Laura Rider's Masterpiece
Jane Hamilton, 2009
Grand Central Publishing
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446538947
Summary
Laura and Charlie Rider have been married for twelve years. They share their nursery business in rural Wisconsin, their love for their animals, and their zeal for storytelling. Although Charlie's enthusiasm in the bedroom has worn Laura out, although she no longer sleeps with him, they are happy enough going along in their routine.
Jenna Faroli is the host of a popular radio show, and in Laura's mind is "the single most famous person in the Town of Dover." When Jenna happens to cross Charlie's path one day, and they begin an e-mail correspondence, Laura cannot resist using Charlie to try out her new writing skills. Together, Laura and Charlie craft florid, strangely intimate messages that entice Jenna in an unexpected way. The "project" quickly spins out of control.
The lines between Laura's words and Charlie's feelings are blurred and complicated, Jenna is transformed in ways that deeply disturb her, and Laura is transformed in her mind's eye into an artist. The transformations are hilarious and poignant, and for Laura Rider, beyond her wildest expectations. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 13, 1957
• Reared—Oak Park, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Carleton College
• Awards—Hemingway/PEN Award, 1988
• Currently—lives in Rochester, Wisconsin
Her first published works were short stories, "My Own Earth" and "Aunt Marj's Happy Ending", both published in Harper's Magazine in 1983. "Aunt Marj's Happy Ending" later appeared in The Best American Short Stories 1984.
Her first novel, The Book of Ruth, was published in 1988 and won the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, Great Lakes College Association New Writers Award, and the Wisconsin Library Association Banta Book Award in 1989. The Book of Ruth was an Oprah's Book Club selection in 1996, and it was the basis for a 2004 television film of the same title.
In 1994, she published A Map of the World, which was adapted for a film in 1999 and, the same year, was also an Oprah's Book Club selection. Her third novel, The Short History of a Prince, published in 1998, was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1998. This book was also shortlisted for the 1999 Orange Prize. In 2000, Hamilton was named a Notable Wisconsin Author by the Wisconsin Library Association.
All of her books are set, at least in part, in Wisconsin.
In an interview with the Journal Times in Racine, Wisconsin, in November 2006, Hamilton talked about her early inspiration for writing novels. As a student at Carleton College, she overheard a professor say she would write a novel one day. Hamilton had written only two short stories for the professor's class. Overhearing the conversation gave her confidence. "It had a lot more potency, the fact that I overheard it, rather than his telling me directly," she said. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Amateur writers, along with the whole universe of advice books, workshops and conventions, also come in for some sustained ribbing, as though Hamilton were venting the frustration of a thousand tedious bookstore readings and summer writing seminars. It's a comedy, yes, but a meta-comedy, a romance novel that's very self-consciously about the nature of romance novels and the romance of writing.... To the extent that this romantic intrigue is funny, it's also surprisingly sophisticated and frequently creepy. Hamilton's sharp eye for the private quirks of married life has always been a little unnerving, and now it seems odd that she didn't drop more wit into her previous novels.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Oprah-anointed Hamilton once again takes readers to the Midwest, this time lacing her narrative with winning humor. Laura Rider and her husband, Charlie, live in Hartley, Wis., where they own and run Prairie Wind Farm. After 12 years of marriage, Laura decides to stop sleeping with Charlie, and although lovemaking is his "one superb talent," she's convinced she's "used up her quota." Also, Laura has a secret fantasy: to be an author. After she meets local public radio host Jenna Faroli, Laura decides to write a romance and encourages a flirtation between Charlie and Jenna, an experiment that she thinks will help her write her book. Their flirtation quickly slides into an affair, with Laura's sly interference. Laura, at once jealous and pleased, benefits from the inevitable chain of events, while Jenna isn't so lucky. Though the plotting is a bit predictable, the female characters are sharply observed and delineated, and the humorous tone will be an appealing surprise to Hamilton's readers.
Publishers Weekly
Hamilton (When Madeline Was Young, 2006, etc.) reinvents the menage a trois via the Internet in her lively sixth novel. When stoically married Laura tires of her puppy-like husband Charlie's volcanic sexuality and swears off lovemaking, her energies are reawakened to look beyond the successful "farm nursery" they run together in rural Wisconsin. Laura's dream of writing innovative, grownup romance novels is realized in surprising ways after she meets Milwaukee Public Radio talk show host (and neighbor) Jenna Faroli. Laura engineers Jenna's friendship with chronically extroverted Charlie, then manipulates that friendship by first assisting, then appropriating her husband's e-mail correspondence with his new girl friend/girlfriend. The inevitable occurs, skeletons emerge from both women's marital and familial closets, and a plot cleverly linked to that of a favorite novel (Evelyn Waugh's elegiac Brideshead Revisited) gathers up Jenna and Charlie in its jaws. Laura pulls strings; risks wrecking lives she believes she's enriching; and finds bliss at a climactic writers' conference. This very unusual novel's ballsy premise and haywire momentum are juggled expertly by the accomplished Hamilton, who somehow circumvents legitimate objections (e.g., no reader will believe Laura would not have foreseen Jenna's and Charlie's reactions to being thus thrust together) and keeps us eagerly guessing what further craziness lies in pages ahead. The harrowing story of how her father died serves to explain the narrowness of Laura's vision; nonetheless, she's never fully credible as a mixture of unpretentious charm and emotionally stunted duplicity—it's as if Mary Pickford and Joan Crawford took turns playing the same person in the same movie. Charlie, however, is a wonderful character and an irresistible enigma: "Dreamer, yes; underdog, yes; artist, yes; bonkers, yes." Eccentric, intriguing, almost perversely readable and entertaining. Hamilton never disappoints.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Laura muses that “she could only be her ultimate self when she was alone.” She isn’t the only one who has a clear “real” self and a constructed self. In what ways do the characters create new personas? Are these personalities convincing? Are they necessary?
2. Does Laura have the talent to be a writer? Are there rules that writers must follow, as she believes? Is Jenna correct when she suggests that it’s impossible to write without a historical knowledge of what has come before you?
3. How does the fi rst interaction between Charlie and Jenna at the side of the road set the tone for their relationship? What changes and what remains the same once Laura is involved?
4. It is made clear during her interview with Jenna and again at the writers’ conference that Laura is not terribly knowledgeable about books and writing. Was she also naïve to involve her husband with another woman? What other characters display inexperience or ignorance?
5. Charlie and Laura are similar to Jenna and Frank in that both couples’ passion for one another has cooled after years of marriage. In what other ways are the couples similar? How are they different?
6. How has e-mail affected correspondence? How has it affected writing in general? What opinions would Charlie, Laura, and Jenna each have on the topic?
7. When Charlie thinks back to his childhood and his life with Laura, he recognizes that Prairie Wind Farm “had never been his goal, in part because he’d never had any particular goals.” If not his job, what else drives Charlie? What other examples are there of the gap between desire and reality?
8. Is a “conscious romance” possible? What kind of relationship would that be like?
9. Is it possible that Laura did, in fact, mean to paste Jenna’s e-mail, whether Laura realizes it consciously or not? Why would she have done it intentionally? Why is her reaction to the e-mail being sent out so different from Charlie’s and Jenna’s reactions?
10. Laura Rider starts a list of what women want. What would be on your list?
11. Who, in the end, has the upper hand in the Jenna Faroli Radio Show interview with Laura Rider? Or do neither or both have the upper hand?
12. Is any character responsible for Jenna and Charlie’s affair?
Who or what would be the cause according to Laura? Jenna? Charlie?
13. What is the attraction, either romantic or not, between Charlie, Laura, and Jenna? What does each of them provide to each of the others?
14. In this satire, are all the characters skewered equally?
15. What does Hamilton seem to be saying about the writing life? Are writers necessarily ruthless?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
top of page