Funny in Farsi
Firoozeh Dumas, 2003
Random House
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812968378
Summary
In 1972, when she was seven, Firoozeh Dumas and her family moved from Iran to Southern California, arriving with no firsthand knowledge of this country beyond her father’s glowing memories of his graduate school years here. More family soon followed, and the clan has been here ever since.
Funny in Farsi chronicles the American journey of Dumas’s wonderfully engaging family: her engineer father, a sweetly quixotic dreamer who first sought riches on Bowling for Dollars and in Las Vegas, and later lost his job during the Iranian revolution; her elegant mother, who never fully mastered English (nor cared to); her uncle, who combated the effects of American fast food with an army of miraculous American weight-loss gadgets; and Firoozeh herself, who as a girl changed her name to Julie, and who encountered a second wave of culture shock when she met and married a Frenchman, becoming part of a one-couple melting pot.
In a series of deftly drawn scenes, we watch the family grapple with American English (hot dogs and hush puppies?—a complete mystery), American traditions (Thanksgiving turkey?—an even greater mystery, since it tastes like nothing), and American culture (Firoozeh’s parents laugh uproariously at Bob Hope on television, although they don’t get the jokes even when she translates them into Farsi).
Above all, this is an unforgettable story of identity, discovery, and the power of family love. It is a book that will leave us all laughing—without an accent. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Where—Abadan, Iran
• Reared—in Tehran, Iran, and Whittier, California, USA
• Education—University of California, Berkeley
• Currently—lives in northern California
Firoozeh Dumas was born in Abadan, Iran. At the age of seven, Dumas and her family moved to Whittier, California. She later moved back to Iran and lived in Tehran and Ahvaz. However, she once again immigrated to the United States; first to Whittier, then to Newport Beach, California.
Kazem, her father, dominates many of her stories throughout her 2004 memoir Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America. She takes pride in her Iranian heritage, but at the same time, mocks her dad's fascination with "freebies" at Costco and television shows like Bowling for Dollars.
Growing up, Dumas struggled to mix with her American classmates, who knew nothing about Iran. She also retells firsthand experiences of prejudice and racism from being Iranian in America during the Iranian Revolution. However, throughout hardships, she emphasizes the significance of family strength and love in her life.
Dumas is a wife and mother. She often visits schools and churches (as for example in November 2008 at the Forum at Grace Cathedral) to discuss her book and conduct book talks. As a result of Funny in Farsi's success, Firoozeh Dumas was nominated for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Not only was she the first Iranian author to be nominated, she was also the first Asian author to hold such an honor.
Firoozeh became a hot topic when she challenged Ayaan Hirsi Ali to a debate on women in Islam.
Funny in Farsi was a finalist for both the PEN/USA Award in 2004 and the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and has been adopted in junior high, high school and college curricula throughout the nation. It has been selected for common reading programs at several universities including: California State Bakersfield, California State University at Sacramento, Fairmont State University in West Virginia, Gallaudet University, Salisbury University, University of Wisconsin–La Crosse and the University of Wisconsin–Madison
She is also the author of Laughing Without An Accent (2008), which is a memoir containing a few stories about her childhood, but mostly stories about her adventures as an adult. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
What’s charming beyond the humor of this memoir is that it remains affectionate even in the weakest, most tenuous moments for the culture. It’s the brilliance of true sophistication at work.
Los Angeles Times Book Review
Firoozeh Dumas' family left Iran permanently in 1976, and missed the seismic shifts back home. In Funny In Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian In America, Dumas remembers how in 1977 her parents accepted an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to welcome the Shah. Undeterred by a threatening note slipped under their hotel-room door ("Dear Brainwashed Cowards, You are nothing but puppets of the corrupt Shah . . ."), the family finally reassessed the trip after demonstrators attacked Iranians on a lawn near the White House with nail-studded sticks. Their response? To take the first flight back to California.
Kate Taylor - New Yorker
This lighthearted memoir chronicles the author's move from Iran to America in 1971 at age seven, the antics of her extended family and her eventual marriage to a Frenchman. The best parts will make readers laugh out loud, as when she arrives in Newport Beach, Calif., "a place where one's tan is a legitimate topic of conversation." She is particularly good making gentle fun of her father, who loves Disneyland and once competed on the game show Bowling for Dollars. Many of the book's jokes, though, are groan inducing, as in, "the only culture that my father was interested in was the kind in yogurt." And the book is off-kilter structurally. After beginning with a string of amusing anecdotes from her family's first years stateside, one five-page chapter lurches from seventh grade in California to an ever so brief mention of the Iranian revolution, and then back to California, college and meeting her husband. In addition, while politics are understandably not Dumas's topic, the way she skates over the subject can seem disingenuous. Following the revolution, did her father really turn down the jobs offered to him in Iran only because "none were within his field of interest"? Despite unevenness, Dumas's first book remains a warm, witty and sometimes poignant look at cross-cultural misunderstanding and family life. Immigrants from anywhere are likely to identify with her chronicle of adapting to America.
Publishers Weekly
Dumas, who first came to America from Iran as a young girl in 1972, recounts many anecdotes about her family's adjustment to this country in a light, humorous style. Detailed here are her uncle's encounter with all-American fast food (with disastrous consequences for his waistline) and her father's penchant for pursuing freebies wherever he could find them. Though the tone stays gentle, Dumas also includes darker episodes, such as her father's inability to find a job during the Iran hostage crisis and her family's nearly being beaten by protesters when they are in Washington, DC, to welcome the shah. Dumas also provides a few glimpses of middle-class life in prerevolutionary Iran, where her father enjoyed watching American Westerns as a boy and her uncle was a successful doctor. Today, as Middle Easterners in the United States are subject to racial profiling, stereotyping, and sometimes violence, this book provides a valuable glimpse into the immigrant experiences of one very entertaining family. Recommended for public libraries. —Debra Moore, Cerritos Coll., Norwalk, CA
Library Journal
Dumas has a unique perspective on American culture, and she effortlessly balances the comedy of her family's misadventures with the more serious prejudices they face. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
Light-as-air essays about an immigrant childhood in California. In 1972, Dumas s father, an employee of the Iranian National Oil Company, which had landed a two-year consulting contract with an American firm, came to the US and brought along the entire family. Although the adventure in their new country begins with the author and her mother getting lost after elementary-school orientation, the Dumases rapidly embrace their new home: Las Vegas becomes their default vacation destination, and they spend every Christmas watching Bob Hope. The author has the usual problems of a stranger in a strange land—nobody can pronounce her name or has any awareness of her homeland—but Dumas tosses in some new ones as well: the communal showers at sleep-away camp (she doesn t bathe for a week) and the disappointment when her father fails to qualify as a contestant on Bowling for Dollars. But these trials pale in comparison to the family s difficulties during the hostage crisis. As vendors begin selling T-shirts that read "Iranians go Home," Dumas s father loses his job and his pension and is forced to sell all the family's belongings. After the crisis ends, he does find a new job, at half his previous salary, but nothing mars his love for his adopted country; Dumas recounts his thoughts on US citizens who shirk their civic duties: "They need to be sent for six months to a nondemocratic country. Then they'll vote." At all times, no matter how heavy the subject matter, Dumas keeps her tone light. Even a disastrous trip to Washington, D.C., to welcome the Shah, complete with death threats from protestors, is played for laughs. Warm and engaging, despite some creaky prose.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does Firoozeh feel on her first day of elementary school when her mother cannot locate Iran on a map? What kinds of assumptions might her fellow classmates make about Firoozeh’s inability to speak English, her unusual Persian name, and her mother accompanying her to school? To what extent do you think language barriers are to blame for cultural misunderstandings?
2. Firoozeh’s parents don’t speak English fluently, and their efforts to do so often lead to embarrassment, especially for their children. Why doesn’t Firoozeh do more to encourage her parents to learn English? To what extent can you relate to the experience of being embarrassed by your family?
3. How would you characterize the role of television in Firoozeh’s family? Why does television’s visual medium connect her relatives to American products and attitudes in ways that their language cannot?
4. How does Firoozeh’s experience at Disneyland, where she is encouraged to communicate with another missing child in her native Persian, expose Western biases about people who don’t speak English fluently? How do you feel about “racial profiling,” or making assumptions about someone’s ethnicity based on their appearance and accent? On what past occasions have you experienced or carried out racial profiling, and how do you feel about it now, in light of Firoozeh’s encounter?
5. How did the experiences of Firoozeh and her family in America compare to how their friends who arrived after the Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis were treated? Why are immigrants whose native countries are in conflict with their adopted country sometimes subjected to mistreatment and–in some cases–discrimination or abuse? What does this all-too-common phenomenon suggest about the intersection of patriotism and xenophobia?
6. Firoozeh’s husband, François, experiences life as an American immigrant much differently than does Firoozeh. What do you think accounts for Americans’ biases in their attitudes toward immigrants from different countries? To what extent are these biases grounded in stereotypes about the immigrants’ native countries?
7. How does Firoozeh’s experience of sleepaway camp highlight the social isolation she experiences as someone who is perceived by others as “different”? How does her decision not to bathe the entire two weeks contribute to her loneliness? To what extent can you relate to her feeling of being “invisible” at camp?
8. What does Firoozeh’s decision to take an American name suggest about her feelings toward her adopted country? What might her name change to Julie suggest about her identity as an immigrant? How does her dual identity (and her ability to speak English without any discernable accent) enable her to see how Americans really feel about Iran?
9. Firoozeh’s father, Kazem, is grateful for his opportunity to vote as a naturalized American citizen. Why might being able to vote make someone feel especially connected with one’s community or country? Based on the information about Iran you have learned from Funny in Farsi, how do the political rights of Iranian citizens compare to the political rights of American citizens?
10. How is the Thanksgiving meal at Firoozeh’s house a metaphor for her American assimilation? To what extent might eating another culture’s traditional cuisine enable one to better understand its people?
11. How did the promise of education in America change Kazem’s life forever? To what extent does education seem to hold the same opportunities for both immigrants from foreign countries and native citizens?
12.How does Firoozeh’s interaction with her many relatives compare to your involvement with your extended family? To what extent is the notion of one’s family defined differently by each culture? How might one measure the importance of the family in American society?
13. How does Firoozeh’s experience of violence during the Shah’s visit with President Carter in 1977 affect her? How do you think Firoozeh is able to reconcile this experience of violence and racial hatred with her appreciation for all that America offers her family?
14. How does Firoozeh’s engagement to François, a French Catholic, affect her relationship with her parents? To what extent does her mother’s reaction to the news reflect her acceptance of the changing realities of contemporary life in America? Are mixed marriages (ethnic, religious, racial, etc.) accepted or considered controversial in your community, and why?
15. How does Firoozeh’s use of humor to describe her experiences as an Iranian immigrant in America enable you to appreciate the more confusing or mystifying aspects of American culture? How would the experience of reading this book differ for you if it were told from a more serious perspective? Of the many humorous moments detailed by Firoozeh Dumas, which was most memorable for you, and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Future Home of the Living God
Louise Erdrich, 2017
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062694058
Summary
A startling portrait of a young woman fighting for her life and her unborn child against oppressive forces that manifest in the wake of a cataclysmic event.
The world as we know it is ending.
Evolution has reversed itself, affecting every living creature on earth. Science cannot stop the world from running backwards, as woman after woman gives birth to infants that appear to be primitive species of humans.
Thirty-two-year-old Cedar Hawk Songmaker, adopted daughter of a pair of big-hearted, open-minded Minneapolis liberals, is as disturbed and uncertain as the rest of America around her. But for Cedar, this change is profound and deeply personal. She is four months pregnant.
Though she wants to tell the adoptive parents who raised her from infancy, Cedar first feels compelled to find her birth mother, Mary Potts, an Ojibwe living on the reservation, to understand both her and her baby’s origins. As Cedar goes back to her own biological beginnings, society around her begins to disintegrate, fueled by a swelling panic about the end of humanity.
There are rumors of martial law, of Congress confining pregnant women. Of a registry, and rewards for those who turn these wanted women in. Flickering through the chaos are signs of increasing repression: a shaken Cedar witnesses a family wrenched apart when police violently drag a mother from her husband and child in a parking lot.
The streets of her neighborhood have been renamed with Bible verses. A stranger answers the phone when she calls her adoptive parents, who have vanished without a trace. It will take all Cedar has to avoid the prying eyes of potential informants and keep her baby safe.
A chilling dystopian novel both provocative and prescient, Future Home of the Living God is a startlingly original work from one of our most acclaimed writers: a moving meditation on female agency, self-determination, biology, and natural rights that speaks to the troubling changes of our time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 7, 1954
• Where—Little Falls, Minnesota, USA
• Education—A.B., Dartmouth College; M.A., Johns Hopkins
• Awards—National Book Award; National Book Critics Circle Awards (2); Nelson Algren Prize
• Currently—lives in Minnesota
Karen Louise Erdrich is an author of some 20 novels, as well as poetry, short stories, and children's books. She has some Native American ancestry and is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.
In 1984, Erdrich won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her debut novel, Love Medicine. In 2009, her novel The Plague of Doves was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, and three years later, in 2012, she won the National Book Award for Round House.
Erdrich is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The eldest of seven children, Erdrich was born to Ralph and Rita Erdrich in Little Falls, Minnesota. Her father was German-American while her mother was French and Anishinaabe (Ojibwa). Her grandfather Patrick Gourneau served as a tribal chairman for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota where her parents taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs school.
She attended Dartmouth College in 1972-1976, earning an AB degree and meeting her future husband, the Modoc anthropologist and writer Michael Dorris. He was then director of the college’s Native American Studies program. Subsequently, Erdrich worked in a wide variety of jobs, including as a lifeguard, waitress, poetry teacher at prisons, and construction flag signaler. She also became an editor for The Circle, a newspaper produced by and for the urban Native population in Boston. Erdrich graduated with a Master of Arts degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1979.
In the period 1978-1982, Erdrich published many poems and short stories. It was also during this period that she began collaborating with Dorris, initially working through the mail while Dorris was working in New Zealand. The relationship progressed, and the two were married in 1981. During this time, Erdrich assembled the material that would eventually be published as the poetry collection Jacklight.
In 1982, Erdrich's story "The World’s Greatest Fisherman" was awarded the $5,000 Nelson Algren Prize for short fiction. This convinced Erdrich and Dorris, who continued to work collaboratively, that they should embark on writing a novel.
Early Novels
In 1984, Erdrich published the novel Love Medicine. Made up of a disjointed but interconnected series of short narratives, each told from the perspective of a different character, and moving backwards and forward in time through every decade between the 1930s and the present day, the book told the stories of several families living near each other on a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation.
The innovative techniques of the book, which owed a great deal to the works of William Faulkner but have little precedent in Native-authored fiction, allowed Erdrich to build up a picture of a community in a way entirely suited to the reservation setting. She received immediate praise from author/critics such as N. Scott Momaday and Gerald Vizenor, and the book was awarded the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. It has never subsequently been out of print.
Erdrich followed Love Medicine with The Beet Queen, which continued her technique of using multiple narrators, but surprised many critics by expanding the fictional reservation universe of Love Medicine to include the nearby town of Argus, North Dakota. Native characters are very much kept in the background in this novel, while Erdrich concentrates on the German-American community. The action of the novel takes place mostly before World War II.
The Beet Queen was subject to a bitter attack from Native novelist Leslie Marmon Silko, who accused Erdrich of being more concerned with postmodern technique than with the political struggles of Native peoples.
Erdrich and Dorris’ collaborations continued through the 1980s and into the 1990s, always occupying the same fictional universe.
Tracks goes back to the early 20th century at the formation of the reservation and introduces the trickster figure of Nanapush, who owes a clear debt to Nanabozho. Erdrich’s novel most rooted in Anishinaabe culture (at least until Four Souls), it shows early clashes between traditional ways and the Roman Catholic Church.
The Bingo Palace updates but does not resolve various conflicts from Love Medicine: set in the 1980s, it shows the effects both good and bad of a casino and a factory being set up among the reservation community. Finally, Tales of Burning Love finishes the story of Sister Leopolda, a recurring character from all the former books, and introduces a new set of white people to the reservation universe.
Erdrich and Dorris wrote The Crown of Columbus, the only novel to which both writers put their names, and A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, credited to Dorris. Both of these were set away from the Argus reservation.
Domestic Life
The couple had six children, three of them adopted. Dorris had adopted the children when he was single. After their marriage, Erdrich also adopted them, and the couple had three daughters together. Some of the children had difficulties.
In 1989 Dorris published The Broken Cord, a book about fetal alcohol syndrome, from which their adopted son Reynold Abel suffered. Dorris had found it was a widespread and until then relatively undiagnosed problem among Native American children because of mothers' alcohol issues. In 1991, Reynold Abel was hit by a car and killed at age 23.
In 1995 their son Jeffrey Sava accused them both of child abuse. Dorris and Erdrich unsuccessfully pursued an extortion case against him. Shortly afterward, Dorris and Erdrich separated and began divorce proceedings. Erdrich claimed that Dorris had been depressed since the second year of their marriage.
On April 11, 1997, Michael Dorris committed suicide in Concord, New Hampshire.
Later Writings
Erdrich’s first novel after divorce, The Antelope Wife, was the first to be set outside the continuity of the previous books. She has subsequently returned to the reservation and nearby towns, and has produced five novels since 1998 dealing with events in that fictional area. Among these are The Master Butchers Singing Club, a macabre mystery which again draws on Erdrich's Native American and German-American heritage, and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Both have geographic and character connections with The Beet Queen.
Together with several of her previous works, these have drawn comparisons with William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha novels. The successive novels have created multiple narratives in the same fictional area and combined the tapestry of local history with current themes and modern consciousness.
In The Plague of Doves, Erdrich has continued the multi-ethnic dimension of her writing, weaving together the layered relationships among residents of farms, towns and reservations; their shared histories, secrets, relationships and antipathies; and the complexities for later generations of re-imagining their ancestors' overlapping pasts. The novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.
Erdrich's 2010 book, Shadow Tag, was a departure for her, as she focuses on a failed marriage.
Erdrich is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Ojibwa and Chippewa). Erdrich also has German, French and American ancestry. One sister, Heidi, publishes under the name Heid E. Erdrich; she is a poet who also resides in Minnesota. Another sister, Lise Erdrich, has written children's books and collections of fiction and essays. For the past few years, the three Erdrich sisters have hosted annual writers workshops on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
The award-winning photographer Ronald W. Erdrich is one of their cousins. He lives and works in Abilene, Texas. He was named "Star Photojournalist of the Year" in 2004 by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors association. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Featured review.) [S]tartling…. Erdrich’s characters are brave and conscientious, but… they act mostly as vehicles for Erdrich’s ideas. Those ideas, however…are strikingly relevant.… A cautionary tale for this very moment in time.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Masterful…a breakout work of speculative fiction…Erdrich enters the realm of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale…A tornadic, suspenseful, profoundly provoking novel of life’s vulnerability and insistence…with a bold apocalyptic theme, searing social critique, and high-adrenaline action.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Dreamlike, suspenseful…this novel is bracing, humane, dedicated to witnessing the plight of women in a cruel universe, and full of profound spiritual questions and observations. Like some of Erdrich’s earlier work, it shifts adroitly in time and has a thoughtful, almost mournful insight into life on a Native reservation.… There is much to rue in this novel about our world but also hope for salvation.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Future Home of the Living God … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about Cedar Hawk Songmaker. How would you describe her? What traits does she possess that enable her to navigate this new world? What about her adoptive parents, Sera and Glen Songmaker: has Louise Erdrich drawn them as parodies or as authentic liberals?
2. What is it about the letter from Mary Potts that irritates Cedar? Why does she decide to make the trip up to the reservation to meet Mary? What are her expectations for the three Mary Pottses—and do the women fulfill those expectations? Consider the moment when Sweetie speaks before the Indian Council and uses the word "caveat": where you surprised at her choice of the word? Or were you surprised at Cedar's surprise that she used the word? In other words, was Cedar condescending in her attitude toward Sweetie? What about Eddy—what is he like? Were you surprised by his erudition?
3. Why did Cedar convert to Catholicism? How would you describe her spiritual/religious beliefs? Why is she so fascinated by the article, "The Madonna's Conception Through the Ear," and in what way is her curiosity connected to the coming birth of her own child? What is your own thinking about the "word" or "Word" whispered to Mary—is it an actual word … or an idea?
4. Follow-up to Question 3: Why does Cedar refer to the baby's father as an "angel" and to his brown wings? What is the symbolic significance of the couple's love-making in the various costumes in the basement of their church.
5. Cedar writes, "The first thing that happens at the end of the world is that we don't know what is happening." What does she mean? Are there parallels (or warnings?) in Erdrich's book that pertain to our own world, the one we're living in? In what way are our current societal anxieties given voice in this novel?
6. Why is the government rounding up pregnant women? How are women seen as the possible salvation of the human species?
7. Why is Sera, as she admits to Cedar, not happy about Cedar's pregnancy? Is it right that she's unhappy? Or do you think she is wrong, perhaps selfishly so? How would you feel in her situation?
8. Eddy tells Cedar, "Indians have been adapting since before 1492 so I guess we'll all keep adapting." Then he adds, [The world's] always going to pieces." Is he right—that societies have always regrouped, reformed, and rebuilt after disasters? Or this this current disaster, the one in the novel, different?
9. Earlier, Cedar writes that "Our bodies have always remembered who we were. And now they have decided to return. We’re climbing back down the swimming-pool ladder into the primordial soup." Is there a cause given for the devolution of the species? Is it the activation of redundant genes that have lain dormant for millions of years (p. 106)? If so, why is it happening all at once—throughout the animal and plant kingdoms? Or is it that God has simply tired of human kind, as Phil suggests?
10. As society begins to collapse in the novel, does it unravel the way you would expect it to? Consider the New Constitution or the postal service's hiring of private contractors to protect the mail deliverers on their rounds. Does the unraveling seem unrealistic, maybe over-the-top? Or is Erdrich's dystopian vision realistic, perhaps even feasible—in other words, can you see it actually happening?
11. SPOILER ALERT: What do you think of Phil—both at the beginning of the novel, when we first meet him, and by the end? Do you blame him for giving up names? Cedar is angry with him … or is she? Does his turn-coat action at the end seem out of character for him?
12. SPOILER ALERT: Were Sera and Glen right to have withheld from Cedar the truth about her birth father? Did your attitude toward Glen change after learning of his affair with Sweetie?
13. What is the meaning of the book's title? On August 9, as Cedar is driving up to meet Mary Potts, she passes a billboard in a bare, weedy field that reads "Future Home of the Living God." Why might Erdrich have taken it as the title for her novel?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Futures
Anna Pitoniak, 2017
Little, Btrown and Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316354172
Summary
A young couple moves to New York City in search of success—only to learn that the lives they dream of may come with dangerous strings attached.
Julia and Evan fall in love as undergraduates at Yale.
For Evan, a scholarship student from a rural Canadian town, Yale is a whole new world, and Julia—blond, beautiful, and rich—fits perfectly into the future he's envisioned for himself.
After graduation, and on the eve of the great financial meltdown of 2008, they move together to New York City, where Evan lands a job at a hedge fund. But Julia, whose privileged upbringing grants her an easy but wholly unsatisfying job with a nonprofit, feels increasingly shut out of Evan's secretive world.
With the market crashing and banks failing, Evan becomes involved in a high-stakes deal at work—a deal that, despite the assurances of his Machiavellian boss, begins to seem more than slightly suspicious.
Meanwhile, Julia reconnects with someone from her past who offers a glimpse of a different kind of live. As the economy craters, and as Evan and Julia spin into their separate orbits, they each find that they are capable of much more—good and bad—than they'd ever imagined.
Rich in suspense and insight, Anna Pitoniak's gripping debut reveals the fragile yet enduring nature of our connections: to one another and to ourselves.
The Futures is a glittering story of a couple coming of age, and a searing portrait of what it's like to be young and full of hope in New York City, a place that so often seems determined to break us down—but ultimately may be the very thing that saves us. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1987-88
• Where—Whistler, Brtish Columbia, Canada
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York, USA
Anna Pitoniak is an editor of fiction and nonfiction at Random House. She graduated from Yale in 2010, where she majored in English and was an editor at the Yale Daily News. She grew up in British Columbia. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Pitoniak maintains her keen eye for the universal insecurities facing her generation today, from romantic uncertainties and the relative benefits and downsides of hedge fund and nonprofit jobs to the emotional effort it requires to negotiate the predetermined facts of one's upbringing with the person one chooses to become.
Harper's Bazaar
This winter's cathartic read: a story that feels familiar yet wholly original, like every heartbreak ever.
Marie Claire
An emotional page-turner.
Cosmopolitan
Pitoniak's inspired debut centers on two recent college grads who move to New York City together during the 2008 recession and watch their relationship change drastically.
InStyle
Pitoniak eschews cliché for nuanced characterization and sharply observed detail. Evan and Julia ring true as 20-somethings, but Pitoniak’s novel also speaks to anyone who has searched among possible futures for the way back to what Julia calls “the person I had been all along.”
Publishers Weekly
This debut coming-of-age novel captures the insecurities of the first days of independent adulthood and the unintended consequences in the struggle for maturity. Readers of general fiction will enjoy this story. Recommended. —Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
Pitoniak's well-plotted, character-driven, interior-focused novel captures the knowable angst of the unknowable possibilities of modern young adulthood.
Booklist
Pitoniak expertly captures both the excitement and the oppressive darkness of being young and at sea in New York City.... And while the novel isn’t always subtle in its revelations, it’s deeply empathetic—and always engaging. A bittersweet coming-of-age drama and a portrait of an era.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Futures...then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the novel's two main characters, Julia and Evam, their admirable parts and their flaws. Neither one is a saint; still, do you find them sympathetic—one more so than the other? Or both equally?
2. What do Julie and Evan want out of life, and what does each want from the other? How do their different backgrounds shape their individual needs for fulfillment in life and in a relationship?
3. Julie becomes disillusioned after only a few months of job searching. Has she given herself enough time, or do you find her naive or even aimless? Does her entitled upbringing prompt her to see life through rose-tinted glasses, perhaps?
4. When do you begin to see the honeymoon period in New York begin to crack. Do you feel that one of the two feels more invested in the relationship than the other?
5. Consider how both Evan and Julia change over the course of the novel? What does each learn about him or herself and the world around them?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
A Gambler's Anatomy
Jonathan Lethem, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385539906
Summary
The author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude returns with a devilishly entertaining novel about an international backgammon hustler who thinks he's psychic. Too bad about the tumor in his face.
Handsome, impeccably tuxedoed Bruno Alexander travels the world winning large sums of money from amateur "whales" who think they can challenge his peerless acumen at backgammon.
Fronted by his pasty, vampiric manager, Edgar Falk, Bruno arrives in Berlin after a troubling run of bad luck in Singapore.
Perhaps it was the chance encounter with his crass childhood acquaintance Keith Stolarsky and his smoldering girlfriend Tira Harpaz. Or perhaps it was the emergence of a blot that distorts his vision so he has to look at the board sideways.
Things don't go much better in Berlin. Bruno's flirtation with Madchen, the striking blonde he meets on the ferry, is inconclusive; the game at the unsettling Herr Kohler's mansion goes awry as his blot grows worse; he passes out and is sent to the local hospital, where he is given an extremely depressing diagnosis.
Having run through Falk's money, Bruno turns to Stolarsky, who, for reasons of his own, agrees to fly Bruno to Berkeley, and to pay for the experimental surgery that might save his life.Berkeley, where Bruno discovered his psychic abilities, and to which he vowed never to return.
Amidst the patchouli flashbacks and Anarchist gambits of the local scene, between Tira's come-ons and Keith's machinations, Bruno confronts two existential questions: Is the gambler being played by life? And what if you're telepathic but it doesn't do you any good? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 19, 1964
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Education—Bennington College (no degree)
• Awards—National Book Critics Circle Award; World Fantasy
Award; Macallan Gold Dagger Award
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.
Early life
Lethem was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Judith Frank Lethem, a political activist, and Richard Brown Lethem, an avant-garde painter. He was the eldest of three children. His father was Protestant (with Scottish and English ancestry) and his mother was Jewish, from a family that originated in Germany, Poland, and Russia. His brother Blake became an artist, and his sister Mara became a photographer and writer.
The family lived in a commune in the pre-gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood of North Gowanus (now called Boerum Hill). Despite the racial tensions and conflicts, he later described his bohemian childhood as "thrilling" and culturally wide-reaching. He gained an encyclopedic knowledge of the music of Bob Dylan, saw Star Wars twenty-one times during its original theatrical release, and read the complete works of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. Lethem later said Dick’s work was "as formative an influence as marijuana or punk rock—as equally responsible for beautifully fucking up my life, for bending it irreversibly along a course I still travel."
His parents divorced when Lethem was young. When he was thirteen, his mother Judith died from a malignant brain tumor, an event which he has said haunted him and has strongly affected his writing. (Lethem discusses the direct relation between his mother and the Bob Dylan song "Like a Rolling Stone" in the 2003 Canadian documentary Complete Unknown.) In 2007, Lethem explained, "My books all have this giant, howling missing [center]—language has disappeared, or someone has vanished, or memory has gone."
Intending to become a visual artist like his father, Lethem attended the High School of Music & Art in New York, where he painted in a style he describes as "glib, show-offy, usually cartoonish." At Music & Art he produced his own zine, The Literary Exchange, which featured artwork and writing. He also created animated films and wrote a 125-page novel, Heroes, still unpublished.
After graduating from high school, Lethem entered Bennington College in Vermont in 1982 as a prospective art student. At Bennington, Lethem experienced an "overwhelming....collision with the realities of class—my parents’ bohemian milieu had kept me from understanding, even a little, that we were poor.... [A]t Bennington that was all demolished by an encounter with the fact of real privilege." This, coupled with the realization that he was more interested in writing than art, led Lethem to drop out halfway through his sophomore year.
He hitchhiked from Denver, Colorado, to Berkeley, California, in 1984, across "a thousand miles of desert and mountains through Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada, with about 40 dollars in my pocket," describing it as "one of the stupidest and most memorable things I've ever done." He lived in California for twelve years, working as a clerk in used bookstores, including Moe's and Pegasus & Pendragon Books, and writing on his own time. Lethem published his first short story in 1989 and published several more in the early 1990s.
First novels
Lethem’s first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, is a merging of science fiction and the Chandleresque detective story, which includes talking kangaroos, radical futuristic versions of the drug scene, and cryogenic prisons. The novel was published in 1994 to little initial fanfare, but an enthusiastic review in Newsweek, which declared Gun an "audaciously assured first novel," catapulted the book to wider commercial success. It became a finalist for the 1994 Nebula Award. In the mid-1990s, film producer-director Alan J. Pakula optioned the novel's movie rights, which allowed Lethem to quit working in bookstores and devote his time to writing.
His next several books include Amnesia Moon (1995), partially inspired by Lethem's experiences hitchhiking cross-country; The Wall of the Sky, the Wall of the Eye (1996), a collection of short stories; As She Climbed Across the Table (1997) about a physics researcher who falls in love with an artificially generated spatial anomaly called "Lack."
Lethem moved returned to Brooklyn in 1996, after which he published Girl in Landscape (1998) about a world populated by aliens but "very strongly influenced" by the 1956 John Wayne Western The Searchers, a movie with which Lethem is "obsessed."
In 1999, he released Motherless Brooklyn, a return to the detective theme, with a protagonist suffering from Tourette syndrome and obsessed with language. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, The Macallan Gold Dagger for crime fiction, and the Salon Book Award, and was named book of the year by Esquire.According to the New York Times, the mainstream success of Motherless Brooklyn made Lethem "something of a hipster celebrity," and he was referred to several times as a "genre bender." Lev Grossman of Time classed Lethem with a movement of authors similarly eager to blend literary and popular writing, including Michael Chabon (with whom Lethem is friends), Margaret Atwood, and Susanna Clarke.
In the early 2000s, Lethem published a story collection, edited two anthologies, wrote magazine pieces, and published the 55-page novella This Shape We're In (2000)—one of the first offerings from McSweeney's Books, the publishing imprint that developed from Dave Eggers' McSweeney's Quarterly Concern.
In November 2000, Lethem said that he was working on an uncharacteristically "big sprawling" novel, about a child who grows up to be a rock journalist. The novel was published in 2003 as The Fortress of Solitude. The semi-autobiographical bildungsroman features a tale of racial tensions and boyhood in Brooklyn during the late 1970s.
Lethem's second collection of short fiction, Men and Cartoons, was published in late 2004. In a 2009 interview with Armchair/Shotgun, Lethem said of short fiction:
I'm writing short stories right now, that's what I do between novels, and I love them. I'm very devoted to it.... [T]he story collections I've published are tremendously important to me. And many of the uncollected stories—or yet-to-be-collected stories—are among my proudest writings. They're very closely allied, obviously, to novel writing. But also very distinct..
In 2005 Lethem released The Disappointment Artist, his first collection of essays, and in the same year he received a MacArthur Fellowship.Mid-career novels
After Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, Lethem decided it "was time to leave Brooklyn in a literary sense anyway... I really needed to defy all that stuff about place and memory." In 2007, he returned—as a novelist—to California, where some of his earlier fiction had been set, with You Don't Love Me Yet, a novel about an upstart rock band. The novel received mixed reviews.
In early 2009, Lethem published Chronic City, set on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The author claimed it was strongly influenced by Saul Bellow, Philip K. Dick, Charles G. Finney. and Hitchcock’s Vertigo and referred to it as "long and strange."
Lethem's next novel, Dissident Gardens, was in 2013. According to Lethem in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the novel concerns "American leftists," very specifically "a red-diaper baby generation trying to figure out what it all means, this legacy of American Communism." He considers it "another New York neighborhood book, very much about the life of the city.... [W]riting about Greenwich Village in 1958 was really a jump for me...as much of an imaginative leap as any of the more fantastical things I've done."
Personal life
In 1987, Lethem married the writer and artist Shelley Jackson; they were divorced by 1997. In 2000, he married Julia Rosenberg, a Canadian film executive; they divorced two years later.
Lethem's current wife is filmmaker Amy Barrett; the couple has a son. Lethem has relocated to Los Angeles, California, where he is the Disney Professor of Writing at Pomona College in Claremont. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/17/2013.)
Book Reviews
Mr. Lethem's backgammon writing has a satisfying crunch. It's witty and sexy, too. I'm not sure I've ever before read a love scene that begins with a woman crying out, "Double me, gammon me"…. This novel is a tragicomedy; it plays at its best like a Twilight Zone episode filmed by the Coen brothers…. Mr. Lethem has a touching sense of the lives of obsessive misfits. They're his tribe. In Bruno he has given us a knight errant, a casually chivalrous wanderer in search of his place on earth.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
There are probably a dozen novelists whose new books, every one, I'm predisposed to read. Jonathan Lethem is one of them. I like his fundamental literary ratios—plot-to-pensées, comedy-to-tragedy—and the prose is a pleasure, lucid sentences that swerve and surprise without being show-offy…. Unlike The Fortress of Solitude and Chronic City, both sprawling books that plainly aspired to be Great American Novels, [A Gambler's Anatomy] is middle-aged in the best sense: relaxed, happy to be its impeccable, focused, antic but Weltschmerz-y self, slightly old-fashioned but in no way "postmodern." Lethem has said that after ending his youthful sci-fi phase and becoming a certified big deal, he felt pressure to "'stay major!'…to only write books as long, sorrowful and wide-screen as The Fortress of Solitude," but that he chose instead to write "other kinds of books." A Gambler's Anatomy is the best so far of those other kinds of books.
Kurt Andersen - New York Times Book Review
In his new novel, he seems to be channeling (and, as usual, transforming) both Thomas Pynchon and Ian Fleming...in short, just another day in Lethemland, as strange and wondrous in its way as anyplace imagined by L. Frank Baum.
Chicago Tribune
A Gambler’s Anatomy will lead more than one reader to rummage around in the back of their closet (or local toy store) for a backgammon set…mesmerizing, twisty, fearless.
San Francisco Chronicle
[T]he zaniness in Lethem’s new novel is tangential rather than central, highlighting episodes, not imbuing the whole proceedings.... [The] outlandishness can be extremely funny.... [T]he most successful part of the novel [in Berkeley] is an effortless blend of comic hijinks and madcap tragedy...propelled by sharp description and slick dialogue.... Lethem serves up a punchy, stylish, relentlessly entertaining novel which, during quieter moments, asks us to consider whether we make our own luck and how best to deal with what life throws at us
Malcolm Forbes - Minneapolis Star Tribune
[P]leasantly bizarre.... Though inventive and well crafted, the novel neither fully endears its characters to the reader nor establishes narrative momentum, playing at themes and romantic entanglements that are expertly introduced but often under-explored and discarded.
Publishers Weekly
International backgammon hustler Bruno Alexander is down on his luck, perhaps owing to a blot distorting his vision.... Once more, National Book Critics Circle award winner Lethem makes the weird real, normal, and entertaining.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [A] romp in which history, both personal and collective, can't help but assert itself..... Lethem takes real pleasure in the language and writes with a sense of the absurd that illuminates his situations and his characters.... In this tragicomic novel, nothing is ever exactly as it seems.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Gangster We Are All Looking For
Le Thi Diem Thuy, 2003
Knopf Doubleday
160 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375700026
Summary
This acclaimed novel reveals the life of a Vietnamese family in America through the knowing eyes of a child finding her place and voice in a new country.
In 1978 six refugees—a girl, her father, and four “uncles”—are pulled from the sea to begin a new life in San Diego. In the child’s imagination, the world is transmuted into an unearthly realm: she sees everything intensely, hears the distress calls of inanimate objects, and waits for her mother to join her. But life loses none of its strangeness when the family is reunited.
As the girl grows, her matter-of-fact innocence eddies increasingly around opaque and ghostly traumas: the cataclysm that engulfed her homeland, the memory of a brother who drowned and, most inescapable, her father’s hopeless rage. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 2, 1972
• Where—Phana Thiet, South Vietnam
• Education—B.A., Hampshire College
• Awards—Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships
• Currently—lives in western Massachusetts, USA
Le Thi Diem Thuy (pronounced lay tee yim twee) is an award-winning poet, novelist, and performer. She is the author of the 2003 novel, The Gangster We Are All Looking For. Born in the South Vietnamese village of Phan Thiet during the heart of the Vietnam War, Le left her homeland in 1978, alongside her father in a small fishing boat. They were picked up by an American naval ship and placed in a refugee camp in Singapore.
She and her father would eventually resettle in Linda Vista, in San Diego, California, where they shared in decaying 1940's-1950's Navy housing with fellow Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian "boat people" immigrants displaced by war. Le's mother and sister joined them two years later via a camp in Malaysia. Two of Le's siblings drowned during her childhood—her eldest brother in the ocean in Vietnam when he was six, her sister in a Malaysian refugee camp. Le adopted the name of her deceased sister after her father mistakenly reported her name when they were rescued at sea. She has four surviving siblings, two of which were born in America.
Le took her inspiration for writing from her love of fairy tales.
I wanted to write because I loved fairy tales. Reading a book of Grimm fairy tales, she recalls, I felt transported. Things happen very suddenly in fairy tales: A man puts on a cloak and vanishes. I could relate to that. Once I was somewhere and then I was here, and everything had vanished. I didn't take it as fantastic. I thought it was real.
She moved to Massachusetts in 1990 to enroll in Hampshire College where she concentrated on cultural studies and post-colonial literature. In 1993 Le traveled to Paris to research French colonial postcards from the early 1900s—images of Vietnamese people taken by French photographers. Some of the images she collected would later appear in her performance work. It is in France, that she solidified her identity as an American and English as her preferred language. Being in France and not hearing English every day, she says, helped clarify how "I hear English and carry it inside me."
On her return to Hampshire, she wrote poems, prose and pieces of dialog that would form the foundation for her senior thesis and first solo performance work, Mua He Do Lua / Red Fiery Summer. After graduation, she traveled the country from 1995 to 1997 performing Red Fiery Summer in community spaces and formal theaters. In 1996, she was commissioned to write her second solo performance work entitled The Bodies Between Us, which was subsequently produced by New WORLD Theater.
In the same year, she published a prose piece entitled "The Gangster We Are All Looking For" in Massachusetts Review. It was rerun in Harper's Magazine later that year, where it caught the attention of literary agent Nicole Aragi, who urged Le to expand the work into a novel. The unfinished book was picked up by Alfred A. Knopf and published in 2003 to glowing reviews.
In 1998, while working on her book, Le returned to her birthplace Vietnam for the first time in 20 years with her mother. Her trip made her appreciate the how much her parents had suffered when they settled in America.
It was profoundly sad for me. The most powerful thing was this [extended] family. I must have been related to 200 people there. I realized how isolated my parents must have felt, the extent of what they had lost and had never been able to regain.
Her mother returned to Vietnam permanently in 2001 after she was diagnosed with cancer. She is buried in her home village of Phan Thiet. Le's father moved back to Vietnam in 2003.
Shortly before publishing The Gangster We Are All Looking For, Le was cited by the New York Times as one of its "Writers On The Verge." Her work has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, Harper's Magazine, and The Very Inside anthology, and among her awards are Fellowships from the Radcliffe and Guggenheim foundations.
Her powerful solo performance work, including Red Fiery Summer and The Bodies Between Us, have been performed throughout the United States (at venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Vineyard Theater, among others), as well as in Europe. While the former piece reflects many stories later included in The Gangster, her next novel will be based on Bodies. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Though dense with allusion and simile, Le's prose is precise and uncluttered. She has a strong pictorial talent, and can make the reader see everything from the wings of a butterfly preserved in a glass paperweight to the giddy acrobatics of little boys jumping into a pool. An unerring eye for the seemingly mundane details of everyday life guides her story, and a sly sense of humor graces an imagination busily occupied with the possibilities of metaphor.
Paul Baumann - New York Times
While the novel brilliantly illuminates its unlikely troika, what the narrative leaves out is just as striking. It seems significant that descriptions of the Vietnam War barely figure in the story and that American characters remain fuzzy, undifferentiated and impressionistic. In this way, the relationship of this engaging and original novel to more conventional American narratives of Vietnam may be thought to be like a photographic negative: What's white is dark, what's dark is white, and the image is strange and mesmerizing.
Peter Zinoman - Los Angeles Times
Le's first novel is a bracing, unvarnished, elliptical account of a Vietnamese refugee family, in America but not yet of it, hobbled by an unfamiliar environment and their own troubled relationships. It's narrated by the family's young daughter, newly arrived in San Diego with her father after being sponsored by a well-meaning but condescending American family. Her mother soon joins them, and the family endures an itinerant existence of low-wage jobs and cheap rental apartments. Other Vietnamese wander namelessly through the book, sharing space with the family but providing little of the warmth of community. Nearly plotless, the novel is organized into vignettes that each feature one piercing image: a drunken parent, a shattered display cabinet, a drowned boy. As the narrator makes her halting adjustment to America, she also tries to discover what the family has left behind in Vietnam. Her father's mysterious past caused him to be rejected by his in-laws; these grandparents are now known to the girl only through a worn photograph. Then there is her brother, whose fate is mentioned only in whispers. Le allows no sentimentality to creep into this work-indeed, she hints only subtly at the narrator's emotional state ("there is no trace of blood anywhere except here, in my throat, where I am telling you all of this"), as though any explicit show of feeling were too frivolous for the subject at hand. This is a stark and significant work that will challenge readers.
Publishers Weekly
In the opening pages of this affecting debut, a Vietnamese girl who has survived the open seas with her father and four "uncles" winds up in America at the home of a somewhat reluctant sponsor. There she finds a paperweight containing a butterfly and smashes it to release the beautiful creature-an act that gets the refugees thrown out. The butterfly is rather too patently a symbol for the young protagonist herself, who eventually flutters away from her prison, though not in so obvious a fashion. The story, however, is as much about her parents' marriage, strained to breaking not only by the effort to adapt to America but by memories of Vietnam. The mother had defied her south Catholic family to marry a northerner reputed to be a gangster, and violence and passion still run through their relationship. In addition, they have lost a son, who drowned in the South China Seas and sometimes comes to haunt his confused little sister. The story opens slowly but gathers strength, and though it remains somewhat muted, le's lyrical writing and skill with the telling vignette will reward patient readers. For all Asian/immigrant collections.
Library Journal
The narrator of Le's poetically spare but psychologically rich debut novel is only six when she and her father and four other Vietnamese men arrive in San Diego, thanks to a generous man who learned of the plight of Vietnamese boat people at church. Sadly, he dies before they arrive.... There is much pain in this exquisite novel, and much beauty. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
A detailed and moving saga of a Vietnamese family in America, subtly assembled from this limpid debut's kaleidoscopic array of gorgeous and troubling word pictures. The unnamed narrator's musings move forward and backward in time, from East to West, between her confused childhood and the "escape" she makes from her parents in California to relocate in the eastern US. The early pages describe her flight, with her father (Ba) and four uncles, from Vietnam by boat, their arrival in San Diego, and troubled relationships with a well-meaning American host family. After she and Ba have been reunited with her mother (Ma), the narrator then describes their constant moves from one apartment and job to another. We then learn about her parents' youth, and Ma's estrangement from her family for having married "a Buddhist gangster" who's also her social inferior. As these details emerge, thúy builds a heart-wrenching picture of her narrator's abstracted, conflicted psyche, repeatedly reemphasizing the girl's preternatural sensitivity to new sights, sounds, smells, and textures while revealing the death of her older brother by drowning in childhood, and how this loss haunted her family for many years after. The consequent impressions of disorientation, resentment, and loneliness are powerfully conveyed by numerous abrupt, startling images (a girl killed by a napalm bombing that "made her body glow, like a lantern"; a dead butterfly preserved in a glass disk and employed as a paperweight; and a climactic vision of the bodies of small "silver fish" washed out of the open sea onto a moonlit beach). The narrative thus resembles a song with a pronounced central refrain, around which an infinite number of verse variations are clustered. Beautiful stuff—and a brilliant debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Gangster We All Are Looking For:
1. The young narrator of Le's novel is nameless. Why is she never given a name? What might have been the author's reason?
2. Describe Ba, the father. What kind of a man is he? What is the source of his rage? Is he to be admired...pitied...disliked...or what?
3. What is the significance of the book's title? In what way is—or was—Ba a gangster? Has he changed since his escape from Vietnam and arrival in the US? When his daughter says that of all her father's friends, "he alone managed to crawl here, on his hands and knees, to this life," is she speaking of his will to survive...his predatory nature...his new found humility...or what?
3. The narrator refers to her own birth in the middle of the war as "both a curse and a miracle." What does she mean?
4. War comprises a setting of this novel. Talk about the mother's remark that war is "a bird with a broken wing flying over the countryside, trailing blood and burying crops in sorrow." What does our young narrator mean when she tells us that "war has no beginning and no end. It crosses oceans like a splintered boat"?
5. Follow up to Question #4: If you are old enough to have lived through it, what is your remembrance of the Vietnam War? If you are too young, what is your understanding of the war. If you are of Vietnamese descent, talk about the ways in which the war transformed Vietnam. What it was like (or what must it have been like) to experience the horror of the war on your homeland?
6. The word for water, in Vietnamese, is the same as for nation, country, and homeland; water is found everywhere in The Gangster, literally and figuratively. Talk about the symbolic use of water in this novel. What does water signify?
7. How does the narrator's mother adjust to her new life? Why is she distraught, for instance, over their landlord's draining of the swimming pool. What more might she mean when she laments, "I open the door and what is there to see?" How does Le's language alert us to the possiblity of something more significant than the loss of a pleasant view?
8. When the family is evicted from the apartment, a photograph is left behind. What does its loss signify for the mother? Why does she believe she has betrayed her parents...again?
9. Consider how self-identify, the sense of who one is, gets lost or overwhelmed in the course of a migration to a another land that is vastly different—as well as indifferent and even hostile. How would that feel? Does Le adequately describe her family's profound sense of displacement? Have you read other narratives about the immigrant experience? If so, how does Le's compare? If you have come from another country, what is it like to land in an alien culture?
10. Critics have expounded on the poetic and lyrical style of Le's prose. Are there passages that strike you as particularly beautiful in their use of language and imagery? How does Le's artistic vision affect your experience of reading her novel?
11. Le uses five interlocking stories in her novel, shifting time, place and point of view. Does this structure engage you...or do you find it distracting? Why might she have structured her novel in such a way? What advantages might it give a novelist, as opposed to a straightforward perspective and timeline?
12. Comment on the young narrator's remark: "I don't know how time moves or which of our sorrows or our desires it is able to wash away." Is time able—or not—to heal this family's sorrow and sense of loss?
13. In the story "Nu'o'c," the mystery that has permeated previous stories is revealed. Does its revelation bring the novel into focus for you? Does it pull the disparate elements together into a unified whole?
14. Do you like this book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Garden of Evening Mists
Tan Twan Eng, 2012
Weinstein Publishing
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781602861800
Summary
Malaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambrige and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh, herself the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the Emperor of Japan.
Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in Kuala Lumpur, in memory of her sister who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses, but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice "until the monsoon comes." Then she can design a garden for herself. As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to her sensei and his art while, outside the garden, the threat of murder and kidnapping from the guerrillas of the jungle hinterland increases with each passing day.
But the Garden of Evening Mists is also a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan? Why is it that Yun Ling's friend and host Magnus Praetorius, seems to almost immune from the depredations of the Communists? What is the legend of "Yamashita's Gold" and does it have any basis in fact? And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Tan worked as an intellectual property lawyer in Kuala Lumpur before becoming a full-time writer. He has a first-dan ranking in aikido and currently lives in Cape Town.
His first novel, The Gift of Rain, was published in 2007 and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize that year. It is set in Penang in the years before and during the Japanese occupation of Malaya in World War II. The Gift of Rain has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Greek, Romanian, Czech, Serbian and French.
His second novel, The Garden of Evening Mists, was published in 2012. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012.
Tan has spoken at literary festivals, including the Singapore Writers Festival, the Ubud Writers' Festival in Bali, the Asia Man Booker Festival in Hong Kong, the Shanghai International Literary Festival, the Perth Writers Festival, the Abbotsford Convent in Melbourne, Australia, and the Franschhoek Literary Festival in South Africa. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Beautifully written.... Eng is quite simply one of the best novelists writing today.
Philadelphia Inquirer
The Garden of Evening Mists...plumbs the basics of human nature as it asks how we can commit so many atrocities in a time of war and, at the same time, create compelling, transcendent works of art.... This novel uses fine art as its major theme and, in the process, becomes a work of fine art itself.
Carolyn See - Washington Post
The Garden of Evening Mists offers action-packed, end-of-empire storytelling in the vein of Tan’s compatriot Tash Aw. His fictional garden cultivates formal harmony but also undermines it. It unmasks sophisticated artistry as a partner of pain and lies. This duality invests the novel with a climate of doubt; a mood, as with Aritomo’s creation, of “tension and possibility”. Its beauty never comes to rest.”
Independent
After having endured the miseries of a Japanese internment camp during WWII, 28-year-old Yun Ling Teoh makes her way in 1951 to the only Japanese garden in her native Malaya in a bid to convince its caretaker, Nakamura Aritomo, the former gardener for the Emperor of Japan, to establish a commemorative plot for her sister who died in the camp. Though he initially refuses, Aritomo agrees to mentor Yun Ling so that she might design the garden herself. While toiling away in Yugiri, the titular "garden of evening mists," Yun Ling grows fond of Aritomo, meanwhile recalling the horrors of the camp and the difficulties of the post-WWII "Emergency" in Malaya, a prolonged period of guerrilla war whose reach creeps closer by the day. Alternating between her time with Aritomo and a future wherein the now-aged Yun Ling, fighting a degenerative brain disease, desperately seeks to preserve her memories of the garden, Eng's newest (after The Gift of Rain) has the makings of a moving and unique historical, but the novel falls flat. There is a puzzling lack of pathos, and Eng's similar treatment of the tragic and the mundane serves to downplay rather than highlight the differences between the two. As a result, there is very little—other than Eng's moving atmospherics and attention to detail—to draw readers along.
Publishers Weekly
Like his debut, The Gift of Rain (2007), Tan’s second novel is exquisite.... Tan triumphs again, entwining the redemptive power of storytelling with the elusive search for truth, all the while juxtaposing Japan’s inhumane war history with glorious moments of Japanese art and philosophy. All readers in search of spectacular writing will not be disappointed.
Library Journal
As intricately designed as a Japanese garden, this deceptively quiet novel resonates with the power to inspire a variety of passionate emotions.... A haunting novel certain to stay with the reader long after the book is closed.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Memory is one of the main themes of The Garden of Evening Mists. How does Tan Twan Eng use the garden as a metaphor for memory?
2. Tan Twan Eng said his novel was difficult to write
... because Yun Ling very much wanted to keep her secrets to herself. Because of what she had gone through, and what she had become, no one was allowed into her head. And yet at the same time she wanted to—she had to—reveal those secrets. It was a constant battle for me to crack her open.
Given this statement, do you get the sense that Yun Ling is a reluctant narrator?
3. Does Yun Ling’s disposition towards Aritomo and towards the Japanese in general undergo a significant shift in the course of the novel, or does she rather maintain a constant though compartmentalised attitude throughout?
4. How and to what extent has Yun Ling’s capacity for intimate love and affection in later life been affected by her experiences in the internment camp and or her shared time with Aritomo?
5. Although containing many violent scenes, readers have commented that they found the story comforting, leaving a feeling of calm and tranquillity. What feelings are you left with having completed the novel?
(Questions from the Man Book Prize website.)
The Garden of Small Beginnings
Abbi Waxman, 2017
Penguin Pubishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399583582
Summary
A poignant, funny, and utterly believable novel about life and loss.
Give grief a chance . . .
Lilian Girvan has been a single mother for three years—ever since her husband died in a car accident. One mental breakdown and some random suicidal thoughts later, she’s just starting to get the hang of this widow thing. She can now get her two girls to school, show up to work, and watch TV like a pro. The only problem is she’s becoming overwhelmed with being underwhelmed.
At least her textbook illustrating job has some perks—like actually being called upon to draw whale genitalia. Oh, and there’s that vegetable-gardening class her boss signed her up for. Apparently, being the chosen illustrator for a series of boutique vegetable guides means getting your hands dirty, literally. Wallowing around in compost on a Saturday morning can’t be much worse than wallowing around in pajamas and self-pity.
After recruiting her kids and insanely supportive sister to join her, Lilian shows up at the Los Angeles botanical garden feeling out of her element. But what she’ll soon discover—with the help of a patient instructor and a quirky group of gardeners—is that into every life a little sun must shine, whether you want it to or not. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1970
• Where—England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California, USA
• Birth—1970
• Where—England, UK
• Education—University College London
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Abbi Waxman is a novelist whose books include The Garden of Small Beginnings (2017), Other People's Houses (2018), and The Bookish Life of Nina Hall (2019). She worked in advertising for many years, which is how she learned to write fiction.
Wasman is a chocolate-loving, dog-loving woman who lives in Los Angeles and lies down as much as possible. She has three daughters, three dogs, three cats, and one very patient husband. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) [A]n endearing and realistic cast of main and supporting characters (including the children). [Waxman's] narrative and dialog are…witty and irreverent humor, which provides much respite from the underlying grief theme. —Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY
Library Journal
Waxman takes readers from tears to laughter in this depiction of one woman's attempt to hold it all together for everyone else only to learn it's OK to put herself first.
Booklist
(Starred review) Waxman's skill at characterization...lifts this novel far above being just another 'widow finds love' story. Clearly an observer, Waxman has mastered the fine art of dialogue as well. Characters ring true right down to Lilian's two daughters, who often steal the show. This debut begs for an encore.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Anais Nin quote at the start of the book expresses the challenge facing Lilian. Have you experienced a situation where staying in place was as painful a choice as moving forward?
2. As the story begins, Lilian is deeply sad, but comfortable in her sadness. She resists people’s encouragements to move on, and is quite verbal about it. What impact does her position have on the other people in her life?
3. Lilian’s children experienced the loss of their father differently. How have you seen your own family or friends deal differently with grief, or other losses? Is there a "right" way?
4. Does Lilian find her work as a textbook illustrator fulfilling? Is she as stuck in that job as she is in her personal life?
5. What are the similarities and differences between the way Lilian and her sister, Rachel, process emotions? How did their childhood impact their approach? Both have a tendency to use humor to diffuse stress, or make light of personal struggles. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of that approach?
6. Are the differences between Lilian and Rachel similar to the differences between Annabel and Clare—how does each pair of sisters relate to each other?
7. Lilian takes the gardening class because her boss asks her to, but it ends up being a transformative experience for her. Has that ever happened to you, where something that started out as a chore instead became something wonderful?
8. Gardening turns out to be relaxing for Lilian, despite the hard physical work involved. What do you enjoy about gardening, and why do you think it’s so helpful for Lili?
9. Lilian is often surprised by the distance between her first impressions of people and what she subsequently learns about them. Do you think that’s a common experience? Do you think the first impression you give people is an accurate expression of who you really are? Is that even desirable?
10. A theme in the book is unexpected events and their consequences—how have unexpected events affected your life?
11. Do you think Edward and Lilian will end up together? Is Lili ready for a new relationship?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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Garden Spells
Sarah Addison Allen, 2007
Random House
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553590326
Summary
In a garden surrounded by a tall fence, tucked away behind a small, quiet house in an even smaller town, is an apple tree that is rumored to bear a very special sort of fruit. In this luminous debut novel, Sarah Addison Allen tells the story of that enchanted tree, and the extraordinary people who tend it.
The Waverleys have always been a curious family, endowed with peculiar gifts that make them outsiders even in their hometown of Bascom, North Carolina. Even their garden has a reputation, famous for its feisty apple tree that bears prophetic fruit, and its edible flowers, imbued with special powers. Generations of Waverleys tended this garden. Their history was in the soil. But so were their futures.
A successful caterer, Claire Waverley prepares dishes made with her mystical plants—from the nasturtiums that aid in keeping secrets and the pansies that make children thoughtful, to the snapdragons intended to discourage the attentions of her amorous neighbor. Meanwhile, her elderly cousin, Evanelle, is known for distributing unexpected gifts whose uses become uncannily clear. They are the last of the Waverleys—except for Claire’s rebellious sister, Sydney, who fled Bascom the moment she could, abandoning Claire, as their own mother had years before.
When Sydney suddenly returns home with a young daughter of her own, Claire’s quiet life is turned upside down—along with the protective boundary she has so carefully constructed around her heart. Together again in the house they grew up in, Sydney takes stock of all she left behind, as Claire struggles to heal the wounds of the past. And soon the sisters realize they must dealwith their common legacy—if they are ever to feel at home in Bascom—or with each other.
Enchanting and heartfelt, this captivating novel is sure to cast a spell with a style all its own. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Katie Gallagher
• Birth—ca. 1972
• Where—Ashville, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina, Asheville
• Currently—lives in Asheville, North Carolina
Garden Spells didn't start out as a magical novel," writes Sarah Addison Allen. "It was supposed to be a simple story about two sisters reconnecting after many years. But then the apple tree started throwing apples and the story took on a life of its own... and my life hasn't been the same since."
North Carolina novelist Sarah Addison Allen brings the full flavor of her southern upbringing to bear on her fiction—a captivating blend of fairy tale magic, heartwarming romance, and small-town sensibility.
Born and raised in Asheville, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Allen grew up with a love of books and an appreciation of good food (she credits her journalist father for the former and her mother, a fabulous cook, for the latter). In college, she majored in literature—because, as she puts it, "I thought it was amazing that I could get a diploma just for reading fiction. It was like being able to major in eating chocolate."
After graduation in 1994, Allen began writing seriously. She sold a few stories and penned romances for Harlequin under the pen name Katie Gallagher; but her big break occurred in 2007 with the publication of her first mainstream novel, Garden Spells, a modern-day fairy tale about an enchanted apple tree and the family of North Carolina women who tend it. Booklist called Allen's accomplished debut "spellbindingly charming," and the novel became a BookSense pick and a Barnes & Noble Recommends selection.
The Sugar Queen followed in 2008, The Girl Who Chased the Moon in 2009, The Peach Keeper in 2011; and Lost Lake in 2014. Allen's 2015 novel First Frost returned to some of her charaters in Garden Spells.
Since then, Allen has continued to serve heaping helpings of the fantastic and the familiar in fiction she describes as "Southern-fried magic realism." Clearly, it's a recipe readers are happy to eat up as fast as she can dish it out.
Extras
From a 2007 Barnes and Noble interview:
• I love food. The comforting and sensual nature of food always seems to find its way into what I write. Garden Spells involves edible flowers. My book out in 2008 involves southern and rural candies. Book three, barbeque. But, you know what? I'm a horrible cook.
• In college I worked for a catalog company, taking orders over the phone. Occasionally celebrities would call in their own orders. My brush with celebrity? I took Bob Barker's order.
• I was a Star Wars fanatic when I was a kid. I have the closet full of memorabilia to prove it — action figures, trading cards, comic books, notebooks with ‘Mrs. Mark Hamill' written all over the pages. I can't believe I just admitted that.
• While I was writing this, a hummingbird came to check out the trumpet vine outside my open window. I stopped typing and sat very still, mesmerized, my hands frozen on the keys, until it flew away. I looked back to my computer and ten minutes had passed in a flash.
• I love being a writer.
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:
Every book I've ever read has influenced me in some way. Paddington Bear books and Beverly Cleary in elementary school. Nancy Drew and Judy Blume in middle school. The sci-fi fantasy of my teens. The endless stream of paperback romances I devoured as I got older. Studying world literature and major movements in college. Who I am, what I am, is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, a lifetime of stories. And there are still so many more books to read. I'm a work in progress. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
This is a sweet book—pretty thin, even predictable. But if you're worn down by tackling dense, darker works, this may be the tonic you need. Garden Spells offers an easy introduction to magical realism. Claire Waverly has a secret garden in which she grows flowers and herbs for her catering business. Everyone in town knows about the garden—it's legendary—but few have ever stepped inside....
A LitLovers LitPick (Feb. '08)
Two gifted sisters draw on their talents to belatedly forge a bond and find their ways in life in Allen's easygoing debut novel. Thirty-four-year-old Claire Waverley manifests her talent in cooking; using edible flowers, Claire creates dishes that "affect the eater in curious ways." But not all Waverley women embrace their gifts; some, including Claire's mother, escape the family's eccentric reputation by running away. She abandoned Claire and her sister when they were young. Consequently, Claire has remained close to home, unwilling to open up to new people or experiences. Claire's younger sister, Sydney, however, followed in their mother's footsteps 10 years ago and left for New York, and after a string of abusive, roustabout boyfriends, returns to Bascom, N.C., with her five-year-old daughter, Bay. As Sydney reacquaints herself with old friends and rivals, she discovers her own Waverley magic. Claire, in turn, begins to open up to her sister and in the process learns how to welcome other possibilities. Though Allen's prose can lean toward the pedestrian and the romance subplots feel perfunctory, the blending of horticultural folklore, the supernatural and a big dollop of Southern flavor should find favor with a wide swath of readers.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) It’s refreshing to find a Southern novel that doesn’t depend on folksy humor or stereotypes but instead on the imaginative use of magical realism. Just buy it, read it, and recommend it to others . With enough grassroots buzz, Allen's mainstream debut (she's published romances under the nom de plume Katie Gallagher) could become a best seller. This captivating concoction, which has strong fairytale elements, is set in a small town in western North Carolina. The Waverley women have always had unusual talents, and newly reconciled half sisters Claire (a caterer) and Sydney (a hairdresser) are no exception. Sydney's five-year-old daughter, Bay, has the gift of knowing where things belong. Their elder cousin, Evanelle, has the gift of anticipation, compelled blindly to give items whose value is later revealed. The Waverleys also have an old tree whose apples are so special that a locked fence encloses their garden. To reveal much more about this charming story of love, fate, and family would be to dilute its magic. It's refreshing to find a Southern novel that doesn't depend on folksy humor or stereotypes but instead on the imaginative use of magical realism. Just buy it, read it, and recommend it to others. For any fiction collection.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) This captivating concoction, which has strong fairytale elements, is set in a small town in western North Carolina.... To reveal much more about this charming story of love, fate, and family would be to dilute its magic. It's refreshing to find a Southern novel that doesn't depend on folksy humor or stereotypes but instead on the imaginative use of magical realism. Just buy it, read it, and recommend it to others. For any fiction collection.
Carol Haggas - Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. If you believed you possessed the magical powers that Claire Waverley has inherited, how would you use them? What's the first thing you would do?
2. Could you be persuaded that certain plants have powers, as Claire describes and uses them? Does anything in your own experience suggest this possibility?
3. Claire believes all relationships are temporary, and does everything in her power to fight the pain this causes by ordering her life into predictable routines. Sydney's rebellious youth and history of dangerous, unstable affairs recklessly embraces the emotional turmoil Claire avoids. Whose approach to life resonates with you personally? Are their outlooks two sides of the same coin? In the course of the book, how are their attitudes transformed?
4. How do you explain Claire's attraction/repulsion to Tyler? Why do you think Claire sees violet sparks hovering around him the first time she meets him? What makes her eventually realize they are destined to be together?
5. Do you think a child can have the kind of insight and sensitivity that Bay demonstrates? Is a woman more likely to have it than a man? If yes, why?
6. The four Waverley women in this novel (Claire, Sydney, Bay, Evanelle) have special gifts. Which of the four gifts would you like to have? Why? How would you use it?
7. Fred Walker observes, "You are who you are, whether you like it or not, so why not like it?" Consider this statement in relation to the characters of the book, including Emma Clark, Hunter John Matteson, and Henry Hopkins.
8. A bite from an apple from the family tree inspired Lorelei Waverley's flight from Bascom, profoundly influencing the course of her daughters' lives. Would you have reacted in the same way to the knowledge the tree foretold? What alternatives did Lorelei have?
9. If you knew that biting into a Waverley apple would reveal your future, would you bite? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Gargoyle
Andrew Davidson, 2008
Knopf Doubleday
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307388674
Summary
The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.
A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life—and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne's care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete—and her time on earth will be finished.
Already an international literary sensation, the Gargoyle is an Inferno for our time. It will have you believing in the impossible. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1973-74
• Where—Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada
• Education—B.A., University of British Columbia
• Currently—lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba
Andrew Davidson was born in Pinawa, Manitoba, and graduated in 1995 from the University of British Columbia with a B.A. in English literature. He has worked as a teacher in Japan, where he has lived on and off, and as a writer of English lessons for Japanese Web sites. The Gargoyle, the product of seven years' worth of research and composition, is his first book. Davidson lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The Gargoyle has been heavily influenced by some of Mr. Davidson's own favorite authors, who range from Vladimir Nabokov to Patrick Susskind to (go figure) the playful parodist Jasper Forde. The free-range erudition of books like Possession and The Name of the Rose also come to mind. And the wearyingly popular literary story-within-a-story format is used here to incorporate a wild, seemingly random array of tricks and tangents. But Mr. Davidson binds them together with vigorous and impressive narrative skill.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Likely to ignite the passion of anyone who loves a mix of romance and the macabre…Nothing [the narrator]—or you—can assume about this spectacularly imaginative journey will help navigate its twists and turns. Before it's all over, like Dante before him, our narrator must visit Hades, and like every chapter of The Gargoyle, that's a hell of a story, too.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
(Starred review.) At the start of Davidson's powerful debut, the unnamed narrator, a coke-addled pornographer, drives his car off a mountain road in a part of the country that's never specified. During his painful recovery from horrific burns suffered in the crash, the narrator plots to end his life after his release from the hospital. When a schizophrenic fellow patient, Marianne Engel, begins to visit him and describe her memories of their love affair in medieval Germany, the narrator is at first skeptical, but grows less so. Eventually, he abandons his elaborate suicide plan and envisions a life with Engel, a sculptress specializing in gargoyles. Davidson, in addition to making his flawed protagonist fully sympathetic, blends convincing historical detail with deeply felt emotion in both Engel's recollections of her past life with the narrator and her moving accounts of tragic love. Once launched into this intense tale of unconventional romance, few readers will want to put it down.
Publishers Weekly
At a modern-day hospital burn ward, a patient recovering from injuries sustained in a car accident is approached by a woman claiming to have been his lover in another lifetime. Davidson believably weaves historical detail into his first novel, adeptly developing even the most minor characters. Actor/screenwriter Lincoln Hoppe, meanwhile, performs the lead character's role to perfection with a gravelly, fire-damaged voice, and he incorporates a variety of accents and languages into his narration. Both an excellent piece of literature and an excellent work of narration, this should be considered for purchase by all public libraries.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) There’s pure magic here, a classic redemption story with a hero so cynical, so damaged that it seems so unlikely that he’ll ever reach for or even believe in salvation. When he does, the reward is immeasurable. Davidson’s Gargoyle is a rare gem: completely engrossing, wholly unforgettable, and utterly transcendent. —Kristine Huntley.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. The Gargoyle begins with arguably one of the most stunning opening scenes in contemporary literature. How was the author able to make horrifying details alluring? What was your initial reaction to these images?
2. How were you affected by the narrator’s voice and his ability to address you in an intimate, direct monologue? How did his storytelling style compare to Marianne’s? In what ways did these tales balance reality and surrealism?
3. Arrows form a recurring symbol throughout the novel. What are their various uses as tools of war and of love? What makes them ideal for Marianne’s stories?
4. What medical aspects of the narrator’s treatment surprised you the most? Did his gruesome journey change the way you feel about your own body?
5. How did Marianne’s experience of God evolve and mature throughout her life? How do you personally reconcile the concept of a loving God and the reality of human suffering?
6. Marianne uses her body as a canvas. What messages does it convey? How does the narrator “read” bodies before his accident, both in front of the camera and while picking up less-dazzling strangers?
7. Discuss the role of ghosts and memory in The Gargoyle. In what ways does the past repeat itself? How are the characters shaped by past circumstances? When are their painful cycles to be broken?
8. What does Marianne’s copy of The Inferno indicate about the value of books beyond their content? In what way can a book also be an art object, or an artifact of history?
9. Eventually, Nan reveals her own burn scars. What motivates the novel’s healers–including Nan, Marianne, Sayuri, and Gregor? Whom does the narrator heal?
10. Discuss the role of money throughout The Gargoyle. What kept Jack honest? What did it mean for Marianne, a woman, to have far more money than the men in her life, both in the 14th century and in the contemporary storyline?
11. How did you interpret the narrator’s own Dante-esque tour, described in Chapter Twenty-nine? Was he hallucinating, in the throes of withdrawal while he kicked the bitchsnake of morphine, or did he journey to an underworld? Or both? Was Marianne a mere mortal?
12. The novel closes with Marianne’s departure and the marriage of Gregor and Sayuri. The narrator grapples with guilt, trying to understand whether he could or should have saved Marianne. What enabled Gregor and Sayuri to recognize and nurture their love for one another? What determines whether a relationship will become exhausted or perpetually revitalized? Is fate or willpower the greater factor?
13. An old adage, evidenced particularly in Shakespeare’s works, states that a comedy ends with a marriage, while a tragedy ends with a death. Given that The Gargoyle ends with both a marriage and a death, what does it say about the work?
An additional set of questions can be found here. They are for indepth discussions of Dante's Inferno, the Medieval church, linguistics, and more.
(All questions issued by publisher.)
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A Gate at the Stairs
Lorrie Moore, 2009
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375708466
Summary
Tassie Keltjin has come from a small farming town to attend college in Troy, “the Athens of the Midwest.” She's swept into a thrilling world of books and films and riveting lectures, high-flying discussions about Bach, Balkanization, and bacterial warfare, and the witty repartee of her fellow students. At the end of the semester, Tassie takes a job as a part-time nanny for the newly adopted child of Sarah Brink, the owner of a trendy downtown restaurant, and her husband, Edward Thornwood, a scientist pursuing independent research.
Tassie is enchanted by the little girl. Her feelings about Sarah and Edward are less easily defined, and as she becomes an integral part of their family, the mysteries of their lives and their relationship only deepen. She finds little to anchor her: a boyfriend turns out to be quite different from what he seems; vacations in her hometown are like visits to an alien country; and her loving, eccentric family no longer provides the certainties and continuity that shaped her childhood..
Lorrie Moore's ability to blend quick wit and hilarious observations of current trends with moving portraits of people struggling with loneliness, confusion, and the desire for love has made her one of the most admired writers of our time. Capturing the mood of post-9/11 America with astonishing deftness and precision, A Gate at the Stairs showcases Moore at the height of her powers. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 13, 1957
• Where—Glens Falls, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., St. Lawrence University; M.F.A., Cornell
University
• Awards—O. Henry Award; Rea Award for the Short Story;
member, American Academy of Arts & Letters.
• Currently—lives in Wisconsin
Lorrie Moore is the author of the story collections Like Life, Birds of America, and Self-Help, as well as her novels Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, Anagrams, and most currently, A Gate at the Stairs. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Best American Short Stories, and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards. She is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. (From the publisher.)
More
Marie Lorena Moore ("Lorrie") is an American fiction writer, known for her humorous and poignant short stories and her novels.
She attended St. Lawrence University. At 19, she won Seventeen magazine's fiction contest. After graduating from St. Lawrence, she moved to Manhattan and worked as a paralegal for two years.
In 1980, Moore enrolled in Cornell University's M.F.A. program, where she was taught by Alison Lurie. Upon graduation from Cornell, a teacher encouraged her to contact agent Melanie Jackson. Jackson sold her collection, Self-Help, composed almost entirely of stories from her master's thesis, to Knopf in 1983. Moore was 26 years old.
Her short story collections are Self Help, Like Life, and Birds of America, which became a New York Times bestseller. She has contributed to the Paris Review, and her first story to appear in The New Yorker, "You're Ugly, Too," was later included in The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. Another story, "People Like That Are the Only People Here," was reprinted in the annual collection The Best American Short Stories; the tale of a young child falling sick, it was loosely patterned on events in Moore's own life. The story was also included in the 2005 anthology Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, edited by David Sedaris. She writes frequently about failing relationships and terminal illness and is known for her mordant wit and pithy one-liners. Her stories often take place in the Midwest.
Moore's Collected Stories was published by Faber in the UK in May 2008. It included selections from each of her previously published collections, excerpts from her novel Anagrams, and three previously uncollected stories (first published in The New Yorker).
Moore's novels are Anagrams (1986), Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? (1994), and A Gate at the Stairs (2009). Anagrams was optioned for film by Madonna for a film that was never made. A Gate at the Stairs takes place just after the September 11 attack and is about a twenty-year-old Midwestern woman's coming of age.
Moore has written a children's book entitled The Forgotten Helper. It concerns an elf whom Santa mistakenly leaves behind at the home of the worst child on his "good" list. The elf must help the child be good for the coming year, so Santa will return next Christmas.
On November 1, 2008 The Guardian published a new short story by Lorrie Moore entitled "Foes."
Moore is a Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She was also profiled in the September 2009 Reader's Digest about her current readings (Friend of My Youth by Alice Munro), her current novel, A Gate at the Stairs, her Internet usage (Wikipedia), her listenings (Al Green, Joni Mitchell, and Tuck & Patti), and her television habits (Mark Shields, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart. Eugene Robinson, and Rachel Maddow). Moore's view of Life and Literature is "Life is a cornfield, but literature is that shot of whiskey that's been distilled down.
Moore has won a number of literary awards: the 1998 O. Henry Award for her short story "People Like That Are the Only People Here," published in The New Yorker on January 27, 1997. In 2004, Moore was selected as winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story, for outstanding achievement in that genre. In 2006, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
More expansive than either of her two previous novels…also a novel that brandishes some "big" material: racism, war, etc.—albeit in Moore's resolutely insouciant key…Great writers usually present us with mysteries, but the mystery Lorrie Moore presents consists of appearing genial, joshing and earnest at once—unmysterious, in other words, yet still great. She's a discomfiting, sometimes even rageful writer, lurking in the disguise of an endearing one. On finishing A Gate at the Stairs I turned to the reader nearest to me and made her swear to read it immediately.
Jonathan Lethem - New York Times Book Review
Ms. Moore has written her most powerful book yet, a book that gives us an indelible portrait of a young woman coming of age in the Midwest in the year after 9/11 and her initiation into the adult world of loss and grief…in this haunting novel Ms. Moore gives us stark, melancholy glimpses into her characters' hearts, mapping their fears and disappointments, their hidden yearnings and their more evanescent efforts to hold on to their dreams in the face of unfurling misfortune.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
A Gate at the Stairs is Moore's first novel in 15 years, which means a whole generation of readers has grown up thinking of her only as one of the country's best short-story writers. Get ready to expand your sense of what she—and a novel—can do…The story's apparent modesty and ambling pace are deceptive, a cover for profound reflections on marriage and parenthood, racism and terrorism, and especially the baffling, hilarious, brutal initiation to adult life—what all of us learn to endure "in the dry terror of cluelessness"…what's so endearing is Moore's ability to tempt us with humor into the surreal boundaries of human experience, those strange decisions that make no sense out of context, the things we can't believe anyone would do.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Moore (Anagrams) knits together the shadow of 9/11 and a young girl's bumpy coming-of-age in this luminous, heart-wrenchingly wry novel—the author's first in 15 years. Tassie Keltjin, 20, a smalltown girl weathering a clumsy college year in “the Athens of the Midwest,” is taken on as prospective nanny by brittle Sarah Brink, the proprietor of a pricey restaurant who is desperate to adopt a baby despite her dodgy past. Subsequent “adventures in prospective motherhood” involve a pregnant girl “with scarcely a tooth in her head” and a white birth mother abandoned by her African-American boyfriend—both encounters expose class and racial prejudice to an increasingly less naïve Tassie. In a parallel tale, Tassie lands a lover, enigmatic Reynaldo, who tries to keep certain parts of his life a secret from Tassie. Moore's graceful prose considers serious emotional and political issues with low-key clarity and poignancy, while generous flashes of wit—Tessie the sexual innocent using her roommate's vibrator to stir her chocolate milk—endow this stellar novel with great heart.
Publishers Weekly
Just months after 9/11, college student Tassie Keltjin, the brilliant daughter of a Midwestern farmer, becomes a part-time nanny for an older white couple who have adopted an African American baby. Enjoying her delightful young charge and reveling in her love affair with her Brazilian boyfriend, Tassie has a growing suspicion that her employers are somehow off. When their identities, as well as her boyfriend's, are blown, Tassie heads home, only to be hit with another, more devastating shock. Verdict: Moore uses the same kind of poetic precision of language found in her dazzling short story collections (e.g., Birds of America) to draw the reader into her long-awaited third novel (after Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?). The challenge for readers is to reconcile the beautiful sharpness of her language with two wildly improbable plot threads. —Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal
In How Fiction Works, the tutorial by the New Yorker critic and Harvard professor, James Wood writes, "Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life. And so on and on."Contemporary fiction has produced few noticers with a better eye and more engaging voice than Tassie Keltjin, the narrator of Lorrie Moore's deceptively powerful A Gate at the Stairs. For much of Moore's first novel in 15 years-her short stories have established her as something of a Stateside Alice Munro—Tassie's eye and ear are pretty much all there is to the book. And they are more than enough, for the 20-year-old college student makes for good company. Perceptive, with a self-deprecating sense of humor, she lulls the reader into not taking the matter-of-fact events of Tassie's life too seriously, until that life darkens through a series of events that even the best noticers might not have predicted. Because her ostensible roommate now lives with a boyfriend, we get to know Tassie very well—as a fully fleshed character rather than a type—and spend a lot of time inside her head. She splits her year between the university community more liberal than the rest of the Midwest and the rural Wisconsin town where her father is considered more of a "hobbyist" farmer than a real one. "What kind of farmer's daughter was I?" she asks. A virgin, but more from lack of opportunity than moral compunction (she compares her dating experiences to an invisible electric fence for dogs), and a bass player, both electric and stand-up. Singing along to her instrument, she describes "trying to find themidway place between melody and rhythm—was this searching not the very journey of life?" Explains Moore of her protagonist, "Once I had the character and voice of Tassie I felt I was on my way. She would be the observer of several worlds that were both familiar and not familiar to her.... Initially, I began in the third person and it was much more of a ghost story and there were a lot of sisters and, well, it was a false start. "It's hard to imagine this novel working in the third person, because we need to see Tassie's life through her eyes. As she learns some crucial lessons outside the classroom, the reader learns as well to be a better noticer. Tassie's instincts are sound, but her comic innocence takes a tragic turn, as she falls into her first serious romance, finds a job as nanny for an adopted, biracial baby and suffers some aftershocks from 9/11 a long way from Manhattan. The enrichment of such complications makes this one of the year's best novels, yet it is Tassie's eye that makes us better readers of life. And so on and on.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In addition to her sense of humor and intelligence, what are Tassie's strengths as a narrator? How does what she describes as “an unseemly collection of jostling former selves” (p. 63) affect the narrative and contribute to the appeal of her tale?
2. In the farming community where Tassie grew up, her father “seemed a vaguely contemptuous character.... His idiosyncrasies appeared to others to go beyond issues of social authenticity and got into questions of God and man and existence” (p. 19). Does the family, either intentionally or inadvertently, perpetuate their standing as outsiders? How does Moore use what ordinarily might be seen as clichés and stereotypes to create believable and sympathetic portraits of both the locals and the Keltjin family?
3. How does the initial meeting between Tassie and Sarah (pp. 10-24) create a real, if hesitant, connection between them? What aspects of their personalities come out in their conversation? To what extent are their impressions of each other influenced by their personal needs, both practical and psychological?
4. Are Sarah's ill-chosen comments at the meetings with Amber (p. 32) and Bonnie (pp. 89-90, p. 93) the result of the natural awkwardness between a birth mother and a potential adoptive mother or do they reveal deeper insecurities in Sarah? Does the adoption process inevitably involve a certain amount of willful deception, unenforceable promises (p. 87), and a “ceremony of approval ... [that is] as with all charades. . . . wanly ebullient, necessary, and thin” (p. 95)?
5. What is the significance of Tassie's first impression of Edward-“one could see it was his habit to almost imperceptibly dominate and insult”-and her realization that “[d]espite everything, [Sarah] was in love with him” (p. 91)? Does Edward's behavior at dinner and the “small conspiracy” he and Tassie establish (pp. 112-114) offer a more sympathetic (or at least more understandable) view of him? Are there other passages in the novel that bring out the contradictions between his outward behavior and his private thoughts?
6. Does A Gate at the Stairs accurately reflect the persistence of racism in America? What do the comments and encounters sprinkled throughout in the novel (pp. 80, 112, 151, 167, 229) show about the various forms racism takes in our society?
7. Do you agree with Sarah's statement, “Racial blindness-now there's a very white idea” (p. 86)? What do the discussions in Sarah's support group (pp. 154-57; 186-90; 194-97) reveal about the different perceptions of reality held by African-Americans and white liberals? What role do class, wealth, and professional status play in opinions expressed by various members of the group? In this context, what is the import of Tassie's description of Mary-Emma's affection for Reynaldo: “the colorblindness of small children is a myth; she noticed difference and sameness, with almost equal interest; there was no 'Dilemma of Difference' as my alliteration-loving professors occasionally put it” (p. 169)?
8. How would you characterize the comments about religion throughout the novel (pp. 41, 108, 129)? What is the significance of the fact that Tassie's mother is Jewish, a woman of “indeterminate ethnicity” in a churchgoing community? Why are Roberta Marshall and Sarah so cavalier about Bonnie's insistence that her child be raised as a Catholic (p. 87)? How do Reynaldo's revelations about his activities and beliefs (pp. 204-8) fit into Tassie's view of God and religion in general? On page 296, Tassie offers a thoughtful explanation of the purpose of religion in people's lives. Are there other lessons about the meaning of religion or faith to be found in the novel?
9. The title of the book comes from a ballad Tassie writes with her roommate (p. 219-20). What does music-playing the bass and singing to Mary-Emma-represent to Tassie? How does it connect her to her own family and to Mary-Emma?
10. Does the novel prepare you for Sarah's dreadful confession (pp. 232-242)? What particular incidents or conversations foreshadow the revelations? How do Sarah's “conventional” beliefs about men and women affect the couple's behavior during and after the tragedy (pp. 240, 244)? Was their decision to move and start anew the best solution under the circumstances? Do the reasons Sarah gives for remaining with Edward make emotional sense? If they had been able to keep their secret hidden, would they have been able to create a happy future with Mary-Emma?
11. Nannies and other household help often grasp things families don't realize about themselves. Is Tassie an objective chronicler of life in the Brink-Thornwood household? What biases does she bring to her observations? How do her perceptions and opinions change over the course of the novel? In what ways does her growing attachment to Mary-Emma and her relationship with Sarah account for these changes? In what ways are they attributable to the developments in her personal life?
12. How do the vignettes of Tassie's visits home and her life in Troy play off one another? What do Tassie's conversations with her family bring out about the ambivalence she (and many college students) experience? Why does Tassie fail to recognize the depth of Robert's pain and confusion? Is Robert's decision to join the army given the attention it deserves by the rest of the family?
13. Does the Midwestern setting of the novel offer a distinctive perspective on September 11, 2001, and the mood of the country? How were the events experienced in other parts of America-for example, in the cities directly affected by the terrorist attacks?
14. Lorrie Moore has been widely praised for her affecting depictions of human vulnerability and her dark humor. How does Moore integrate clever one-liners, puns, and wordplay into the serious themes she is exploring? What role does humor play in exposing the thoughts, feelings, and fears the characters are unwilling or unable to express? Does it heighten the emotional force of the novel or diminish it?
15. “I had also learned that in literature-perhaps as in life-one had to speak not of what the author intended but of what a story intended for itself” (p. 263-64]. How does this quotation apply to your reading of A Gate at the Stairs?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Gates of Fire: An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae
Steven Pressfield, 1998
Bantam Books
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553580532
Summary
Thousands of years ago, Herodotus and Plutarch immortalized Spartan society in their histories; but today, little is left of the ancient city or the social structure of this momentous culture. One of the few antiquarian marks of the civilization that has survived lies scores of miles away from Sparta, at a narrow Greek mountain pass called Thermopylae.
It was here that three hundred of Sparta's finest warriors held back the invading millions of the Persian empire and valiantly gave their lives in the selfless service of democracy and freedom. A simple engraved stone marks their burial ground.
Narrated by the sole survivor of the epic battle—a squire in the Spartan heavy infantry—Gates of Fire is a depiction of one man's indoctrination into the Spartan way of life and death, and of the legendary men and women who gave the culture an immortal gravity. Culminating in the electrifying and horrifying epic battle, Gates of Fire weaves history, mystery, and heartbreaking romance into a literary page-turner that brings the Homeric tradition into the 21st century. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1943
• Where—Port of Spain, Trinidad
• Education—B.A., Duke University (USA)
• Currently—lives in Malibu, California
In January of 1966, when Mr. Pressfield was on the bus leaving Parris Island as a freshly-minted Marine, he looked back and thought there was at least one good thing about this departure. "No matter what happens to me for the rest of my life, no one can ever send me back to this freakin' place again."
Forty years later, to his surprise and gratification, Mr. P is far more closely bound to the young men of the Marine Corps and to all other dirt-eating, ground-pounding outfits than he could ever have imagined. Gates of Fire is one reason. Dog-eared paperbacks of this tale of the ancient Spartans have circulated throughout platoons of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan since the first days of the invasions. E-mails come in by hundreds.
Gates of Fire is on the Commandant of the Marine Corps' Reading list. It is taught at West Point and Annapolis and at the Marine Corps Basic School at Quantico. Tides of War is on the curriculum of the Naval War College. From 2nd Battalion/6th Marines, which calls itself "the Spartans," to ODA 316 of the Special Forces, whose forearms are tattooed with the lambda of Lakedaemon, today's young warriors find a bond to their ancient precursors in the historical narratives of Pressfield's novels.
Steven Pressfield was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, in 1943 to a Navy father and mother. He graduated from Duke University in 1965. His struggles to earn a living as a writer (it took seventeen years to get the first paycheck) are detailed in his 2002 book, The War of Art. Mr. Pressfield has worked as an advertising copywriter, schoolteacher, tractor-trailer driver, bartender, oilfield roustabout and attendant in a mental hospital. He has picked fruit in Washington state and written screenplays in Tinseltown.
With the publication of The Legend of Bagger Vance in 1995, Mr. Pressfield became a writer of books once and for all. His writing philosophy is, not surprisingly, a kind of warrior code—internal rather than external—in which the enemy is identified as those forms of self-sabotage that Pressfield has labeled "Resistance" with a capital R (in The War of Art) and the technique for combatting these foes can be described as "turning pro."
Mr. Pressfield believes in previous lives. He believes in the Muse. He believes that books and music exist before they are written and that they are propelled into material being by their own imperative to be born, via the offices of those willing servants of discipline, imagination and inspiration whom we call artists. Mr. Pressfield's conception of the artist's role is a combination of reverence for the unknowable nature of "where it all comes from" and a no-nonsense, blue-collar demystification of the process by which this mystery is approached. In other words, a paradox.
There's a recurring character in Mr. Pressfield's books named Telamon, a mercenary of ancient days. Telamon doesn't say much. He rarely gets hurt or wounded. And he never seems to age. His view of the profession of arms is a lot like Mr. Pressfield's conception of art and the artist:
"It is one thing to study war, and another to live the warrior's life."
Steven Pressfield's seven books include: The Legend of Bagger Vance, The War of Art, Gates of Fire, Tides of War, Last of the Amazons, The Virtues of War, The Afghan Campaign, and Killing Rommel. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A gripping and swashbuckling re-imagining of the battle of Thermopylae ... a novel that, in addition to plenty of sweep and sting, has a feel of authenticity about it from beginning to end.
Richard Bernstein - New York Times
Reading this fine novel, it is not hard to understand why warfare has proved to be one of the most enduring subjects of literature.
Mary Lefkowitz - The New York Times Book Review
Pressfield's first novel, The Legend of Bagger Vance, was about golf, but here he puts aside his putter and picks up sword and shield as he cleverly and convincingly portrays the clash between Greek hoplites and Persian heavy infantry in the most heroic confrontation of the Hellenic Age: the battle of Thermopylae ("the Hot Gates") in 480 B.C. The terrifying spectacle of classical infantry battle becomes vividly clear in his epic treatment of the Greeks' magnificent last stand against the invading Persians. Driven to understand the courage and sacrifice of his Greek foes, the Persian king, Xerxes, compels Xeones, a captured Greek slave, to explain why the Greeks would give their lives to fight against overwhelming odds. Xeones' tale covers his years of training and adventure as the loyal and devoted servant of Dienekes, a noble Spartan soldier, and he describes the six-day ordeal during which a few hundred Greeks held off thousands of Persian spears and arrows, until a Greek traitor led the Persians to an alternate route. Rich with historical detail, hot action and crafty storytelling, Pressfield's riveting story reveals the social and political framework of Spartan life--ending with the hysteria and brutality of the spear-thrusting, shield-bashing clamor that defined a Spartan's relationship with his family, community, country and fellow warriors.
Publishers Weekly
On a memorial stone placed at the ancient battlefield of Thermopylae are the words, "Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie." Those simple words end and encapsulate this brilliant and brutal epic tale. Beginning at the training fields of Sparta, Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance) ushers the reader through the climactic Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.E, fought by the combined armies of Sparta, Athens, and their allies against the invading soldiers of Persia. Narrated by the sole survivor of the battle at the "Hot Gates," in which 300 Spartans, hundreds of their allies, and tens of thousands of Persians died, this work portrays the men and women of ancient Sparta in intimate, dynamic detail. Pressfield weaves a fascinating tale of valor, fear, comradeship, and a courage that takes a handful of warriors beyond human frailty into immortality. An unforgettable novel. —Jane Baird, Anchorage Municipal Libraries, Alaska.
Library Journal
A triumph in historical fiction best describes this stirring account of the famous battle of Thermopylae, told by the lone survivor before succumbing to his wounds, in a logical follow-up to Pressfield's Homeric take on golf, The Legend of Bagger Vance (1995). The young squire Xeones is pulled from beneath a burned battle wagon when the carnage finally ends at the narrow mountain pass where, in 480 b.c., three hundred Spartans and a small allied force fought off, for a full week, the two-million-man army of Persian king Xerxes. Xeones is kept alive by the king's own physicians in the hope that he'll tell His Majesty all there is to know about those sublimely disciplined warriors who accomplished so great a victory. In a series of interviews recorded by the royal historian, Xeones recounts his own origins: forced to flee, newly orphaned, when his own city was sacked, he lived hand-to-mouth in the mountains until deciding to go to Sparta in order to learn all there was to know about defending himself. As he recalls Xerxes' army rolling inexorably into Athens, burning the city after a token defense, the survivor describes the decades of hard training endured by every Spartan male, and also the contacts he had with his youthful sparring partner, the silver-throated, sensitive Alexandros, and with the fair-minded, modest Dienekes (whose squire he would become). But by the time Xeones comes to the crux of his story, involving the mighty battle itself and the heroic actions of his comrades-in-arms, things have started to go awry again for the Persians. Although he will soon join his friends in death, Xeones lives long enough to know that their sacrifice was not in vain. While theromantic interests are somewhat stilted, the man-to-man and mano-a-mano elements are all superb, with a fine, elegiac tone—to be expected, frankly, given the historical details and the human touches.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Gates of Fire:
1. In a Q&A, Pressfield says that historical fiction at its best should "work to illuminate not only a theme that's true to [its] time, but to our contemporary era as well." Can you identify particular themes (central ideas) in Gates of Fire . . . and how they might illuminate our own time?
2. How would you characterize those who fought against such impossible odds at Thermopylae? Are those traits in evidence in our culture today? Are they necessary given that we no longer fight in hand-to-hand combat? Are the traits primarily of the military, or might they apply to the citizenry?
3. Many readers comment on Pressfield's skill at bringing the ancient Greek culture to life and presenting it as a rich backdrop for the battle of Thermoplylae. Do you agree? Talk a bit about his portrait of classical Greek life. What did you find most interesting?
4. For over 2,000 years, the events of Thermopylae have been told from the outside (no Greeks survived). Pressfield, however, uses a single survivor of the battle to tell the story from the inside out. Do you find Xeones convincing? Also, history traditionally is told from the perspective of those who led and shaped the events. Pressfield gives us a different vangtage point, one from the lower ranks. Why might he have chosen Xeones as the narrator?
5. Discuss the way in which Pressfield explores the different temperaments of fighting units: Thespians, who were more emtional; the Spartans, more stoic. Also consider the psychology behind the social bonding that develops in smalll, competitive groups—whether it's military, sports, college fraternities.
6. Do you think that Pressfield gets at one of the central mysteries of war: how warriors stand their ground to fight, against all rational instincts that urge retreat and safety? Why do warriors fight and what do they fight for?
7. What other times in history have a selfless few have sacrified for a great many? Think, of course, of Winston Churchill's famous "never was so much owed by so many to so few," at the start of World War II. Is such sacrifice possible today?
(Questions from LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Gathering
Anne Enright, 2007
Grove/Atlantic
260 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802170392
Summary
Winner, 2007 Man Booker Prize
Anne Enright is a dazzling writer of international stature and one of Ireland’s most singular voices. Now she delivers The Gathering, a moving, evocative portrait of a large Irish family and a shot of fresh blood into the Irish literary tradition, combining the lyricism of the old with the shock of the new.
The nine surviving children of the Hegarty clan are gathering in Dublin for the wake of their wayward brother, Liam, drowned in the sea. His sister, Veronica, collects the body and keeps the dead man company, guarding the secret she shares with him—something that happened in their grandmother’s house in the winter of 1968.
As Enright traces the line of betrayal and redemption through three generations her distinctive intelligence twists the world a fraction and gives it back to us in a new and unforgettable light. The Gathering is a daring, witty, and insightful family epic, clarified through Anne Enright’s unblinking eye. It is a novel about love and disappointment, about how memories warp and secrets fester, and how fate. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 11, 1962
• Where—Dublin, Ireland
• Education—B.A., Trinity College (Dublin); M.A., University of
East Anglia
• Awards—Rooney Prize, Irish Writing Award, Royal Society
of Authors Encore Prize, Booker Prize
• Currently—lives in Bray, County Wicklow, Ireland
Anne Enright is a Booker Prize-winning Irish author. She has published essays, short stories, a non-fiction book and four novels. Before her novel The Gathering won the 2007 Man Booker Prize, Enright had a low profile in Ireland and the United Kingdom, although her books were favourably reviewed and widely praised. Her writing explores themes such as family relationships, love and sex, Ireland's difficult past and its modern zeitgeist.
Enright won an international scholarship to Lester Pearson United World College of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia, where she studied for an International Baccalaureate for two years. She received an English and philosophy degree from Trinity College Dublin. She began writing in earnest when her family gave her an electric typewriter for her 21st birthday. She won a scholarship to the University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Course, where she was taught by Angela Carter and Malcolm Bradbury and earned an M.A.
Enright was a television producer and director for RTE in Dublin for six years. She was a producer for the ground-breaking RTE programme Nighthawks for four years. She then worked in children's programming for two years and wrote at the weekends. The Portable Virgin, a collection of her short stories, was published in 1991. The Portable Virgin won the 1991 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Enright began writing full-time in 1993.
Enright's first novel, The Wig My Father Wore, was published in 1995. The book explores themes such as love, motherhood, Roman Catholicism, and sex. The narrator of the novel is Grace, who lives in Dublin and works for a tacky game show. Her father wears a wig that cannot be spoken of in front of him. An angel called Stephen who committed suicide in 1934 and has come back to earth to guide lost souls moves into Grace's home and she falls in love with him.
Enright's next novel, What Are You Like? (2000), is about twin girls called Marie and Maria who are separated at birth and raised apart from each other in Dublin and London. It looks at tensions and ironies between family members. It was short-listed in the novel category of the Whitbread Awards.
The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch (2002) is a fictionalised account of the life of Eliza Lynch, an Irish woman who was the consort of Paraguayan president Francisco Solano López and became Paraguay's most powerful woman in the 19th century. Her book Making Babies: Stumbling into Motherhood (2004) is a collection of candid and humorous essays about childbirth and motherhood. Enright's fourth novel, The Gathering, was published in 2007, and The Forgotten Waltz in 2011.
Enright's writings have appeared in several magazines, including The New Yorker, Paris Review, Granta, London Review of Books, Dublin Review, and the Irish Times. She was once a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, and now reviews for the Guardian and RTE. The 4 October 2007 issue of the London Review of Books published her essay, "Disliking the McCanns", about Kate and Gerry McCann, the British parents of three-year-old Madeleine McCann, who disappeared in suspicious circumstances while on holiday in Portugal in May 2007. The essay was criticized by some journalists.
Enright won the Davy Byrne's Irish Writing Award for 2004. She also won the Royal Society of Authors Encore Prize.On 16 October 2007 Enright was awarded the Man Booker Prize, which included a cash award of £50,000, for The Gathering.
Enright lives in Bray, County Wicklow. She is married to Martin Murphy, who is director of the Pavilion Theatre in Dun Laoghaire. They have two children. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
In a word: heavy. Or so you might think. But in this mystery of past causes, the transformative power of Enright's language keeps the story's freight from burdening the reader. Veronica's reminiscences have an incantatory power that makes them not depressing but enthralling—as evocative and unanswerable as the laments of the woman "wailing for her demon-lover" in "Kubla Khan," except that Veronica wails for her demon-brother…In this new novel…Enright hides her painterly brushstrokes. The Gathering still casts fiction's spell, but its detours from reality are surreal, not unreal: nothing happens that could not happen, that has not happened, to somebody. Bringing together the skills she has honed along the way, Enright carries off her illusions without props or dei ex machina, bravely engaging with the carnival horrors of everyday life.
Liesl Schillinger - New York Times
There is something livid and much that is stunning about The Gathering, which deservedly won this year's Man Booker Prize. Anger brushes off every page, a species of rage that aches to confront silence and speak truth at last. The book's narrative tone echoes Joan Didion's furious, cool grief, but the richest comparison may be with James Joyce's Dubliners.... Everything that happens and does not happen here feels painfully and awkwardly true, even the notes of redemption. Enright seems to know the bone structure of the Irish family during its turbulent silence of the 1960s and '70s, when elders were still treated with fearful deference and children were less important than they are now, perhaps because there were so many of them and the houses were so tiny.
Peter Behrens - Washington Post
In the taut latest from Enright (What Are You Like?), middle-aged Veronica Hegarty, the middle child in an Irish-Catholic family of nine, traces the aftermath of a tragedy that has claimed the life of rebellious elder brother Liam. As Veronica travels to London to bring Liam's body back to Dublin, her deep-seated resentment toward her overly passive mother and her dissatisfaction with her husband and children come to the fore. Tempers flare as the family assembles for Liam's wake, and a secret Veronica has concealed since childhood comes to light. Enright skillfully avoids sentimentality as she explores Veronica's past and her complicated relationship with Liam. She also bracingly imagines the life of Veronica's strong-willed grandmother, Ada. A melancholic love and rage bubbles just beneath the surface of this Dublin clan, and Enright explores it unflinchingly.
Publishers Weekly
It seems that large, extended families are brought together for two events, weddings and funerals, and such is the case in Enright's new novel (after The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch) when Veronica, her eight surviving siblings, and their mammy reconnect for her wayward brother Liam's funeral. As Veronica notes early on, "the seeds of my brother's death were sown many years ago," and it is those seeds, which are gradually unearthed as the book moves between past and present, describing the deconstruction of the family, that drove Liam to suicide. From a description of vodka with a "sweet and crotch-like" smell that includes a "waft of earth and adolescence" to souls that, if released, would "slop out over his teeth," Enright's writing is starkly descriptive, using the same coarse imagery that is part of her characters' daily lives. Much is raw in this novel, which is less about individuals than about people's "patience and ability to endure." While readers won't be drawn to the characters, anyone who perseveres will find a story of harsh redemption and of a future found in a child's blue eyes. An acquired taste.
Caroline M. Hallsworth - Library Journal
A lyrical meditation on memory and connectedness involving three generations of an Irish family. In her fourth novel (The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch, 2003, etc.), Enright seamlessly melds past and present, childhood and struggling maturity, death and earthy life, in Veronica Hegarty's looping account of her blood line. Her mother bore 12 children and suffered seven miscarriages, yet it is a single death, of Veronica's troubled older brother Liam, which pulls the narrative together. The discovery of his body in the sea at Brighton (an English resort town) with stones in his pockets triggers a kind of breakdown in Veronica. It ignites a long-brewing crisis in her marriage, and it releases a flood of memories: Liam visiting her after the birth of one of her two daughters; Liam on a childhood trip to the seaside via a visit to a relative in an insane asylum; Liam being sexually abused by Nugent, a friend of their grandparents, Ada and Charlie. Veronica's insomnia after the bereavement leads her to start writing a version of Ada's life, speculating on an affair between Ada and Nugent. Veronica's own sexual history plays a part too, as well as her hunger for "a larger life." Like Ali Smith, Enright is an original. Her poetic, often lovely phrasing and surprising perspectives create a distinctive mood, and her novel subtly links the Hegartys in a chain of damage, regret and finally continuity. A dreamy, melancholy swirl of a story, wise about the bonds and burdens linking children to each other and their grown selves.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. At the very beginning of the novel, the narrator, Veronica, states that she is setting out to “bear witness to an uncertain event” from her childhood. Begin your discussion of this novel by considering the nature of truth, and the ways in which it is possible or impossible to reach the truth in remembering stories from our childhood. Do you think it is more important for Veronica to arrive at the truth or to uncover the stories and memories that might hold clues to her childhood? How far do you think she succeeds in reaching an approximate truth? Consider her statement “I do not know the truth, or I do not know how to tell the truth” (p. 2) – and discuss its implications.
2. In many ways she is disturbing the ghosts of the past as she sifts through her stories and “night thoughts” (p. 2). Look at the ways in which these ghosts manifest themselves physically throughout the novel. How does the ghost or presence of her brother, Liam, make itself felt, if at all?
3. The novel eloquently explores the landscape of grief and the ways in which a death inevitably brings up memories and questions about the past. Talk about Veronica’s immediate responses to Liam’s death, and compare and contrast her mother’s reactions. Discuss the responses of the various other siblings. Why is Veronica irritated by her mother’s grief, and the fact that she has to go through the notions of comforting her? What does she mean when she says “Who am I to touch, to handle, and discard, the stuff of a mother’s love?” (p. 11).
4. The mother is an overwhelming presence at the center of the novel, not by the force of her own character but more so by Veronica’s bitterness towards her. Analyze the mother’s place in the novel, and talk about the level of Veronica’s anger toward her. What will she not forgive her mother and why? Discuss the possible reasons for her statement “the imponderable pain of my mother against which I have hardened my heart” (p. 185). Does her opinion of her mother shift at all during the novel? Does she ever feel a moment of love for her?
5. In light of the last question, consider the central role of forgiveness and guilt in the novel and the hold it has over the characters. Analyze especially Veronica’s relationship with her brother Liam, and her belief in forgiving the dead. Why do you think Liam made her feel guilty about her life with her husband and her daughters? Talk about the effect of Liam’s death on her relationship with her husband, and with the life she has created for herself.
6. Compare Veronica’s upbringing with that of her own two daughters, and her parenting style with that of her mother. Reflect upon the emptiness she feels in her life, the sadness it causes her, and how it will impact her daughters. Are there instances in her own life that reflect her mother’s? Consider the implications of Veronica’s worries about her children’s well-being and talk about whether over-parenting serves them better than the lack of parenting she received from her mother.
7. Consider the strength that Veronica exhibits during the period after Liam’s death. At one point, she says, “I am all for sadness . . . but we fill up with it . . . until donk, we tilt into the drink” (p 175). Indeed, at points she seems to be plunging down Liam’s path of drinking and despair, and yet she keeps herself from making the plunge. Analyze the ways in which Liam has given into this despair, and the ways in which Veronica rails against it. What are some of the sources from which she derives her strength? Why was Liam unable to draw upon the same reserves in his battle with depression? Do Veronica’s humor and irreverence have a place in the midst of such grief?
8. “I am the one who loved him most.” Veronica repeats this line as she undertakes the practical duties of death (arranging for bringing Liam’s body home). It seems that she considers her close relationship with Liam as a burden. Are there other characters in the novel for whom love is a burden? Talk about Uncle Val’s comment at Liam’s wake, “Ah well. We did our best” (p. 203). What realization does it bring to Veronica? Discuss the responsibilities of filial and sibling love.
9. “There was great privacy in a big family . . . no one ever pitied you or loved you a little” (p. 164). Analyze this interesting statement, and talk about how the Hegarty family’s character and, perhaps, destinies were shaped by the sheer number of children in the family. On occasion, Veronica refers to the Hegartys as a group, a particular type who share certain characteristics – what are some of their traits? She also considers them all as damaged (p. 222) – how far do you agree with her view?
10. Liam’s death serves as a catalyst for Veronica as she launches herself in pursuit of childhood memories, searching for the moment that set Liam off course in his life and steered him toward an early death. She states “What is written for the future is written in the body” (p. 163). What does she mean by this statement and how much do you agree? Could she have done anything to avert his suicide? To what extent do you think she has lived with guilt about Liam’s abuse since her childhood, or do you believe the memories have only resurfaced after his death?
11. Discuss the reasons why she begins to view her life with her husband and children in a new and unpalatable light? Is her sudden change of heart valid? How far do you sympathize with her? What view do you begin to shape of her husband? What are your feelings toward him?
12. Early on in the novel Veronica states, “There are so few people given us to love.” What do you think she means by this and how is this opinion reflected in the narrative? Certainly, the novel expressively touches upon and considers many different forms of love. Expand upon the ways in which the Hegartys are bound together by love. Look at the marriage of Veronica’s parents and find instances of love there as well as in the marriage of Ada and Charlie. Consider the bonds between the siblings and the way they interact with each other as adults. And what about the “easy, anxious love” a child feels for her grandfather?
13. The character of Ada seems to provide a key to Veronica’s – and Liam’s – past, and she is portrayed with far more detail than any other character. What do we know for sure about Ada? Analyze her relationship with her husband, Charlie, considering the statement “We do not always like the people we love” (p. 110). How much of the relationship between Ada and Lamb Nugent is invented? What do you understand of the relationship between Ada, Charlie, and Lamb? What do you think we are supposed to surmise? At what point does Veronica realize that Lamb was her grandparent’s landlord and how does that change her view of events that took place that summer?
14. In a novel of “shifting stories and waking dreams” (p. 142) Veronica searches for the memory of her brother’s abuse, and tries to pinpoint her grandmother’s role in it. Does she ever come to a true understanding of this? Do her feelings for her grandmother change? What about her mother’s place in all this? Consider the childhood mantra, “Don’t tell mammy,” and talk about how much you think the mother knew.
15. Veronica says “Liam’s fate was written in his bones” (p.163). Do you think she believes that Liam’s fate was set in motion that fateful summer?
16. Veronica seems to be searching for some sort of truth, a conclusion, but states at one point “The only things I am sure of are the things I never saw” (p. 62). Again, on p. 91 she says that there is something “immoral about the mind’s eye.” What truths has her internal journey brought her? How has her journey into the past paralleled her journey to pick up Liam’s body and bring it back to Ireland for burial? To whom does the question “What use is the truth to us now?” (p. 208) apply?
17. The physicality of the body is very much in evidence throughout the narrative. Indeed, a corpse sets the novel in motion, and an act of physical abuse lies at its center. Find examples of the weight of the body throughout the text: consider the death of Ada’s husband, Charlie, of Veronica seeing “the living with all their smells and holes” through Liam’s eyes (p. 76), her statement “I do not believe in my husband’s body anymore” (p. 73). Discuss the place of sex in the novel as another aspect of the physical. Is there a division of body and soul in the novel?
18.Male sexuality in particular is a contentious topic in this book. In some instances, as with Ada and Charlie, it is part of a romantic, nurturing union between two people; in others, it is a thing inflicted on one person by another. Both types of sexuality—the constructive and the destructive—have a lasting effect on future generations. Consider the female views of male sexuality presented in this book, and the ways in which men like Tom are forced to reckon with their “impulses and [their] actions, and the gap between the two” (p. 177). How are these male characters affected when they let their desires govern their behavior?
19. Religion runs seamlessly through the fabric of the narrative as a presence in the lives of the Hegarty children but not as an overwhelming influence. Find instances where religion appears in the narrative and discuss its importance to the characters, and to the novel as a whole. Talk about how The Gathering’s lack of emphasis on religion might fit into the tradition of Irish literature.
20. What do you think Veronica means when she says “Blasphemy seems to be my business here” (p. 59).
21. Consider the role of happiness in the novel. Do you think that any of the characters have found contentment in their life? Why do you think Veronica considered Ada and Charlie to be happy? Given her memories of what happened at their house during her childhood, what does this say about her view of happiness? Discuss the following statement “with the Hegartys a declaration of unhappiness is always a declaration of blame” (p. 210), and talk about what it means with regard to the Hegartys’ notion of happiness and unfairness in life.
22. In many ways Veronica has tried to escape the clutches of her childhood. Pinpoint ways in which she has attempted this, and consider how successful she has been. When she goes on her night drives to old childhood haunts were you surprised to find her still living so geographically close to her past? Do you think she can ever really escape?
23. Veronica states that she feels “pawed, used, loved, and very lonely” (p. 244). What have you learned about her over the course of the narrative that would explain why she feels this way? What does she mean when she wishes that someone will “say, again, that everything will be all right?” (p. 244).
24. Why do you think that everyone, and especially Veronica, is entranced by the child Rowan? What does he seem to represent?
25. At the end of the novel Veronica finds herself falling back into her life, hoping to return to her husband and daughters, and to reenter her own life. What do you think the future holds for her? Do you think she will be able to live in her life again as she wishes? Has she grown during the narrative, and, if so, how? Did you find her empathetic as a character? As a narrator? What do you hope for her future?
(Questions from the publisher.)
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Gathering of Waters
Bernice L. McFadden, 2012
Akashic Books
250 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781617750311
Summary
Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi—a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families.
Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit.
Forty years later, after the death of her husband, Tass returns to Money and fantasy takes flesh when Emmett Till's spirit is finally released from the dank, dark waters of the Tallahatchie River. The two lovers are reunited, bringing the story to an enchanting and profound conclusion.
Gathering of Waters mines the truth about Money, Mississippi, as well as the town's families, and threads their history over decades. The bare-bones realism—both disturbing and riveting—combined with a magical realm in which ghosts have the final say, is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's Beloved. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Education—NYC Fashion College - Laboratory Institute of
Merchandising; Marymount College, Fordham University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York
Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels, including the classic Sugar, Nowhere Is a Place, (a 2006 Washington Post Best Fiction title), and Gathering of Waters in 2012.
She is a two time Hurston/Wright award fiction finalist as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the BCALA. McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York. (From the publisher.)
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Bernice L. McFadden was born, raised and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the eldest of four children and the mother of one daughter, R'yane Azsa. Ms. McFadden attended grade school at P.S. 161 in Brooklyn and Middle School at Holy Spirit, also in Brooklyn. She attended high school at St. Cyril Academy an all-girls boarding school in Danville, Pa.
In the Fall of 1983 she enrolled in the noted NYC fashion college: Laboratory Institute of Merchandising, with dreams of becoming an international clothing buyer.
She attended LIM for two semesters and then took a position at Bloomingdale's and later with Itokin, a Japanese owned retail company.
Disillusioned and frustrated with her job, she signed up for a Travel & Tourism course at Marymount College where she received a certificate of completion. After the birth of her daughter in 1988, Bernice McFadden obtained a job with Rockresorts a company then owned by the Rockefeller family.
The company was later sold and Ms. McFadden was laid off and unemployed for one year. She sights that year as the turning point in her life because during those twelve months Ms. McFadden began to dedicate herself to the art of writing. During the next nine years she held three jobs, always looking for something exciting and satisfying. Forever frustrated with corporate America and the requirements they put on their employees, Ms. McFadden enrolled at Fordham University. Her intention was to obtain a degree that would enable her to move up another rung on the corporate ladder.
She signed up for courses that concentrated on Afro-American history and literature, as well as creative writing, poetry and journalism. She credits the two years spent under the guidance of her professors as well as the years spent lost in the words of her favorite author's, to the caliber of writer she has become.
During those years, Ms. McFadden made a conscious effort to write as much as possible and began to send out hundreds of query letters to agents and publisher's attempting to sell one of her short stories or the novel she was working on.
In 1997, Ms. McFadden quit her job and dedicated seven months to re-writing the novel that would become, Sugar. In May of 1998, after depleting her savings, she took her last and final position within corporate America.
On Feb 9th, 1999, her daughter's eleventh birthday (and Alice Walker's birthday—one of Ms. McFadden's favorite author's) she sent a query letter to an agent who signed her two weeks later and the rest is literary history!
Bernice L. McFadden also writes racy, humorous fiction under the pseudonym, Geneva Holliday. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Read it aloud. Hire a chorus to chant it to you and anyone else interested in hearing about civil rights and uncivil desires, about the dark heat of hate, about the force of forgiveness."
Alan Cheuse - All Things Considered, NPR
McFadden works a kind of miracle—not only do [her characters] retain their appealing humanity; their story eclipses the bonds of history to offer continuous surprises.... Beautiful and evocative, Gathering of Waters brings three generations to life.... The real power of the narrative lies in the richness and complexity of the characters. While they inhabit these pages they live, and they do so gloriously and messily and magically, so that we are at last sorry to see them go, and we sit with those small moments we had with them and worry over them, enchanted, until they become something like our own memories, dimmed by time, but alive with the ghosts of the past, and burning with spirits.
New York Times Book Review
In this fierce reimagining, the actual town of Money, MS narrates the story about the ghost of Emmett Till and his from-the-other-side reunification with the girl he loved as a child in Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden.
Ebony
McFadden combines events of Biblical proportions—from flooding to resurrection—with history to create a cautionary, redemptive tale that spans the early twentieth century to the start of Hurricane Katrina. She compellingly invites readers to consider the distinctions between 'truth or fantasy'.... In McFadden's boldly spun yarn, consequences extend across time and place. This is an arresting historical portrait of Southern life with reimagined outcomes, suggesting that hope in the enduring power of memory can offer healing where justice does not suffice.
Publishers Weekly
The rich text is shaped by the African American storytelling tradition and layered with significant American histories. Recalling the woven spirituality of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, this work will appeal to readers of mystic literature.
Library Journal
McFadden makes powerful use of imagery in this fantastical novel of ever-flowing waters and troubled spirits.
Booklist
With a light touch and utterly believable characters, Close’s...appealing debut manages to capture the humor, heartache and cautious optimism of her protagonists.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is the meaning of the novel's title? What does "Gathering of Waters" mean within the context of the book?
2. Discuss the importance of water as a symbol in the novel. What does water have in common with the life, both literally and metaphorically?
3. Why did the author choose to have the town (Money) narrate the story? Did this help or hinder the story? How would the story have been different with a third person narrator?
4. What are the purposes and effects of the story's fantastic and magical elements? How does the fantastic operate in the characters' everyday lives and personalities? How is the magical interwoven with elements drawn from history?
5. What varieties of love occur in the novel? Does any kind of love transcend or transform the ravages of everyday life, history, and time itself?
6. The novel deals with the adverse effects of white racism on the black population. What themes are explored through these interactions?
7. In the classic epic multigenerational novel, several pivotal scenes define the basic character of the entire work. Which scenes in Gathering of Waters best exemplify its core themes? What are those core themes?
8. Bernice McFadden's decision to not only re-create the days preceding Emmett Till's murder, but also include a love interest by using the format of a historical novel is her artistic response to the tragedy. Does her artistic decision work for you?
9. In Gathering of Waters, McFadden re-creates, in vivid scenes, two incidents of racially motivated hate crimes. Which incidents stayed with you the most powerfully? Why?
10. What does Gathering of Waters as a whole, suggest about the relationships among history, family, race, and gender? How are the individuals in the novel affected by these larger forces? What does the novel reveal about the particular historical moment in which it is set?
(Questions used with kind permission of the author.)
Gatsby Girls
F. Scott Fitzgerald, 2013
BroadLit
364 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780989020046
Summary
She was an impulsive, fashionable and carefree 1920s woman who embodied the essence of the Gatsby Girl—F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda. As Fitzgerald said, "I married the heroine of my stories." All of the eight short stories contained in this collection were inspired by Zelda.
Fitzgerald, one of the foremost writers of American fiction, found early success as a short story writer for the most widely read magazine of the early 20th century—the Saturday Evening Post. Fitzgerald's stories, first published by the Post between 1920 and 1922, brought the Jazz Age and the "flapper" to life and confirmed that America was changing faster than ever before. Women were bobbing their hair, drinking and flirting shamelessly, and Fitzgerald brought these exciting Gatsby Girls to life in the pages of the Post.
A foreword by Jeff Nilsson, archivist for the Post, adds historical context to this wonderful, new collection, which is highlighted by an introduction written by Fitzgerald himself. Each story is accompanied by the original illustrations and the beautiful cover images from the Post. Read the stories that made F. Scott Fitzgerald one of the most beloved writers in America—and around the world—still today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 24, 1896
• Where—St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• Died—December 21, 1940
• Where—Hollywood, California
• Education—Princeton University
F. Scott Fitzgerald was named for his famous relative, Francis Scott Key, though he was always referred to as "Scott." Minnesota born and Princeton educated, Fitzgerald published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, in 1920 to critical and popular acclaim.
That same year, He married Zelda Sayre, the queen of Montgomery, Alabama youth society, and the two lived a boisterous, decadent life in New York City. (See LitCourse 5 with Fitzgerald's story "Babylon Revisited" for an idea of their life.) To better afford their extravagant lifestyle, the couple moved to France, where Fitzgerald befriended Hemingway and Gertrude Stein, becoming part of the legendary group of expatriate writers and artists, which Stein labeled the "Lost Generation." In Paris he wrote his finest novel, The Great Gatsby (1925).
Zelda was eventually hospitalized in 1930 for the first of many breakdowns, and Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood (William Faulkner was there, too), where his heavy drinking ended his screen writing career. In 1934 he published Tender Is the Night. He died there of a heart attack six years later at the age of 44.
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The 1920s proved the most influential decade of Fitzgerald's development. The Great Gatsby, Scott's masterpiece, was published in 1925. Hemingway greatly admired The Great Gatsby and wrote in his A Moveable Feast "If he could write a book as fine as The Great Gatsby I was sure that he could write an even better one" (153). Hemingway expressed his deep admiration for Fitzgerald, and Fitzgerald's flawed, doomed character, when he prefaced his chapters concerning Fitzgerald in A Moveable Feast with:
His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly's wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless. (129)
Much of what Hemingway wrote in A Moveable Feast helped to create the myth of Fitzgerald's eventual demise and Zelda's hand in that demise. Though much of Hemingway's text is factually correct, it is always tinged with his disappointment with Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald began working on his fourth novel during the late 1920s but was sidetracked by financial difficulties that necessitated his writing commercial short stories, and by the schizophrenia that struck Zelda in 1930. Her emotional health remained fragile for the rest of her life. In 1932, she was hospitalized in Baltimore, Maryland.
Scott rented an estate in the Baltimore suburb of Towson and began work on Tender Is the Night, the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychiatrist who falls in love with and marries one of his patients. Some critics have seen the book as a thinly-veiled autobiographical novel recounting Fitzgerald's problems with his wife, the corrosive effects of wealth and a decadent lifestyle, his own egoism and self-confidence, and his continuing alcoholism. Indeed, Fitzgerald was extremely protective of his material (their life together). When Zelda published her own version of their lives in Europe, Save Me the Waltz, Fitzgerald was angry and succeeded in getting her doctors to keep her from writing any more.
Tender was finally published in 1934, and critics who had waited nine years for the follow up to The Great Gatsby had mixed opinions about it. The novel did not sell well upon publication, but the book's reputation has since risen significantly.
Although he reportedly found movie work degrading, Fitzgerald was once again in dire financial straits and spent the second half of the 1930s in Hollywood, working on commercial short stories, scripts for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (including some unfilmed work on Gone with the Wind), and his fifth and final novel, posthumously published as The Last Tycoon (based on the life of film executive Irving Thalberg). Scott and Zelda became estranged; she continued living in mental institutions on the east coast, while he lived with his lover Sheilah Graham, a well-known gossip columnist, in Hollywood.
Fitzgerald had been an alcoholic since his college days, and became notorious during the 1920s for his extraordinarily heavy drinking, leaving him in poor health by the late 1930s. According to Zelda's biographer, Nancy Milford, Scott claimed that he had contracted tuberculosis. Fitzgerald suffered two heart attacks in late 1940, and on December 21, while awaiting a visit from his doctor, Fitzgerald collapsed in Sheilah Graham's apartment and died. He was 44. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
One pleasure of rereading Fitzgerald's stories now is to rediscover just how good some of them in fact are, and how brilliant a handful.
Jay McInerney - New York Review of Books
This is a valuable collection, whether one reads the stories to delight in Fitzgerald's style, to conjure up a lost era, to learn more about the career of a great American novelist, or simply to gain insight into the human condition.
Leonard A. Podis - Cleveland Plain Dealer
It's a great addition to my Fitzgerald collection. Very informative, well researched with lots of extras.
Donald Erman - OttowaSun.com
With all the hype surrounding the release of yet another Big Screen version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, it's no surprise that other works of Fitzgerald's are being re-released. As a fan of the author, this thrills me no end. So when Gatsby Girls came in for review, I grabbed it, hunkered down in my favorite over-sized chair, and started reading. What a delight!"
Ellen Feld - Feathered Quill Book Review
With the much-anticipated film of The Great Gatsby, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, about to smash the box office, what better time to turn your gimlet eye on the stories and the art that not only preceded it but offers literary and cultural context for the novel that is considered Fitzgerald's most famous..
Rebecca Rego Barry - Fine Books and Collections.com
Discussion Questions
1. The stories in the collection first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in the 1920s just as the country was entering a promising new decade. People looked forward to a new time of prosperity with the advent of affordable automobiles and electrical power. For the first time, more Americans were living in cities leaving farms and small towns for better futures and more interesting lives.
To many young women, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s stories must have been a revelation. “Modern” girls were cutting their hair short, abandoning their corsets, driving cars, drinking liquor and kissing boys without worrying what others might think. It all seemed very wicked and fun.
> How did Fitzgerald’s heroines help shape the lives of women in the ‘20s? How did his “Gatsby” girls help create the expectations of American women today?
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of America’s greatest writers. Because his short stories were published in the Post, one of the country’s most popular magazines, he became one of the public’s favorite authors. His stories chronicled life in the 1920s and gave birth to the “Flapper”—the romantic version of the ‘20s girl who has been popularized through the years in both movies and books. According to Fitzgerald, all of his female characters were based on his wife Zelda. They are impulsive, fashionable and carefree women who command attention and dare to be themselves.
> But are they likeable characters? Which of his female characters were you favorites? Which one's did you dislike the most?
3. Which story/stories appealed to you the most and why?
4. Do you see elements of how Fitzgerald’s “Gatsby Girl” evolved through the stories? What did these characters have in common? How are they different?
5. What main ideas—themes—does Fitzgerald explore?
6. What passages strike you as insightful, even profound? Perhaps a bit of dialog that's funny or poignant or that encapsulates a character? Maybe there's a particular comment that states the stories’ thematic concerns?
7. If you could ask the author a question, what would you ask? Have you read other books by Fitzgerald? If so, how does this book compare?
8. How do the Gatsby Girls heroines compare to Daisy in The Great Gatsby?
9. The first story, “Head and Shoulders” introduces the reader to Horace Tarbox, an intellectual young man busy with his studies. He meets, and falls in love with, Marcia Meadow, a singer at the local theater. This appears to be a simple story of "opposites attract" featuring the studious Horace, and the free-wheeling actress Marcia. She dubs them “Head and Shoulders” for the odd pairing of one with brains and one with “shoulders” (a dancer who swings her shoulders). But as the story progresses, an unexpected twist changes things.
> What happens to Marcia and Horace? How does it change them?
10. In “The Ice Palace,” we meet Sally Carrol Happer, a young woman from Georgia. She’s bored with the quiet, dull life she has known and has decided to marry a northern man. “The Ice Palace” was published in May of 1920 and was the first of what is called the “Tarleton Trilogy,” a trio of works set in Tarleton, Georgia. This story tells the tale of local belle Sally and her harrowing visit to the cold North to visit her fiancé’s family. It is one of the most beautifully written of Fitzgerald’s short stories, and it contains autobiographical details from Fitzgerald’s own life, as he himself married a Southern Belle [Zelda]. In this story, Fitzgerald began his exploration of the differences between Southern and Northern cultures.
> What are the differences in Fitzgerald’s view? What differences still exist today?
11. “The Offshore Pirate” is a fantasy story. Published in the Saturday Evening Post in 1920s, it tells the story of Ardita Farnan and how she falls in love with the “pirate” that overtakes her uncle’s boat on its way to Florida. The story deals with a theme that is seen repeatedly in Fitzgerald’s early stories—a young man “tricks” a young woman into falling in love with him or marrying him or, in the case of “Myra Meets His Family,” not marrying him.
> Is the “pirate” a despicable character? “Pirate” is an in-depth character analysis of what would become one of Fitzgerald’s prototypical characters—the self-determined young “femme fatale.” Is Ardita a likeable character? How do you think she would have been perceived in the 1920s? How would she be perceived today? Fitzgerald was especially fond of this story, especially the last line, which he said was one of his best. Do you agree?
“What was in the bags?” she asked softly.
“Florida mud,” he answered. "That was one of two true things I told you.”
(And Ardita being a girl of some perspicacity had no difficulty in guessing the other.)
12. When Fitzgerald submitted "Myra Meets His Family" to his literary agent Harold Ober, he admitted: "I'm afraid it’s no good and if you agree with me don't hesitate to send it back.” But Ober had no trouble selling it to the Saturday Evening Post for $400. Fox Studios bought "Myra" in 1920 for $1000—a good price at that time—and made it into The Husband Hunter with Eileen Percy. PBS’s American Playhouse presented an adaptation of “Myra” entitled “Under the Biltmore Clock” in 1985.
Its popular appeal did not alter Fitzgerald's feelings about the story. In 1921 he wrote Ober about English magazine rights:
I believe you have disposed of..."Myra Meets His Family" which story, however, I never have liked, and do not intend ever republishing in book form.
The reasons for his rejection of the story are not clear. It relies on unlikely plotting, but so do a number of his other commercial stories. Perhaps he saw too great a contrast between "Myra" and "The Ice Palace," one of his finest stories, which was written during the same month. "Myra Meets His Family" is a representative early Fitzgerald story in terms of its material and characters. It stakes out the territory of the Eastern rich, and Myra is a readily recognizable Fitzgerald heroine who reappears under a dozen other names in later stories. Myra believes her only future resides in marring well, meaning marrying “wealth.”
> Was Myra a product of her time, when options were more limited for women, or is she a calculating character whose values and ambitions are shallow and misguided? Do women like Myra exist today?
13. When Fitzgerald included "The Camel's Back" in Tales of the Jazz Age, he commented, “
I suppose that of all the stories I have ever written this one cost me the least travail and perhaps gave me the most amusement. As to the labor involved, it was written during one day in the city of New Orleans, with the express purpose of buying a platinum and diamond wrist watch which cost six hundred dollars. I began it at seven in the morning and finished it at two o'clock the same night.... My amusement was derived from the fact that the camel part of the story is literally true; in fact, I have a standing engagement with the gentleman involved to attend the next fancy-dress party to which we are mutually invited, attired as the latter part of the camel—this as a sort of atonement for being his historian.
> “The Camel’s Back” is full of Fitzgerald’s wit and charm, but what do we learn about our main characters? Was the ending a surprise?
14. The inspiration for “Bernice Bobs Her Hair” came from a letter Fitzgerald wrote to his sister, Annabel, in 1915. He was advising her on the ways to succeed socially, which are explored in Bernice’s developments with Marjorie’s intervention in the story. There has been much comparison made with elements of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, implying that Fitzgerald was making use of elements of the traditional code for young women and subverting them for the modern reader.
Bernice, in contrast to the cultured youth who are adept at the artifice of the social scene, is sensitive and vulnerable. The overheard conversation between Mrs. Harvey and Marjorie has an almost physical effect on her. Fitzgerald’s use of metaphor emphasizes the directness of the event—“the thread of the conversation going on inside pierced her consciousness sharply as if it had been drawn through with a needle.”
Bernice is wounded by the betrayal, but her spirit is not broken. The fact that the girls are cousins is the only commonality between them. Neither girl understands the other, although Bernice is more willing to get to know her cousin. Marjorie is a schemer: much more than just the lively socialite, she is a cruel manipulator. Bernice does want to be popular like Marjorie, and accepts Marjorie’s suggestions with innocent gratitude. Bernice is willing to learn from Marjorie, but not vice versa.
Fitzgerald describes the luxury of Marjorie’s braids “like restive snakes,” a simile that gives Marjorie Gorgon-like qualities. Bernice realizes that Marjorie’s hair symbolizes power. There is a play on the story of Little Women: as Jo in the novel cut off her hair to raise money for the family, so Bernice sacrificed her hair to be accepted by Marjorie. There is also the allusion to the Biblical story of Samson. Bernice, in cutting Marjorie’s plaits off, “scalps” her like an Indian. Throwing the plaits on Warren’s porch symbolizes Bernice’s rejection of him, and her glee is in “spoiling” Marjorie.
> How does Fitzgerald use Bernice and Marjorie to represent the gap between the “haves” and “have nots”—those with social standing and those without it? What kind of man is Warren and why does he side with Marjorie in the end?
15. In “The Popular Girl,” Yanci Bowman is enchanted to meet Scott Kimberly, a very rich and very eligible young man. Yet no sooner have they met than her drunken father dies unexpectedly, leaving her impoverished. Too ashamed to admit to Scott her desperate state, she creates a fanciful world full of parties and holidays, friends and suitors, to convince him she is still the popular girl he first met. However, as her charade grows ever more fragile, she endangers their friendship and her very hope of salvation. Once again, Fitzgerald explores the divide between rich and poor, social “rules” and expectations.
> How does Yanci’s character evolve in this story? Does she learn anything? Is she a femme fatale who is “tamed” by a young man?
16. Are the story endings satisfying? If so, why? If not, why not...and how would you change them?
17. Have these Fitzgerald’s stories changed you—broadened your perspective? Have you learned something new or been exposed to different ideas about people or about life in the 1920s?
18. Fitzgerald’s work has sustained the test of time. Are these stories still relevant today? If so, why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Gemini
Carol Cassella, 2014
Simon & Schuster
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451627930
Summary
A stranger’s life hangs in the balance. What if you had the power to decide if she lives or dies?
Dr. Charlotte Reese works in the intensive care unit of Seattle’s Beacon Hospital, tending to patients with the most life-threatening illnesses and injuries. Her job is to battle death—to monitor erratic heartbeats, worry over low oxygen levels, defend against infection and demise.
One night a Jane Doe is transferred to her care from a rural hospital on the Olympic Peninsula. This unidentified patient remains unconscious, the victim of a hit and run. As Charlotte and her team struggle to stabilize her, the police search for the driver who fled the scene.
Days pass, Jane’s condition worsens, and her identity remains a mystery. As Charlotte finds herself making increasingly complicated medical decisions that will tie her forever to Jane’s fate, her usual professional distance evaporates. She’s plagued by questions: Who is Jane Doe? Why will no one claim her? Who should decide her fate if she doesn’t regain consciousness—and when?
Perhaps most troubling, Charlotte wonders if a life locked in a coma is a life worth living.
Enlisting the help of her boyfriend, Eric, a science journalist, Charlotte impulsively sets out to uncover Jane Doe’s past. But the closer they get to the truth, the more their relationship is put to the test. It is only when they open their hearts to their own feelings toward each other—and toward life itself—that Charlotte and Eric will unlock Jane Doe’s shocking secret, and prepare themselves for a miracle.
Filled with intricate medical detail and set in the breathtaking Pacific Northwest, Gemini is a riveting and heartbreaking novel of moral complexity and emotional depth. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1956-57
• Where—Dallas, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., Duke University; M.D.,Baylor College of Medicine
• Currently—lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington
Carol Cassella is a practicing anesthesiologist and novelist. She was a closet writer for years before blending medicine and fiction in her first novel, Oxygen, the story of an anesthesiologist tangled in the aftermath of an operating room catastrophe. Oxygen was an Indie Best Pick for July 2008, and selected as one of the best first novels of 2008 by The Library Journal. The novel has become a national bestseller and was released as a trade paperback in June, 2009.
Carol grew up in Dallas, Texas and graduated from Duke University with a degree in English Literature. After working in publishing for several years, Carol decided to pursue her fascination with all the weird and wonderful ways humans behave and misbehave by studying medicine. She initially intended to become a psychiatrist, but when she couldn’t separate the body and the soul she veered into internal medicine and then, six years later, into anesthesiology. She is board certified in both internal medicine and anesthesiology. Prior to writing fiction, Carol wrote about global public health issues in the developing world for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Carol now lives on Bainbridge Island, WA with her husband Steve and their two sets of twins. She enjoys hiking and cross country skiing in the North Cascades. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[A] riveting, suspenseful story, full of vivid characters and stirring reflections on medical and genetic issues…. Cassella is a gifted writer, gorgeously animating her landscapes and the forces of nature, underlining her theme that even medicine cannot save her characters from mortality.
Seattle Times
An intensive-care doctor in Seattle grappling with her stagnant relationship and ticking biological clock, Charlotte Reese becomes engrossed in the case of a Jane Doe delivered to her hospital comatose after a highway hit-and-run.... A book at turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, it invites us to accept, if nothing else, that the only way to live is to "cling to every moment even as you into the next.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) The book prompts many questions: Who is Jane Doe? Why has no one come forward to identify her? How long can Charlotte keep this patient alive before an appointed guardian decides that it would be in the woman's best interests to let her die?.... Informed by her work as a doctor, Casella's...offers deepening mysteries to keep the reader turning the pages. —Sheila M. Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC
Library Journal
[A] compelling look at the collision of a physician’s professional and personal lives.... Readers will quickly perceive the connection between Raney and the Jane Doe in Charlotte’s ICU, but they’ll be surprised to discover that the women share another link. A uniquely involving read. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
...the lives of a doctor and her critically injured patient intertwine in unexpected ways.... Dr. Charlotte [Reese] embarks on a determined quest to solve the puzzle of how this Jane Doe found herself in her present condition. Readers may well overlook Cassella's frequently interjected bromides about love...since this engaging medical mystery makes far more compelling points about economics and sociology.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why does Charlotte feel such a strong sense of responsibility for Jane Doe? How does she balance her protective feelings for Jane with her practical understanding of Jane’s prognosis?
2. From the moment she first sees Bo, Raney is acutely aware of the differences in their circumstances. How does her sensitivity about her background affect their relationship over the years? In what ways do they have more in common than she thinks? Why is their childhood attachment so enduring?
3. Charlotte sees her job as giving nature "as much time as possible" (117). In practice, what does that mean? How does it influence her feelings about Jane’s care and the appointment of a guardian ad litem?
4. How does the small town of Quentin, with its natural beauty and financial struggles, shape Raney’s life? In what ways does she identify as a small town girl, and in what ways does she resent that role?
5. Charlotte and Eric’s relationship is haunted by her desire to have a child, and his reluctance to do so. Why is the subject so difficult for them to discuss? Why does Charlotte feel they have stalled?
6. What reasons does Raney give for marrying Cleet? Would she have made the same decision if she were not pregnant? How is her understanding of love and loyalty shaped by her marriage to him?
7. How does Eric’s awareness of his neurofibromatosis, and the brushes with death it caused, influence his life? What choices does he make as a result? What boundaries does he lie down? Are his boundaries intended for his own protection or for others’?
8. As a child, Raney makes do with scavenged house paint for her art. How does that same make-do attitude manifest in her adult life?
9. What is the significance of Raney burning her paintings when her grandfather’s farm is sold? Why is this a turning point in her life as much as her grandfather’s?
10. Does Charlotte go too far by seeking David out and by trying to uncover Jake’s paternity? Does her involvement with Raney compromise her objectivity?
11. When she was a child, Raney's grandfather taught her to light a campfire "with one match and her own wits" (229). Does Raney take his lesson about self-sufficiency to heart? At what points does she fail to follow his advice?
12. What prompts Raney to marry David? Why does she ignore her growing misgivings and stay with him? Do you think David was responsible for the hit-and-run?
13. Why do you think the author chose Gemini, the zodiac sign represented by twins, as the title of the novel? How does she develop the theme established by the title? What characters or events are "twinned"?
14. Gemini contains several mysteries: Jane Doe’s identity, whether the hit-and-run was accidental or intentional, Jake’s parentage, and others. Was there a particular revelation that you found most surprising or satisfying? What devices did the author use to maintain suspense?
15. Discuss the role of genetics in the novel. How does Eric’s "fatal flaw" link the characters? Eric wrote in his editorial that knowledge of your genetic code could be more damaging than helpful; is that true for Jake? Would you rather know if your genetics carried a "fatal flaw" or not?
16. Gemini raises challenging questions about our fear of death and our willingness to confront or discuss it. Did you react differently to Jane Doe’s situation than you did to that of Raney’s grandfather? How would you answer the question that Eric poses to Charlotte: "Should quantity of life always trump quality?" (9) Did reading Gemini stir you to look more closely at your own feelings about death?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The General's Daughter
Nelson DeMille, 1992
Grand Central Publishing
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446364805
Summary
Captain Ann Campbell is a West Point graduate, the daughter of legendary General "Fighting Joe" Campbell. She is the pride of Fort Hadley until, one morning, her body is found, naked and bound, on the firing range.
Paul Brenner is a member of the army's elite undercover investigative unit and the man in charge of this politically explosive case. Teamed with rape specialist Cynthia Sunhill, with whom he once had a tempestuous, doomed affair, Brenner is about to learn just how many people were sexually, emotionally, and dangerously involved with the army's "golden girl." And how the neatly pressed uniforms and honor codes of the military hide a corruption as rank as Ann Campbell's shocking secret life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Jack Cannon, Kurt Ladner, Brad Matthews, Michael
Weaver, Ellen Kay
• Birth—August 22, 1943
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Hofstra University
• Awards—Estabrook Award
• Currently—lives on Long Island, New York
Nelson DeMille has a dozen bestselling novels to his name and over 30 million books in print worldwide, but his beginnings were not so illustrious. Writing police detective novels in the mid-1970s, DeMille created the pseudonym Jack Cannon: "I used the pen name because I knew I wanted to write better novels under my own name someday," DeMille told fans in a 2000 chat.
Between 1966 and 1969, Nelson DeMille served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam. When he came home, he finished his undergraduate studies (in history and political science), then set out to become a novelist. "I wanted to write the great American war novel at the time," DeMille said in an interview with January magazine. "I never really wrote the book, but it got me into the writing process." A friend in the publishing industry suggested he write a series of police detective novels, which he did under a pen name for several years.
Finally DeMille decided to give up his day job as an insurance fraud investigator and commit himself to writing full time—and under his own name. The result was By the Rivers of Babylon (1978), a thriller about terrorism in the Middle East. It was chosen as a Book of the Month Club main selection and helped launch his career. "It was like being knighted," said DeMille, who now serves as a Book of the Month Club judge. "It was a huge break."
DeMille followed it with a stream of bestsellers, including the post-Vietnam courtroom drama Word of Honor (1985) and the Cold War spy-thriller The Charm School (1988) Critics praised DeMille for his sophisticated plotting, meticulous research and compulsively readable style. For many readers, what made DeMille stand out was his sardonic sense of humor, which would eventually produce the wisecracking ex-NYPD officer John Corey, hero of Plum Island (1997) and The Lion's Game (2000).
In 1990 DeMille published The Gold Coast, a Tom Wolfe-style comic satire that was his attempt to write "a book that would be taken seriously." The attempt succeeded, in terms of the critics' response: "In his way, Mr. DeMille is as keen a social satirist as Edith Wharton," wrote the New York Times book reviewer. But he returned to more familiar thrills-and-chills territory in The General's Daughter, which hit no. 1 on the New York Times' Bestseller list and was made into a movie starring John Travolta. Its hero, army investigator Paul Brenner, returned in Up Country (2002), a book inspired in part by DeMille's journey to his old battlegrounds in Vietnam.
DeMille's position in the literary hierarchy may be ambiguous, but his talent is first-rate; there's no questioning his mastery of his chosen form. As a reviewer for the Denver Post put it, "In the rarefied world of the intelligent thriller, authors just don't get any better than Nelson DeMille."
Extras
(From a Barnes & Noble interview)
• DeMille composes his books in longhand, using soft-lead pencils on legal pads. He says he does this because he can't type, but adds, "I like the process of pencil and paper as opposed to a machine. I think the writing is better when it's done in handwriting."
• In addition to his novels, DeMille has written a play for children based on the classic fairy tale "Rumpelstiltskin."
• DeMille says on his web site that he reads mostly dead authors—"so if I like their books, I don't feel tempted or obligated to write to them." He mentions writing to a living author, Tom Wolfe, when The Bonfire of the Vanities came out; but Wolfe never responded. "I wouldn't expect Hemingway or Steinbeck to write back—they're dead. But Tom Wolfe owes me a letter," DeMille writes.
• When asked what book most influenced his career as a writer, here is what he said:
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I read this book in college, as many of my generation did, and I was surprised to discover that it said things about our world and our society that I thought only I had been thinking about, i.e., the ascendancy of mediocrity. It was a relief to discover that there was an existing philosophy that spoke to my half-formed beliefs and observations. (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
The General's Daughter is bigger, more ambitious and rather pretentious, though [it] should hold your attention.... Mr. DeMille writes well enough, there is some snappy dialogue, the police work is painstakingly thorough, but none of the characters really come to life.
Newgate Callendar - New York Times
Compelling... Intense.... [It's] a pleasure to read a novel that speaks about important issues while holding us in thrall. Nelson DeMille is an intelligent and accomplished storyteller who's written a good book.
Miami Herald
Hits the mark.... Suspense and plot are the strong points in this steamer. DeMille sustains our interest as he deviously weaves a web of suspicion around the many characters before revealing the killer in the smashing climax.
Florida Times Union
After the wit and panache of his bestselling The Gold Coast, DeMille's latest effort may disappoint his fans. The author returns to his more customary stylish-suspense-novel mode but retains a smart-aleck narrator—here, Paul Brenner, of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division. At Fort Hadley, Ga., Ann Campbell, daughter of the post commander, is found murdered under bizarre circumstances. Brenner learns that Ann's entire personal life, in fact, veered toward the bizarre; she even had a secret basement "playroom" in her home. Moral turpitude runs riot at Fort Hadley, and Brenner must wade through muck of all sorts to discover the killer's identity. Too much muck, as it turns out: the detective work becomes repetitious, and suspense is unfortunately in short supply. Brenner's one-liners have none of the punch of John Sutter's wry observations in The Gold Coast—indeed, the device of a waggish narrator doesn't fit these proceedings; the wisecracks seem grafted on. So, too, does a resumed romance between Brenner and an old flame—we don't get a good enough picture of either to care about whatever sparks might fly. Characterization in general is fuzzy, though DeMille captures the often unquestioning regimen of life on a military base. One only wishes that his tale had more spirit and dash.
Publishers Weekly
[DeMille' writes with far more depth than in his glitzy (and bestselling) The Gold Coast. A genuine note lifts the story out of the realm of crisp police procedural into a wistful commentary on the Old Army and the new, the end of the Cold War, Vietnam, racial and sexual tensions in the military and, finally, growing old. Highly recommended.
Booklist
Immensely skilled and likable page-turner by bestseller DeMille, who returns to the military surroundings of Word of Honor (1985) and whose mastery of background, as with the Long Island rich of The Gold Coast (1990), equals his hand at characterization. One moonlit night at Port Hadley, Georgia, Captain Ann Campbell, the tomboy military brat of base commander General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Campbell, a hero of the Gulf war, is found strangled to death on the firing range—and not just strangled but spread-eagled and tied to tent stakes, naked, and possibly raped. On hand and working on another case is Warrant Officer Paul Brenner, an undercover agent of the Army's Criminal Investigation Division, who is handed the murder. Brenner is seconded in the case by a rape-investigator for CID, Cynthia Sunhill, a married woman with whom he had a failed affair the year before in Brussels. The reader accepts this unlikely event, for the sport of it, and then becomes hooked securely as Paul and Cynthia trade wry quips throughout without once slipping into false bonhomie. As it turns out, Ann Campbell, attached to Psychological Operations at Hadley, was a supremely promiscuous woman out to undermine her father. The murder suspects include about 30 officers whom she brought down to the secret sex-room in her otherwise model house. Ann's motives stemmed from a shocking crime that happened ten years earlier, when she was a West Point cadet—an event that gave her a Nietzschean fixation on the abyss into which Paul and Cynthia must follow her: "There is a sort of spirit world that coexists with the world of empirical observation, and you have to get in touch with that world through the detective's equivalent of the seance." What follows is a deductive novel of unwavering excellence. A knockout. DeMille's done it again.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The General's Daughter:
1. Talk about the victim, Capt. Ann Campbell. What kind of character is she? How has she been shaped by the past?
2. This entry is found in Ann Campbell's journal:
Why do some men think they have to be knights in shining armor? I am my own knight, I am my own dragon, and I live in my own castle.
What does the passage reveal about Campbell—her state of mind, her belief in herself, and her attitude toward men?
3. Are you sympathetic...or disturbed by Ann Campbell? Or both?
4. What about the rape and cover-up at West Point—and especially Joe Campbell's role in it? Should he have been more protective of his daughter? Or did his professional duties take precedence? Do you understand the rationale for the cover-up...or is it a male-centric view, one that dismisses female rights to justice?
5. Talk about Cynthia Sunhill and her role in book. Why does DeMille provide a female sidekick in this investigation?
6. How would you describe Sunhill and Brenner's current relationship? Were you rooting for the romance between the two to be rekindled...or didn't you care? Sunhill asks Brenner, "why didn't you fight for me? Wasn't I worth it?" Why didn't Brenner fight for her?
7. What kind of character is Paul Brenner? What drives him? Do you enjoy his wisecracks...or does his tough-guy routine wear thin?
8. In what ways does this case challenge the standard procedures of detective work? What is meant by the "spirit world that coexists with the world of empirical observation" that Brenner and Sunhill must now enter to solve this mystery?
9. In many ways, the novel is a commentary on the difference between the old and new amy. How does DeMille draw the distinctions between the two?
10. Does this novel deliver in terms of suspense and mystery? Are the twists and turns surprising? Did you find yourself quickly turning pages...or did it drag for you?
11. The killer all but introduces himself early on. Did you figure it out? Or were you surprised by the ending? Does the perpetrator's motivation seem credible? Were all loose threads tied up...or left unanswered?
12. Have you seen the 1999 film with John Travolta and Madeleine Stow? If so, how does it compare with the book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Generosity: An Enhancement
Richard Powers, 2009
Picador-Macmillan
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312429751
Summary
What will happen to life when science identifies the genetic basis of happiness? Who will own the patent? Do we dare revise our own temperaments?
Funny, fast, and magical, Generosity celebrates both science and the freed imagination. In his most exuberant book yet, Richard Powers asks us to consider the big questions facing humankind as we begin to rewrite our own existence. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio• Birth—June 18, 1957
• Where—Evanston, Illinois, USA
• Education—M.A., University of Illinois
• Awards—National Book Award-Fiction
• Currently—lives in the Smoky Mountian region of Tennessee
Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. The Echo Maker, perhaps his best known work, won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction.
Early years
One of five children, Powers was born in Evanston, Illinois. His family later moved a few miles south to Lincolnwood where his father was a local school principal. When Powers was 11 they moved to Bangkok, Thailand, where his father had accepted a position at International School Bangkok, which Powers attended through his freshman year, ending in 1972.
During that time outside the U.S. he developed skill in vocal music and proficiency in cello, guitar, saxophone, and clarinet. He also became an avid reader, enjoying nonfiction, primarily, and classics such as the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Education
The family returned to the U.S. when Powers was 16. Following graduation in 1975 from DeKalb High School in DeKalb, Illinois, he enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) with a major in physics, which he switched to English literature during his first semester. There he earned the BA in 1978 and the MA in Literature in 1980.
He decided not to pursue the PhD partly because of his aversion to strict specialization, which had been one reason for his early transfer from physics to English, and partly because he had observed in graduate students and their professors a lack of pleasure in reading and writing (as portrayed in Galatea 2.2).
Career
For some time Powers worked in Boston, as a computer programmer. Viewing the 1914 photograph "Young Farmers" by August Sander, on a visit to the Museum of Fine Arts, he was inspired to quit his job and spend the next two years writing his first book, Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, which was published in 1985.
To avoid the publicity and attention generated by that first novel, Powers moved to the Netherlands where he wrote Prisoner's Dilemma, followed up with The Gold Bug Variations. During a year's stay at the University of Cambridge, he wrote most of Operations Wandering Soul; then, in 1992 Powers returned to the U.S. to become writer-in-residence at the University of Illinois.
All told, Powers has published a dozen books, winning him numerous literary awards and other recognitions. These include, among various others, a MacArthur Fellowship; Pushcart Prize, PEN/Faulkner Special Citation, Man Booker long listing; nominations for the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and the National Book Award itself in 2006.
In 2010 and 2013, Powers was a Stein Visiting Writer at Stanford University, during which time he partly assisted in the lab of biochemist Aaron Straight. In 2013, Stanford named him the Phil and Penny Knight Professor of Creative Writing in the Department of English.
While writing his 2018 novel, The Overstory, Powers left Palo Alto, California, moving to the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/16/2018.)
Book Reviews
[A]n excellent introduction to Powers's work, a lighter, leaner treatment of his favorite themes and techniques.... Powers is, when he chooses to be, an engaging storyteller (though he would probably wince at the word), and even as he questions the conventions of narrative and character, Generosity gains in momentum and suspense. In the end, he wants to have it both ways, and he comes very close to succeeding.
Jay McInerney - New York Times
Sixteen years after Peter Kramer's Listening to Prozac, Richard Powers has heard the alarming implications of treatments that let us buy better moods and personalities. His cerebral new novel offers a chilling examination of the life we're reengineering with our chromosomes and brain chemistry.... Although you might expect a novel so weighted with medical and philosophical arguments to flatten its characters into brittle stereotypes, ultimately that's the most impressive aspect of this meditation on happiness and humanness. As Generosity drives toward its surprising conclusion, these characters grow more complex and poignant, increasingly baffled by the challenge and the opportunity of remaking ourselves to our heart's content.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
About halfway into Powers's follow-up to his National Book Award-winning The Echo Maker, a Nobel Prize-winning author, during a panel discussion, talks about how "genetic enhancement represents the end of human nature.... A story with no end or impediment is no story at all." This then, is a story with both. Its hero, at least initially, is Russell Stone, a failed author of creative nonfiction turned reluctant writing instructor who cannot help transmitting to his students something of his flagging faith in writing. One of them, a Berber Algerian named Thassadit Amzwar, is so possessed by preternatural happiness that she's nicknamed "Miss Generosity" by her prematurely jaded classmates and has emerged from the Algerian civil war that claimed the lives of her parents "glowing like a blissed out mystic." After Stone learns that Thassadit may possess a rare euphoric trait called hyperthymia, her condition is upgraded from behavioral to genetic, and Powers's novel makes a dramatic shift when Thassadit falls into the hands of Thomas Kurton, the charismatic entrepreneur behind genetics lab Truecyte, whose plan to develop a programmable genome to "regulate the brain's set point for well-being" may rest in Miss Generosity's perpetually upbeat alleles. Much of the tension behind Powers's idea-driven novels stems from the delicate balance between plot and concept, and he wisely adopts a voice that is sometimes painfully-aware of the occasional strain ("I'm caught... starving to death between allegory and realism, fact and fable, creative and nonfiction"). Like Stone and Kurton, Powers strays from mere record to attempt an impossible task: to make the world right.
Publishers Weekly
Algerian refugee Thassadit Amzwar has witnessed a great deal of violence in her young life, yet she radiates joy. Now attending college in Chicago, she meets Russell Stone, writing instructor and all-around slump of a guy, who is fascinated by Thassadit's glowing countenance. After consulting with campus counselor (and eventual love interest) Candace Weld, Stone theorizes that Thassadit may be the carrier of a gene that produces happiness. Once the story makes its way to the media, all hell breaks loose. The cheerful refugee is publicly sanctified, vilified, and sought after—especially by genome companies that want to market her genetic good fortune. Offering some very meaty ethical issues, this fast-paced, science-laden story offers each character a chance to become heroic in his or her own way. Verdict: Intelligent, thought-provoking, multilayered, and emotionally engaging, this follow-up to Powers's National Book Award winner, The Echo Maker, astonishes with its depiction of our annoying cultural habit of creating, exalting, and disposing of celebrities within the span of a few minutes. Master storyteller Powers has a keen eye for the absurdity of modern life. Highly recommended. —Susanne Wells, P.L. of Cincinnati & Hamilton Cty
Library Journal
Nothing less than the phenomenon of happiness is explored in this rich, challenging novel from polymathic Powers (The Echo Maker). Think of it as an extended Socratic or Platonic dialogue, animated and communicated by three generously imagined characters. The central contrasting figures are Thassadit Amzwar, an inexplicably optimistic and upbeat refugee from the horrors of ongoing ethnic and other conflicts in the northern African powder keg of Algeria, whose student visa brings her by way of Canada to Chicago and the "creative nonfiction" adult-education class ("Journal and Journey") taught by failed fiction writer and generally downcast would-be autodidact Russell Stone. Thassa's fellow students, a motley gathering of borderline-hopeful underachievers, suspect she's nuts and dub her "the Bliss Chick." But Russell believes there's something really different about this irrepressible survivor of unthinkable calamity, as does the novel's third major character and de facto antagonist, Thomas Kurton, a young scientific phenom who grows up to become a celebrity geneticist whose search for a "happiness gene" is chronicled in a widely seen film and who hopes to appropriate the luminously cheerful Algerian to star in his researches. A lesser writer might have made this a 21st-century Frankenstein. Powers instead channels his heady confluence of ideals and motives into suspenseful intellectual drama, set in painstakingly realistic Middle-American urban jungles populated by intelligent, well-meaning people who aim to do good by any means necessary. Even the irresistible Thassa comes abrasively alive, in her exasperated response to Christian fundamentalists determined to claim her as one of their own: "I'm a Maghreb Algerian Kabyle Catholic Atheist French Canadian on a student visa. I can't help these people." The mystery of Thassa's impermeable optimism is never explained; it neither should nor could be. Exuberant, erudite and satisfyingly enigmatic.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Writing and the role of the imagination are central to Generosity. What is creative nonfiction? How does Russell's course — Creative Nonfiction 14, Sect. RS: Journal and Journey — relate to the novel you are reading?
2. On page 12 Richard Powers writes, "Blogs, mashups, reality programming, court TV, chat shows, chat rooms, chat cafés, capital campaigns, catalog copy, even war-zone journalism all turn confessional. Feelings are the new facts. Memoir is the new history. Tell-alls are the new news." Do you agree with this analysis? What does it mean for popular culture to be so dominated by "true confessions" and "memoir"? How does this relate to our emphasis on "reality" television? Where does this leave the novel?
3. On page 181 there is a press conference to announce:
Happiness gene identified? Did you think it would evade detection forever? The Alzheimer's gene, the alcoholism gene, the homosexuality gene, the aggression gene, the novelty gene, the fear gene, the stress gene, the xenophobia gene, the criminal-impulse gene, and the fidelity gene have all come and gone. By the time the happiness gene rolls around, even journalists should have long ago learned to hedge their bets.
What does the idea of a happiness gene mean to you? Do you agree with Thomas Kurton when he says, "Why shouldn't we make ourselves better than we are now? We're incomplete. Why leave something as fabulous as life up to chance?" Do you want to reverse the aging process and live forever?
4. Why does Russell's moment of celebrity as a magazine writer end so soon?
5. Why do you think Richard Powers made Thassa Algerian? What did you learn about Algeria from the novel that you didn't know before?
6. Why does John Thornell attack Thassa? What do you think of Russell's reaction to the attack?
7. Does your view of Thomas Kurton change in the course of the novel?
8. What role does the idea of prophecy play in the novel?
9. What is Powers's view of free will? What's your view of our future if genetic determinism prevails?
10. What was your first impression of Thassa? What did you decide was the root of her happiness? And how much did you change your view by the end of the novel?
11. How are Russell and Candace good for each other while also being an unlikely couple? How fair or unfair do you think it is for Candace to be asked not to see Thassa? Did she surprise you by complying, and why do you think she did?
12. Discuss the happiness experiments that Candace tells Russell about on pages 125-27. How do their careers — his as a writer and hers as a psychotherapist — shape the way they interpret life's circumstances? Is it easy for you to approach good surprises without worrying, applying the mentality of "A dime's a dime. Grab it when you see it"?
13. Ultimately, what is Tonia's role in Thassa's life?
14. Discuss Thassa's appearance on Oona's television show. What does Thassa's experience with the media say about the way we gather information, and the way identities (of celebrities and regular viewers alike) are manufactured in the age of new technology?
15. Should Thassa have been allowed to sell her eggs? Was Truecyte entitled to a licensing fee? Discuss the need for boundaries between science, medicine, and big business.
16. How did you react to the novel's closing scene? Who did you think was narrating the novel up until that point? Were you surprised by Thassa's final appearance?
17. Who are the novel's most generous characters? Are these also the happiest ones?
18. How would you respond if you tried some of Russell's writing assignments, such as "Find one thing in the last day worth telling a total stranger," or to Candace's suggestion — "Close your eyes and write a sentence in the air. Use your left hand. Just one sentence. A simple one"?
19. What do you believe about the nature of happiness? Which factor is stronger in determining whether someone will be happy: genetics or generosity? What (or who) brings you the most happiness? Would you be willing to take a pill or participate in genetic-engineering experiments if it meant being happier?
20. Are there themes and ideas in Generosity you recognize from other books by Richard Powers? And in what ways is this novel a departure or different from his other books?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Genesis Secret
Tom Knox, 2008
Penguin Group USA
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616885809
Summary
A remarkable discovery has been made in the far reaches of Kurdistan. A Western archaeological team has unearthed the oldest human civilization-older than the Pyramids and Stonehenge. Sent to cover the story is war reporter Rob Luttrell. He's just survived a Baghdad suicide bombing and wants only to return home to his child. What began as a fascinating assignment quickly turns dangerous as the site is sabotaged and someone is murdered.
Meanwhile, a Scotland Yard detective is fast on the trail of a series of grisly killings in the British Isles. As he attempts to unravel these elaborate acts of violence, he discovers there may be a link to the site in Kurdistan. The secret to both is an origin and a bloodline that will challenge everything the modern world knows about the origins of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
A debut thriller of spectacular sweep and brilliant turns, The Genesis Secret is sure to keep fans of Douglas Preston, Kate Mosse, and Raymond Khoury reading through the night. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Sean Thomas
• Birth—1963
• Where—England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Bad Sex Award (UK-see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Tom Knox is the pseudonym of British journalist and writer Sean Thomas. When he writes under the name of Tom Knox, he specialises in archaeological thrillers.
His first thriller, The Genesis Secret (2008), focuses on the region known as Gobekli Tepe, and features Biblical mysteries and cutting edge science. Noteworthy for several exceptionally gruesome episodes, it was an international bestseller.
His second novel, The Marks of Cain was published in 2010. Centring on the little-known Cagot community who lived in the Basque Country, it too was an international bestseller.
A third book, titled Bible of the Dead was published in 2011 in the UK (as The Lost Goddess in the US in 2012). The novel focuses on the Khmer Rouge, while taking in the cave paintings of France, the dark history of human-animal hybridization and modern Chinese Communism.
Sean Thomas lives in London. Most famous for "Millions Of Women Are Waiting To Meet You," Sean Thomas also won the Bad Sex award in 2006 for his novel Kissing England. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Knox's well-paced debut offers some new wrinkles on the theme of the archeological discovery that will change the course of human history. British reporter Rob Luttrell, who barely survived a suicide bomber's attack in Iraq, is hoping to take things easy, but his new assignment, to cover a dig in Turkish Kurdistan, proves anything but routine. German archeologist Franz Breitner has found evidence of buildings at the site known as Gobekli Tepe that appear to be 10,000 to 11,000 years old, 5,000 years earlier than any similar structure. The excavation has aroused the ire of the locals, who place an ancient Aramaic curse on those working there. It may be no accident when Breitner is impaled on a pole. Luttrell teams with an attractive biological anthropologist, Christine Meyer, to solve the mystery of the site, which may be where the Garden of Eden was located. Readers will hope to see more such offbeat thrillers from Knox, the pseudonym of London journalist Sean Thomas.
Publishers Weekly
Readers who enjoy the suspense novels of Raymond Khoury and Julia Navarro may think this is one stamped from that die; they will probably be disappointed. Knox (the pseudonym of British author Sean Thomas) introduces us to war reporter Rob Luttrell, a bit shell-shocked from his eyewitness coverage of suicide bombings in Baghdad. To help him recover, his editor sends Rob to write a relaxing National Geographic-like spread on an archaeological dig in Kurdistan. How much trouble can Rob get into? Plenty! He stumbles upon practitioners of an ancient quasi-demonic religion protecting the site and a wealthy, insane British schoolboy whose family legacy charges him with the protection of certain buried "secrets." This lunatic and his cadre wreak havoc in England and abroad, perpetrating heinous, grisly, and rather literary murders that scream horror, not suspense/thriller. The body count is high, and characters to whom we warmed are brutalized. Religion, too, is debunked. The titular "secret" is overplayed all the way to the tidy, happy ending. Recommended for large popular fiction collections with generous budgets.
Laura A.B. Cifelli -Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. For two thirds of the novel, the narrative moves back and forth between the point of view of Rob Luttrell and the perspective of Detective Chief Inspector Forrester. Discuss this way of telling a story and if you think it was effective. For instance, how did switching between the two points of view contribute to the suspense of the novel?
2. Not only are the events of the narrative conveyed through Rob and DCI Forrester’s points of view, but their characters parallel one another in several ways. Compare and contrast how these two men act as fathers and professionals, and discuss the ways in which the author deliberately contrasts them with the fathers of previous generations, from the men of the Irish Hellfire Club to the male hominids of Gobekli Tepe.
3. Similarly, consider DIC Forrester’s inner torment over his daughter’s murder, and how it shapes his actions and his perspective through the book. Discuss, too, the way his work on the case proves cathartic, and how, by the end of the novel, it appears that he might be beginning to heal.
4. The torture scenarios in the book become more extreme, and more graphic, as the novel progresses. Discuss this progression and how the tone of the novel changes once the reader becomes an audience to the sacrifices as they are happening. Compare the torture of Hugo De Savary with that of Isobel Previn—which is more terrifying? (Additionally, discuss whether you were surprised when Rob discovered Christine alive in Ireland—were you prepared for that plot twist?)
5. Discuss the progression of Rob’s relationship with Christine as it develops slowly over the course of the book. What makes their relationship interesting and keeps it from being overly sentimental? Compare their relationship with that of Rob’s relationship with his ex-wife, Sally, and discuss how even his relationship with Sally grows over the course of the novel.
6. Similarly, discuss Christine’s instant bond with Sally, and Sally’s approval of Christine as a partner for Rob. What kind of comment does their relationship make about women in general? Do you think men would be able to act in a similar way towards a romantic rival/ex?
7. Discuss the Turkish police officer Kiribali—did you, like Rob, suspect him of being more sinister than he appeared? How startled were you to see him at the book’s climax, when he shot off Cloncurry’s hand and arm? What other characters in the book surprised you in this way?
8. What did you think of Jamie Cloncurry? Was his character well-developed? What made him a particularly frightening antagonist? Discuss his email to Rob and his speeches over the web cam, and evaluate the way they demonstrated his evil and psychotic nature.
9. Also, compare the relationship of DCI Forrester and Boijer to that of other fictional detective partnerships—most notably that of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. What about their dynamic did you find engaging and likable? In what ways did they make a good team?
10. In the novel, the characters discuss the various symbols of different religions and how those symbols hold significance for the human race. Similarly, the author uses symbolism at various points in the novel to either foreshadow events or to emphasize meaning in the story: For instance, James Cloncurry has the same initials as Jesus Christ, and eventually he reveals to Rob that he considers himself a kind of perverse savior of mankind. Find similar instances in the book and discuss their significance.
11. Consider Rob’s explanation of the Genesis Secret to Kiribali at the end of the novel. Did the entire explanation sound feasible to you, and like a good conspiracy theory? What about the Genesis Secret and its implications did you find most interesting and intriguing? Also, discuss Rob’s revelation that he knew he was related to Jamie Cloncurry.
12. Was the end of the novel—Rob and Christine’s wedding—satisfactory and realistic? Did it tie things up too neatly, or were there any parts of the novel that you felt were still left to be explained?
13. Compare this novel with mysteries based on historical fact and/or conspiracy theories. What sets the book apart from the others?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Genuine Fraud
E. Lockhart, 2017
Random Children's
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385744775
Summary
From the author of We Were Liars, comes a unique novel that showcases E. Lockhart’s unmated ability to play with style and deliver a perfectly plotted, well-written novel with a surprise twist.
Imogen is a runaway heiress, an orphan, a cook, and a cheat.
Jule is a fighter, a social chameleon, and an athlete.
An intense friendship. A disappearance. A murder, or maybe two.
A bad romance, or maybe three.
Blunt objects, disguises, blood, and chocolate. The American dream, superheroes, spies, and villains.
A girl who refuses to give people what they want from her.
A girl who refuses to be the person she once was. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Emily Jenkins
• Birth—1967
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Rasied—Cambridge, Washington; Seattle, Washington
• Education—B.A., Vassar College; Ph.D., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York City area
Emily Jenkins, who also writes under the name E. Lockhart is a writer of children's picture books, young adult novels, and adult fiction.
Her first novel as E. Lockhart, The Boyfriend List, was published in 2005 and has been followed by three sequels, The Boy Book (2006), The Treasure Map of Boys (2009), and Real Live Boyfriends (2010).These four novels are also known as the Ruby Oliver novels, based on their central protagonist.
Lockhart's 2008 novel, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, was a finalist for both the National Book Award for Young People's Literature and the Michael L. Printz Award. Her picture books, written as Emily Jenkins, have won numerous awards, including Boston Globe-Horn Book Award honors and the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Book Award. Her 2014 novel, We Were Liars, has achieved wide acclaim from reviewers.
Jenkins grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Seattle, Washington. In high school she attended summer drama schools at Northwestern University and the Children's Theatre Company in Minneapolis. She attended Lakeside School, a private high school in North Seattle. She went to Vassar College and graduate school at Columbia University. She has a doctorate in English literature. She currently lives in the New York City area. (From Wikipedia and the author's website. Retrieved 2/27/2014.)
Book Reviews
Genuine Fraud is a disquieting book, one built craftily enough to reward repeat readings.
Jeff Giles - New York Times Book Review
(Starred review.) Lockhart blends the privileged glamour of We Were Liars with a twisty, backward-running plot that’s slick with cinematic violence.… [The] storyline… will keep readers on their toes, never entirely sure of what these girls are … capable of (Ages 12–up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Jule is…a survivor. The narrative moves backward in time, constantly forcing readers to adjust their opinions of the characters and events.… [For those] who love twisty mysteries, stories about class conflict, and tough-as-nails teen girls (Gr. 9-up). —Stephanie Klose
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) Captivating…bewitching
Booklist
(Starred review.) Can Jule recognize her own true self within the tangled story of the past year?… Her unsettling storytelling, filled with energy and a fair amount of violence … will challenge preconceptions about identity and keep readers guessing (Age 12-adult).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Genuine Fraud … then take off on your own:
1. Genuine Fraud explores identity. What plays the greatest part in your own sense of who you are — where you come from … what you've experienced … your interests … how you look … how you talk? How do Jule and Imogen establish their identifies?
2. Follow-up to Question 2: How much does the way other people view you affect how you view yourself? Are you always the same person no matter where you are or who you are with? What about Jule and Imogen?
3. Describe the two young women. In what way are they different, and in what way are they similar? How do they affect each other? Whom do you find more sympathetic?
4. At what point in the novel did you become unsure of your original assessment of Jule? Was there a point where you couldn't be sure what she was capable of?
5. How does the fighting off her attackers in the arcade affect Jules?
6. In what way have action movies shaped Jule's view of society's expectations for women? How does she set about subverting those expectations?
7. Jules accuses Forrest of being clueless when it comes to his sense of privilege: he has no understanding of what it means to adapt yourself to others' customs, nor does he understand that others must adapt to him. Have you ever been in either position — having to adapt to someone else or being insensitive to someone who might be struggling to adapt to you?
8. How would you answer Jule's question to Paolo: "Do you think a person is as bad as her worst actions?… Or do you think human beings are better than the very worst things we have ever done?" (p 76.)
9. What is the significance of the book's title? It's an oxymoron, so what does it mean?
(Questions adapted from Random House Teacher's Guide.)
Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O'Keeffe
Dawn Tripp, 2016
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400069538
Summary
In a dazzling work of historical fiction in the vein of Nancy Horan’s Loving Frank, Dawn Tripp brings to life Georgia O’Keeffe, her love affair with photographer Alfred Stieglitz, and her quest to become an independent artist.
"This is not a love story. If it were, we would have the same story. But he has his, and I have mine."
In 1916, Georgia O’Keeffe is a young, unknown art teacher when she travels to New York to meet Stieglitz, the famed photographer and art dealer, who has discovered O’Keeffe’s work and exhibits it in his gallery. Their connection is instantaneous.
O’Keeffe is quickly drawn into Stieglitz’s sophisticated world, becoming his mistress, protégé, and muse, as their attraction deepens into an intense and tempestuous relationship and his photographs of her, both clothed and nude, create a sensation.
Yet as her own creative force develops, Georgia begins to push back against what critics and others say about her and her art. And soon she must make difficult choices to live a life she believes in.
A breathtaking work of the imagination, Georgia is the story of a passionate young woman, her search for love and artistic freedom, the sacrifices she will face, and the bold vision that will make her a legend. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—Newton, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Awards—Massachusetts Book Award
• Currently—lives in Westport, Massachuessets
Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for fiction, Dawn Tripp is the author of the novels Moon Tide, The Season of Open Water, and Game of Secrets, a Boston Globe bestseller. Her essays have appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, The Believer, The Rumpus, Psychology Today, and NPR.
Her fourth novel, Georgia, is a novel about the American artist Georgia O’Keeffe. She graduated from Harvard and lives in Massachusetts with her family. (From the publisher .)
Book Reviews
As magical and provocative as O’Keeffe’s lush paintings of flowers that upended the art world in the 1920s.... [Dawn] Tripp inhabits Georgia’s psyche so deeply that the reader can practically feel the paintbrush in hand as she creates her abstract paintings and New Mexico landscapes.... Evocative from the first page to the last, Tripp’s Georgia is a romantic yet realistic exploration of the sacrifices one of the foremost artists of the twentieth century made for love.
USA Today
Masterful.... The book is a lovely portrayal of an iconic artist who is independent and multidimensional. Tripp’s O’Keeffe is a woman hoping to break free of conventional definitions of art, life and gender, as well as a woman of deep passion and love.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Georgia is a uniquely American chronicle...and, in the end, a book about a talent so fierce it crushed pretty much everything in its path—a rare story of artistic triumph.... Tripp expertly makes drama of two traditional themes in the O’Keeffe story—the romance with Stieglitz and the development of her art—but it’s the track about her art and his management of it and her struggle not to be dominated by him that makes her novel compelling.... In most first-person novels, the character talks to you. Here, she recollects with you—in her heart as well as her head. Which is to say that Dawn Tripp writes in much the same way as O’Keeffe painted: in vivid color and subtle shade.
Huffington Post
(Starred review.) [A] tour de force.... [Readers] will feel the passion that infused [Georgia O'Keefe's] work and love life that emboldened her canvases.... Tripp has hit her stride here, bringing to life one of the most remarkable artists of the twentieth century with veracity, heart, and panache.
Publishers Weekly
Tripp's writing is romantic, poetic, and flows as smoothly as her artist subject's brushstrokes.... However, the trouble with biographical novels is where the author's vision and history collide. Tripp's language and the dreamy feeling it evokes at times feels at odds with a relationship so tempestuous and flawed from its start. —Leigh Wright, Bridgewater, NJ
Library Journal
[A] powerful interpretation of [O’Keeffe’s] personal growth throughout her relationship with Stieglitz. As vibrant and colorful as one would hope for a story about this beloved artist.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The German Girl
Armando Lucas Correa, 2016
Atria Books
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501121142
Summary
A stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel, perfect for fans of The Nightingale, Schindler’s List, and All the Light We Cannot See, about twelve-year-old Hannah Rosenthal’s harrowing experience fleeing Nazi-occupied Germany with her family and best friend, only to discover that the overseas asylum they had been promised is an illusion.
Before everything changed, young Hannah Rosenthal lived a charmed life.
But now, in 1939, the streets of Berlin are draped with red, white, and black flags; her family’s fine possessions are hauled away; and they are no longer welcome in the places that once felt like home. Hannah and her best friend, Leo Martin, make a pact: whatever the future has in store for them, they’ll meet it together.
Hope appears in the form of the SS St. Louis, a transatlantic liner offering Jews safe passage out of Germany. After a frantic search to obtain visas, the Rosenthals and the Martins depart on the luxurious ship bound for Havana.
Life on board the St. Louis is like a surreal holiday for the refugees, with masquerade balls, exquisite meals, and polite, respectful service. But soon ominous rumors from Cuba undermine the passengers’ fragile sense of safety. From one day to the next, impossible choices are offered, unthinkable sacrifices are made, and the ship that once was their salvation seems likely to become their doom.
Seven decades later in New York City, on her twelfth birthday, Anna Rosen receives a strange package from an unknown relative in Cuba, her great-aunt Hannah. Its contents will inspire Anna and her mother to travel to Havana to learn the truth about their family’s mysterious and tragic past, a quest that will help Anna understand her place and her purpose in the world.
The German Girl sweeps from Berlin at the brink of the Second World War to Cuba on the cusp of revolution, to New York in the wake of September 11, before reaching its deeply moving conclusion in the tumult of present-day Havana.
Based on a true story, this masterful novel gives voice to the joys and sorrows of generations of exiles, forever seeking a place called home. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1959
• Where—Guantamo, Cuba
• Education—Instituto Superior de Arte de La Habana
• Awards—for journalism (see below)
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York, USA
Armando Lucas Correra is a Cuban-born journalist, editor, and author now living in New York City.
After graduating with a degree in theater and dramaturgy from Cuba's Superior Institute of Art of Havana, Correa began his career as a theater and dance critic. He became an editor for Tablas, a magazine covering the Cuban art scene, and also worked as a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper, El Publico. Later Correa taught dramatical analysis to students of scriptwriting in the International School of Cinema of San Antonio de los Banos.
In 1991 Correa left Cuba for Miami in the U.S. and began working as a reaporter for El Nuevo Herald. Six years later he moved to New York City, where he was hired as principal writer for the recently created People en Espanol. In 2007, he became the magazine's editorial-in-chief, a position he still holds, in which he oversees all editorial content. Today, People en Espanol is the top selling Hispanic magazine in the U.S. with more than 7 million monthly readers.
Correa is the recipient of various outstanding achievement awards from the National Association of Hispanic Publications and the Society of Professional Journalism. He is the primary spokesperson for People en Espanol and regularly appears on national Spanish-language television programs discussing celebrity news and scoops.
His first novel, The German Girl, came out in 2016. His memoir En busca de Emma (In Search of Emma: Two Fathers, One Daughter and the Dream of a Family) was published in 2007 and recounts his struggle to adopt his first daughter as a gay man.
He currently resides in Manhattan with his partner and their three children. (Adapted from Amazon.)
Book Reviews
In 1939, the German ship St. Louis set sail from Hamburg for Havana carrying more than 900 passengers, most of them German Jewish refugees, escaping from the Nazi regime. Correa’s debut novel follows one of those passengers, a 12-year-old girl.... Though the novel covers an important piece of history, the story of the Rosenthals never quite comes together.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Correa bases his debut novel on the real-life account of the ill-fated 1939 voyage of the St. Louis, delivering an engrossing and heartbreaking Holocaust story; his listing of the passengers' names at the end of the book adds to its power. —Catherine Coyne, Mansfield P.L., MA
Library Journal
The parts of the book set in Berlin and aboard the St. Louis are powerful and affecting.... By contrast, the Cuban scenes seem a little flat and drawn out, and the ending—with Hannah now an old woman—is unexpectedly maudlin. Still, this is a mostly well-told tale that sheds light on a sorrowful piece of Holocaust history.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The German Heiress
Anika Scott, 2020
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062937728
Summary
An immersive, heart-pounding debut about a German heiress on the run in post-World War II Germany.
Clara Falkenberg, once Germany’s most eligible and lauded heiress, earned the nickname "the Iron Fräulein" during World War II for her role operating her family’s ironworks empire.
It’s been nearly two years since the war ended and she’s left with nothing but a false identification card and a series of burning questions about her family’s past.
With nowhere else to run to, she decides to return home and take refuge with her dear friend, Elisa.
Narrowly escaping a near-disastrous interrogation by a British officer who’s hell-bent on arresting her for war crimes, she arrives home to discover the city in ruins, and Elisa missing. As Clara begins tracking down Elisa, she encounters Jakob, a charismatic young man working on the black market, who, for his own reasons, is also searching for Elisa.
Clara and Jakob soon discover how they might help each other—if only they can stay ahead of the officer determined to make Clara answer for her actions during the war.
Propulsive, meticulously researched, and action-fueled, The German Heiress is a mesmerizing page-turner that questions the meaning of justice and morality, deftly shining the spotlight on the often-overlooked perspective of Germans who were caught in the crossfire of the Nazi regime and had nowhere to turn. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Juliet Grames was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and grew up in a tight-knit Italian-American family. A book editor, she has spent the last decade at Soho Press, where she is associate publisher and curator of the Soho Crime imprint. This is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[M]agnetic…. Scott’s narrative is embellished with realistic depictions of rubble-filled German cities, scavenging residents, … moral questions about Clara’s family ties to the Nazi regime… [and] exploration of how war changes the moral compass of its victims.
Publishers Weekly
The novel delivers interesting discussions on guilt, redemption, and the actions of ordinary people in extraordinary times.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Get a Life, Chloe Brown
Talia Hibbert, 2019
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062941206
Summary
A witty, hilarious romantic comedy about a woman who’s tired of being “boring” and recruits her mysterious, sexy neighbor to help her experience new things—perfect for fans of Sally Thorne, Jasmine Guillory, and Helen Hoang!
Chloe Brown is a chronically ill computer geek with a goal, a plan, and a list.
After almost—but not quite—dying, she’s come up with seven directives to help her “Get a Life”, and she’s already completed the first: finally moving out of her glamorous family’s mansion. The next items?
Enjoy a drunken night out.
Ride a motorcycle.
Go camping.
Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
And… do something bad.
But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.
Redford "Red" Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.
But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller Talia Hibbert is a Black British author who lives in a bedroom full of books. Supposedly, there is a world beyond that room, but she has yet to drum up enough interest to investigate.
Hibbert writes sexy, diverse romance because she believes that people of marginalised identities need honest and positive representation. Her interests include beauty, junk food, and unnecessary sarcasm. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Hibbert shows how standard romance tropes—misunderstandings, meddling sisters, a steamy camping trip—can be elevated to sublime pleasure in the hands of a brilliant writer. Everything about Chloe and Red's story feels honest, specific and real. And magical, even when real-life concerns like chronic illness can never fade away. This is an extraordinary book, full of love, generosity, kindness and sharp humor.
New York Times Book Review
Hibbert’s characters are not perfect.… They are realistically flawed —and hilarious and sexy, their bedroom high jinks scorching enough to make readers dissolve "like sugar in hot tea…." Hibbert joins important voices in contemporary romance (Helen Hoang comes to mind) who write steamy page-turners where the characters look nothing like they did a generation ago—and that’s a wonderful thing. Go ahead and push pause on your own life to get to know Chloe Brown.
Washington Post
[A] tour-de-force romance that tackles tough problems like insecurity and chronic pain while still delivering a laugh-out-loud love story full of poignant revelations about human nature…. Hibbert bills herself as an author of sexy, diverse romance—and she comes through in Get a Life, Chloe Brown, giving us passion, humor and some scorching love scenes…. what gives this story its depth is Hibbert's voice—you live each character's pain, joy, laughter, love, longing. And when Red Morgan and Chloe Brown get into your head—good grief—there's nothing like it.
NPR
(Starred review) [A] thrilling, life-altering adventure that will keep readers riveted.… Chloe is a fantastic heroine with a refreshing voice…endearing to Red [and] the reader.… Best of all, the romance is sizzling hot. This contemporary is a page-turning winner.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Will readers giggle at the cuteness of the banter and weep at the emotional truths… as Chloe realizes it’s not her list that matters, and Red realizes Chloe is helping him get a life, too? Absolutely…. Is this book what the word "charming" was invented for? Probably.
Booklist
(Starred review) The plot sounds heavy, and Hibbert certainly writes authentic moments of physical and emotional pain, but this is an incredibly funny, romantic, and uplifting book.… Hilarious, heartfelt, and hot. Hibbert is a major talent.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for GET A LIFE, CHLOE BROWN… then take off on your own:
1. Talk about Chloe's life before she had her near death experience. Then consider her list: what do you think of it? Why does she make it?
2. Have you ever had a list similar to Chloe's, if not so concrete as hers, then at least some vaguely unformed ideas of what your life could be… but isn't? We also call the lists "bucket lists," which many of us have. What's yours?
3. Is Red hot?
4. What are Red's issues in life? Why is he such a hunk, yet so vulnerable?
5. What keeps Chloe and Red apart at first; then, when they finally meet face-to-face while rescuing a cat, what draws them together? How do their opinions of one another change once they get to know one another and pend more time together?
6. How has Chloe's fibromyalgia affected her life? Do you know anyone, or perhaps yourself, who has fibromyalgia? What challenges does the disease impose on those inflicted with it? Consider, especially the lack of knowledge, and sometimes the complete dismissal, on the part of medical professionals.
7. What do you think of all the friends and lovers (e.g., Henry) who deserted Chloe? Given the lack of a specific diagnosis, and the diseases, had you been her friend, would you have stuck by her? Might you have considered her a tiresome hypochondriac or attention seeker? (Be honest, now.)
8. Laugh much? At what parts?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Getting Rooted in New Zealand
Jamie Baywood, 2013
CreateSpace
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781482601909
Summary
Craving change and lacking logic, at 26, Jamie, a cute and quirky Californian, impulsively moves to New Zealand to avoid dating after reading that the country’s population has 100,000 fewer men.
In her journal, she captures a hysterically honest look at herself, her past and her new wonderfully weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs.
It takes a zany jaunt to the end of the Earth and a serendipitous meeting with a fellow traveler before Jamie learns what it really means to get rooted. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 9, 1983
• Where—Savannah, Georgia, USA
• Raised—Petaluma, California
• Education—B.A., San Diego State University; M.A.,
University of Leeds (UK)
• Currently—lives in the UK
Jamie Baywood grew up in Petaluma, California. In 2010, she made the most impulsive decision of her life by moving to New Zealand. Getting Rooted in New Zealand is her first novel about her experiences living in New Zealand. Jamie is married and currently living in the United Kingdom working on her second novel. (From the author.)
Book Reviews
Giggle Worthy... It is difficult to write so openly about your life as you have and I found myself keenly reading to see what happened next. All your adventures with those crazy people sounded so dreadful, but provided such amusement in the way you have represented them. You make no real judgment on any person and I can tell that while you respect them as humans, you don't put up with bad behaviour, so that's an inspiration in itself. (4 out of 5 stars.)
O. Dale (Amazon Customer Reviews)
As a New Zealander, I really enjoyed this book. It was funny, and a lot of the things about NZ are definitely true.... I live overseas, so I can understand that no one outside of New Zealand really gets our slang and sometimes our accent, so that part really spoke to me! However, at the same time it doesn't paint a true picture of New Zealand, given that the author worked in terrible jobs, had visa restrictions, didn't have a lot of money, and stayed in run-down housing. Auckland, while being the largest city, isn't necessarily representative of NZ. Overall, I'd recommend this book. (4 out of 5 stars.)
Mark (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Honest Humor... A great read! Honestly and effortlessly humorous. I giggled lots and really felt for Jamie at her times of struggle. Thank You for sharing so openly your experiences, obstacles and breakthroughs. (5 out of 5 stars.)
Sparkles (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Really enjoyed this book, I have to say. It was funny, quirky, even weird in places, but always entertaining. Having lived in New Zealand myself, I can definitely relate to some of Jamie's experiences as a foreigner. Love NZ and love this book - highly recommended! (5 out of 5 stars.)
Polak (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Fantastic, hilarious & Inspiring, I absolutely loooovvvveeeedddd it. It is funny & absolutely honest. Very inspiring as it really draws reader's attention to read more and more. I can't wait now for her 2nd novel to come out. A movie should be made on "Getting Rooted in New Zealand". Definitely will be a super hit (5 out of 5 stars.)
A-dreamer (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Must Read Book - Hilarious! A real page turner - like reading a very funny / interesting friend's secret diary.Also a fascinating insight into life in New Zealand as seen through the eyes of a traveller. Jamie Baywood is the thinking man's Bridget Jones—with an edge. Would make a hilarious movie - but until that comes out the book is a must. (5 out of 5 stars.)
J. Hamilton (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Discussion Questions
1. Jamie decided to move to New Zealand to escape her dubious love life in California. Have you ever had dating experiences that made you want to flee the country?
2. What is the meaning of the title Getting Rooted in New Zealand? Would you have called the book something else? If so, what would your title be?
3. While in New Zealand, Jamie had a lot of temporary jobs. Which one did you find the most shocking and why?
4. Are there any books you can compare Getting Rooted in New Zealand to?
5. Who do you think should play Jamie if Getting Rooted in New Zealand was made into a movie?
6. What surprised you most about Getting Rooted in New Zealand or Jamie?
7. Did any of the characters in the book remind you of anyone you know?
8. Were there any quotes or scenes that stood out to you in the book? Why?
9. At the end of the book, Jamie makes another impulsive decision. Where do you think Jamie and various characters in the book will be in five years?
(Questions provided by the author.)
The Ghost at the Table
Suzanne Berne, 2006
Algonquin Books
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781565125797
Summary
Strikingly different since childhood and leading very dissimilar lives now, sisters Frances and Cynthia have nevertheless managed to remain "devoted"—so long as they stay on opposite coasts. But with the reappearance of their elderly, long-estranged father they find themselves reunited for a cold, snowy Thanksgiving week—a reunion that awakens sleeping tensions and old sorrows.
Frances envisions a happy family holiday with her husband and daughters in her lovely old New England farmhouse. Cynthia, a writer of historical fiction, doesn't understand how Frances can ignore the past their father's presence revives, a past that includes suspicions about their mother's death twenty-five years earlier. Adding to her uneasiness is her research for a book on Mark Twain's daughters, whose lives she thinks eerily mirror her own and Frances's.
As Thanksgiving day arrives, with a houseful of guests looking forward to dinner, the sisters continue to struggle with different versions of their shared past, until a warning issued by Cynthia's friend Carita, that "families are toxic" and "blood is bloody," proves prophetically true.
The Ghost at the Table reveals what happens when one person tries to rewrite another's history and explores the mystery of why families try to stay together even when it may be in their best interests to stay apart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1961
• Where—Washington, D.C., USA
• Education—B.A., Weslyan University; Iowa Writers'
Workshop
• Awards—National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship;
the 1999 Orange Prize
• Currently—lives in Newton, Massachusetts
Suzanne Berne lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with her husband and daughters.
A contributor to the New York Times, she teaches in Harvard University’s English Department. Her first novel, A Crime in the Neighborhood, won Great Britain’s first Orange Prize and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times and the Edgar Allan Poe first fiction awards. Both novels were New York Times Notable Books. (From the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
There's almost no forward motion to the novel's plot, but somehow this proxy battle between Cynthia and Frances over their childhood—an effort by each sister to enforce her own version of the past and dismiss the other's memories as irrelevant or skewed—enough to make The Ghost at the Table wholly engaging, the perfect spark for launching a rich conversation around your own table once the dishes have been cleared. Cynthia can be a bitter narrator, and Frances's sepia-toned desire for "a regular old-fashioned family holiday" makes her an easy target, but Berne is not a bitter author, and forgiveness finally comes to these people in the most natural and believable ways. Despite some good shots at the hysteria that infects most of us around the fourth Thursday of November, this is a surprisingly tender story that celebrates the infinite frustrations and joys of these crazy people we're yoked to forever. All in all, something to add to your list of things to be grateful for.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Intellectually and emotionally stimulating...recalling the world of Joyce Carol Oates or of Anne Tyler, if she were ominous.... Fresh and intriguing.
San Francisco Chronicle
Delicious.... Berne turns a witty tale of holiday dysfunction into a transfixing borderline gothic, her appealing heroine into an unreliable narrator seething with decades-old resentment.
Entertainment Weekly
This taut psychological drama by Orange Prize-winner Berne (A Crime in the Neighborhood) unfolds as San Francisco freelance writer Cynthia Fiske acquiesces to her maternal older sister, Frances, and attends the Thanksgiving family reunion Frances is hosting at her perfectly restored Colonial home in Concord, Mass. Cynthia believes her father, now 82, murdered their invalid mother with an overdose of pills when Cynthia was 13, and she has no wish to ever see him again. Within months after their mother died, their father packed Frances and Cynthia off to boarding school and married the much younger Ilse, a graduate student who worked as part-time tutor to Frances. But now he's suffered a stroke. Ilse is divorcing him, and the family is placing him in a home. Tension is high by the time the assorted guests, including Frances's complicated teenage daughters, her mysterious husband and the speech-impaired patriarch, are called to Frances's table, and it doesn't take much to fan the first flares of anger into the inevitable conflagration. Berne takes an inherently dramatic conflict—one sister's intention to obfuscate the hard truths of the past vs. another's determination to drag them under a spotlight—and ratchets up the stakes with astute observation and narrative cunning.
Publishers Weekly
Sisters, living and dead, loom large in Berne's tale of family secrets unraveled. Cynthia Fiske writes a series of historical fiction for girls, depicting the lives of remarkable women through the eyes of their slightly less-remarkable sisters. An invitation to her own sister's house for Thanksgiving in New England coincides with her need to visit Mark Twain's home in Hartford to research a new novel on the writer's daughters, whose story of a charismatic father and three troubled siblings parallels the Fiskes' history. Complicating the usual holiday tensions is the presence of their elderly father, once brash and manipulative, now disabled and facing a divorce from his much-younger wife. As the family struggles with generations of dysfunction and unspoken secrets, including the mysterious death of their mother decades earlier, Cynthia rebels by sharing the most sordid details of the long-gone Clemens family. Although she is nearing middle age, her feelings of isolation and rejection that began in childhood have left her a perpetual adolescent in relation to her family. Much like the child narrator of Donna Tartt's The Little Friend (Knopf, 2002), Berne portrays a confusing, comic, even sinister family dynamic and eschews a pat, happy ending in favor of a very real, if provocative, choice that will appeal to teen fans of family dramas.
Jenny Gasset - School Library Journal
Past family tensions, antagonisms, and lies threaten to ruin Thanksgiving for the Fiske sisters. Cynthia, the book's narrator, begins by saying that she has no intention of leaving California to attend the dinner in Concord, Massachusetts, planned by her older sister, Frances, in an attempt to reconnect them with their estranged father. Frances, a Martha Stewart-esque perfectionist with an odd husband and perplexing teenage daughters, is determined to reunite the family to clarify a muddled past and restore peace. Cynthia believes that her elderly father, now a stroke victim, was responsible for her mother's death which occurred when Cynthia was thirteen; Frances disagrees. Cynthia writes historical fiction for girls, her specialty being the stories of female writers told by a sibling, and famous writers' lives told by their daughters. Cynthia's next project is a study of Mark Twain as told by his daughters, and the similarity of the Twain family history to that of the Fiskes' provides an intriguing background for the present-day family drama taking place. Berne, winner of the 1999 Orange Prize, shapes her complex characters carefully, deftly revealing ulterior motives, misplaced blame, and inner confusion. This finely wrought psychological mystery is acute in its depictions of family dynamics and aptly reveals the harm of rivalries and secrets. Wonderfully written, this novel should appeal to female high school students who are interested in family dynamics, writers, and sisters. Any student who appreciates fine literature or aspires to write should find it a rewarding read.
VOYA
Rivaling sisters search for family truths over a Thanksgiving holiday. Frances Fiske longs for harmony and decides to host a blowout dinner to reunite her estranged family. In her quest for unity, Frances packs the house with high-wattage conflict. When three generations of the Fiske family gather, tempers flair and skeletons begin tumbling out of closets. Out of pity and a sense of obligation, Cynthia Fiske flies east from her sequestered life as a writer to join in her sister's feast. Coming home stirs up bitter memories of a lonely childhood for Cynthia. She narrates the story and at first seems to be a reliable source for learning about the Fiskes' dirty little secrets. Cynthia talks of Frances's rocky marriage, Frances's reckless teenage daughters, Frances's Martha Stewart-like obsession with interior-design perfection. Cynthia relays tales of their mother's mysterious death and their father's romantic indiscretions. A maelstrom develops in the days leading up to the big meal. All the combustible energy makes for a great read as Cynthia and Frances battle it out to preserve a particular view of their childhood. Berne (A Crime in the Neighborhood, 1997, etc.) challenges the reader to pick a side. Cynthia's paranoia creeps through her storytelling and Frances's imperious nature furthers the chaos and miscommunications, making it tough to know whom to trust. Sampling from a few genres—mystery, historical fiction, chick lit and psychological thriller—Berne cooks up a literary feast. Her tactile descriptions and enigmatic characters saturate the story and provide a filling repast. The plot can be frustrating at times—it's a struggle to discern past from present and truth from fiction. But this is intentional. Berne prefers questions to answers. This substantial tale of a dysfunctional family reunion promises a holiday, and a read, to remember.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the first few pages, Cynthia freely admits that she and Frances have a strained relationship, though she also says that “of all the people in the world I probably love Frances best” (page 1). Now, however, after many years of refusing Frances’s invitations to come visit during the holidays, Cynthia decides to fly back east for Thanksgiving. What do you think changes her mind? Why is it so important to Frances to have Cynthia come to her house for the holiday?
2. In addition to Frances’s family, Arlen, Wen-Yi, the Fareeds, and Frances’s assistant, Mary Ellen, come to Frances’s house for Thanksgiving. With such a guest list, Jane goes so far as to call it “Thanksgiving at the UN” (page 30). How have all these outsiders to the family come to the table, and what impact do they have on shaping the events of the evening?
3. At the Thanksgiving table, Frances’s daughter Sarah proposes that they take turns describing what they are most proud of having done for someone else (pages 207 – 11). Compare the answers of each sister. Why does Cynthia find Frances’s answer so difficult to hear?
4. The Ghost at the Table opens with a quotation from The Autobiography of Mark Twain, “a person’s memory has no more sense than his conscience.” How does this statement pertain to each sister? To what degree does it explain Cynthia’s and Frances’s different recollections of the past?
5. Both Cynthia and Frances have very different views of their childhood. More specifically, they have opposing accounts of what happened to their mother. Whose voice is more credible, and why? Discuss the possibility that both sisters’ recollections are accurate.
6. Frances is an interior decorator; Cynthia writes inspiring history books for girls about domestic life. Why do you think they’ve chosen those professions? How do their jobs provide a comment on who they are or aren’t?
7. What role do you think Mrs. Jordan plays in the story?
8. At one point, Cynthia remembers her sister Helen asking their mother what the mother looked like when she was a girl. Instead of listening to her mother’s answer, Cynthia is struck “by an appalling, fascinating thought: What if you looked into the future and didn’t recognize yourself? What if you saw someone else looking back at you instead?” (page 131 – 32). Do you think Cynthia the child would recognize Cynthia the adult? Would your childhood self be able to identify the adult you’ve become?
9. In Cynthia’s mind, Frances’s daughters, Sarah and Jane, roughly correspond with Frances and herself when they were younger. Is Cynthia simply projecting? In what ways does the past continue to influence the characters’ perceptions of the present?
10. Soon after her mother’s death, Cynthia implies that her father played a hand in it. She then goes on to tell Frances that Frances unknowingly helped him (pages 155 – 57). A few days later, though, she retracts the accusation. Do you think she was being honest or dishonest in either case?
11. The day after Thanksgiving, Frances insists that she and Cynthia visit Mark Twain’s house in Hartford, with their father in tow. When they discover that the Mark Twain House is closed, they proceed to visit the house they grew up in. What do they find at these houses? What are they hoping to find?
12. Who, or what, does the ghost of the title refer to, and why?
13. Who are Sarah and Arlen really discussing when Cynthia overhears them on the baby monitor (page 240)? How do your feelings about Cynthia begin to shift at this point?
14. When Cynthia wakes up after falling asleep alone in the living room, she sees a pillar candle overflowing with wax. As the organ catches fire, she sits silently watching (page 242). Why, at first, does she do nothing to stop it?
15. Although Cynthia and Frances’s father is unable to speak, he makes his presence known in the house. Discuss each sister’s behavior toward him and his reaction to both.
16. What motivates Cynthia to check in on her father when everyone is asleep (pages 287 – 91)? Do you think she should have called Frances when she discovered he was having trouble breathing? Why didn’t she? In the end, how would you describe what happens between Cynthia and her father?
17. Cynthia says, "It has been mostly for Jane’s benefit that I have set down this record of what happened over Thanksgiving” so that “my version of those few days in November will stand as an argument for the unreliability of memory” (page 293). How do you think Jane would respond to this record? Although this is Cynthia’s story, did you find yourself identifying with one sister over the other? Who in the story did you have the most empathy for, and why?
(Questions by publisher.)
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The Ghost Bride
Yangsze Choo, 2013
HarperCollins
362 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062227324
Summary
Yangsze Choo’s stunning debut, The Ghost Bride, is a startlingly original novel infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue, and unexpected supernatural twists.
Li Lan, the daughter of a respectable Chinese family in colonial Malaysia, hopes for a favorable marriage, but her father has lost his fortune, and she has few suitors. Instead, the wealthy Lim family urges her to become a “ghost bride” for their son, who has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at what price?
Night after night, Li Lan is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, where she must uncover the Lim family’s darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family.
Reminiscent of Lisa See’s Peony in Love and Amy Tan’s The Bonesetter’s Daughter, The Ghost Bride is a wondrous coming-of-age story and from a remarkable new voice in fiction. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1972-73
• Raised—Malaysia
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in the San Francisco Bay Area
Yangsze Choo is a fourth-generation Malaysian of Chinese descent. Choo grew up in Malaysia but, accompanying her diplomat father, spent her childhood in various countries. As a result, she says that she can eavesdrop (badly) in several languages.
After graduating from Harvard University, Choo worked as a management consultant and at a startup before writing her first novel. The Ghost Bride (2013), set in colonial Malaya and the elaborate Chinese world of the afterlife, is about a peculiar historic custom called a spirit marriage. The novel is a soon-to-be-aired Netflix series!
The Night Tiger (2019) is Yangzse's second novel.
Choo lives in the Bay Area of San Francisco, California, with her husband, two children, and a potential rabbit. She loves to eat and read, and often does both at the same time. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Like all good literary heroines, Li Lan is motherless, impoverished, educated beyond the custom of the times, and uninterested in marriage, especially to someone who's dead. Since she lives in 19th-century Malacca, the British colony in what is now Malaysia, this is a situation whose disadvantages Jane Austen herself would appreciate.
Martha T. Moore - USA Today
In her debut novel, Choo tells the unlikely story of a young Chinese woman who marries a dead man...an ancient custom among the Chinese in Malaysia called “spirit marriage.” ... Choo’s clear and charming style creates an alternate reality where the stakes are just as high as in the real world, combining grounded period storytelling with the supernatural.
Publishers Weekly
Li Lan is from an upper-class but financially destitute Chinese family in Malaya (modern-day Malaysia). When the wealthy Lim family proposes that she enter into a spirit marriage with their recently deceased son, she reluctantly accepts.... Choo’s first novel explores in a delicate and thought-provoking way the ancient custom of spirit marriages, which were thought to appease restless spirits. —Caitlin Bronner, MLIS, Pratt Inst., Brooklyn
Library Journal
Choo's remarkably strong and arresting first novel explores the concept of Chinese "spirit marriages" in late-nineteenth-century Malaya through the eyes of the highly relatable Li Lan.... With its gripping tangles of plot and engaging characters, this truly compelling read is sure to garner much well deserved attention.
Booklist
Young Li Lan's family was once rich and respected...[so] she's shocked and disturbed when her father asks her if she'll consent to become a ghost bride to the dead son of Malacca's wealthiest family.... Choo's multifaceted tale is sometimes difficult to follow with its numerous characters and subplots, but the narrative is so rich in Chinese folklore, mores and the supernatural that it's nonetheless intriguing and enlightening. A haunting debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Perplexed by her father's absences and worried by finances and marriage negotiations, Li Lan wonders, "What was happening out in the world of men?... Despite the fact that my feet were not bound, I was confined to domestic quarters as though a rope tethered my ankle to our front door." How does Li Lan chafe against notions of femininity, and in what ways does she rebel?
2. Malacca is a city settled by various ethnic groups over the centuries, with a long colonial history as well. The Chinese in Malaya, like Li Lan's family, keep their own practices and dress, but don't follow tradition as rigidly as in China. How does Li Lan benefit from this blending of tradition?
3. After Li Lan gives in to Amah's superstition and visits a medium at the temple, she observes a Chinese cemetery that has been neglected due to fear of ghosts: "How different it was from the quiet Malay cemeteries, whose pawn-shaped Islamic tombstones are shaded by the frangipani tree, which the Malays call the graveyard flower. Amah would never let me pluck the fragrant, creamy blossoms when I was a child. It seemed to me that in this confluence of cultures, we had acquired one another's superstitions without necessarily any of their comforts." What do you think the comforts of superstition are? As Li Lan interacts with the spirit world, does her perspective on superstition change?
4. Why is Li Lan drawn to Tian Bai when they meet? How do her feelings for him change over the course of the novel, and why?
5. The ghost world Li Lan enters is a richly imagined place governed by complicated bureaucracy. How does the parallel city reflect the world of the living, and in what ways is it different?
6. When Li Lan thinks that she has found her mother—a second wife in the ancestral Lim household—she is shaken by how horrible she is. How does meeting her real mother, Auntie Three, help Li Lan understand her own family?
7. When Li Lan is a wandering spirit, able to observe from another perspective, what does she realize about herself and her world? Are there positive aspects to her time spent outside her body?
8. Li Lan thinks, "All who have seen ghosts and spirits are marked with a stain, and far more than Old Wong, I have trespassed where no living person ought have." How has Li Lan's time spent in the realm of the ghost world – speaking with the dead, eating spirit offerings, seeing Er Lang's true identity – changed her? Is it possible for her to go back to normal life?
9. When Er Lang proposes to Li Lan, he warns her, "I wouldn't underestimate the importance of family." Were you surprised by Li Lan's decision at the end of the novel? If you were in her shoes, do you think you would have chosen the same route, with its sacrifices?
10. Did you know anything about traditional Chinese folklore before reading The Ghost Bride? What did you find fascinating or strange about the mythology woven throughout the novel, and the Chinese notions of the afterlife?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Ghost Horse
Thomas H. McNeely, 2014
Gival Press
262 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781928589914
Summary
Set amidst the social tensions of 1970's Houston, Ghost Horse tells the story of eleven-year-old Buddy Turner's shifting alliances within his fragmented family and with two other boys—one Anglo, one Latino—in their quest to make a Super-8 animated movie.
As his father's many secrets begin to unravel, Buddy discovers the real movie: the intersection between life as he sees it and the truth of his own past. In a vivid story of love, friendship, and betrayal, Ghost Horse explores a boy's swiftly changing awareness of himself and the world through the lens of imagination. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Houston, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Texas, Austin; M.F.A., Emerson College
• Currently—Boston, Massachusetts
Thomas McNeely grew up in Houston, Texas, where he made Super-8 movies as a child. After graduating from The University of Texas at Austin, where he spent too much time reviewing movies for The Daily Texan, he worked for several years as an investigator for The Texas Resource Center, a non-profit law firm that defended death row prisoners. This experience became the basis for his first published story, "Sheep," in The Atlantic Monthly.
After receiving an MFA from Emerson College, he was a Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer in fiction at Stanford University. His short stories have appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, and Epoch, and have been anthologized in The Best American Mystery Stories; What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers; and Algonquin Books' Best of the South: From the Second Decade of New Stories from the South.
He has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Dobie Paisano Program at the University of Texas at Austin, and the MacDowell Colony. He currently teaches in the Stanford Online Writers' Studio and the Emerson College Honors Program. Ghost Horse, his first novel, winner of the Gival Press Novel Award, was published in October 2014. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
A Texas boy grapples with his parents’ estrangement in McNeely’s debut novel.... McNeely beautifully portrays the confusion of a boy doing his best to deal with matters that are beyond his understanding but fully capable of doing him harm.... A dark, deeply stirring novel about the quiet tragedy of growing up in a broken family.
Kirkus Reviews
[A] haunting debut novel, which never allows its pop culture references or beautifully rendered sentences to soften the violence that life—his parents’ disintegrating marriage, his classmates’ cruelty, his grandmother’s vindictiveness—visits upon its sensitive protagonist.
Jeff Salamon - Texas Monthly
[A] wonderful under-the-radar book....The writing is sensitive, beautiful, and ominous...as if Cormac McCarthy and Denis Johnson teamed up to write a 1970s Texas YA novel that went off the rails somewhere—in a very, very good way.
Lisa Peet - Library Journal
McNeely explores the heartbreak and confusion of adolescence through the eyes of an 11 year old boy .... It's a shattering portrait, not only of the ways that divorce can unhinge a boy's life, but also in the ways that wayward adults can corrupt childhood innocence.
Charles Ealey - Austin-American Statesman
Ghost Horse by Thomas McNeely is a powerful debut novel; it is both a deeply moving coming-of-age story and an intense psychological portrait of a family in crisis. McNeely weaves an intricate web of a plot against the backdrop of the racial and class tensions of Houston of the 1970s, and explores themes of love, lost innocence, loyalty, and broken families. The tale of eleven-year-old Buddy over one unsettling year of his adolescence makes for a compelling and worthwhile read.
Leila Rice - Reader's Oasis
[A] story that will stay with you. A story of racism, and class tension. A story of broken families and lost innocence. McNeely takes you back in time to when you were eleven. As you read, you see everything as Buddy sees it, and understand it (or don’t understand it) as Buddy does. You see the edges of dark, adult truths through the unknowing, innocent eyes of a child. Over time, however, Buddy starts to pick things up. Not everything, but enough to know when something’s wrong.... A dark, beautiful, heartbreaking story, I found myself wanting to both quote everything and turn away in unease. McNeely weaves a tale you won’t soon forget.
Elizabeth O'Brien - Fueled by Fiction
Houston native Thomas H. McNeely explores the heartbreak and confusion of adolescence through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy..... It’s a shattering portrait, not only in the ways that divorce can unhinge a boy’s life, but also in the ways that wayward adults can corrupt childhood innocence.
Charles Ealey - Austin-American Statesman
McNeely writes with eerie precision the feelings of a child .... If you believe that a book should push you off balance and take you somewhere new, then Ghost Horse will deliver.
Ada Fetters - Commonline Journal
Discussion Questions
1. How do the movies that Buddy, Alex, and Simon imagine reflect their views of the adult world? What elements from their lives do you see reflected in their respective imagined "movies"?
2. Buddy views his father as both hero and villain. How does his view of his father change over the course of the novel? How does your view of Jimmy change?
3. How did you understand Jimmy's motivations during the course of the novel? Were you sympathetic toward him? What do you see as the primary struggles that he faces in the course of the novel?
4. How did you understand Margot's motivations, both in distancing herself from Jimmy, and in being unable to break away from him? How did you see her economic situation at play in her decisions?
5. Why does Buddy keep his father's secrets? What is at stake for him, and what is at stake for the adults around him in keeping these secrets? Does he understand this difference?
6. How did you see each of the boys' family lives reflected in their actions in the novel, e.g., in Alex's desire for order and Simon's obsession with other boys' secrets?
7. What roles do you see Buddy's grandmothers playing in shaping his world view? What view of the world do you think that he will develop as an adolescent and an adult?
8. What role do you see that the city of Houston plays in forming the characters of the boys in the novel?
9. All of the boys in Ghost Horse suffer losses in their families—how does each of them deal differently with their losses? Do you think that the book's message is one of despair or hope?
10. How do you think attitudes toward divorce have changed since the seventies? Do you think it is easier or harder for children of divorce now?
11. How do you see children today using media to connect, and sometimes harm each other? Do you think children see themselves and their relationships differently because of their exposure to media today?
12. How do you think attitudes toward race and class have changed in America since the seventies? Do you see a greater or lesser distance between races and classes now or then?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Ghost Wall
Sarah Moss, 2019, U.S. (2018, U.K.)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
144 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374161927
Summary
A taut, gripping tale of a young woman and an Iron Age reenactment trip that unearths frightening behavior
"The light blinds you; there’s a lot you miss by gathering at the fireside."
In the north of England, far from the intrusions of cities but not far from civilization, Silvie and her family are living as if they are ancient Britons, surviving by the tools and knowledge of the Iron Age.
For two weeks, the length of her father’s vacation, they join an anthropology course set to reenact life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests of birch and rowan; they make stew from foraged roots and hunted rabbit.
The students are fulfilling their coursework; Silvie’s father is fulfilling his lifelong obsession. He has raised her on stories of early man, taken her to witness rare artifacts, recounted time and again their rituals and beliefs—particularly their sacrifices to the bog.
Mixing with the students, Silvie begins to see, hear, and imagine another kind of life, one that might include going to university, traveling beyond England, choosing her own clothes and food, speaking her mind.
The ancient Britons built ghost walls to ward off enemy invaders, rude barricades of stakes topped with ancestral skulls. When the group builds one of their own, they find a spiritual connection to the past.
What comes next but human sacrifice?
A story at once mythic and strikingly timely, Sarah Moss’s Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the “primitive minds” of our ancestors. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1975
• Where—Glasgow, Scotland, UK
• Raised—Manchester, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Ph.D., Oxford University
• Currently—lives in Warwickshire, England
Sara Moss is a British writer who has written several novels, most recently Ghost Wall (2018), and a nonfiction book about living in Iceland, Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland (2012).
Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Moss spent her growing-up years in Manchester, England, surrounded by strong family ties and weekends hiking in the mountains of the Lake District.
She attended Oxford, earning B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees. She specialized in two areas of English literature: works of the far north and of the Romantic and early Victorian material culture.
Moss has lectured at the University of Kent, University of Iceland, Exeter University-Cornwall, and is currently Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Warwick. On her website, she claims she has "no intention of ever moving house again."
Books
Cold Earth (2009)
Night Walking (2011)
Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland (2012)
Bodies of Light (2014)
Signs for Lost Children (2015)
The Tidal Zone (2016)
Ghost Wall (2018)
(Adapted from Wikipedia and the author's website. Retrieved 1/29/2019.)
Book Reviews
[A] compact, riveting book. Female sacrifice is never far from the center of [Moss's] concerns; she wants us to question our complicity in violence, particularly against women.… [Silvie's] presence in the novel is richly physical, and through her physicality, Moss immerses us in the pleasures of nascent sexuality and adolescent independence.… Ghost Wall is tautly framed by Silvie's point of view. Her conversations and interior monologues are embedded in lean, no-nonsense paragraphs. Moss is not much interested in giving Silvie and her rebellious tendencies room to breathe. This is a novel about being constrained, even trapped.
Ayson Hagy - New York Times Book Review
A master class in compressing an unbearable sense of dread into a book that can be read in a single horrified (and admiring) hour.… Ghost Wall is perhaps the finest novel so far to come out of the British literary response to these uneasy times.
Sarah Perry - Wall Street Journal
The fear produced by this fine-honed, piercing novel springs not from the superstitious customs of prehistory but from the more intimate horrors of human nature.
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal
[Ghost Wall] compresses large and urgent themes—the dangers of nostalgic nationalism, the abuse of women and children, what is lost and gained when humans stop living in thrall to the natural world—into a short, sharp tale of suspense. The way Moss conjures up the dark magic and vestigial landscapes of ancient Britain reminded me a little of the horror movie The Wicker Man.… The novel’s feminism, though, felt utterly contemporary.… I read Ghost Wall in one gulp in the middle of the night. It was a worthy match for 3 a.m. disquiet, a book that evoked existential dread, but contained it, beautifully, like a shipwreck in a bottle.
Margaret Talbot - The New Yorker
Sarah Moss possesses the rare light touch when it comes to melding the uncanny with social commentary.… Ghost Wall is such a weird and distinctive story: It could be labeled a supernatural tale, a coming-of-age chronicle, even a timely meditation on the various meanings of walls themselves. All this, packed into a beautifully written story of 130 pages. No wonder I read it twice within one week.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR
A short, sharp shock of a book that closes around you like a vice as you read it.… From the terse, dismaying little prologue, in which an iron age girl is marched out and murdered before an audience of neighbours and family, to the hair-raising, heart-stopping denouement, it hurtles along and carries you with it, before dumping you, breathless, at the end.… Ghost Wall is a burnished gem of a book, brief and brilliant, and with it Moss’s star is firmly in the ascendant.
Sarah Crown - Guardian (UK)
Ghost Wall, a slim but meaty book, is like nothing I have read before; its creepy atmosphere has stayed with me all summer.… Moss combines exquisite nature writing, original characters and a cracking thriller plot to make a wonderful literary curiosity. It deserves to pull her out of the bog of underappreciation and on to the prize podiums.
Alex O'Connell - Times (UK)
The curious allure of re-enactment is cleverly explored in Moss’s short, potent novel.… A Brexity tale to send shivers down your spine.
Rebecca Rose - Financial Times (UK)
Ghost Wall.… is further proof that [Moss is] one of our very best contemporary novelists. How she hasn’t been nominated for the Man Booker Prize continues to mystify me—and this year is no exception.… [A] gripping narrative.… It’s an intoxicating concoction; inventive, intelligent, and like no other author’s work (Five-Star Review).
Lucy Scholes - Independent (UK)
Reading Ghost Wall in the context of contemporary Britain only serves to highlight the folly of wishing for the good old days.… The book can be read as a Brexit fable, where seppuku levels of self-sacrifice are forged with lemming-like gusto.… There is a spring-taut tension embedded in the pages.… Moss’s brevity is admirable, her language pristine.
Sinead Gleeson - Irish Times
[Combines] the components of a thriller with a nuanced understanding of history, its fluctuating interpretations and its often traumatic effect on the present.… Moss’s sensual writing recalls the late Helen Dunmore.… A bold, spare study of internecine conflict.
Catherine Taylor - New Statesman (UK)
(Starred review) [P]owerful and unsettling…. The novel’s highlight is Silvie, a perfectly calibrated consciousness that is energetic and lonely and prone to sharp and memorable observations…. This is a haunting, astonishing novel.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) This novella-length story is thought provoking on multiple levels, with insights into primitive and modern societies, and coming of age in the face of family violence —Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA
Library Journal
Tackling issues such as misogyny and class divides, Moss packs a lot into her brief but powerful narrative.
Booklist
[Explores] issues of class, sexuality, capitalism, and xenophobia…. [Moss's] decision to use unformatted dialogue…can be frustrating…, but it also shows Silvie's panic, confusion, and longing.…. A thorny, thoroughly original novel about human beings' capacity for violence.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for GHOST WALL … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about Silvie, the narrator of Ghost Wall, and her family, especially her father Bill. Why is Bill so desirous of participating in the Iron Age enactment? Why is it important for him to lay claim to ancient ancestry?
2. Talk about Silvie's flat, almost deadpan, observation that "There was a new bruise on her [mother's] arm." What does her tone tell us about the family dynamics?
3. Why does Bill disdain the modern world? Do you feel any sympathy for his anger, beliefs, or his personal quest for authenticity?
4. Silvie loves the natural world as much as her father, yet how does she differ from his need to claim it as his own?
5. How does Bill and his family compare to the university group of students and their professor? Talk about the class division between the two groups—how does class evidence itself? How seriously do the students take the enactment adventure? What is their attitude toward Bill and his need for original Britishness?
6. What does Sylvie learn from the university students? How does her association with them alter her perception of the world and of her future? Have they corrupted her or enlightened her?
7. Talk about how traditional gender roles begin to develop as the Iron Age enactment continues.
8. What prompts the men's decision to build a ghost wall? Why does it indicate that perhaps they have gone too far in channeling the tribal past? What did the wall mean in ancient times—and what does a wall mean today?
9. Ultimately, this book poses the question about the wild-man archetype? What is the human cost of this type of mythological nostalgia?
10. Why does Moss open with a prologue of human sacrifice? How does it make you feel reading it? Are we, as readers, somehow complicit in the act of sacrifice… or not?
11. As the book progressed, did you believe Bill capable of sacrificing his own daughter to the gods of the bog, as Sylvie comes to believe? Is the author pondering, perhaps, whether society has truly changed after a thousand years or so?
12. What about the book's ending?
13. Overall, what was your experience reading Ghost Wall—did it evoke a sense of dread, curiosity, or something else?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Ghosted
The Man Who Didn't Call (UK)
Rosie Walsh, 2018
Penguin Publising
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525522775
Summary
Seven perfect days. Then he disappeared. A love story with a secret at its heart.
When Sarah meets Eddie, they connect instantly and fall in love. To Sarah, it seems as though her life has finally begun.
And it's mutual: It's as though Eddie has been waiting for her, too. Sarah has never been so certain of anything. So when Eddie leaves for a long-booked vacation and promises to call from the airport, she has no cause to doubt him. But he doesn't call.
Sarah's friends tell her to forget about him, but she can't. She knows something's happened--there must be an explanation.
Minutes, days, weeks go by as Sarah becomes increasingly worried. But then she discovers she's right. There is a reason for Eddie's disappearance, and it's the one thing they didn't share with each other: the truth. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Stroud, Glouscestershire, England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Bristol, England
Rosie Walsh is a British documentary film maker and the author of several novels, four of which she wrote under the pen name Lucy Robinson. The fifth, Ghosted (UK: The Man Who Didn't Call), was published in 2018 under her real name.
Walsh grew up in the British countryside, in a small cottage in Gloucestershire, with her family and a band of what she refers to as "delinquent" animals. Long before she became a writer, Walsh attempted to become an actor. But when it was suggested in college (kindly we hope) that she wasn't particularly good, she ended up behind the scenes: writing and producing, first in TV broadcasting in London, later filming documentaries around the globe.
In 2009 Walsh turned to writing, but not to fiction—rather for her blog on the Marie Claire website. Her writing, however, caught the eye of a book editor who encouraged her try her hand at a novel. And so off to Buenos Aires, Walsh went ("like you do" she quips) to attempt her first book. A year later she had a published novel under her belt: The Greatest Love Story of All Times. Three more novels followed—A Passionate Love Affair With a Total Stranger (2012), The Unfinished Symphony of You and Me (2014), and The Day We Disappeared (2015)—all four works were under the pseudonym, Lucy Robinson.
In 2018, she published a fifth novel, this one as Rosie Walsh: Ghosted (The Man Who Didn't Call, UK).
Oh, and while working on that first novel in Argentina, the one with the British title, The Man Who Didn't Call? Well, she met the love of her life, and he did call. The two are now living in Bristol, England, with their son. (Adapted from the author's Lucy Robinson website and the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Walsh has a good ear for dialogue, and the mystery behind Eddie's disappearance is a particularly satisfying one.
Tina Jordan - New York Times Book Review
A gripping and surprising romantic suspense story.… You won't want to put it down.
NPR
Walsh’s bittersweet debut tackles the perils of modern dating.… Though the ending comes abruptly, this tale of heartbreak will please readers who enjoy a good twist.
Publishers Weekly
[A]n intricate story of mystery, deception, grief, and forgiveness that begins slowly and builds steam as the plot twists and turns, and steers clear of predictability.… [T]his novel will have readers ready to go back and reread it from the start.
Library Journal
(Starred review) A perfectly paced domestic drama centered on two lovely, lonesome people, Ghosted is a brilliant debut novel that explores the power of fate.… Walsh has a gift for blending complex characters, intricate backstories, and neck-snapping plot twists.
Booklist
[T]ension quickly amps up…. Walsh has created a deeply moving romance with an intriguing mystery and a touching portrait of grief at its heart.A romantic, sad, and ultimately hopeful book that's perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes.
Kirkus Reviews
A cleverly plotted romantic thriller filled with scandalous twists and turns and a juicy central mystery, Ghosted proves impossible to put down.… Deliciously addictive, surprising and sentimental.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
1. Assuming you have been in Sarah’s situation and have been ghosted—and, let’s face it, who hasn’t?—how did it make you feel? How did you react?
2. If you were Sarah’s friend, what advice would you have given her? Is there any point in giving advice to someone who believes she is in love?
3. The practice of disappearing to avoid telling someone you’re not interested is not new, but it has become more prevalent in the digital age. How has modern technology made ghosting worse?
4. In Eddie’s shoes, could you have forgiven Sarah? Could you have just "let it go" because you were deeply in love?
5. Did you feel that Eddie and Sarah were meant to be after their seven days together? Or was it the lost potential of the relationship that left Sarah so devastated? Is love at first sight—or close to first sight—possible?
6. Both Sarah and Eddie had to deal with the loss of someone dear to them; while Eddie stayed put, Sarah left as soon as she could. How did their expressions of grief differ?
7. Why do you think Jo and Tommy kept their relationship secret? Would you have done the same in their position?
8. Could you understand Eddie’s choice at the end of the book, or did you feel that he should have put his mother’s needs first?
9. Sarah is determined not to let her personal life affect her business. Can working with your ex ever lead to success? Would you be able to do it? Did you find Reuben’s professional conduct to be unacceptable, or did you feel that he was just deeply in love and no more able to control his behavior around Kaia than Sarah was with Eddie?
10. The ability—or inability—to forgive defines many of the characters in the book: from Eddie’s mother’s resistance to moving on, to Sarah’s inability to forgive herself, to Eddie’s crucial final decision on which the entire story hangs. Is it important to be able to forgive? Or are there some things that can never be excused?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)
Ghosts of Harvard
Francesca Serritella, 2020
Random House
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525510369
Summary
A Harvard freshman becomes obsessed with her schizophrenic brother’s suicide. Then she starts hearing voices.
Cadence Archer arrives on Harvard’s campus desperate to understand why her brother, Eric, a genius who developed paranoid schizophrenia took his own life there the year before.
Losing Eric has left a black hole in Cady’s life, and while her decision to follow in her brother’s footsteps threatens to break her family apart, she is haunted by questions of what she might have missed. And there’s only one place to find answers.
As Cady struggles under the enormous pressure at Harvard, she investigates her brother’s final year, armed only with a blue notebook of Eric’s cryptic scribblings. She knew he had been struggling with paranoia, delusions, and illusory enemies—but what tipped him over the edge?
Voices fill her head, seemingly belonging to three ghosts who passed through the university in life, or death, and whose voices, dreams, and terrors still echo the halls. Among them is a person whose name has been buried for centuries, and another whose name mankind will never forget.
Does she share Eric’s illness, or is she tapping into something else?
Cady doesn’t know how or why these ghosts are contacting her, but as she is drawn deeper into their worlds, she believes they’re moving her closer to the truth about Eric, even as keeping them secret isolates her further.
Will listening to these voices lead her to the one voice she craves—her brother’s—or will she follow them down a path to her own destruction? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Phildelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard Univeesity
• Awards—Thomas T. Hoopes Prize
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Francesca Serritella is the New York Times bestselling author of a nine-book series of essay collections co-written with her mother, bestselling author Lisa Scottoline, and based on "Chick Wit," their Sunday column in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Serittella graduated cum laude from Harvard University, where she won multiple awards for her fiction, including the Thomas T. Hoopes Prize. Ghosts of Harvard is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[S]weeping and beguiling…. [A] rich, intricately plotted thriller that gathers suspense velocity as Cady runs through the mazelike halls of academe and the winding streets of Cambridge, chasing after clues to the more sinister circumstances of Eric’s death. It’s a testament to Serritella’s sure touch that when Cady’s ghostly companions ultimately make their final departures, Harvard seems duller.
Maureen Corrigan - Washington Post
[B]risk, entertaining…. Serritella has a wonderful touch for her secondary characters… and Cady herself has a great voice. Readers of campus mysteries will love this surprising and intricate bildungsroman.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) The book begins as a thriller and ends as a story of personal growth and redemption. The writing is vivid and engaging, and it works for adults as well as for mature young adult readers.
Library Journal
[M]any-faceted… busily plotted, emotionally astute, thoughtfully paranormal, witty, and suspenseful drama…. Serritella has also created a sensitive and searching tale about… a smart young woman in mourning and in peril. Cady is a compelling narrator.
Booklist
Serritella is on shaky ground once the story veers into the supernatural. Cady’s conversations with the ghosts are tiresome and ultimately don’t add much to the narrative. In fact, they detract from what could have been a solid psychological thriller.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. College is often called "the happiest time" in a person’s life, but it can also be a stressful period of transition and pressure. In what ways are the anxieties Cady has going into college unique, and in what ways are they typical? What kinds of pressures are on young people today? Which were unique to you or your generation? Did anything about Serritella’s description of life at Harvard surprise you? Would you want to attend Harvard or send your child there?
2. In the book, Cady is haunted by Harvard’s past inhabitants, literally and figuratively, and burdened by the expectations of the future. Is there any time or place in your life where you felt the weight of history? What about a time in your life where you felt the pressure of high expectations? Did you feel motivated to rise to the occasion, or paralyzed by fear of failure?
3. Potential is a theme in this novel: the potential of genius, the pressure to live up to that potential, the potential of a predisposition to mental illness, the potential thwarted by slavery, discrimination, and war. In our culture, we love prodigies, wunderkind, and rising stars. Why is potential so fascinating and prized in our culture? Is it over-valued? Psychologists say it is generally easier to imagine positive outcomes rather than negative ones. Is that true for you?
4. At the outset of the novel, Cady’s identity has been shaken by the illness and loss of her brother, her hero. Her role in her family has also changed; once in the background, she is now the focus of her parents’ attention and concern. Do you think people get assigned roles in their family? Did that happen to you or your children? How do the stories families tell, and the stories we tell ourselves, shape our identity and expectations? Have you ever had to challenge those personal narratives or family myths?
5. Cady believes the voices she’s hearing are ghosts. On the other hand, she’s a lonely girl under acute emotional distress from a family with a history of mental illness. Do you think the ghosts are real, or is Cady suffering from auditory hallucinations? Why do you think so?
6. Cady likens the nature of the ghosts to visiting her childhood home years later, where "she could hear Eric’s little-boy voice echoing around the stairwell. Her family’s past selves were captured between those walls, preserved in memory, like an insect in amber." Later, Cady co-opts a theoretical physics concept about hidden dimensions in which space-time "folds over" to explain it. Do you believe in ghosts, or have you ever had a paranormal experience? If so, what is your "theory" of ghosts, what they’re like, and how they reach us? Do you agree with Whit that "ghosts don’t haunt the living. We haunt them?"
7. Cady regrets her role in what she believes was the turning point in Eric’s life that set him on a course of self-destruction. Although in reality, his life story wasn’t as simple a narrative as she thought. In what ways are the three ghosts at turning points in their own lives and at turning points in American history? How are they examples of potential thwarted? In retrospect, what was a turning point in your life?
8. Cady is haunted by those what-if scenarios: what if she could have said or done something different with her brother, could his death have been prevented? She carries those alternate realities in her mind and tortures herself with what could have been. She longs to rewrite history, and the ghosts initially seem to offer that chance—but it can never be done. Do you have any what-if parallel universes in your mind? Life with an ex-partner, a different career, a different life choice? Have you ever compared yourself or your choices to a hypothetical alternative? Is that fair to do?
9. As the novel states, "history is never as simple a narrative as we write in books." With controversies over Confederate monuments, Christopher Columbus, and the slave-holding history of lauded figures and institutions, we’re in a cultural moment where we’re challenging long-held histories. Is this upheaval necessary? Why is it painful to let go of idealized versions of historical figures or places? Did learning that Harvard’s leadership once participated in slavery change your perspective on the school? Which is more powerful, fact or fiction? Is a comforting lie ever preferable to a brutal truth?
10. Cady is haunted by why Eric killed himself. She goes to Harvard looking for answers, while suffering under the secret belief that it was her fault. By the end of the book, we learn other characters have traced their own lines of responsibility in Eric’s death. Can one simple narrative be accurate? What do you think were contributing factors to Eric’s suicide? Could his death have been prevented? Have you ever made a decision where you were confident of your assessment, only to later learn you didn’t have all the relevant information?
11. Sadly, suicide is the second-leading cause of death among people aged 10-24. Why do you think young people today might be at greater risk of suicide than in past decades? Are colleges doing enough to provide adequate mental health services to students? Do the privacy laws excluding parents from the medical care of their children, legally adults, help or hurt students’ well being?
12. Is grieving a suicide more difficult than other types of loss? If so, why? How can we better support those who have lost someone to suicide and dispel the unfair stigma?
13. The phrase Cady hears at the Sever entrance whispering wall, "It takes only an error to father a sin," is a genuine quote from the real Robert Oppenheimer. What do you think it means? Can you see how it applies to Oppenheimer’s life, both in the novel and in history? Do you think it applies to Cady’s story? What about your own? Are we responsible for all the unintended consequences of our actions?
14. Robert tells Cady, "I labor under my awful fact of excellence as if I am bound for extraordinary things. But even if, in the end, I’ve got to satisfy myself with testing toothpaste in a lab, I don’t want to know till it has happened." This snippet of dialogue is a quote from a genuine letter Robert Oppenheimer wrote during his Harvard days. Do you agree with him? If you could know your future, would you want to?
15. At the end of the novel, Cady thinks to herself, "Now she understood that we must love people whom we cannot control, in fact we are lucky to love and be loved by people we cannot control. If we could control the person, love wouldn’t be a gift." What do you think of this observation? Do you think you can control or influence your loved ones? Have you ever been frustrated by a loved one making a choice you didn’t agree with? Do you ever put pressure on yourself and your behavior, as if your actions could influence someone else’s? Does love fever mean letting go of control?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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Ghostwritten
David Mitchell, 1999
Knopf Doubleday
426 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375724503
Summary
In this ambitious and electrifying debut novel, David Mitchell engages us in a literary trek across the world of human experience through a mesmerizing series of linked narratives.
At once as alike and distinct as any two pinpoints on the globe, nine characters — a terrorist cult member in Okinawa, a record-shop clerk in Tokyo, a money-laundering British financier in Hong Kong, an old Buddhist woman running a tea shack in China, a transmigrating "noncorpum" entity seeking a human host in Mongolia, a gallery-attendant-cumart-thief in Petersburg, a drummer in London, a female physicist hiding from the CIA in Ireland, and a late-night radio deejay in New York — hurtle toward a shared destiny of astonishing impact.
Like the book's one nonhuman narrator, Mitchell latches onto his host characters and invades their lives with parasitic precision. And while the voices here remain completely oblivious to the bizarre ways in which their stories intersect, they converge to render Ghostwritten a sprawling and eerily well-crafted relief map of the modern world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 12, 1969
• Where—Southport, Lancashire, UK
• Education—B.A., M.A., University of Kent
• Awards—John Llewellyn Rhys Prize
• Currently—lives in County Cork, Ireland
David Mitchell is an English novelist, the author of several novels, two of which, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has lived in Italy, Japan and Ireland. Mitchell currently lives with his wife Keiko Yoshida and their two children in Ardfield, Clonakilty in County Cork, Ireland.
Early life
Mitchell was born in Southport in Merseyside, England, and raised in Malvern, Worcestershire. He was educated at Hanley Castle High School and at the University of Kent, where he obtained a degree in English and American Literature followed by an M.A. in Comparative Literature. He lived in Sicily for a year, then moved to Hiroshima, Japan, where he taught English to technical students for eight years, before returning to England, where he could live on his earnings as a writer and support his pregnant wife.
Work
Mitchell's first novel, Ghostwritten (1999), moves around the globe, from Okinawa to Mongolia to pre-Millennial New York City, as nine narrators tell stories that interlock and intersect. The novel won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (for best work of British literature written by an author under 35) and was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. His two subsequent novels, number9dream (2001) and Cloud Atlas (2004), were both shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2003, he was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. In 2007, Mitchell was listed among Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World.
In 2012 his novel Cloud Atlas was made into a film. In recent years he has also written opera libretti. Wake, based on the 2000 Enschede fireworks disaster and with music by Klaas de Vries, was performed by the Dutch Nationale Reisopera in 2010. For his other opera, Sunken Garden, he collaborated with the Dutch composer Michel van der Aa. It premiered in 2013 with the English National Opera.
Mitchell's sixth novel, The Bone Clocks, was released on September 2nd, 2014. In an interview in The Spectator, Mitchell said that the novel has "dollops of the fantastic in it", and is about "stuff between life and death." The book was longlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize.
Personal
In a Random House essay, Mitchell wrote:
I knew I wanted to be a writer since I was a kid, but until I came to Japan to live in 1994 I was too easily distracted to do much about it. I would probably have become a writer wherever I lived, but would I have become the same writer if I'd spent the last six years in London, or Cape Town, or Moose Jaw, on an oil rig or in the circus? This is my answer to myself.
Mitchell has the speech disorder of stammering and considers the film The King's Speech (2010) to be one of the most accurate portrayals of what it's like to be a stammerer: "I'd probably still be avoiding the subject today had I not outed myself by writing a semi-autobiographical novel, Black Swan Green, narrated by a stammering 13 year old."
One of Mitchell's children is autistic, and in 2013 he and wife Keiko translated into English a book written by a 13-year-old Japanese boy with autism, The Reason I Jump: One Boy's Voice from the Silence of Autism.
List of works
Novels
Ghostwritten (1999)
number9dream (2001)
Cloud Atlas (2004)
Black Swan Green (2006)
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (2010)
The Bone Clocks (2014)
Slade House (2015)
Utopia Avenue (2020)
(Bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/4/2014.)
Book Reviews
An intricately assembled Faberge egg of a novel, full of sly and sometimes beautiful surprises...[Mitchell's] book is worth a dozen of the morally anorexic first novels that regularly come down the pipe.
David Mendelsohn - New York Magazine
Ghostwritten is a brave new book for a brave new world—one encompassing globalism and grunge rock, folk tales, talking trees and terrorism. Far-out Cyberstuff. David Mitchell's breathlessly sprawling debut novel is inhabited by a large cast of spirits and unsettled souls who transmigrate faster than a bond trader reacts to a Greenspan blink. All of this intensely imaginative material is packaged as nine tales told by nine narrators from around the world. A long, strange trip it is!
Ann Prichard - USA Today
David Mitchell served notice that he would be remaking the traditional novel when his first book, Ghostwritten, published in 1999 just after he turned 30, ingeniously braided together nine stories in eight countries and suggested that the same unchanging spirit ran through its central characters, whether in Hong Kong, St. Petersburg or a New York City radio station. Forget multiculturalism: this was novel globalism and an inquiry into what the boundary-dissolving author called transmigration.
Pico Iyer - Time Magazine
This is one of the best first novels I've read for a long time. It's told in a series of gripping, interconnecting tales, in many voices, all of them imaginatively urgent. For all the plot's dazzling complexity, Mitchell's writing—which has many styles—is always simple and elegant. His people always engage the imagination, and the book is never clotted by its ambitions. It easily covers the global village but there's no sense that it's striving for multiculturalism or spectacular effects—just that Mitchell knows what he's doing. I read a proof of this on a transatlantic flight. When I got off in Atlanta, I couldn't put it down. I pulled my luggage in one hand along corridors and escalators, and held David Mitchell's last chapter up to my nose with the other. I finished at the carousel. It seemed appropriate. And it's even better the second time.
A.S Byatt
Nine disparate but interconnected tales (and a short coda) in Mitchell's impressive debut examine 21st-century notions of community, coincidence, causality, catastrophe and fate. Each episode in this mammoth sociocultural tapestry is related in the first person, and set in a different international locale. The gripping first story introduces Keisuke Tanaka, aka Quasar, a fanatical Japanese doomsday cultist who's on the lam in Okinawa after completing a successful gas attack in a Tokyo subway. The links between Quasar and the novel's next narrator, Satoru Sonada, a teenage jazz aficionado, are tenuous at first. Both are denizens of Tokyo; both tend toward nearly monomaniacal obsessiveness; both went to the same school (albeit at different times) and shared a common teacher, the crass Mr. Ikeda. As the plot progresses, however, the connections between narrators become more complex, richly imaginative and thematically suggestive. Key symbols and metaphors repeat, mutating provocatively in new contexts. Innocuous descriptions accrue a subtle but probing irony through repetition; images of wild birds taking flight, luminous night skies and even bloody head wounds implicate and involve Mitchell's characters in an exquisitely choreographed dance of coincidence, connection and fluid, intuitive meanings. Other performers include a corrupt but (literally) haunted Hong Kong lawyer; an unnamed, time-battered Chinese tea-shop proprietress; a nomadic, disembodied intelligence on a voyage of self-discovery through Mongolia; a seductive and wily Russian art thief; a London-based musician, ghostwriter and ne'er-do-well; a brilliant but imperiled Irish physicist; and a loud-mouthed late-night radio-show host who unwittingly brushes with a global cyber-catastrophe. Already a sensation on its publication in England, Mitchell's wildly variegated story can be abstruse and elusive in its larger themes, but the gorgeous prose and vibrant, original construction make this an accomplishment not to be missed.
Publishers Weekly
Gleefully self-referential, slyly philosophical, subtly postmodern, Mitchell's debut novel consists of nine intertwining tales and the people who move within and among them. Spanning the globe—from teeming Tokyo to the isolated Holy Mountain, from the idyllic Clear Island to Old Man London—the characters also run the gamut: criminal, professional, genius, provincial, fanatic. The novel evades the reader's aim to discern a moral, instead exploring the motions of consciousness through various lives in nine distinct and elegant voices. Although the numerous viewpoints can be distancing, the challenges of this intellectual puzzle propel the reader to the rather bizarre but compelling last two chapters. As Mitchell's Mr. Cavendish purports, "We all think we're in control of our own lives, but really they're pre-ghostwritten by forces around us." So how well does the thing read? Very well. Perhaps not revelatory, but this contemplative pleasure of a book is recommended for all public libraries. —Ann Kim
Library Journal
It is a thrill to read a piece of fiction this engrossing, challenging, urgent, and, ultimately, so very new. This book, which would be remarkable even if it weren't a first novel, was published last year in Great Britain to critical acclaim.... Reminiscent at times of DeLillo, Murakami, and science fiction, especially in its continual probing of what is real and what is not, this book remains very much its own thing: a novel of the twenty-first century. —Brian Kenney
Booklist
An inordinately ambitious first novel, the work of a Westerner living in Japan, traces a chain of events that affect lives on several continents, explored in stories "ghostwritten" by other (in some cases, literally alien) intelligences than those of the people who experience them.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
The Gift Counselor
Sheila M. Cronin, 2014
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780996046008
Summary
Jonquil Bloom is a single mom and UCLA graduate student doing research about gift-giving. Needing to support herself, she is hired at a local department store and becomes the gift counselor. She believes all gifts come with strings attached, but can she prove it?
Claude Chappel is the general contractor on the new construction job opposite the building where Jonquil lives. He is ready to settle down. Meeting Jonquil and befriending her son Billy make up his mind. He doesn’t know that Jonquil’s caution is due to a sudden upsurge of painful memories. Can he win her heart?
Billy Bloom has his heart set on getting a dog that Christmas. Not just any dog, but a black cocker spaniel puppy who lives down the street. His mother, the gift counselor, won’t allow it because she’s allergic to dogs. Or is she?
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., St. Mary's College; M.S., Hahnemann Medical Graduate School
• Currently—lives in Chicago
Sheila M. Cronin received a Master’s degree in mental health sciences from Hahnemann Medical Graduate School of Philadelphia. She practiced art therapy for ten years before relocating to Los Angeles to pursue creative writing. While on the west coast, she worked at Princess Cruises and had the privilege of being onboard escort to James A. Michener and his wife in Alaska.
Cronin's short romance, "Airport Love Story," appeared in the WritersNet Anthology of Prose: Fiction (Writers Club Press, 2002). In 2003, Sun-Maid Raisins hired her to compose "sayings" for the outside flaps of their lunch-size raisin boxes, which are published worldwide. She has also been published in Woman's World Magazine. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
The Gift Counselor is a lovely surprise, like a thoughtful gift from a dear friend.
Windy City Reviews
Wonderful, feel-good story.
Franciscanmom.com
The characters are ones you will come to care for and root for.
Beacher Weekly Newspaper
Discussion Questions
1. In what ways does a gift counselor differ from a personal shopper?
2. How does Rita influence Jonquil? How does Jonquil influence Rita?
3. Identify 3 events in the story that lead to Jonquil’s realization that true gifts are free. Did your ideas about gifts change as you read the story?
4. How is Claude able to get Jonquil to trust him?
5. Margo Bloom is the key figure in Jonquil’s childhood. Did you have a grandparent that influenced your life?
6. Billy Bloom has a generous nature. True or false. Give examples.
7. Mr. Merrill enjoys testing out new toys. The light moments offset the darker themes in the story. What lighter moments stand out for you?
8. What do you imagine happened to Jonquil’s father, John Bloom that caused him to disappear?
9. Would you want to talk to a gift counselor?
10. Which character did you care about most and why?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Gifted
John Daniel, 2017
Counterpoint Press
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781619029200
Summary
Henry Fielder, solitary and unmoored in his thirties, runs into an old lover and finds himself ready to tell the story he has harbored for two decades.
He is fifteen, in rural western Oregon, enduring a year of sorrows. His mother has died, his father is physically abusive, and his extraordinary spiritual affinity for the wild lives of his native country seems to desert him. An older couple, retiring to the area from California, offer solace and expanded cultural horizons but set him further at odds with his millworker father.
The abuse escalates, and ultimately a natural disaster catalyzes a crisis in which father and son betray each othe. Henry sets out on a trek through the backcountry of the Oregon Coast Range, seeking to understand what has happened and to forge a new sense of self.
A Huck Finn of the modern age, Henry is portrayed with a directness and clarity that pulls readers through the environmental dynamics of the Pacific Northwest.
In stark yet beautiful prose that highlights his long tenure as a nature writer, Daniel creates an odyssey that explores the spiritual dimensions and deeply entangled pains and pleasures of belonging to the human domain and the natural world of which it is part.
Set in the mid-1990s, when environmentalists and timber communities warred over the future of the last Northwestern old-growth forests, Gifted is the story of a young man with a metaphysical imagination—naïve yet wise, gifted yet ordinary—who comes of age under harsh circumstances, negotiating the wildness of his home country, of his human relationships, and of the emerging complexities of his own being. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1948
• Where—State of South Carolina, USA
• Raised—near Washington, D.C.
• Education—Reed College (no degree); M.A., Stanford University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives near Eugen, Oregon
John Daniel is an American poet, essayist, memoirist, novelist and teacher. In all, he has written some 10 books, most recently his 2017 debut novel, Gifted.
Daniel was born in South Carolina, raised outside of Washington, D.C., and in 1966 attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He dropped out of Reed but stayed in the West. spending the next 24 years as a logger, railroad inspector, and climbing instructor, among other jobs.
During all that time, Daniel was writing poetry, and in 1982 he won the prestigious Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry at Stanford University. He remained at Stanford to earn his M.A. and for the next five years taught Poetry and freshman English.
He now earns a living writing, as well as teaching—in workshops and writer-in-residence programs around the country.
Writing
In addition to his novel, Gifted, Daniel has published a book of essays, The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and Literature (2009); Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone (2005), part journal and part memoir; Winter Creek: One Writer’s Natural History (2002); and Looking After: A Son’s Memoir (1996), about caring for his dying mother.
He has also published three volumes of poetry — Of Earth: New and Selected Poems (2012), All Things Touched by Wind (1994), and Common Ground (1988).
His work can be found in Audubon, Outside, Southwest Review, Western American Literature, Portland Magazine, Open Spaces, Oregon Humanities, Orion, and in more than 20 textbooks and anthologies.
Recognition
Daniel's poetry has won him a Pushcart Prize, John Burroughs Nature Essay Award, three Oregon Book Awards, and a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award.
In addition to the Wallace Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, he has also been selected for the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency, a Research and Writing Fellowship from Oregon State University’s Center for the Humanities, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
He has served as chair of PEN Northwest, serves as a judge for, or on the boards of, various literary organizations. He lives with his wife in the Coast Range foothills, west of Eugene, Oregon. (Adapted from the author's bio.)
Book Reviews
“Sunrise and sunset are made of the same light, and, like gladness and sadness, you can’t have one without the other.” These words arise in the mind of Henry Fielder at the age of 16. Think he might be an old soul? Yes, oh yes. His beloved mother dies when he is 15. Then later his father kicks the bucket when a tree falls on their house in rural western Oregon. If that plotline sounds like a formulaic YA premise, don’t go there. This novel runs deep. Henry is one of those kids who doesn’t talk much, who walks the woods in wonder. Woodland creatures who usually bolt away from humans instead step closer to Henry and they share spirit. That is his gift and those are the moments Henry lives for. READ MORE …
Keddy Ann Outlaw - LitLovers
Daniel explores an ecology of natives and invasives — plant and animal — while rendering clear-cuts and second-growth forests with the same keen eye for beauty as he does towering old growths.… His protagonist spends much of the book avoiding truths small and large…but the novel is most intriguing when Daniel pits dishonesty between his characters, not between writer and reader. In justifying the writing, Daniel undermines the terrifying and humbling aspects of his remarkable story — reasons enough to write it.
Marc Bojanowski - New York Times Book Review
[E]loquent.… [Daniel's] digressions about the landscape mirror Henry’s own attempts to find solace in an unjust, confusing world. Daniel’s impressive novel quietly builds, ending in a place where Henry can see the way…into a much more beautiful, logical future.
Publishers Weekly
Lyrical evocations of nature clash with shocking revelations of human nature in this coming-of-age story set in and around the deep woods of western Oregon in the 1990s.… An insightful though rambling stroll through the wilderness of adolescence and the Oregon woods.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Gifted … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about Henry's Fielder's childhood--his mother's death and his father's abusive behavior. How has so much sorrow and hardship in Henry's young life affected him?
2. In what way does the beauty of the natural world offer solace to the boy? Do you ever—or frequently—turn to nature to find comfort, release, or repose?
3. Talk about this passage: "Sunrise and sunset are made of the same light, and, like gladness and sadness, you can’t have one without the other.” Select other passages you find evocative or poignant or insightful in how they capture Henry's isolation and loneliness.
4. Henry also turns to the stories of native Americans that his mother loved. How do those lift him up? What does he find in them?
5.Consider the the way in which Henry seems haunted by the presence of his parents, first his mother, later his father. Are what he experiences dreams…or visions? In what way do they seem to heal? Is Henry a sort of shamanistic figure (someone who accesses an altered state of reality —a trance, perhaps— in order to interact with the spiritual world)?
6. What about Henry as a student—he's not a particularly "good" one. Yet he loves "biologycosmologyphilosophyreli
7. Talk about the role that Carter and Josie Stephens play in Henry's life. Also discuss the Sweet Grass Confederacy and it's role. How would you describe the commune?
8. Henry admits that he sometimes plays fast and lose with the truth in his retelling. Where is his story unreliable, and why does he admit to deception?
9. How did you experience the violence at the heart of the novel? Too much? Sensational? Or done purely in the service of the story?
10. What is the meaning of the novel's title? What does "gifted" mean in the context of the story?
11. Where you caught off guard by the twist and the end of the novel involving Lynn?
12. Is the ending of the novel hopeful?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, oneline or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Gilead
Marilynne Robinson, 2004
Macmillan Picador
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312424404
Summary
Winner, 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award
Winner, 2005 Pulitizer Prize
In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's life, he begins a letter to his young son, an account of himself and his forebears. Ames is the son of an Iowan preacher and the grandson of a minister who, as a young man in Maine, saw a vision of Christ bound in chains and came west to Kansas to fight for abolition: He "preached men into the Civil War," then, at age fifty, became a chaplain in the Union Army, losing his right eye in battle.
Reverend Ames writes to his son about the tension between his father—an ardent pacifist—and his grandfather, whose pistol and bloody shirts, concealed in an army blanket, may be relics from the fight between the abolitionists and those settlers who wanted to vote Kansas into the union as a slave state. And he tells a story of the sacred bonds between fathers and sons, which are tested in his tender and strained relationship with his namesake, John Ames Boughton, his best friend's wayward son.
This is also the tale of another remarkable vision—not a corporeal vision of God but the vision of life as a wondrously strange creation. It tells how wisdom was forged in Ames's soul during his solitary life, and how history lives through generations, pervasively present even when betrayed and forgotten.
Gilead is the long-hoped-for second novel by one of our finest writers, a hymn of praise and lamentation to the God-haunted existence that Reverend Ames loves passionately, and from which he will sooon part. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 26, 1943
• Where—Sandpoint, Idaho, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University
• Awards—PEN/Hemingway Award;National Book Critics Circle Award; Pulitzer Prize; Orange Prize
• Currently—Iowa City, Iowa
Marilynne Robinson was born and raised in Idaho, where her family has lived for several generations. She recieved a B.A. from Brown University in 1966 and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of Washington in 1977.
Housekeeping, her first novel, was published in 1981 and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for First Fiction and the American Academy and Institute's Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Award. Mother Country, an examination of Great Britain's role in radioactive environmental pollution, was published in 1989. Robinson published Gilead in 2004 and Home in 2008. Home won the 2009 Orange Prize. She lives in Iowa City, Iowa, with her family. (From the publisher.)
More
For someone who has labored long in the literary vineyard, Marilynne Robinson has produced a remarkably slim oeuvre. However, in this case, quality clearly trumps quantity. Her 1980 debut, Housekeeping, snagged the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Twenty-four years later, her follow-up novel, Gilead, won the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Ambassador Book Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. And in between, her controversial extended essay Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State and Nuclear Pollution (1989) was shortlisted for the National Book Award.
Robinson is far from indolent. She teaches at several colleges and has written several articles for Harper's, Paris Review, the New York Times Book Review, and other publications. Still, one wonders—especially in the face of her great critical acclaim—why she hasn't produced more full-length works. When asked about these extended periods of literary dormancy, Robinson told Barnes & Noble.com, "I feel as if I have to locate my own thinking landscape... I have to do that by reading—basically trying to get outside the set of assumptions that sometimes seems so small or inappropriate to me." What that entails is working through various ideas that often don't develop because, as she says, "I couldn't love them."
Still, occasionally Robinson is able to salvage something important from the detritus—for example, Gilead's central character, Reverend John Ames. "I was just working on a piece of fiction that I had been fiddling with," Robinson explains. "There was a character whom I intended as a minor character... he was a minister, and he had written a little poem, and he transformed himself, and he became quite different—he became the narrator. I suddenly knew a great deal about him that was very different from what I assumed when I created him as a character in the first place."
This tendency of Robinson's to regard her characters as living, thinking beings may help to explain why her fictional output is so small. While some authors feel a deep compulsion to write daily, approaching writing as a job, Robinson depends on inspiration which often comes from the characters themselves. She explains, "I have to have a narrator whose voice tells me what to do—whose voice tells me how to write the novel."
As if to prove her point, in 2008, Robinson crafted the luminous novel Home around secondary characters from Gilead: John Ames's closest friend, Reverend Robert Boughton, his daughter Glory, and his reprobate son Jack. Paying Robinson the ultimate compliment, Kirkus Reviews declared that the novel "[c]omes astonishingly close to matching its amazing predecessor in beauty and power."
However, the deeply spiritual Robinson is motivated by a more personal directive than the desire for critical praise or bestsellerdom. Like the writing of Willa Cather—or, more contemporaneously, Annie Dillard—her novels are suffused with themes of faith, atonement, and redemption. She equates writing to prayer because "it's exploratory and you engage in it in the hope of having another perspective or seeing beyond what is initially obvious or apparent to you." To this sentiment, Robinson's many devoted fans can only add: Amen.
Extras
• Robinson doesn't just address religion in her writing. She serves as a deacon at the Congregational Church to which she belongs.
• One might think that winning a Pulitzer Prize could easily go to a writer's head, but Robinson continues to approach her work with surprising humility. In fact, her advice to aspiring writers is to always "assume your readers are smarter than you are."
• Robinson is no stranger to controversy. Mother Country, her indictment of the destruction of the environment and those who feign to protect it, has raised the ire of Greenpeace, which attempted to sue her British publisher for libel. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
A treasure of a book. While based upon Biblical scripture, it's illuminating for every faith or non-faith. It is about the requirement of living up to the best parts of ourselves—and about the blessing and awe and mystery of all existence. It's a lot packed into a fairly small book. Robinson shows us Christianity writ large, an expansive but difficult faith, which calls upon us to put aside petty anger and accept a divine requirement to love our enemy. Read More...
A LitLovers LitPick (Oct. '08)
Gilead is a beautiful work — demanding, grave and lucid — and is, if anything, more out of time than Robinson's book of essays, suffused as it is with a Protestant bareness that sometimes recalls George Herbert (who is alluded to several times, along with John Donne) and sometimes the American religious spirit that produced Congregationalism and 19th-century Transcendentalism and those bareback religious riders Emerson, Thoreau and Melville.
James Wood - The New York Times
Marilynne Robinson draws on all of these associations in her new novel, which — let's say this right now — is so serenely beautiful, and written in a prose so gravely measured and thoughtful, that one feels touched with grace just to read it. Gilead possesses the quiet ineluctable perfection of Flaubert's A Simple Heart as well as the moral and emotional complexity of Robert Frost's deepest poetry. There's nothing flashy in these pages, and yet one regularly pauses to reread sentences, sometimes for their beauty, sometimes for their truth: "Adulthood is a wonderful thing, and brief. You must be sure to enjoy it while it lasts."
Michael Dirda - The Washington Post
Fans of Robinson's acclaimed debut Housekeeping (1981) will find that the long wait has been worth it. From the first page of her second novel, the voice of Rev. John Ames mesmerizes with his account of his life-and that of his father and grandfather. Ames is 77 years old in 1956, in failing health, with a much younger wife and six-year-old son; as a preacher in the small Iowa town where he spent his entire life, he has produced volumes and volumes of sermons and prayers, "[t]rying to say what was true." But it is in this mesmerizing account-in the form of a letter to his young son, who he imagines reading it when he is grown-that his meditations on creation and existence are fully illumined. Ames details the often harsh conditions of perishing Midwestern prairie towns, the Spanish influenza and two world wars. He relates the death of his first wife and child, and his long years alone attempting to live up to the legacy of his fiery grandfather, a man who saw visions of Christ and became a controversial figure in the Kansas abolitionist movement, and his own father's embittered pacifism. During the course of Ames's writing, he is confronted with one of his most difficult and long-simmering crises of personal resentment when John Ames Boughton (his namesake and son of his best friend) returns to his hometown, trailing with him the actions of a callous past and precarious future. In attempting to find a way to comprehend and forgive, Ames finds that he must face a final comprehension of self-as well as the worth of his life's reflections. Robinson's prose is beautiful, shimmering and precise; the revelations are subtle but never muted when they come, and the careful telling carries the breath of suspense. There is no simple redemption here; despite the meditations on faith, even readers with no religious inclinations will be captivated. Many writers try to capture life's universals of strength, struggle, joy and forgiveness-but Robinson truly succeeds in what is destined to become her second classic.
Publishers Weekly
As his life winds down, Rev. John Ames relates the story of his own father and grandfather, both preachers but one a pacifist and one a gun-toting abolitionist. Amazingly, just Robinson's second novel.
Library Journal
The wait since 1981 and Housekeeping is over. Robinson returns with a second novel that, however quiet in tone and however delicate of step, will do no less than tell the story of America—and break your heart. A reverend in tiny Gilead, Iowa, John Ames is 74, and his life is at its best—and at its end. Half a century ago, Ames's first wife died in childbirth, followed by her new baby daughter, and Ames, seemingly destined to live alone, devoted himself to his town, church, and people—until the Pentecost Sunday when a young stranger named Lila walked into the church out of the rain and, from in back, listened to Ames's sermon, then returned each Sunday after. The two married—Ames was 67—had a son, and life began all over again. But not for long. In the novel's present (mid-1950s), Ames is suffering from the heart trouble that will soon bring his death. And so he embarks upon the writing of a long diary, or daily letter—the pages of Gilead—addressed to his seven-year-old son so he can read it when he's grown and know not only about his absent father but his own history, family, and heritage. And what a letter it is! Not only is John Ames the most kind, observant, sensitive, and companionable of men to spend time with, but his story reaches back to his patriarchal Civil War great-grandfather, fiery preacher and abolitionist; comes up to his grandfather, also a reverend and in the War; to his father; and to his own life, spent in his father's church. This long story of daily life in deep Middle America—addressed to an unknown and doubting future—is never in the slightest way parochial or small, but instead it evokes on the pulse the richest imaginable identifying truths of what America was. Robinson has composed, with its cascading perfections of symbols, a novel as big as a nation, as quiet as thought, and moving as prayer. Matchless and towering.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What was your perception of the narrator in the opening paragraphs? In what ways did your understanding of him change throughout the novel? Did John's own perception of his life seem to evolve as well?
2. Biblical references to Gilead (a region near the Jordan River) describe its plants as having healing properties. The African American spiritual, "There Is a Balm in Gilead" equates Jesus with this balm. According to some sources, the Hebrew origin of the word simply means "rocky area." Do these facts make Gilead an ironic or symbolically accurate title for the novel?
3. The vision experienced by John's grandfather is a reminder that the Christ he loves identifies utterly with the oppressed and afflicted, whom he must therefore help to free. He is given his mission, like a biblical prophet. This kind of vision was reported by many abolitionists, and they acted upon it as he did. What guides John in discerning his own mission?
4. How does John seem to feel about his brother's atheism in retrospect? What accounts for Edward's departure from the church? What enabled John to retain his faith?
5. The rituals of communion and baptism provide many significant images throughout the novel. What varied meanings do John and his parishioners ascribe to them? What makes him courageous enough to see the sacred in every aspect of life?
6. One of the most complex questions for John to address is the notion of salvation — how it is defined, and how (or whether) God determines who receives it. How do the novel's characters convey assorted possibilities about this topic? What answers would you have given to the questions John faces regarding the fate of souls and the nature of pain in the world?
7. Marilynne Robinson included several quotations from Scripture and hymns; John expresses particular admiration for Isaac Watts, an eighteenth-century English minister whose hymns were widely adopted by various Protestant denominations. Do you believe that certain texts are divinely inspired? What is the role of metaphor in communicating about spiritual matters?
8. Discuss the literary devices used in this novel, such as its epistolary format, John's finely honed voice, and the absence of conventional chapter breaks (save for a long pause before Jack's marriage is revealed). How would you characterize Gilead's narrative structure?
9. What commentary does John offer about the differences between his two wives? Do you agree with Jack when he calls John's marriage unconventional?
10. John describes numerous denominations in his community, including Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Quakers, and Congregationalists. What can you infer from the presence of such variety? Or does the prevalence of Protestants mean that there is little religious variety in Gilead?
11. What might John think of current religious controversies in America? In what ways are his worries and joys relevant to twenty-first-century life?
12. John grapples mightily with his distrust of Jack. Do you believe John writes honestly about the nature of that distrust? What issues contribute to these struggles with his namesake?
13. Discuss the author's choice of setting for Gilead. Is there a difference between the way religion manifests itself in small towns versus urban locales? What did you discover about the history of Iowa's rural communities and about the strain of radicalism in Midwestern history? Did it surprise you?
14. Abolition drew John's grandfather to the Midwest, and the novel concludes at the dawn of the civil rights movement. In what ways does this evolution of race relations mirror the changes John has witnessed in society as a whole?
15. Is Gilead a microcosm for American society in general?
16. In his closing lines, John offers a sort of benediction to his son, praying that he will "grow up a brave man in a brave country" and "find a way to be useful." Do you predict a future in which his hope came true? What do you imagine John experiences in his final sleep?
17. Robinson's beloved debut novel, Housekeeping, features a narrator with a voice just as distinctive as John's. Do the longings conveyed in Housekeeping and Gilead bear any resemblance to one another? How might John have counseled Ruth?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Gilgamesh
Joan London, 2003
Grove/Atlantic
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802141217
Summary
Gilgamesh is a rich, spare, and evocative novel of encounters and escapes, of friendship and love, of loss and acceptance, a debut that marks the emergence of a world-class talent. It is 1937, and the modern world is waiting to erupt.
On a farm in rural Australia, seventeen-year-old Edith lives with her mother and her sister, Frances. One afternoon two men, her English cousin Leopold and his Armenian friend Aram, arrive-taking the long way home from an archaeological dig in Iraq—to captivate Edith with tales of a world far beyond the narrow horizon of her small town of Nunderup. One such story is the epic of Gilgamesh, the ancient Mesopotamian king who traveled the world in search of eternal life. Two years later, in 1939, Edith and her young son, Jim, set off on their own journey, to Soviet Armenia, where they are trapped by the outbreak of war.
Rich, spare, and evocative, Gilgamesh won The Age Book of the Year Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Literary Award alongside Richard Flanagan's. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 24, 1948
• Where—Perth, Western Australia
• Education—B.A., University of Western Australia
• Awards—Age Book of The Year (Australian) (twice)
• Currently—lives in Fremantle, Western Australia
Joan London is also the author of two collections of stories, Letter to Constantine and Sister Ships.
She has twice won The Age Book of The Year Award for Fiction, for Gilgamesh and for her story collection, Sister Ships. Gilgamesh was also a finalist for the New South Wales Premier's Christina Stead Prize and the Western Australian Premier's Award for Fiction. It was also short-listed for the Miles Franklin Literary Award with Tim Winton's Dirt Music and Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish.
The Good Parents, her second novel, was published in 2008. (From Wikipedia and the publisher.)
Book Reviews
An engrossing story that bristles with local detail, whether in rural Australia, England, or the Caucasus. Stoutly eschewing sentimentality, London reveals her contrasting characters as flawed beings that thieve, betray, and hold deep grudges; however, the love that holds together Edith, Leopold, and the Armenian’s son overcomes all.
Canberra Times (Australia)
London’s narrative is continuously articulated by unobtrusive yet carefully plotted references to titanic off-stage events. . . . These background events serve to emphasize the self-centered and individual aspects of her heroine’s quest. . . . Her prose is likewise unforced, adroit and understated, the equivalent of a classical string quartet rather than an Eroica Symphony in the Romantic mode. . . . Given the increasingly democratic nature of Western societies, how to elevate ordinary lives to a heroic or tragic level has been a noticeable preoccupation of literary writers for more than a century. . . . It is part of the overall restraint of London's work that she raises this central question but does not force a dogmatic answer upon the reader.
Tim Gibbons - West Australian
To get a sense of what Gilgamesh is like, imagine one of those Outback bodice-rippers put on a strict diet, pared down to essentials, purged of the excess water weight of set pieces involving eroticized sheep-shearing and adorable kangaroos.
Francine Prose - New York Times Book Reviw
Joan London's glancing, iridescent, intelligent first novel doesn't do anything so crass as suggest a moral. But if it did, it might come close to the truth old Frank glimpsed hazily on his deathbed: Whatever "the point of it" is, it still has to be worked out anew in each generation. Gilgamesh and his story are there to remind us that this is as close to immortality as we may ever get.
Elizabeth Ward - Washington Post
A compelling debut....The epic scope of the novel is complemented by an extraordinary sensitivity to detail. From the intractable Australian outback to a shabby-genteel London rooming house, from the Orient Express to the Armenian city of Yerevan simmering under Soviet occupation, the settings glow with a dream like intensity, evoking both the allure of adventure and the ambivalent embrace of home.
Amanda Heller - Boston Globe
This novel by Australian Joan London was a finalist for several major prizes in her native land, and it's easy to see why. Its story—of a 17-year-old girl living in a remote corner of the country who bears a child by a briefly visiting Armenian and then follows him to his native land, in the Soviet Union on the brink of WWII—is riveting in its strangeness and immediacy, evoking with stark power a world almost inconceivably isolated and remote. Right from the start, when Frank, a veteran of WWI, brings his nurse and inamorata Ada with him to live on his farm in southwestern Australia, we are in a vividly realized and elemental landscape. And when their daughter Edith is seduced by the strange Aram (the driver for her mother's British friend), gives birth to baby Jim and a few months later sets off to seek the boy's elusive father in his remote country, one has entered the realm of the legendary and epic journey conjured by the book's title. The chapters covering Edith's sojourn in Soviet Armenia, threatened by both Germans and Russians, are unforgettable, brought to life in myriad brilliant details. Only when Edith returns to Australia after the war and gradually picks up the threads of her old life does the story begin to lose its grip. London's stark prose and command of a wonderfully maintained brooding atmosphere, however, make this an adventure to remember. London is the author of two story collections, but this novel marks her U.S. debut. It can be confidently handsold to admirers of Tim Winton and Kate Grenville.
Publishers Weekly
Edith Clark is only 17 when two strangers pierce the insular world she has inhabited since birth. Full of stories both real and fabricated-including that of Mesopotamian King Gilgamesh and his partner, Enkidu-British cousin Leopold and his Armenian friend Aram introduce Edith to a life in which adventure is routine and opportunity abundant. Against a backdrop of pre-World War II anxiety, Edith and Aram bond, and Edith becomes pregnant. Although Aram leaves Edith's rural Australian home before she discovers the pregnancy, the book never descends into soap opera. Instead, it follows Edith as she struggles to raise her son while simultaneously satisfying her need for self-fulfillment. The novel, short-listed for Australia's The Age Book of the Year Award, explores numerous themes, including friendship, loyalty, mental illness, and the role of mourning in daily life. It also examines race, class, and gender, but with such subtlety it feels accidental. London (daughter of Jack and author of two story collections, Sister Ships and Letter to Constantine) writes with power, vision, and poignancy. Highly recommended. —Eleanor J. Bader, Brooklyn, NY.
Library Journal
First novel, as well as a first US appearance, for Australian author London: the story of an Australian woman who travels halfway around the world in pursuit of the man she loves. Edith Clark grew up in the outback of southwestern Australia, but her roots-and heart-were elsewhere. Her parents were English immigrants who sought a new start after WWI, but Edith's father Frank knew nothing of farm life and failed badly at it. He died while Edith was still a girl, leaving her, her mother, and sister to fend for themselves. The genteel Ada, descended into chronic depression, while Edith's sister Frances, swallowed up in a religious mania, became a preacher. Edith, more conventionally, fell in love with a bad man: Armenian archaeologist Aram Sinanien, a friend of Edith's cousin Leopold, who visited the Clarks on his return from a dig in 1937. An ardent nationalist, Aram left Edith pregnant in Australia to return to his homeland (under Soviet control) to fight with the underground independence movement. Edith gave birth to his son, then set off, baby in tow, to find him in Armenia. A difficult trip in the best of times, this was almost a suicide mission after the outbreak of WWII. But Edith crossed the Soviet borders with surprising ease and quickly made contact with friends of Aram's, who agreed to help her search for him. She was able, too, against all odds, to travel mostly unmolested with her infant son through the war zones. Perhaps she should have doubted her own luck a bit, or stopped to wonder whether she was being used as bait by the NKVD. But such considerations were lost on Edith, who (like all true lovers) never stopped to weigh the pros and cons of her quest. London's story gradually works up a head of steam and by the end becomes quite engrossing—even if the two-souls-caught-in-the-maelstrom-of-history theme comes across as a poor knockoff of Dr. Zhivago.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Today, in a time when suspicions, misperceptions, and acts of aggression among cultures have led us to war, the issues of the novel Gilgamesh are peculiarly relevant, even urgent. Think about and talk about the crossings of cultural boundaries in the story. Russia, England, Australia, Armenia, Iraq, Syria—all are explored by the characters. When is there a real understanding of another culture? When is a character blocked by the entrenched differences?
2. In Gilgamesh there are cycles of quests, with younger generations recapitulating earlier journeys. Cite some of these quests and revisitings by the characters. Leopold? Aram? Edith? Jim? Even Irina and Ada? In what ways does the past continually become present?
3. The Babylonian epic Gilgamesh provides the thematic analogue for the novel (you can find information on-line, and Penguin has a good translation). The epic, acknowledged to be our oldest literary masterpiece, prefiguring incidents and themes in Homer and the Bible, is truly a work in progress as ancient cuneiform tablets continue to be discovered, particularly in Iraq. It is the story of the quest for wisdom, for ways to lead a meaningful life, and for ways to confront mortality. It is a story of friendship, of family, and of learning from the gods. London interweaves the tale among characters whose concerns and behavior often echo the epic. Do you derive enough information from the novel to appreciate the author's double vision? How does the book, the printed epic itself, become almost a character?
4. Prostitutes play an explicit role in the epic, and in the novel adultery and a threat of life in brothels is alluded to more than once. When does illicit sexual behavior become an issue? What is the result?
5. One of the primary themes of the epic, probably the central theme, is a human being's struggle with the fear of death, his search for immortality. How do characters in the novel confront or even conquer this fear? Are there different kinds of “death” in the book? Consider Frank and Ada, their private despair. Think of other characters' struggle with the loss of identity.
6. Aram and Leopold are quite different—in origin, temperament, and destiny. Yet together they form a complementary whole (as do Gilgamesh and Enkidu, the wild man, in the epic). How do they provide Edith with two parts of a whole? “Aram was stronger and more deft, Leopold had more knowledge” (p.31). What does Edith seek and derive from the pair?Not only does Leopold open Edith's eyes, and make her more curious about the world, but he also confers on her the grace of listening. “Before he came it was as if she'd never learnt to speak” (p.31). How does this respect of Leopold, given and received, remain important throughout the book?
7. Edith reveals a slyness that pushes the borders of propriety. Indeed she becomes a petty thief in Australia. Are we to assume that in her push for freedom, as in war, all's fair? Do the ends justify the means? How is this issue carried forward into her journeys to England and Armenia? Can there be moral absolutes for people living under oppression?
8. In the epic, Enkidu dies and “Gilgamesh sets off like an outcast or a holy man” (the story is recounted on pages 174-175). Edith wonders why she had heard the name “Gilgamesh” in a cafe in Yerevan. Leopold responds, “He's a mythical figure. He belongs to everyone, everywhere. Take us, for instance. Aren't we on a heroic quest?” Is this inclusiveness surprising for a story out of the Middle East? Do we need to go back to myths that seem to overarch the rigidity of some organized religions?
9. “Why did you come “
“Because I was needed.”
“Nobody ever engulfed her like this. He was a country she'd come home to.” (p. 171)
How do we ultimately assess or explain the relationship between Edith and Leopold? They do not fit any conventional mold of male-female romance. How do they transcend the conventions?
10. For most of the novel, Jim has no voice of his own; he is interpreted by either Edith or the narrator. Does this distance contribute to his blending in with the epic myth? With his dark foreign looks he is always other, strange, “odar” in Australia. In Armenia at first, his language sets him apart. Is his final journey to the Mideast a search for roots and home? And Leopold as a surrogate father? Who else in the novel is perceived as “other”?
11. Dark hearts, unforgiving spirits, appear in Frances, Irina, and Nevart. Are there others? Do you see redeeming traits in any of these characters? Do they evolve?
12. Edith goes through a number of identities. Are there certain traits or occupations that keep coming back for her? What are they? At one point, approaching Batum on the coast of Georgia, Hagop gives Edith a black headscarf. It is meant as protective coloration, but the disguise appears otherwise to her. “In the salt-smeared window of the saloon she caught sight of herself and Jim. They looked dwarf-like and lost, like a snapshot of somebody's children” (p.123). How does this moment serve as a metaphor for the whole journey?
13. Iraq is viewed as a goal and a refuge both culturally and personally. How is this true for Leopold? For Jim, ultimately? For Edith, the sanctuary is temporary, but significant. Along the Euphrates, the self-styled family of Edith, Leopold, and Jim enters into ancient life in the villages. “They were so tired that time seemed to slow, almost stand still. This was how they lived in villages along the Euphrates five thousand years ago, Leopold said. People raised goats and ate fish while great civilisations came and went” (p.177). Do you feel as if the travelers are entering into prehistory, into the myth?
14. “Comrade Stalin loves little children” (p.125). How does this notion aid Edith and Jim? There is other pervasive evidence of Stalin's repression in Yerevan. Cite some examples.
15. When Frances pulls away from the greedy religious sect, she feels deficient that she has loved the land more than God. Explain. She begins to regard religion as a dangerous dark attraction, one she may have inherited from her father. “An appetite for moral judgment that she was always seeking to appease. She always felt watched. By whom? God or her father?” (p. 201). How does this propensity affect her relationships with others? Here and elsewhere in the novel, what is Joan London asking us to examine about appetites “for moral judgments”?
16. Various characters serve as touchstones for Edith. Who are they, and what assumptions of Edith do they test?
17. At one point Edith deposits her child and strikes out on her own, to move, to breathe unencumbered. She soon reverses and returns to her responsibility, but is the moment later repeated in some form? When does Edith feel deficient in her duty to other characters besides Jim?
Do you find it credible that Edith chooses to put herself and her child into certain danger in her voyage to Armenia? Is her motivation—doing it for love—enough to explain her journey, one that could be described as reckless? What were her options at home?
18. Wartime and covert operations inevitably set the stage for moral ambiguities. Which characters exemplify hazy gray areas of behavior? Which ones belie surface appearances? Who seems to be torn by split loyalties? Who remains cloaked in unanswered questions?
19. How does Leopold's calling as an archaeologist provide insight, even poignancy, as we follow current events in Iraq?
20. Pragmatism and idealism lie in uneasy balance in the novel. Which characters might be described as idealists? Which are pragmatists or even cynics? Does anyone represent a fusion of these traits? What is the result?
21. What does Edith derive from her journeys? Do you see fundamental changes in her as the novel progresses? What are they? Do others see changes in her? Although she would dispute it, she is called “brave” by both Irina and Mr. Five Percent. What are the circumstances for their saying that?
22. Later in the novel Edith worries that Jim is wretched. She “searched and searched the past. What if despair was inherited?. . . His Armenian grandparents had been murdered. Aram had seen his mother die. Did Aram's actions in Armenia amount to suicide? Did he die in despair?” (p. 244). How would you respond to Edith's questions? Think, too, about the Holocaust and its multigenerations of victims. Have you observed examples of what seems to be inherited despair? Do we have hope in the novel that the cycles of despair may be broken?
23. Same-sex relationships including friendships are explored in various ways in the novel. Whose? The pederasty onboard ship is clearly exploitative, but the relationship Frances finally forges with Lee is a rich, mature one. What about Leopold and Aram? Jim and Gareth?
24. How is escape a salvation in the book? “She had only just saved herself and Jim by running away” (p.74). What is at stake at Matron Linley's? When else in the novel is escape a lifeline? Is it the visiting boys who inspire Edith to feel “as detached and free as a traveler herself” (p. 46)?
25. Loss is a recurrent lament in the book. For instance, even though war news (rockets on London, Hitler and the Jews, the Russian front) penetrates Syria, “for Miss Anoosh it was still the Turks murdering Armenians. In this Miss Anoosh was like every Armenian Edith had ever met, starting with Aram. How you became aware of the place in their lives of loss, lost family, lost land. Of buried anger, for monstrous crimes unpunished, for the world's indifference. It was always there, as if the end of grieving would be the final loss” (p.185).
How is this theme of loss important throughout the novel? For Ada? Frank? Irina? Edith? Others?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Gin Lovers
Jamie Brenner, 2013
St. Martin's Press
439 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250035936
Summary
What price would you pay for happiness? For Charlotte, freedom from her marriage might be the one thing she can’t afford.
It’s 1925, and the Victorian era with its confining morals is all but dead. Unfortunately, for New York socialite Charlotte Delacorte, the scandalous flapper revolution is little more than a headline in the tabloids. Living with her rigid and controlling husband William, her Fifth Avenue townhouse is a gilded cage.
But when William’s rebellious younger sister, the beautiful and brash Mae, comes to live with them after the death of their mother, Charlotte finds entrée to a world beyond her wildest dreams—and a handsome and mysterious stranger whom she imagines is as confident in the bedroom as he is behind the bar of his forbidden speakeasy.
Soon, Charlotte realizes that nothing is as it seems. Secrets are kept and discovered, loves are lost and found, and Charlotte is finds herself on the brink of losing everything—or having it all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Logan Belle
• Birth—March 24, 1971
• Where—Philadelphia, PA, USA
• Education—B.A., George Washington University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New york
Jamie Brenner, also writing as Logan Belle, grew up in Main Line Philadelphia on a steady diet of Judith Krantz, Jackie Collins, and Aaron Spelling. Her novel The Gin Lovers was praised by Fresh Fiction as one of the Top Thirteen Books to read in 2013.
Writing under the pen name Logan Belle, Jamie is the author of the upcoming Miss Chatterley (Pocket Star/Simon & Schuster), a modern day re-telling of D.H. Lawrence’s erotic classic Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Also writing as Logan Belle, she published the erotic romance The Librarian (Pocket Star) which has been translated into a dozen languages, and the burlesque trilogy Blue Angel (Kensington).
Jamie has worked in book publishing as a scout, publicist, and agent. She currently lives in New York City, where she is busy raising two daughters who aren't allowed to read her books. (See the author's website.)
Book Reviews
“13 Books to read in 2013″
FreshFiction.com (seen on Good Morning Texas)
Brimming with passion, romance, flappers, speakeasies, prohibition and love, this story will bring the Manhattan of the 1920’s to life right before your eyes.
Romance Junkies
It almost brought me to tears, and the writing was so well-crafted that for the amount of time it took me to read this, I was living in this world.
Under the Covers
I was hooked on all the drama!
Impressions of a Reader
It truly is a soap opera, it's just on paper and not on the screen.
Heroes and Heartbreakers
Discussion Questions
1. What is your first impression of Charlotte Delacorte? How does your impression of her change over the course of the book? Do you think she is fundamentally the same person at the end of the story? Why or why not?
2. Which characters in the novel represent the old world, and what characters represent the changing times? Is either set of characters all good or all bad? Is there a way to have the best of both worlds?
3. Although Charlotte’s mother-in-law, Geraldine, dies before the book begins, it could be argued that she had as much influence over the course of events as anyone else in the novel. Would William and Charlotte have had a successful marriage if Geraldine had remained in the picture? If so, could Charlotte have been happy in her role as Mrs. William Delacorte?
4. Boom Boom and Amelia are both scheming and ruthless women in their own ways. With whom do you empathize more and why? And do you think they had to scheme to get what they wanted as women at the time? Why?
5. Money plays a big role in this novel – for those who have it, and those who do not. What couples would have worked better with moneyfrom the beginning, and what couples were better off for their struggle?
6. Do you think Fiona really loved Mae? If so, at what point in the story do you start to believe so and why? Do you think they would have still fallen for one another if they were in modern society? Why or why not?
7. Do you think there could have been hope for William and Charlotte if he had brought her in on his schemes from the beginning? Or do you think things would have ultimately come to pass the same way? Why?
8. Do you think Prohibition was a positive thing for our society, or negative? Why? What events or characters in this story, if any, affected your opinion on Prohibition?
9. Charlotte’s father, Black Jack, is only in a few scenes in the book, but his influence looms large over her. What role does Charlotte’s father play in her fate?
10. Who is more of a hero in this story, Jake or Rafferty? And why?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Gingerbread
Helen Oyeyemi, 2019
Penguin Publishing
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594634659
Summary
Prize-winning author, Helen Oyeyemi, returns with a bewitching and imaginative novel.
Influenced by the mysterious place gingerbread holds in classic children's stories, beloved novelist Helen Oyeyemi invites readers into a delightful tale of a surprising family legacy, in which the inheritance is a recipe.
Perdita Lee may appear to be your average British schoolgirl; Harriet Lee may seem just a working mother trying to penetrate the school social hierarchy; but there are signs that they might not be as normal as they think they are.
For one thing, they share a gold-painted, seventh-floor walk-up apartment with some surprisingly verbal vegetation. And then there's the gingerbread they make. Londoners may find themselves able to take or leave it, but it's very popular in Druhastrana, the far-away (or, according to many sources, non-existent) land of Harriet Lee's early youth.
The world's truest lover of the Lee family gingerbread, however, is Harriet's charismatic childhood friend Gretel Kercheval—a figure who seems to have had a hand in everything (good or bad) that has happened to Harriet since they met.
Decades later, when teenaged Perdita sets out to find her mother's long-lost friend, it prompts a new telling of Harriet's story.
As the book follows the Lees through encounters with jealousy, ambition, family grudges, work, wealth, and real estate, gingerbread seems to be the one thing that reliably holds a constant value.
Endlessly surprising and satisfying, written with Helen Oyeyemi's inimitable style and imagination, Gingerbread is a true feast for the reader. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 10, 1984
• Where—Nigeria
• Raised—London, England, UK
• Education—B.A. Cambridge University
• Awards—Somerset Maughm Award
• Currently—lives in London, England
Helen Olajumoke Oyeyemi is a British author with several novels to her name. She was born in Nigeria and raised in London, England.
Oyeyemi studied Social and Political Sciences at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, graduating in 2006. While at Cambridge, two of her plays, Juniper's Whitening and Victimese, were performed by fellow students to critical acclaim and subsequently published by Methuen.
Novels
She wrote her first novel, The Icarus Girl, while still at school studying for her A levels at Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School.
In 2007 Bloomsbury published her second novel, The Opposite House which is inspired by Cuban mythology.
Her third novel, White is for Witching, described as having "roots in Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe" was published in 2009. It was a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award finalist and won a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award.
Mr Fox, Oyeyemi's fourth novel was published in 2011. Aimee Bender said in a New York Times review: "Charm is a quality that overflows in this novel." Kirkus Reviews, however thought that while readers might consider Mr. Fox "an intellectual tour de force," they might also find it "emotionally chilly."
Oyeyemi's fith novel, Boy, Snow, Bird, published in 2014, is a retelling of Snow White, set in Massachusetts in the 1950s.
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, released in 2016, is a collection of intertwined stories, all involving locks and keys.
Extras
• Oyeyemi is a lifelong Catholic who has done voluntary work for CAFOD in Kenya.
• In 2009 Oyeyemi was recognised as one of the women on Venus Zine’s “25 under 25” list.
(Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/18/2014.)
Book Reviews
Exhilarating.… Gingerbread is jarring, funny, surprising, unsettling, disorienting and rewarding.… This is a wildly imagined, head-spinning, deeply intelligent novel that requires some effort and attention from its reader. And that is just one of its many pleasures.
New York Times Book Review
Gingerbread rises to the level of Mr. Fox and Boy, Snow, Bird, revealing Oyeyemi as a master of literary masquerade, forging a singular art.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
This is a bold book with a great deal of depth and mischief to it that makes you think how astonishing it would be to have our parents sit up with us for a whole night and tell us in fine detail what they have lived.
Financial Times
[T]he novel's real enchantment is its experimentation with storytelling itself.… [T]his book is not only about childhood, but also what it feels like to be a child.
Time
Charm evident on every page.
Slate
Is there an author working today who is comparable to Helen Oyeyemi? She might be the only contemporary author for whom it’s not hyperbole to claim she’s… a genius, as opposed to talented or newsworthy or relevant or accomplished, each of her novels daring more in storytelling than the one before.… A tale that bears multiple rereadings and is more marvelous the deeper you’re willing to dive into its rearranging of reality, its derangement.
Los Angeles Review of Books
A beautifully, wildly inventive beast. Nobody else writes like this: puncturing the timelessly poetic with harshly contemporary asides, animating plants and dolls with a cool nonchalance. And how is it that this dark, nutty novel exudes cozy warmth above all else?
Entertainment Weekly
Gingerbread isn't just one of the best books of March, it's poised to be one of the best books of the year thanks to the magnificent writing of Helen Oyeyemi.
Cosmopolitan.com
The line between real world and fairy tales in Helen Oyeyemi’s novels is never clear, which means they’re way more fun. Following the plot of Oyeyemi’s latest novel can be a challenge, simply because Gingerbread abides by fairy tale logic, not the conventional structure of a novel. But if you sit back and accept the twists, we guarantee you’ll enjoy your romp.
Refinery29
★ [I]diosyncratically brilliant…. Oyeyemi excels at making the truly astounding believable and turning even the most familiar tales into something strange and new. This fantastic and fantastical romp is a wonderful addition to her formidable canon.
Publishers Weekly
It may require some persistence to keep up with the multiple plot threads, the unusual character names, and the Druhistani lore, but patient readers will be rewarded with a rollicking tale from the wildly inventive Oyeyemi. —Barbara Love, formerly with Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.
Library Journal
Oyeyemi's latest is a clever subversion of fairy tale tropes to expose the secrets [and] entanglements.… [A] scathing indictment of capitalism and a tribute to the… endurance of family bonds, this enchanting tale will resonate with literary fiction lovers.
Booklist
★ Oyeyemi returns to the land of fairy tales in a novel that riffs on "Hansel and Gretel" without… following its well-worn trail of breadcrumbs.… The effect is heady, surreal, and disarming… [a] strange, shape-shifting novel about the power of making your own family.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Ginny Moon
Benjamin Ludwig, 2017
Park Row Books
368pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778330165
Summary
See the world differently.
Meet Ginny Moon. She’s mostly your average teenager—she plays flute in the high school band, has weekly basketball practice, and reads Robert Frost poems in English class.
But Ginny is autistic. And so what’s important to her might seem a bit…different: starting every day with exactly nine grapes for breakfast, Michael Jackson, her baby doll, and crafting a secret plan of escape.
After being traumatically taken from her abusive birth mother and moved around to different homes, Ginny has finally found her "forever home"—a safe place with parents who will love and nurture her. This is exactly what all foster kids are hoping for, right?
But Ginny has other plans. She’ll steal and lie and exploit the good intentions of those who love her—anything it takes to get back what’s missing in her life. She’ll even try to get herself kidnapped.
Told in an extraordinary and wholly original voice, Ginny Moon is at once quirky, charming, heartbreaking, and poignant. It’s a story about being an outsider trying to find a place to belong and about making sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up.
Taking you into the mind of a curious and deeply human character, Benjamin Ludwig’s novel affirms that fiction has the power to change the way we see the world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Wallingford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—University of New Hampshire
• Currently—lives in Barrington, New Hampshire
A life-long teacher of English and writing, Benjamin Ludwig lives in New Hampshire with his family. He holds an MAT in English Education and an MFA in Writing. Shortly after he and his wife married they became foster parents and adopted a teenager with autism.
Ginny Moon is his first novel, which was inspired in part by his conversations with other parents at Special Olympics basketball practices. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Ludwig’s excellent debut is both a unique coming-of-age tale and a powerful affirmation of the fragility and strength of families.… Ludwig brilliantly depicts the literal-minded and inventive Ginny.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This stunning debut novel grabs readers by the heart and doesn't let go.… Ludwig's triumphant achievement is borne from his own experience as the adoptive parent of a teen with autism, and his gorgeous, wrenching portrayal of Ginny's ability to communicate what she needs is perfection. —Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor, MI
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [E]nlightening…compelling…remarkably engaging.… A heartwarming and unforgettable page-turner.
Booklist
Ginny Moon, who has autism, needs to get back to her birth mother by any means necessary. That's a problem, because that mother, Gloria, abused her.… By turns heartwarming and heartbreaking, Ginny's quest for a safe home leads her to discover her own strong voice.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Ginny’s lack of emotional attachment to the people in her life makes her seem cold and unfriendly. Do you consider her to be an unfriendly person? How do you think Ginny might define the word “friend”?
2. Ginny appears to be completely uninterested in romance. How do you envision her romantic life as an adult?
3. Do you think the Moons acted reasonably with regard to Ginny before and after Wendy was born? If you had to step into the shoes of Brian and Maura Moon, and perceived your adopted child as a possible threat to your biological child, what would you do?
4. Patrice makes some pointed observations about the Moons, especially Maura. Do you think her observations are accurate? Are her interactions with Ginny appropriate?
5. Do you as a reader become more or less sympathetic toward Maura when she is forced to increase her interaction with Ginny after Brian’s heart attack?
6. What do you think of Gloria’s character? How would you describe Ginny’s feelings toward her? How is Gloria perceived differently through Ginny’s eyes and the other adults’ eyes?
7. Do you think Rick would make a good dad? Why or why not?
8. When the Moons and Patrice finally realized why Ginny was so concerned about her “baby doll,” were you surprised? How did their original dismissal of Ginny’s obsession make you feel?
9. What is Ginny’s greatest personal strength? At what point(s) were you disappointed with her?
10. What stereotypes surround people on the autism spectrum? To what extent does Ginny fulfill or defy such stereotypes?
11. At the end of the book, did you feel that Ginny had evolved? What about Maura? In what ways do you think they both still have progress to make? Were you surprised by the way the story concluded?
(Questions from the author's webpage.)
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Girl at War
Sara Novic, 2015
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812996340
Summary
A powerful debut novel about a girl’s coming of age—and how her sense of family, friendship, love, and belonging is profoundly shaped by war.
Zagreb, 1991. Ana Juric is a carefree ten-year-old, living with her family in a small apartment in Croatia’s capital. But that year, civil war breaks out across Yugoslavia, splintering Ana’s idyllic childhood.
Daily life is altered by food rations and air raid drills, and soccer matches are replaced by sniper fire. Neighbors grow suspicious of one another, and Ana’s sense of safety starts to fray. When the war arrives at her doorstep, Ana must find her way in a dangerous world.
New York, 2001. Ana is now a college student in Manhattan. Though she’s tried to move on from her past, she can’t escape her memories of war—secrets she keeps even from those closest to her. Haunted by the events that forever changed her family, Ana returns to Croatia after a decade away, hoping to make peace with the place she once called home.
As she faces her ghosts, she must come to terms with her country’s difficult history and the events that interrupted her childhood years before.
Moving back and forth through time, Girl at War is an honest, generous, brilliantly written novel that illuminates how history shapes the individual. Sara Nović fearlessly shows the impact of war on one young girl—and its legacy on all of us.
It’s a debut by a writer who has stared into recent history to find a story that continues to resonate today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1987
• Where—the State of New Jersey, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Sara Novic was born in 1987 and has lived in the United States and Croatia, where she still has family and friends. She earned her MFA from Columbia University, where she studied fiction and translation.
Novic is the fiction editor at Blunderbuss Magazine and teaches writing at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Columbia University. She lives in Queens, New York. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
From its first sentence, Sara Novic’s debut novel unfolds on both intimate and immense scales....[and] the first section ends with a brilliantly abrupt, devastating event...a scene that haunts the rest of the book.... [Novic is] a writer whose...gravity and talent anchor this novel.
John Williams - New York Times
Sara Novic's outstanding first novel…Girl at War performs the miracle of making the stories of broken lives in a distant country feel as large and universal as myth. It is a brutal novel, but a beautiful one.
Anthony Marra - New York Times Book Review
Remarkable.
Julia Glass - Boston Globe
A shattering debut.... The book begins with what deserves to become one of contemporary literature’s more memorable opening lines. The sentences that follow are equally as lyrical as a folk lament and as taut as metal wire wrapped through an electrified fence.
USA Today
Powerful and vividly wrought.... Novic writes about horrors with an elegant understatement. In cool, accomplished sentences, we are met with the gravity, brutality and even the mundaneness of war and loss as well as the enduring capacity to live.
San Francisco Chronicle
If we looked for and celebrated a ‘book of the summer’ as we do that one song every year (what will it be this year?!), this novel would surely be this summer’s star. This debut work from a rising author examines in painful, tender detail the cost of war on a young woman, many years after her simple life with her family in Croatia was interrupted by war.
Vanity Fair
[A] gripping debut novel.... [Sara] Nović, in tender and eloquent prose, explores the challenge of how to live even after one has survived.
Oprah Magazine
This is a fine, sensitive novel, though the later scenes in Manhattan never reach the soaring heights of the sections set in wartime Croatia. Novic displays her talent, heightening the anticipation of what she will do next.
Publishers Weekly
Croatian-born Nović’s debut novel delivers a finely honed sense of what the [Balkan war's] bloodshed really meant for those who withstood it.... Nović’s heartbreaking book is all the more effective for its use of personal rather than sensational detail and will be embraced by a wide range of readers.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Novic’s important debut brings painfully home the jarring fact that what happens in today’s headlines...is neither new nor even particularly the worst that humankind can commit..... Thanks to Nović’s considerable skill, Ana’s return visit to her homeland and her past is nearly as cathartic for the reader as it is for Ana.
Booklist
Understated, self-assured roman à clef of a young girl's coming of age in war-torn Croatia.... Elegiac, and understandably if unrelievedly so, with a matter-of-factness about death and uprootedness. A promising start.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use these LitLovers talking points to kick off a discussion for Girl at War...then take off on your own:
1. The book begins with the opening line, "The War in Zagreb began over a pack of cigarettes." Why might the author have led with that sentence? What effect does it have on how you came to see the events of the novel?
2. What is the power of telling this story from a child's point of view? What effect does it create for you as a reader rather than telling it from an adult perspective?
3. Talk about the ways in which the war changed the lives of the children. How does the war affect the idea of "normalcy" for them? Consider, for instance, the war games that the children play.
4. The setting of the novel shifts from Croatia to the U.S., and to New York City specifically. How does that change affect the novel—it's writing, plot, and characters? Do you feel this part is as vivid as the earlier Croatian section? Why or why not?
5. When Ana speaks at the UN, she says "there’s no such thing as a child soldier in Croatia.... There is only a child with a gun." What does she mean? Following her testimony, Ana has lunch with Sharon Stanfield. Why does Sharon pique Ana's anger?
6. After 9/11, Ana feels uncomfortable in that she doesn't feel as if she, or Americans, are truly in a "war." How have Americans and Europeans, especially Slavs, experienced being "a nation at war"?
7. In what ways have Ana's and her sister's divergent experiences shaped their lives and how they respond to the world? How does each relate to their American parents?
8. How does the concept of pluralism in the U.S. contrast with Slavic culture's pervasive ethnic identification? How does Ana respond to this difference?
9. Ana is consumed by memories. She and her professor discuss German author W.G. Sebald and his philosophy on memory—that memory is imperfect and rarely the "searing of certain trauma into one's mind." Do you find the quotation ironic in relation to Ana? How does Ana respond?
10. Follow-up to Question 9 on memory: Why does Luca's remark toward the end of the book that "You don’t need to experience something to remember it" What exactly does he mean...and is he right?
11. On her return to Croatia, how does Ana experience Zagreb, her old friends, and Tiska on the Adriatic? What do you think the future holds for Ana and Luka? Will Ana stay in the US or return to Croatia permanently?
12. How much did you know about the Yugoslav war before you read Girl at War? What have you learned after reading the novel? What struck you most, or shocked you most, in the book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Girl Before
J.P. Delaney, 2017
Random House
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425285046
Summary
An enthralling psychological thriller that spins one woman’s seemingly good fortune, and another woman’s mysterious fate, through a kaleidoscope of duplicity, death, and deception.
Please make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.
The request seems odd, even intrusive—and for the two women who answer, the consequences are devastating.
EMMA
Reeling from a traumatic break-in, Emma wants a new place to live. But none of the apartments she sees are affordable or feel safe. Until One Folgate Street.
The house is an architectural masterpiece: a minimalist design of pale stone, plate glass, and soaring ceilings. But there are rules. The enigmatic architect who designed the house retains full control: no books, no throw pillows, no photos or clutter or personal effects of any kind. The space is intended to transform its occupant—and it does.
JANE
After a personal tragedy, Jane needs a fresh start. When she finds One Folgate Street she is instantly drawn to the space—and to its aloof but seductive creator.
Moving in, Jane soon learns about the untimely death of the home’s previous tenant, a woman similar to Jane in age and appearance. As Jane tries to untangle truth from lies, she unwittingly follows the same patterns, makes the same choices, crosses paths with the same people, and experiences the same terror, as the girl before.. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
The Girl Before is the first psychological thriller from JP Delaney, a pseudonym for a writer who has previously written bestselling fiction under other names. It is being published in thirty-five countries. A film version is being brought to the screen by Academy Award–winning director Ron Howard. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The stars of The Girl Before are an architect, two women and a high-tech house so sadistic that it practically spanks them.... [The novel] generates a fast pace with frequent cuts between chapters labeled “Then: Emma” and “Now: Jane.” And it milks suspense from matching scenes in which Emma and Jane do exactly the same things with Edward, who consciously sets up these parallels. That’s the good news. The downside is the author’s clumsy trickery. No spoilers here, but the novel’s denouement is improbable enough to have flown in from outer space.
Janet Maslin - New York Tims
[A] riveting psychological thriller.... Writing with precision and grace, Delaney strips away the characters’ secrets until the raw truth of each is revealed. That Emma and Jane act in often foolhardy ways hasn’t prevented rights sales in...30 markets and movie rights to...Ron Howard.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) A masterfully crafted spellbinder...guaranteed to astonish.
Booklist
Little...can be said without destroying what little suspense Delaney has managed.... [I]t all seems so obvious. But wait—there's a twist!... [H]opelessly fake characters and...red herrings and reversals, 1 Folgate St. is a house...collapsing under the weight of its own materials.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. As you were reading, did you engage with the survey questions alongside Jane and Emma? How would your answers differ from theirs? Were there any questions in particular that stood out to you? Did you surprise yourself with any of your responses?
2. Emma and Jane have a lot in common, but there are also striking differences between the two women. Compare and contrast these two characters, and discuss some of the ways in which their differences and similarities influenced their relationships.
3. How does living at One Folgate Street impact each of the women? In what ways do our environments shape our experiences? If you could make one change to your current living environment that would have an impact on your behavior, what would it be?
4. Describe your personal style when it comes to home décor and architecture. How does that style shape or reflect your personality? Would you want to live in a minimalist space like One Folgate Street?
5. On page 235, Jane finds Edward’s discarded sketch—the pentimento image with two overlaid versions of her face. What did you make of that moment? What do you think the image meant to Edward?
6. Discuss Emma’s relationship with Saul. What do you think really happened there?
7. Could you forgive Jane’s deceptiveness, as revealed at the end of the novel? Were you surprised by her confession?
8. What do you think of Edward’s dream to create a community of homes like One Folgate Street? Could such a project ever really work successfully? Why or why not?
9. Which character did you relate to the most in this novel? Why?
10. Describe Simon’s relationship with each of the women.
11. Emma inspires passion and obsession in many of the men who fall into her orbit. What quality or qualities make her so compelling? Have you ever known someone like Emma?
12. Make a list of every possession you consider essential to your life.
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Girl from the Garden
Parnaz Foroutan, 2015
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062388391
Summary
An extraordinary new writer makes her literary debut with this suspenseful novel of desire, obsession, power and vulnerability, in which a crisis of inheritance leads to the downfall of a wealthy family of Persian Jews in early twentieth-century Iran.
For all his wealth and success, Asher Malacouti—the head of a prosperous Jewish family living in the Iranian town of Kermanshah—cannot have the one thing he desires above all: a male son.
His young wife Rakhel, trapped in an oppressive marriage at a time when a woman’s worth is measured by her fertility, is made desperate by her failure to conceive, and grows jealous and vindictive.
Her despair is compounded by her sister-in-law Khorsheed’s pregnancy and her husband’s growing desire for Kokab, his cousin’s wife. Frustrated by his wife’s inability to bear him an heir, Asher makes a fateful choice that will shatter the household and drive Rakhel to dark extremes to save herself and preserve her status within the family.
Witnessed through the memories of the family’s only surviving daughter, Mahboubeh, now an elderly woman living in Los Angeles, The Girl from the Garden unfolds the complex, tragic history of her family in a long-lost Iran of generations past.
Haunting, suspenseful and inspired by events in the author’s own family, it is an evocative and poignant exploration of sacrifice, betrayal, and the indelible legacy of the families that forge us. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Parnaz Foroutan was born in Iran and spent her early childhood there. She received PEN USA's Emerging Voices fellowship for this novel, which was inspired by her own family history. She has been named to the Hedgebrook fellowship and residency, and received funding from the Elizabeth George Foundation, among other institutions. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two daughters. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[Ultimately,] The Girl from the Garden is about how telling stories helps us to hold our past in our hands—and about how a flowering yard "teeming with life"’ in far-off Los Angeles can movingly become, for one wandering storyteller, a home.
Seattle Times
Foroutan’s characters grapple, often vainly, for control against larger forces—a God who doesn’t answer prayers, a state that doesn’t recognize their humanity, and people who cannot be made to bend to their needs, no matter how badly they love them.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Parnaz Foroutan’s scorching debut novel, The Girl From the Garden, takes us to Iran, where a couple’s inability to conceive pits a young wife against her tyrannical husband, who will stop at nothing to secure an heir.
W Magazine (online)
A riveting portrait of family strife in a troubled land—and the fallout when a woman’s fertility determines her worth.
People
A lush debut.... Foroutan is a modern-day Scheherazade, weaving her tale through the entire 20th century, from an aging woman in her L.A. garden to the brothers whose determination to spawn heirs tortured the harem she was raised in.
Willamette Week
(Starred review.) Foroutan's richly layered debut explores...a single household in a Jewish enclave in Iran.... The framework of flashbacks within flashbacks...exhilaratingly propels the plot, and Foroutan's sumptuous prose paints a vivid portrait of a rarely explored...setting.
Publishers Weekly
In this debut novel, Mahboubeh Malacouti, an elderly woman living in Los Angeles, recalls the stories surrounding her family in early 1900s Iran.... Though Foroutan is better at writing about the past than the present,...she clearly has a gift for storytelling. —Shirley Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) In this stunning first novel, Foroutan draws on her own family history to integrate the lore and traditions of old Iran. Suspenseful and haunting, this riveting story of jealousy, sacrifice, and betrayal and the intimately drawn characters within will not be easily forgotten (One of Booklist’s Top 10 First Novels of 2015).
Booklist
(Starred review.) [A]n elderly woman pieces together the tragedy of her ancestors' Iranian Jewish household, in which the actions of two brothers "who would sacrifice anything for one another" result in sorrow for three wives.... Deftly structured, this novel traces those complications to their core...while lending grace through the delicacy of its observation.... [The] poetic narration overlays the suffering with surprising beauty.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
These questions were written—and generously offered to LitLovers—by Dulce Campins and Anna Garcia of Houston, Texas. Many thanks to both of you!
1. Mahboubeh says that Paradise is a Farsi word that means "an enclosed space, a garden set aside from the surrounding wilderness." What is the relevance of this and of the title of the book in this story?
2. Mahboubeh’s garden in Los Angeles has the same plants that her family’s garden had in Kermanshah. How does the author use this similarity to develop the story? Can you make a connection with your own life?
3. What happened to Rakhel over the years? Was she always bitter? Do you think that her life circumstances were responsible for her behavior? Are any of her actions justified?
4. What does Kokab get from her relationship with Asher? At some point she seems to enjoy being with him. Then, why do you think she left him if that brought shame to her and her family?
5. Mahboubeh’s memories have been affected by the pass of time. Do you feel that your recollections of events that happened long ago have changed too? Why or why not?
6. Being the first born son is very important in the Malacouti’s culture, as it defines the distribution of power of the present generation and the lineage of the next generation. How is this fact presented in the story and how does it affect the destiny of the characters?
7. There are many cultures where for centuries the order of birth and the sex of a newborn have defined the life of each individual. How is that changing in present times? Do you think that some people or cultures don’t want it to change? Why or why not?
8. Why is Rakhel sobbing when Korsheed is grieving for Yousseff on the snow and has to be dragged inside by Zolehkah and Fatimeh? How do you think she’s feeling and why?
9. Why do you think that Mahboubeh is led to believe that "sorrow is a complication of womanhood"? What happened then to Ibrahim?
10. Mahboubeh is an immigrant living immerse in a totally different culture. Why do you think she left her country? How does her bi-culturalism affect the way she looks at her family’s history later on?
(Questions by Dulce Campins and Anna García. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution to Dulcce, Anna, and LitLovers. Thanks.)
The Girl from the Savoy
Hazel Gaynor, 2016
HarperCollins
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062403476
Summary
Sometimes life gives you cotton stockings. Sometimes it gives you a Chanel gown...
Dolly Lane is a dreamer; a downtrodden maid who longs to dance on the London stage, but her life has been fractured by the Great War. Memories of the soldier she loved, of secret shame and profound loss, by turns pull her back and spur her on to make a better life.
When she finds employment as a chambermaid at London’s grandest hotel, The Savoy, Dolly takes a step closer to the glittering lives of the Bright Young Things who thrive on champagne, jazz and rebellion. Right now, she must exist on the fringes of power, wealth and glamor—she must remain invisible and unimportant.
But her fortunes take an unexpected turn when she responds to a struggling songwriter’s advertisement for a ‘muse’ and finds herself thrust into London’s exhilarating theatre scene and into the lives of celebrated actress, Loretta May, and her brother, Perry. Loretta and Perry may have the life Dolly aspires to, but they too are searching for something.
Now, at the precipice of the life she has and the one she longs for, the girl from The Savoy must make difficult choices: between two men; between two classes, between everything she knows and everything she dreams of. A brighter future is tantalizingly close—but can a girl like Dolly ever truly leave her past behind? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 16, 1971
• Where—Yorkshire, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Manchester Metropolitan University
• Awards—Cecil Day Lewis Award for Emerging Writers
• Currently—lives in County Kildare, Ireland
Hazel Gaynor is an author and freelance writer in Ireland and the UK and was the recipient of the Cecil Day Lewis Award for Emerging Writers. The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic is her first novel. Her second novel, published in 2015, is A Memory of Violets: A Novel of London's Flower Sellers.
Hazel is a regular guest blogger and features writer for national Irish writing website for which she has interviewed authors such as Philippa Gregory, Sebastian Faulks, Cheryl Strayed, and Mary Beth Keane.
Hazel has appeared on TV and radio and her writing has been featured in the Irish Times and the Sunday Times Magazine. Originally from Yorkshire, England, Hazel now lives in Ireland with her husband, two young children and an accident-prone cat. (From the author.)
Visit the author's webpage.
Follow Hazel on Facebook.
Book Reviews
The Girl from the Savoy is a satisfying, thoughtful novel that delves into the lives of people living in Great Britain during the 1920s. For Downton Abbey followers, the stories of the upstairs workers and the downstairs entitled folks are entertaining and informative. This is a perfect book for a summer read—or an anytime read.
Examiner.com
The echoes of the First World War influence every character of Gaynor's latest novel, set in 1923 London.... Dolly dreams of a life on the stage.... [Her] path toward stardom and the secret that's been haunting her help push this historical novel toward a thoroughly satisfying ending.
Publishers Weekly
The wide-ranging effects of the war lend a realistic atmosphere without diminishing the hopeful mood.... and these details make the 1920s come alive. —Emily Byers, Salem P.L., OR
Library Journal
Gaynor once again brings history to life. With intriguing characters and a deeply absorbing story, her latest is a fascinating examination of one city’s rich history and the often forgotten people who lived in it.
Booklist
A spunky young woman dances her way up from a job as a chambermaid at London's grandest hotel to a chorus girl and beyond during the Roaring '20s.... Though the book more than teases with romance-novel tropes...the only real romance here is between Dolly and the stage.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel is set in the years just after the Great War when social boundaries were changing and women, especially, were fighting for greater independence. What did you enjoy about this period? Was there anything that surprised you?
2. Dolly’s position as a chambermaid gives her access to the less well-known side of iconic hotels like The Savoy. What did you enjoy about the chapters where we go "behind thescenes" at the hotel?
3. The novel has a large cast of principal and supporting characters. Who was your favoritecharacter, and why?
4. The working classes were often taken advantage of by their superiors during this period. What was your reaction to the scene between Dolly and her employer’s nephew, and to the incident between Dolly and Larry Snyder?
5. The shame of an unwanted pregnancy and of being an unmarried mother was a very real issue in the 1920s. Were you surprised to learn about Dolly’s pregnancy and her time at the Mothers’ Hospital? What was your reaction when she discovers that Thomas is her child?
6. Perry and Dolly’s relationship crosses the social divide and is unconventional in its nature. What were your thoughts as their relationship develops?
7. Loretta has everything that Dolly longs for and yet they both have secrets and are fighting their own private battles. Who were you rooting for, and why?
8. Loretta is an iconic star of the stage, adored by legions of fans everywhere she goes. How different do you think her experience of fame was from that experienced by female celebrities today?
9. There are many female friendships in the novel: Dolly and Clover, Dolly and the girls at the hotel, Dolly and Loretta, Loretta and Bea. Which was your favorite friendship to see develop? Why do you think female friendships were so important during this era?
10. Teddy returns from the war suffering from a severe form of shell shock, a very misunderstood condition during and after the Great War. What surprised you the most about Teddy’s condition and treatment? How did the discovery that Dolly was Teddy’s "nurse" affect your connection with them both?
11. The final scene at the train station in many ways mirrors the opening prologue. Did you want Teddy to stay at the end? What was your reaction when Dolly finds the book on the bench and reads his letter?
12. Ultimately, Dolly leaves for America without any romantic attachment in order to chase her dreams, and the epilogue offers an insight into her future. What would you like Dolly to have done in the intervening years?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Girl from Venice
Martin Cruz Smith, 2016
Simon & Schuster
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781439140239
Summary
The highly anticipated new standalone novel from Martin Cruz Smith, whom The Washington Post has declared an “uncommon phenomenon: a popular and well-regarded crime novelist who is also a writer of real distinction,” The Girl from Venice is a suspenseful World War II love story set against the beauty, mystery, and danger of occupied Venice.
Venice, 1945. The war may be waning, but the city known as La Serenissima is still occupied, and the people of Italy fear the power of the Third Reich.
One night, under a canopy of stars, a fisherman named Cenzo comes across a young woman’s body floating in the lagoon. He soon discovers she is still alive and in trouble.
Born to a wealthy Jewish family, Giulia is on the run from the Wehrmacht SS. Cenzo chooses to protect Giulia rather than hand her over to the Nazis. This act of kindness leads them into the world of Partisans, random executions, the arts of forgery and high explosives, Mussolini’s broken promises, the black market and gold, and, everywhere, the enigmatic maze of the Venice Lagoon.
The Girl from Venice is a thriller, a mystery, and a retelling of Italian history that will take your breath away. Most of all it is a love story. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 3, 1942
• Where—Reading, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Pennsylvania
• Awards—Gold Dagger Award; Dashiell Hammet Award (twice)
• Currently—lives in San Rafael, California
Martin Cruz Smith is an American mystery novelist. He is best known for his eight-novel series on Russian investigator Arkady Renko, who was first introduced in 1981 with Gorky Park.
He originally wrote under the name "Martin Smith," only to discover other writers of the same name. He now inserts Cruz into his name, his paternal grandmother's surname.
Early life and education
Martin William Smith was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, to John Calhoun Smith and Louise Lopez, both jazz muscians. His mother is amerindian—from Pueblo descent—making Smith partly of Pueblo, Spanish, Senecu del Sur, and Yaqui ancestry. His mother has also been an activist in the Amerindian rights movement.
Smith was educated at Germantown Academy, in Germantown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, then at the University of Pennsylvania, also in Philadelphia. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in creative writing in 1964.
Career
From 1965 to 1969, Smith worked as a journalist and began writing fiction in the early 1970s.
Canto for a Gypsy (1972), his third novel overall and the second to feature Roman Grey, a gypsy art dealer in New York City, was nominated for an Edgar Award.
Nightwing (1977), also an Edgar nominee, was his breakthrough novel, and he adapted it for a feature film of the same name (1979).
Smith is best known for his novels featuring Russian investigator Arkady Renko, whom Smith introduced in Gorky Park (1981). That novel, which was called the "first thriller of the '80s" by Time, became a bestseller and won a Gold Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. Taken together, Renko has since appeared in eight novels by Smith. Two books of the Arkady series occupied the nos. 1 and 2 spots for several months at a time: Gorky Park and Polar Star (1989).
During the 1990s, Smith twice won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the North American Branch of the International Association of Crime Writers. The first time was for Rose in 1996; the second time was for Havana Bay in 1999. And in 2010, he and Arkady Renko returned to the top of the New York Times bestseller list when Three Stations debuted at No. 7 on the fiction bestsellers list.
Other books/series
Earlier, in the 1970s, Smith wrote under the pen name Jake Logan, publishing two Slocum adult action Western novels. Under his own name, Smith has also written the Inquisitor series, focusing on a James Bond-type agent employed by the Vatican. He also wrote two novels in the Nick Carter series.
Personal life
Smith lives in San Rafael, California, with his family. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/17/2016.)
Book Reviews
“Evocative.... Smith conjures the time and place with a generous dose of what the novelist Evan Connell called ‘luminous details."... The Girl from Venice’s vivid treatments of a timeless trade and certain little-known aspects of World War II make it well worth your time.
Dennis Drabelle - Washington Post
You think you've read every permutation of a World War II novel possible—then along comes a Venetian fisherman and his unlikely first mate, a beautiful Jewish teenaged girl on the run from the last few Nazis occupying Italy.... Suspense, romance, spying, action—this novel has a little bit of everything, and it works. Cruz Smith is a master of quick scene changes . . . [who] has chosen, in The Girl from Venice, to put aside his usual spy stories for a straightforward wartime chase-cum-romance, a slice of La Serenissima life so perfectly researched that details melt into action like the local goby fish into risotto.
Bethanne Patrick - NPR
[A] clever, well-crafted, and exciting blend of WWII romance, suspense, and intrigue.... Capture, escape, a hoard of stolen gold, a forger, and a Swiss movie producer add action and passion to the novel’s unexpected plot twists, and its most satisfying conclusion.
Publishers Weekly
A strong, atmospheric.... However, Cenzo and Giulia's relationship doesn't feel fully fleshed out, making it hard to be invested in the risks he takes to find her. Cenzo is often catching up to the action, not driving it, keeping readers at an arm's length against. —Emily Byers, Salem P.L., OR
Library Journal
[A]n Italian fisherman and the Jewish girl he finds floating in the sea.... How he meets that challenge both illuminates his humanity and entertains the reader. In fact, all the characters come alive.This is a thoughtful and engrossing novel with more than enough action to keep the pages turning.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Girl He Used to Know
Tracey Garvis Graves, 2019
St. Martin's Press
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250200358
Summary
A compelling, hopelessly romantic novel of unconditional love.
Annika (rhymes with Monica) Rose is an English major at the University of Illinois. Anxious in social situations where she finds most people's behavior confusing, she'd rather be surrounded by the order and discipline of books or the quiet solitude of playing chess.
Jonathan Hoffman joined the chess club and lost his first game—and his heart—to the shy and awkward, yet brilliant and beautiful Annika. He admires her ability to be true to herself, quirks and all, and accepts the challenges involved in pursuing a relationship with her.
Jonathan and Annika bring out the best in each other, finding the confidence and courage within themselves to plan a future together.
What follows is a tumultuous yet tender love affair that withstands everything except the unforeseen tragedy that forces them apart, shattering their connection and leaving them to navigate their lives alone.
Now, a decade later, fate reunites Annika and Jonathan in Chicago. She's living the life she wanted as a librarian. He's a Wall Street whiz, recovering from a divorce and seeking a fresh start. The attraction and strong feelings they once shared are instantly rekindled, but until they confront the fears and anxieties that drove them apart, their second chance will end before it truly begins. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Tracey Garvis Graves is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of contemporary fiction.
Her 2011 debut novel, On the Island, spent 9 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, has been translated into thirty-one languages, and is in development with MGM and Temple Hill Productions for a feature film. Her second novel, The Girl He Used to Know came out in 2019.
She is also the author of the e-books, Uncharted, Covet, Every Time I Think of You, Cherish, Heart-Shaped Hack, and White-Hot Hack. She is hard at work on her next book. (From the publisher .)
Book Reviews
An accidental meeting rekindles the romance between former college lovers Annika and Jonathan. Endearing characters will reinforce your faith in people's goodness.
Good Housekeeping
There are a lot of romantic books coming out in April, but none quite like The Girl He Used to Know.
Cosmopolitan
Unputdownable
Refinery29
Graves does a good job of putting readers in Annika’s shoes and setting up the foundation for the book’s ending, though the narrative often gets mired in lengthy lovey-dovey scenes. Readers who don’t mind the over-the-top emotional element will find a solid story here.
Publishers Weekly
[S]eparated by tragedy [Annika and Jonathan] meet again years later. She's a librarian (of course), he's a divorced Wall Street genius, and maybe their love has withstood what they've endured. Big promo, much love; from the New York Times best-selling author of On the Island.
Library Journal
Graves's strong, autistic heroine fights for the love she once lost in this sensitive, affecting romance.
Shelf Awareness
Graves creates a believable love affair in which Annika is not infantilized but rather fully realized as simply different. And her differences become her strengths when catastrophe strikes, compelling Annika to take the lead for the first time in her life. A heartwarming, neurodiverse love story.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE GIRL HE USED TO KNOW … then take off on your own:
1. As a high-functioning autistic student, Annika struggled in her first year of college. Talk about her initial experiences in this new environment, particularly her difficulties meeting and relating to people. How does her roommate help her? Might Janice's kindness and friendship been something you would have offered a shy, awkward loner?
2. Janice introduced Annika to the chess club. What is it about the game of chess that so appealed to Annika? Why the powerful pull to the game?
3. The story is told through both Annika's and Jonathan's perspectives. Why might the author have chosen both points-of-view rather than, say, only Annika's?
4. Ten years after college and living in Chicago, how has Annika changed from her younger days? Where does she find solace, and what has she come to accept about her life? After bumping into Jonathan, she thinks "I desire
5. Describe pair's grocery store meeting: how does each feel, what emotions run through them? Have you ever been in a similar situation—bumping into a former love interest after years apart?
6. How well does Tracey Gravis Graves present Annika's autism? Do you consider her a well-rounded character, do you feel you know her, understand her confusions in social situations? Do you sympathize with her—without pitying her?
7. How would you describe Jonathan? Why is he so leery of getting involved with Annika when they meet ten years on?
8. Are you satisfied with the way the book ended?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Girl in Hyacinth Blue
Susan Vreeland, 1999
Penguin Group USA
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780140296280
Summary
Picture this: "A most extraordinary painting in which a young girl wearing a short blue smock over a rust-colored skirt sat in profile at a table by an open window." Susan Vreeland imagined just such a humble domestic scene, suggested it was created in 17th-century Holland, and attributed it to Jan Vermeer. Then she wrote a beguiling novel about this canvas, which so closely resembles the 35 extant works of the Dutch masterthat it might as well be one of his—long, lost, finally found, and as exquisite as ever. The artistic journey Vreeland recounts begins in present-day Pennsylvania, where a schoolteacher claims he owns an authentic Vermeer, a legacy from his late father, who acquired it under heinous circumstances: a Nazi officer, the father had looted it from the home of Dutch Jews.
Moving back in time and across the Atlantic, Vreeland traces the treasured painting from owner to owner. In doing so, she demonstrates the enduring power of art in the face of natural disaster, political upheaval, and personal turmoil. Ultimately, she ends the odyssey in Delft, where the painting's haunting subject is identified and tells her own poignant story about the picture's origins.
Each of the eight linked chapters has an irresistible painterly quality—finely wrought, artfully illuminated, and subtly executed. Together, they constitute a literary masterpiece, one that the New York Times Book Review praised as "intelligent, searching, and unusual... filled with luminous moments; like the painting it describes so well." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Born—N/A
• Education—San Diego State University
• Awards—Inkwell Grand Prize, Fiction, 1999; San Diego Book
Awards' Theodore Geisel Award; Best Novel of the Year, 2002;
Women's National Book Assn. First Place-Short Fiction; New
Voices First Place-Short Fiction
• Currently—lives in San Diego, California, USA
Susan Vreeland's short fiction has appeared in journals such as the New England Review, the Missouri Review, Confrontation, Calyx, Manoa, and Alaska Quarterly Review. Her first novel, What Love Sees, was broadcast as a CBS Sunday night movie in 1996.
Ms. Vreeland is the recipient of several awards, including a Women's National Book Association First Place Award in Short Fiction (1991) and a First Place in Short Fiction from New Voices (1993). Inkwell magazine for her short story, "Gifts". She teaches English literature, creative writing, and art in San Diego public schools, where she has taught since 1969.
More
"When I was nine, my great-grandfather, a landscape painter, taught me to mix colors," Susan Vreeland recalls in an interview on her publisher's web site. "With his strong hand surrounding my small one, he guided the brush until a calla lily appeared as if by magic on a page of textured watercolor paper. How many girls throughout history would have longed to be taught that, but had to do washing and mending instead?"
As a grown woman, Vreeland found her own magical way of translating her vision of the world into art. While teaching high school English in the 1980s, she began to write, publishing magazine articles, short stories, and her first novel, What Love Sees. In 1996, Vreeland was diagnosed with lymphoma, which forced her to take time off from teaching — time she spent undergoing medical treatment and writing stories about a fictional Vermeer painting.
"Creative endeavor can aid healing because it lifts us out of self-absorption and gives us a goal," she later wrote. In Vreeland's case, her goal "was to live long enough to finish this set of stories that reflected my sensibilities, so that my writing group of twelve dear friends might be given these and know that in my last months I was happy — because I was creating."
Vreeland recovered from her illness and wove her stories into a novel, Girl in Hyacinth Blue. The book was a national bestseller, praised by the New York Times as "intelligent, searching and unusual" and by Kirkus Reviews as "extraordinarily skilled historical fiction: deft, perceptive, full of learning, deeply moving." Its interrelated stories move backward in time, creating what Marion Lignana Rosenberg in Salon called "a kind of Chinese box unfolding from the contemporary hiding-place of a painting attributed to Vermeer all the way back to the moment the work was conceived."
Vreeland's next novel, The Passion of Artemisia, was based on the life of the 17th-century painter Artemisia Gentileschi, often regarded as the first woman to hold a significant place in the history of European art. "Forthright and imaginative, Vreeland's deft recreation ably showcases art and life," noted Publishers Weekly.
Love for the visual arts, especially painting, continues to fire Vreeland's literary imagination. The Forest Lover, published in 2004, is a fictional exploration of the life of the 20th-century Canadian artist Emily Carr. She has also written a series of art-related short stories. For Vreeland, art provides inspiration for living as well as for literature. As she put it in an autobiographical essay, "I hope that by writing art-related fiction, I might bring readers who may not recognize the enriching and uplifting power of art to the realization that it can serve them as it has so richly served me."
Extras
Two other novels relating to Vermeer were published within a year of Girl in Hyacinth Blue: The Music Lesson by Katharine Weber and Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier.
Vreeland taught high school English and ceramics for 30 years before retiring to become a full-time writer. She lived in San Diego, California, and died in 2017. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Vreeland's novel possesses the strength of its subject. Each of the eight chapters focuses on a small painting by Johannes Vermeer, the 17th-century Dutch master, who produced quiet paintings with exquisite color and subtlety... "In the end," the narrator notes, "it's only the moments that we have." But what exquisite moments they are in this thoughtful book.
Ron Charles - The Christian Science Monitor
The eight interlinked stories in this impressive debut collection revolve around a single painting by Vermeer; as one might expect, they contain insightful observations about the worth and the truth of art. Vreeland's skill goes deeper still; these poised and atmospheric tales present a rich variety of characters whose voices convey distinctive personalities, and each offers glimpses of Holland during different historical eras. The chronology is reversed: the first story occurs in the present day, and succeeding narratives go back in time to the 17th century. Set in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation, the moving "A Night Different from All Other Nights" portrays the Jewish family from whom the painting will be stolen after they have been sent to a concentration camp, and re-poses the question (also asked in the opening story) of how killers can revere beauty. Two narratives that treat the same event—the birth of a baby and a turning point in a marriage—take place in neighboring hamlets near Groningen during the St. Nicholas flood of 1717. Each fills in details the other does not have, and each provides indelible images of brutally hard life in a waterlogged land. In the penultimate "Still Life," set in 17th-century Delft, a poverty-hounded Vermeer begins the portrait of his daughter Magalena. "Magdalena Looking," which closes the book, reflects the evanescence of the moments that paintings capture. Unobtrusively, Vreeland builds a picture of the Dutch character, equal parts sober work ethic and faith in a harsh religion. Against these national characteristics she juxtaposes the universal human capacity for love—romantic, familial, parental—and a kind of obsessive love, the quest for beauty that distinguishes otherwise ordinary lives. The historical details that ground each narrative in time and place are obliquely revealed. In the same way, the Vermeer masterpiece achieves fuller dimension in each tale as small details of color, brush stroke, lighting, background, serve to create the picture in the reader's eye. Only the opening story disappoints; it seems staged rather than psychologically compelling. The remaining entries are elegantly executed; the characters have the solidity and the elusive mystery of Vermeer's subjects. There is suspense, as well; one wants to read these tales at one sitting, to discover how the Vermeer influenced everyone who possessed it. Vreeland paints her canvas with the sure strokes of a talented artist.
Publishers Weekly
"Pearls were a favorite item of Vermeer," observes Cornelius Engelbrecht, the secretive and obsessive professor whose conviction that he owns an authentic Vermeer launches Vreeland's lovely first novel. The painting, we soon discover, was taken from its proper (Jewish) owner by Engelbrecht's father, a German soldier during World War II—a fact that Engelbrecht struggles mightily to suppress. The one colleague to whom he shows the painting guesses the truth and derisively recommends that he burn it—"one good burning deserves another"—but we don't learn the fate of the painting. Instead, Vreeland constructs a series of vignettes, not necessarily chronological, that takes us from the rooftops of Amsterdam Jews forced to kill the pigeons they are no longer allowed to keep, to a Dutch merchant whose possession of the painting briefly complicates his marriage, to the boudoir of a French counsel's bored wife and the second story of a farmhouse in flooded Holland, and finally to the home of Vermeer himself, where art does battle with domestic necessity. Though the connections among the vignettes could be made clearer, and the ending feels abrupt—how did that painting get from the artist to the weary professor, and what finally happens to it?—each vignette has the stillness, the polish, and the balanced perfection of a Vermeer. Not quite perfect, but definitely a pearl. —Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
Library Journal
Vreeland's wonderful second outing (What Love Sees, 1996, not seen) is a novel made of stories, each delving farther into the provenance of a Vermeer painting, and each capturing a moment of life, much as the great painter did himself. The only wobble in this elegant little book is at the start, where a stiffness in character may be intended but jars even so: a high-school math teacher confides to a colleague that he owns (and adores) a painting—of a girl sewing at a window—that he knows is a Vermeer. All the evidence—of technique, color, subject—is there, yet the painting lacks documentation to validate its authenticity: nor will the math teacher, one Cornelius Engelbrecht, tell just how it became his. The reader is more privileged, though, and learns quickly enough that Engelbrecht's Nazi father stole it in 1940 from a doomed Jewish family in Amsterdam. Such reader-privilege becomes an overwhelming emotional test when Vreeland goes back to visit that family, in that year, just before the theft ("A Night Different From All Other Nights"). Farther back still, a happily married Dutch couple owns the painting—and when the husband admits that the girl in it reminds him of an earlier lover, the marriage is briefly shaken ("Adagia"). Set when Beethoven's Eroica symphony is "new," "Hyacinth Blues" offers a biting bit of social satire—and lets the reader discover just how the painting's papers did in fact get lost. Still deeper back goes Vreeland, taking up with masterful insight, feeling, and control the life of a small Dutch farm family caught in the great flood of 1717; of a young engineer who loves, loses (pathetically), and hands on the painting; of Vermeer himself as he paints the picture, struggling against debt, father of 11; and, in a wondrous, bittersweet epiphany, of the daughter herself whom Vermeer chose as his model. Extraordinarily skilled historical fiction: deft, perceptive, full of learning, deeply moving.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does Girl in Hyacinth Blue suggest about the value, both personal and monetary, and the function and purpose of art?
2. Why would the author structure the novel in reverse chronology? What are the advantages or disadvantages of telling the story this way?
3. Discuss the different ways in which the painting—the girl—spoke to her numerous owners. Did the men view her differently than the women? Why do they all adore—need—the girl in the painting so much? Does it provide for them something that is missing from their daily lives? Whose life did the painting affect the most?
4. What does the book have to say about the joys and difficulties of being an artist? On page 204, Vermeer speaks of the "the cost" of his painting to his household. Is it worth it? Why, so often, is an artist's genius recognized only after he or she has died?
5. Is there a piece of art that affects you in a special way? Elaborate.
6. Do you think Magdalena should have introduced herself to the couple who bought the painting? Is it better not to know the subject of a painting too closely?
7. While reading this book, did you imagine your own version of the painting? If so, describe it.
8. What do you think happened to the painting? Is Cornelius capable of destroying the painting or relinquishing it? Is he a failed human being or is he capable of redemption? Is the pictures rightful place in a museum?
9. Discuss the range and significance of the last line of the book.
10. In the end, does it matter whether or not the painting is a Vermeer?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Girl in the Blue Beret
Bobbie Ann Mason, 2011
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812978872
Summary
Inspired by the wartime experiences of her father-in-law, Bobbie Ann Mason has crafted the haunting and profoundly moving story of an American World War II pilot shot down in Occupied Europe, and his wrenching odyssey of discovery, decades later, as he uncovers the truth about those who helped him escape in 1944.
At twenty-three, Marshall Stone was a confident, cocksure U.S. flyboy stationed in England, with several bombing raids in a B-17 under his belt. But when enemy fighters forced his plane to crash-land in a Belgian field during a mission to Germany, Marshall had to rely solely on the kindness of ordinary Belgian and French citizens to help him hide from and evade the Nazis.
Decades later, restless and at the end of his career as an airline pilot, Marshall returns to the crash site and finds himself drawn back in time, unable to stop thinking about the people who risked their lives to save Allied pilots like him. Most of all, he is obsessed by the girl in the blue beret, a courageous young woman who protected and guided him in occupied Paris.
Framed in spellbinding, luminous prose, Marshall’s search for her gradually unfolds, becoming a voyage of discovery that reveals truths about himself and the people he knew during the war. Deeply beautiful and impossible to put down, The Girl in the Blue Beret is an unforgettable story—intimate, affecting, exquisite—of memories, second chances, and one intrepid girl who risked it all for a stranger. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 1, 1940
• Where—Mayfield, Kentucy, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Kentucky; M.A.,
State University of New York, Binghamton;
Ph.D., University of Connecticut
• Awards—Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award
• Currently—lives in Kentucky
Bobbie Ann Mason is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and literary critic from Kentucky.
With four siblings Mason grew up on her family's dairy farm outside of Mayfield, Kentucky. As a child she loved to read, so her parents, Wilburn and Christina Mason, always made sure she had books. These books were mostly popular fiction about the Bobbsey Twins and the Nancy Drew mysteries. She would later write a book about these books that she loved to read as an adolescent titled The Girl Sleuth: A feminist guide to the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and Their Sisters.
After high school, Mason went on to major in English at the University of Kentucky. After graduating in 1962, she took several jobs in New York City with various movie magazines, writing articles about various stars who were in the spotlight. She wrote about Annette Funicello, Troy Donahue, Fabian, and other teen stars.
She earned her master’s degree at the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1966. Next she went to graduate school at the University of Connecticut, where she subsequently received her Ph.D. in literature with a dissertation on Vladimir Nabokov's Ada in 1972. Her dissertation was published in paperback form as Nabokov's Garden two years later.
Stories
By the time she was in her later thirties, Bobbie Ann started to write short stories. In 1980 The New Yorker published her first story.
It took me a long time to discover my material. It wasn't a matter of developing writing skills, it was a matter of knowing how to see things. And it took me a very long time to grow up. I'd been writing for a long time, but was never able to see what there was to write about. I always aspired to things away from home, so it took me a long time to look back at home and realize that that's where the center of my thought was.
Mason went on to write a collection, Shiloh and Other Stories, which appeared in 1982 and won the 1983 Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award for outstanding first works of fiction. Later story collections include Love and Live (1989), Midnight Magic (1998), Zigzagging Down a Wild Trail (2002), and Nancy Culpepper (2006). Over the years, her stories have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Mother Jones, New Yorker, and Paris Review.
Mason writes about the working-class people of Western Kentucky, and her short stories have contributed to a renaissance of regional fiction in America creating a literary style that critics have labeled "shopping mall realism."
Novels and memoir
Mason wrote her first novel, In Country, in 1985. It is often cited as one of the seminal literary works of the 1980s with a protagonist who attempts to come to terms with important generational issues, ranging from the Vietnam War to consumer culture. A film version was produced in 1989, starring Emily Lloyd as the protagonist and Bruce Willis as her uncle.
She followed In Country with another novel in 1988, Spence and Lila. She has since published others: Feather Crowns (1993), An Atomic Romance (2005), and The Girl in the Blue Beret (2011).
Mason also published her memoir Clear Springs in 1999.
Mason has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is currently the writer in residence at the University of Kentucky. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/13/2014.)
Book Reviews
Mason has given us a portrait of a man from a generation whose members were uncertain about the protocols of letting oneself feel. And she has lovingly captured the tone of bluff assertion still shared by veterans of that war. Marshall’s banality has the ring of truth; his awkwardness reveals much….The Girl in the Blue Beret is a work of remarkable empathy.
Daniel Swift - New York Times Book Review
Mason has long been considered one of the finest writers of regional fiction—Kentucky is her home and inspiration—but her affecting new novel takes place in France, and she’s just as comfortable and insightful there…once again, Mason has plumbed the moral dimensions of national conflict in the lives of individual participants and produced a deeply moving, relevant novel.
Washington Post
The new novel from best-selling author Bobbie Ann Mason will send you dashing to the shelves to devour everything else she's ever written—it's that good.… Mason weaves a spellbinding tale of war, love and survival. … The Girl in the Blue Beret is not only a remarkable work of historical fiction, it's also storytelling at its best.
Associated Press
Ushering her readers back and forth across the decades, she perfectly weaves history with fiction. In many ways the book is a tribute to these unsung civilians whose heroism often was never acknowledged by those they helped. [A] near-perfect war story.
USA Today
To Curl Up with: A pilot shot down over France returns years later to search for the jeunne fille who rescued him. Mason’s lovely tale, drawn from her [father-in-law’s] wartime experience, will resonate for many.
Good Housekeeping
The Girl in the Blue Beret is an impressive novel. Mason writes with confidence about integrity, memory, love, the war in Europe—and a likeable man.… Recommended for all historical fiction readers.
Historical Novels Review
"[An] impressive, impassioned new novel. The unforgettable story, based on the author’s father-in-law’s wartime experiences, is a gripping tale of redemption." –Miami Herald
[A] touching novel about love, loss, war, and memory. Shot down over France during WWII, Marshall Stone takes the controls and lands the plane, helping as many of his surviving airmen to safety as he can.... [F]ascinating and intensely intimate.
Publishers Weekly
[A] haunting novel [Mason's ] late father-in-law's wartime experiences, and the rich setting, detail, and intimate character nuances ring true. Verdict: Great crossover appeal for fans of the award-winning author, World War II fiction, and novels with French settings. Highly recommended. —Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast, TX
Library Journal
Mason may surprise fans of her Appalachian stories with this historical novel about a World War II pilot who returns to France to find the families who helped him survive after his plane was shot down 36 years earlier.... Like Marshall himself, the novel maintains a reserved, laconic, even pedantic tone—off-putting at times yet often moving
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the special bond between Allied aviators and their European helpers. Why did it take so long for many of them to reunite after the war?
2. What does flying mean to Marshall? Discuss Marshall’s failed B-17 mission and the effect it had on his life.
3. Re-read and discuss the images of flight throughout the novel. How does the final sentence tie in with these?
4. What is Marshall’s feeling about the young man he remembers as Robert? Does Marshall romanticize him? Why is finding Robert so important to Marshall?
5. Love and war. There are two main love stories in this novel—the younger couple, Annette and Robert, and the mature couple, Annette and Marshall. How are these relationships different from each other? What does war do to love and romance?
6. Why is Marshall so unprepared for what Annette reveals to him? How does he deal with her story? What possibilities lie ahead for him?
7. The name Annette Vallon is inspired by a historical figure, a woman who was William Wordsworth’s lover during the French Revolution and the mother of his illegitimate child. What suggestions are being made by the use of the name here? What else can you learn about Annette Vallon from further research?
8. What do you make of the epigraph by William Wordsworth? Is it appropriate? How does it connect with the use of Annette Vallon’s name?
9. What do mountains mean to Marshall? Trace the importance of mountains at different stages of his life.
10. How does Marshall look back on his war experience? How does his perspective change during the course of the novel?
11. How do the experiences in the book compare with your own experiences of war? Have you ever known anyone captured during wartime?
12. What is meant by second chances in the context of this book?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Girl in the Green Raincoat (Tess Monaghan series #11)
Laura Lippman, 2010
HarperCollins
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061938566
Summary
In the third trimester of her pregnancy, Baltimore private investigator Tess Monaghan is under doctor's orders to remain immobile. Bored and restless, reduced to watching the world go by outside her window, she takes small comfort in the mundane events she observes...like the young woman in a green raincoat who walks her dog at the same time every day.
Then one day the dog is running free and its owner is nowhere to be seen. Certain that something is terribly wrong, and incapable of leaving well enough alone, Tess is determined to get to the bottom of the dog walker's abrupt disappearance, even if she must do so from her own bedroom. But her inquisitiveness is about to fling open a dangerous Pandora's box of past crimes and troubling deaths...and she's not only putting her own life in jeopardy but also her unborn child's.
Previously serialized in the New York Times, and now published in book form for the very first time, The Girl in the Green Raincoat is a masterful Hitchcockian thriller from one of the very best in the business: multiple award-winner Laura Lippman. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 31, 1959
• Where—Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• Education—B.S., Northwestern University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Baltimore, Maryland
Lippman was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr., a well known and respected writer at the Baltimore Sun, and Madeline Lippman, a retired school librarian for the Baltimore City Public School System. She attended high school in Columbia, Maryland, where she was the captain of the Wilde Lake High School It's Academic team.
Lippman is a former reporter for the (now defunct) San Antonio Light and the Baltimore Sun. She is best known for writing a series of novels set in Baltimore and featuring Tess Monaghan, a reporter (like Lippman herself) turned private investigator.
Lippman's works have won the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Nero, Gumshoe and Shamus awards. Her 2007 release, What the Dead Know, was the first of her books to make the New York Times bestseller list, and was shortlisted for the Crime Writer's Association Dagger Award. In addition to the Tess Monaghan novels, Lippman wrote 2003's Every Secret Thing, which has been optioned for the movies by Academy Award–winning actor Frances McDormand.
Lippman lives in the South Baltimore neighborhood of Federal Hill and frequently writes in the neighborhood coffee shop Spoons. In addition to writing, she teaches at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. In January, 2007, she taught at the 3rd Annual Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College.
Lippman is married to David Simon, another former Baltimore Sun reporter, and creator and an executive producer of the HBO series The Wire. The character Bunk is shown to be reading one of her books in episode eight of the first season of The Wire. She appeared in a scene of the first episode of the last season of The Wire as a reporter working in the Baltimore Sun newsroom.
Awards
2015 Anthony Award-Best Novel (After I'm Gone)
2008 Anthony Award-Best Novel (What the Dead Know)
2008 Anthony Award-Best Short Story ("Hardly Knew Her")
2008 Barry Award-Best Novel (What the Dead Know)
2008 Macavity Award-Best Mystery (What the Dead Know)
2007 Anthony Award-Best Novel (No Good Deeds)
2007 Quill Award-Mystery (What the Dead Know)
2006 Gumshow Award-Best Novel (To the Power of the Three)
2004 Barry Award-Best Novel (Every Secret Thing)
2001 Nero Award (Sugar House)
2000 Anthony Award-Best Paperback Original (In Big Trouble)
2000 Shamus Award-Best Paperback Original (In Big Trouble)
1999 Anthony Award-Best Paperback Original (Butchers Hill)
1998 Agatha Award-Best Novel (Butchers Hill)
1998 Edgar Award-Best Paperback Original (Charm City)
1998 Shamus Award-Best Paperback Original (Charm City)
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Originally serialized in the New York Times Magazine, Lippman's Tess Monaghan novella turns the intrepid Baltimore PI's at-risk late-pregnancy bed rest into a compellingly edgy riff on Hitchcock's Rear Window. Lovingly tucked up on her winterized sun porch, Tess marshals her forces—doting artist boyfriend Crow, best friend Whitney Talbot, middle-aged assistant gumshoe Mrs. Blossom, and researcher Dorie Starnes—to probe the disappearance of a chic blonde green-raincoated dog walker she'd been watching from her comfy prison. Tess also takes in the missing woman's abandoned green-slickered Italian greyhound from hell, a miniature canine terrorist whose anti-housebreaking vendetta offers comic relief from Tess's threatened pre-eclampsia, her obsessive unraveling of a complex scam, and her last-trimester spats with Crow about their future. Though postpartum Tess turns alternately weepy and shrill, that condition won't last, and this entertaining romp leaves plenty of hints of detective-mother exploits to come.
Publishers Weekly
Confined to bed rest for the last 12 weeks of her pregnancy, an immobilized Tess Monaghan (In Big Trouble) watches the world around her through binoculars, à la Hitchcock's classic Rear Window, admiring the girl in the green raincoat who walks her greyhound daily on a color-coordinated leash. But when she sees the dog scampering loose, Tess's investigative genes kick in, and she's intent on finding out what happened to the dog's walker, who turns out to be Carole Epstein, third wife of Don Epstein, a man with two dead wives and a dead girlfriend behind him. Despite Epstein's claims that Carole emptied their joint accounts and took off, Tess is suspicious enough to ask best friend Whitney Talbot to pose as a lure for the man, with unexpected results all around. Verdict: In this novella that first appeared in serial form in the New York Times Magazine, Lippman provides welcome background for many of her cast members as she advances Tess and her boyfriend Crow to a new stage in their lives. Lippman's trademark crisp prose, smart plotting, and appealing protagonist—whose physical limitations here make her no less feisty and resourceful when faced with danger—make this an essential addition to a winning series. —Michele Leber, Arlington VA
Library Journal
It’s always an event when Laura Lippman, who has won every major crime-fiction award going, delivers a new Tess Monaghan storyng.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. The Girl in the Green Raincoat was originally serialized in the New York Times Magazine. How might a serialization—a work read in timed installments—affect the structure of the story? If you have read them, use other books in the Tess Monaghan series for comparison.
2. In the P.S., Laura Lippman reveals that to hold readers' interest in a single serial installment, she layered smaller stories within the larger narrative. Choose a few chapters from The Girl in the Green Raincoat to explore this layering effect. How are these contained stories interwoven into the larger story arc? How do they deepen your understanding of the characters and the plot?
3. How did Tess being bedridden affect her judgment and how she investigated the case? Think about how she set up the plot. Diagram each plot development, and discuss how together, they formed the story. Were you surprised at the outcome?
4. One of Laura Lippman's inspirations for The Girl in the Green Raincoat was the classic movie Rear Window. Have you seen the movie? If so, how do the two plots mirror each other? How are they different? Another influence is the Josephine Tey novel Daughter of Time. If you've read this book, compare and contrast the two stories as well.
5. If you have read previous Tess Monaghan stories, what did you learn about Tess that you didn't know? What about Crow and Tess's friend Whitney?
6. Tess is nervous about her relationship with Crow and having a baby, feelings brought to the surface with the investigation. Meeting the detective who looked into the death of the suspect's first wife, she asks him, "Did you know your wife was the one, the moment you met her? Or did it creep up on you?" If you are in a committed relationship, how would you answer? Do you believe in love at first sight?
7. When Crow's protege, Lloyd, proposes to his girlfriend May, the adults in their lives are upset and claim the young people are "too young to get married." What do you think? What are the benefits of waiting? But as Lloyd asks, why wait if you know you are sure?
8. Tess's life changes in many ways by the end of the book. How do you think these changes will affect her career as a private investigator?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Girl in the Red Coat
Kate Hamer, 2016
Melville House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781612195001
Summary
Newly single mom Beth has one constant, gnawing worry: that her dreamy eight-year-old daughter, Carmel, who has a tendency to wander off, will one day go missing.
And then one day, it happens: On a Saturday morning thick with fog, Beth takes Carmel to a local outdoor festival, they get separated in the crowd, and Carmel is gone.
Shattered, Beth sets herself on the grim and lonely mission to find her daughter, keeping on relentlessly even as the authorities tell her that Carmel may be gone for good.
Carmel, meanwhile, is on a strange and harrowing journey of her own—to a totally unexpected place that requires her to live by her wits, while trying desperately to keep in her head, at all times, a vision of her mother …
Alternating between Beth’s story and Carmel’s, and written in gripping prose that won’t let go, The Girl in the Red Coat—like Emma Donoghue’s Room and M. L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans—is an utterly immersive story that’s impossible to put down . . . and impossible to forget. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1964-65
• Raised—Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK
• Education—B.A., Manchester University; M.A., Aberystwyth University
• Awards—Rhys Davies Award
• Currently—lives in Cardiff, Wales
Kate Hamer was born in Plymouth, England, but grew up in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Her father was a naval engineer and her mother a public school teacher. When she was 10, the family, including her two older sisters, moved to Wales, where she has spent most of her life and considers home.
Hamer earned her B.A. from Manchester University and pursued a successful 10-year career in television documentaries before turning to fiction. In 2011 she earned her M.A. in Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. While there, she won a prize for the best beginning of a novel—a piece what would turn into her first book, The Girl in the Red Coat.
Another of her stories won the Rhys Davies Award in 2011 and was read on BBC Radio 4. She was also awarded a Literature Wales bursary.
Hamer lives in Cardiff with her husband Mark, a gardener. The couple has two grown children. (Adapted from the UK publisher, Faber & Faber.)
Book Reviews
[G]ripping…. What kicks The Girl in the Red Coat out of the loop of familiarity is Ms. Hamer's keen understanding of her two central characters: Carmel and her devastated mother, Beth, who narrate alternating chapters…. Both emerge as individuals depicted with sympathy but also with unsparing emotional precision…. By cutting back and forth between Carmel and Beth's perspective, Ms. Hamer not only builds suspense but delineates the complicated bonds of love, dependency and resentment that bind mother and daughter. Their separation underscores their need for each other, while muffling memories of their sometimes tense, even testy relationship.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Hamer’s book is a moving, voice-driven narrative. As much an examination of loss and anxiety as it is a gripping page-turner, it’ll appeal to anyone captivated by child narrators or analyses of the pains and joys of motherhood.
Huffington Post
(Starred review.) Hamer's spectacular debut skillfully chronicles the nightmare of child abduction. Telling the story in two remarkable voices...the author weaves a page-turning narrative....[which is] believable and nuanced, resulting in a morally complex, haunting read.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Reading this novel is a test of how fast you can turn pages. Hamer...is a natural storyteller who writes with such a sense of drama, compulsion, and sympathy that most readers will devour this work. —Lisa Rohrbaugh, Leetonia Community P.L., OH
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Hamer’s lush use of language easily conjures fairy-tale imagery.... Although a kidnapped child is the central plot point, this is not a mystery but a novel of deep inquiry and intense emotions. Hamer’s dark tale of the lost and found is nearly impossible to put down.
Booklist
[P]oignantly details the loss and loneliness of a mother and daughter separated.... Hamer beautifully renders pain, exactly capturing the evisceration of loss, but she just falls short with the overall cohesion of the story. Exquisite prose..., but the book could have used more attention to less detail.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the beginning of the novel, Beth briefly loses Carmel in a maze. What is the significance of this moment? How did it influence your reaction to the scenes at the festival?
2. Beth tells Carmel that, regardless of what happens, Carmel must stay uniquely "Carmel" inside. Are names an important aspect of this story? Can you think of any examples where names play a significant role in the text?
3. Families, or, more importantly, family difficulties, are central to The Girl in the Red Coat. What are the various family dynamics at work? Where are there parallels and where are there inconsistencies?
4. Discuss Beth and her ex-husband’s shifting relationship. Consider how it is strengthened and changed by Carmel’s disappearance. As Beth says, "we were brother and sister united in this strange bond."
5. Early in the book, Carmel’s teacher, Mrs. Buckfast, refers to Beth as "yet another single mother." Think about the friendships Beth has with her female friends and how they support and teach each other. Are those relationships surprising in any way? How do they evolve?
6. Fairy tales play an important role throughout The Girl in the Red Coat. Discuss the fairy tale imagery (the woods, the significance of Carmel’s red coat) and how it elevates the novel into the realm of the supernatural. Did this affect your reading of the story?
7. How does Beth handle the loss of her daughter over the course of the novel? Did you notice examples of "tiny actions" that helped her cope? How do those actions compare to the more major developments in Carmel’s disappearance?
8. Gramps believes Carmel possesses a divine gift. Do you see evidence of this gift throughout the text? Are you convinced by it? Look closely at pages 225–227.
9. Gramps and Dorothy tell Carmel a number of lies in order to keep her with them. These lies escalate as Carmel becomes more and more suspicious. What are some of these lies and how do they affect Carmel? Is there one that feels like the breaking point, or is it more a matter of accumulation?
10. The word "courage" is a refrain throughout the novel. Discuss the ways in which the book’s protagonists—Carmel and Beth—display courage. How do those demonstrations compare to the "courage" we see in Gramps, Dorothy, and Paul?
11. Beth says she feels "better in an environment that says: "normality is paper thin." How does the world move on as Beth struggles with her grief? Did you notice historical or cultural clues that gave you a sense of when the narrative takes place? Did it matter? Look closely at pg. 247.
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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The Girl in the Spider's Web (Millennium Series 4)
David Lagercrantz, 2015
Knopf Doubleday
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385354288
Summary
Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist return.
She is the girl with the dragon tattoo—a genius hacker and uncompromising misfit. He is a crusading journalist whose championing of the truth often brings him to the brink of prosecution.
Late one night, Blomkvist receives a phone call from a source claiming to have information vital to the United States. The source has been in contact with a young female superhacker—a hacker resembling someone Blomkvist knows all too well.
The implications are staggering. Blomkvist, in desperate need of a scoop for Millennium, turns to Salander for help. She, as usual, has her own agenda. The secret they are both chasing is at the center of a tangled web of spies, cybercriminals, and governments around the world, and someone is prepared to kill to protect it . . .
The duo who captivated millions of readers in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest join forces again in this adrenaline-charged, uniquely of-the-moment thriller. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 4, 1962
• Rasied—near Stockholm, Sweden
• Education—University of Gothenburg
• Currently—lives in Sodermalm, Stockholm, Sweden
David Lagercrantz is a Swedish journalist and best-selling author, well known in his own country as the ghostwriter for I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic, autobiography of the renowned Swedish footballer (soccer player). With the continuation of Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, et al.), Lagercrantz has gained an international reputation.
Personal
Lagercrantz grew up in Sweden's foremost journalistic and intellectual circles. He is son of Swedish publisher and literary scholar Olof Lagercrantz; his mother is Martina Ruin, daughter of philosopher Hans Ruin. Lagercrantz was raised in Solna and Drottningholm near Stockholm, Sweden, together with his brothers and sisters, among them actress and diplomat Marika Lagercrantz.
The family is descended from a junior line of the untitled Swedish noble family Lagercrantz and, as such, is a member of the Swedish House of Nobility. He is also a descendant through his paternal grandmother of the 19th century historian and poet Erik Gustaf Geijer.
Even though he himself holds leftist political views (and is first cousin to Left Party politician and economist Johan Lonnroth), Lagercrantz has described his upper-class background as a cause of antagonism in a journalistic environment dominated by radical left writers. As a consequence, Lagercrantz has largely withdrawn from the intellectual debate and "culture pages sphere" during his journalist career.
Lagercrantz is married to the journalist and Dagens Eko radio news manager Anne Lagercrantz. They have three children.
Journalist
Lagercrantz studied philosophy and religion at university and subsequently graduated from the Gothenburg journalism school. His first journalist job was at the in-house magazine of carmaker Volvo.
He later moved to the daily tabloid newspaper Expressen where he worked as a crime reporter until 1993. He covered some of the major criminal cases of the late 80s and early 90s in Sweden, notably the Amsele murders.
Early books
His first book, released in 1997, was a biography of the Swedish adventurer and mountaineer Goran Kropp (1966 - 2002).
In 2000 he published a biography on the inventor Hakan Lans, Ett svenskt geni. His breakthrough as a novelist was Syndafall i Wilmslow, a fictionalised novel about the British mathematician Alan Turing.
I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic
In 2011 the best-selling sports biography I am Zlatan Ibrahimovic was published, with Lagercrantz as ghostwriter. According to Lagercrantz, the book is largely based on approximately 100 hours of interviews conducted with Ibrahimovic in Milan.
Lagercrantz chose to approach the project as a novel rather than a conventional ghostwritten autobiography. Although Ibrahimovic was at first was sceptical, the Swedish language edition sold over 500,000 copies before Christmas 2011, which according to his literary agency Bonnier Group Agency is the fastest selling book of all time in Sweden. The rights have been sold to more than 30 countries.
Simon Kuper of the Financial Times compared the biography to Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint and drew parallels between the main character's experience as a minority and outsider struggling for recognition and acceptance in mainstream society. Kupner named the book "the best footballer’s autobiography of recent years."
The Girl in the Spider's Web
In 2013 it was announced that Lagercrantz had been contracted to write the fourth novel in the Millennium series of crime novels, originally by Stieg Larsson (1954–2004). The novel was published at midnight August 26-27, 2015, around the ten-year anniversary of the first Millennium novel.
According to the publisher, the book is a stand-alone sequel based on Larsson's characters, but has not made use of the incomplete book manuscripts and notes he left behind. Lagercrantz, however, stated in an interview with Aftonbladet that he had picked up some of the unfinished plot threads from the published novels.
The book's Swedish title is Det som inte dödar oss, literally translated "That Which Does Not Kill Us"; the English title is The Girl in the Spider's Web. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/23/2014.)
Book Reviews
Fans of Stieg Larsson's captivating odd couple of modern detective fiction…will not be disappointed by the latest installment of their adventures…Salander and Blomkvist have survived the authorship transition intact and are just as compelling as ever…Mr. Lagercrantz demonstrates an instinctive feel for the world Larsson created and for his two unconventional gumshoes…Mr. Lagercrantz captures the weariness, even vulnerability, that lurks beneath these two characters' toughness, and he understands that each is motivated by a craving for justice…Mr. Lagercrantz seems to have set about—quite nimbly, for the most part—channeling Larsson's narrative style, mixing genre clichés with fresh, reportorial details, and plot twists reminiscent of sequences from Larsson's novels with energetically researched descriptions of the wild, wild West that is the dark side of the Internet.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
What of Lisbeth Salander? Given that Lagercrantz knows she’s what readers want, her long and suspenseful introduction is masterful.
Lee Child - New York Times Book Review
Lagercrantz has more than met the challenge. Larsson’s brainchildren are in good hands and may have even come up a bit in the world.
Wall Street Journal
Lagercrantz’s real achievement here is the subtle development of Lisbeth’s character; he allows us access to her complex, alienated world but is careful not to remove her mystery and unknowability. Lisbeth Salander remains, in Lagercrantz’s hands, the most enigmatic and fascinating anti-heroine in fiction.
Financial Times
Lagercrantz deftly blends the spirit of Larsson’s work and characters with his own literary skills and bright imagination. Spider’s Web is an intelligent novel that has Salander entangled in one of the most contentious issues of our times.... Riveting.... Pyrotechnic.
Chicago Tribune
[A] smart, action-packed thriller that is true to the spirit of the characters Larsson created while adding interesting new ones and updating the political backdrop that made the Millennium series so compelling.
Buffalo News
Rest easy, Lisbeth Salander fans—our punk hacker heroine is in good hands.... A twisty, bloody thrill ride...seamlessly woven together by Lagercrantz—in fact, if you hadn’t seen his name on the book jacket, you’d likely assume it was Larsson’s own handiwork.... An instant page-turner.
USA Today
Without ever becoming pastiche, the book is a respectful and affectionate homage to the originals.... Lagercrantz’s continuation, while never formulaic, is a cleaner and tighter read than the originals.
Guardian (UK)
Lagercrantz pulls it off.... One devours Larsson’s books for the plots, the action, the anger, and most of all for Lisbeth Salander, a character who resembles Sherlock Holmes or James Bond . . . Lagercrantz has caught her superbly.
Daily Telegraph (UK)
David Lagercrantz was set an almost impossible task by Stieg Larsson’s estate when they asked him to write a ‘continuation’ novel featuring Lisbeth Salander. He has carried it out with intelligence and vigour. The Girl in the Spider’s Web conveys the essence and atmosphere of Larsson’s Millennium novels. He has captured the spirit of their characters and devised inventive plots.
London Times (UK)
Fans of the original trilogy need not fear.... The novel is well-researched and more intelligent than the average thriller.
Independent (UK)
Lagercrantz makes sensible decisions in this fourth volume.... Blomkvist is given a cleverly and very contemporary storyline.... A worthwhile read for anyone who’s zipped through the trilogy and finished wanting more.
Daily Express (UK)
Lagercrantz does an excellent job.... Anyone craving more Salander bad-assery should get their hands on a copy of Spider’s Web faster than Lisbeth can hack into the NSA.
People
Fans of the original trilogy will be pleased with Lagercrantz’s new installment. The novel is a smart, propulsive thriller and espionage tale with a timely digital age plot (think Snowden and Wikileaks).
Hollywood Reporter
Action-packed and thoroughly enjoyable.... [A] finely-wrought thriller.... I will eagerly devour the next adventure for Salander and Blomkvist, especially now that we know their fate lies in the hands of a writer worthy of their story.
Daily Beast
Lagercrantz stays true to Larsson’s vision.... No doubt about it, Lagercrantz has done a skillful job.
Sydney Morning Herald
(Starred review.) [W]orthy, crowd-pleasing fourth installment in the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium saga.... Lagercrantz, his prose more assured than Larsson's, keeps Salander's fiery rage at the white-hot level her fans will want.
Publishers Weekly
Swedish journalist and best-selling author Lagercrantz hit the jackpot when Stieg Larsson's estate asked him to write this stand-alone sequel to the famed "Millennium" trilogy.
Library Journal
Lisbeth is perhaps getting a little long in the tooth to be called a girl, but no matter: she still has a young person's aching desire to right the wrongs of the world.... Fast-moving, credible, and intelligently told.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
((We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they more one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you, the reader, begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers are skillful at hiding clues in plain sight. How well does the author hide the clues in this work?
4. Does the author use red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray?
5. Talk about plot's twists & turns—those surprising developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense? Are they plausible? Or do the twists & turns feel forced and preposterous—inserted only to extend the story.
6. Does the author ratchet up the story's suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? How does the author build suspense?
7. What about the ending—is it satisfying? Is it probable or believable? Does it grow out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 2). Or does the ending come out of the blue? Does it feel forced...tacked-on...or a cop-out? Or perhaps it's too predictable. Can you envision a better, or different, ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Girl in the Tower (Winternight Trilogy 2)
Katherine Arden, 2017
Del Rey
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101885963
Summary
A remarkable young woman blazes her own trail, from the backwoods of Russia to the court of Moscow, in the exhilarating sequel to Katherine Arden’s bestselling debut novel, The Bear and the Nightingale.
Katherine Arden’s enchanting first novel introduced readers to an irresistible heroine. Vasilisa has grown up at the edge of a Russian wilderness, where snowdrifts reach the eaves of her family’s wooden house and there is truth in the fairy tales told around the fire. Her gift for seeing what others do not won her the attention of Morozko—Frost, the winter demon from the stories—and together they saved her people from destruction.
But Frost’s aid comes at a cost, and her people have condemned her as a witch.
Now Vasilisa faces an impossible choice. Driven from her home by frightened villagers, the only options left for her are marriage or the convent. She cannot bring herself to accept either fate and instead chooses adventure, dressing herself as a boy and setting off astride her magnificent stallion Solovey.
But after Vasilisa prevails in a skirmish with bandits, everything changes.
The Grand Prince of Moscow anoints her a hero for her exploits, and she is reunited with her beloved sister and brother, who are now part of the Grand Prince’s inner circle. She dares not reveal to the court that she is a girl, for if her deception were discovered it would have terrible consequences for herself and her family.
Before she can untangle herself from Moscow’s intrigues — and as Frost provides counsel that may or may not be trustworthy — she will also confront an even graver threat lying in wait for all of Moscow itself. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1987 (?)
• Where—Austin, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., Middlebury, Vermont, USA
• Currently—lives in Brandon, Vermont
Katherine Arden is a Texas-born author known for her Winternight Trilogy of fantasy novels—The Bear and the Nightingale, The Girl in the Tower, both published in 2017, and The Winter of the Witch in 2019.
Born in Austin, Texas, Katherine Arden spent her junior year of high school in Rennes, France. Following her acceptance to Middlebury College in Vermont, she deferred enrolment for a year in order to live and study in Moscow. At Middlebury, she specialized in French and Russian literature.
After receiving her B.A. in French and Russian literature, she moved to Maui, Hawaii, working every kind of odd job imaginable, from grant writing and making crepes to serving as a personal tour guide. After a year on the island, she moved to Briancon, France, and spent nine months teaching. She then returned to Maui, stayed for nearly a year, then left again to wander. Currently she lives in Vermont, but really, you never know. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) [A] sensual, beautifully written, and emotionally stirring fantasy . . . Fairy tales don’t get better than this.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Arden’s lush, lyrical writing cultivates an intoxicating, visceral atmosphere, and her marvelous sense of pacing carries the novel along at a propulsive clip. A masterfully told story of folklore, history, and magic with a spellbinding heroine at the heart of it all.
Booklist
[The characters, if painted in broad strokes, are vivid and personable, and the brutal landscape … shapes their destinies. A compelling, fast-moving story that grounds fantasy elements in a fascinating period of Russian history.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Since The Bear and the Nightingale, we have seen Vasya and her siblings grow up and take on new roles as adults in The Girl in the Tower. Many parallels are drawn in this book between Vasya, Sasha, and Olga in their childhood and as they are now. How have they changed? Do you think they have grown closer, or further apart?
2. Again and again, the concept of freedom versus confinement pervades the story: Vasya must choose between freedom alone, life in a convent, or a future tied to marriage; Sasha reflects on his inability to find peace as a secluded monk and his need for adventure; and Olga comments repeatedly on the strict obligations of noblewomen confined to their towers. Discuss this dynamic. What does freedom mean to each of these characters? How much of their freedom should each be expected to sacrifice to their responsibilities?
3. Vasya assumes the role of Sasha’s brother, Vasilii, when she becomes entangled with the Moscow noblemen. Is pretending to be a man a smart move on Vasya’s part? How would the events that unfold have been different if, upon her first encounter with Sasha and the Grand Prince at the walled monastery, she was truthful about her identity?
4. The theme of coming-of-age is prevalent throughout the book, as Vasya reflects on her decision to pursue an adulthood of her own making in contrast to Masha’s very confined choices as a princess. Why do you think it is that with coming-of-age there seems to be a narrowing of choices?
5. Vasya, as she strives to find her place in the world, has to make many difficult decisions, many of which force her to choose between protecting her family and standing up for herself. What obligations does Vasya have to Sasha and Olga? What obligations do they owe to Vasya? How do these family responsibilities interfere with one another, and how do the desires of each sibling interfere with their duties as family?
6. Have you ever felt conflicted about being tied to responsibilities that don’t align with what you want to pursue?
7. Just as Vasya’s revered reputation as Vasilii the Brave has been solidified, all comes crashing down when Kasyan reveals her secret to all of Moscow. Did Vasya make a mistake remaining in Moscow for so long and putting herself and her family at greater risk of her true identity being revealed? Do you think her choice to remain in Moscow for as long as she did was selfish or selfless?
8. Vasya interferes when Morozko arrives to take Olga away, and as a result, he leaves with the life of the newborn child instead. What do you think of Vasya’s decision to intervene?
9. Was Morozko in the right to use Vasya to sustain himself? Do you think his intentions toward Vasya are good, or does he just take advantage of her? Is Vasya right to turn away from him when she learns the truth and rejects his jewel?
10. What do you think will become of Vasya’s tangled relationship with Morozko now that the talisman has been broken?
11. What secrets do you think Morozko still holds?
12. Did you ever begin to distrust Kasyan? At what point did your doubts about him begin? Are there clues that made you suspect that he is not what he appears?
13. What do you think of Konstantin’s role in assisting Kasyan and sacrificing Masha as an act of vengeance against Vasya? What do you think of Vasya’s choice to let him live after he has committed this horrible act?
14. Were you surprised to learn that the ghost of the tower is Vasya’s grandmother, Tamara?
15. By the end of the book, Vasya reveals the truth about herself and her exploits to her siblings. Now that Olga and Sasha know the truth about Vasya’s powers, how do you think this will affect their relationship?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)