl, mistreated by relatives, then sent to suffer cruelly at boarding school, finds heartbreak and eventual heartsease with a brooding older man. Sound familiar? "Neither my autobiography nor a retelling of Jane Eyre," says Livesey (The House on Fortune Street, 2008, etc.) about her new novel in the foreword. However, this story bears more than a passing resemblance to Charlotte Brontë's immortal classic. Poignantly narrated, Livesey's tale opens in late-1950s Scotland where, after her uncle's death, harsh new conditions are imposed on 10-year-old Gemma by her cartoonishly callous aunt and cousins. Sent to horrible Claypoole School as a working pupil, Gemma becomes a lonely, bullied drudge until befriended by asthmatic Miriam, whose sad death gives Gemma the power to endure. After the school's closure she moves, now almost 18, to a remote Orkney island, to work as an au pair caring for Nell, the unruly niece of taciturn banker Hugh Sinclair. Love and a surprise proposal follow, and it's here the story parts company most noticeably and least convincingly from Jane Eyre. Shameful secrets, foreign travel and a quest fulfilled follow, before Gemma finally establishes a future on her own terms. Nicely, touchingly done, and the familiar story exerts its reliably magnetic pull, but fans of Jane Eyre will wonder why.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Did Gemma’s name take on new meanings for you in the course of the novel? What about the other names she uses at various points?

2. In the opening chapters, Gemma’s aunt is quite hardhearted, even cruel. Did your opinion of her change by the time you finished the novel?

3. How do you think the various landscapes that Gemma passes through help to change, or inform, her journey?

4. Gemma’s uncle is a devout Christian. Do you think Gemma minds losing her faith? Do her childhood values still govern her actions?

5. Throughout the novel there are various supernatural occurrences. How do you understand these?

6. How do Gemma’s relations with the various orphans she takes care of deepen your sense of her?

7. Gemma is at the mercy of chance but she also takes charge of her life and makes certain crucial decisions. How do you feel about those decisions?

8. What about the role of animals and birds in Gemma’s life?

9. If you’ve read Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, are there places in The Flight of Gemma Hardy where you find yourself remembering Jane particularly vividly? Do those memories change, or deepen, your reading?

10. Did The Flight of Gemma Hardy make you think of other orphan stories beyond Jane Eyre? Why are orphan stories so endlessly appealing?
(Questions developed by Margot Livesey and used with her kind permission.)

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