New England White
Stephen L. Carter, 2007
Knopf Doubleday
640 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375712913
Summary
Lemaster Carlyle, the president of the country's most prestigious university, and his wife, Julie, the divinity school's deputy dean, are America's most prominent and powerful African American couple. Driving home through a swirling blizzard late one night, the couple skids off the road. Near the sight of their accident they discover a dead body.
To her horror, Julia recognizes the body as a prominent academic and one of her former lovers. In the wake of the death, the icy veneer of their town Elm Harbor, a place Julie calls "the heart of whiteness," begins to crack, having devastating consequences for a prominent local family and sending shock waves all the way to the White House. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1954
• Where—Washington, D.C., USA
• Education—B.A. Stanford University; J.D., Yale Law School
• Currently—New Haven, Connecticut
Stephen L. Carter has helped shape the national debate on issues ranging from the role of religion in American political culture to the impact of integrity and civility on our daily lives. The New York Times has called him one of the nation's leading public intellectuals.
Born in Washington, D.C., Stephen L. Carter studied law at Yale University and went on to serve as a law clerk, first on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and later for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.
In 1982 he joined the faculty at Yale, where he is now William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law. His critically acclaimed nonfiction books on subjects including affirmative action, the judicial confirmation process, and the place of religion in our legal and political cultures have earned Carter fans among luminaries as diverse as William F. Buckley, Anna Quindlen, and former President Bill Clinton.
Carter's first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park, draws heavily on the author's familiarity with the law and the world of highly placed judges, but he didn't begin by attempting to write a "judicial" thriller— Carter earlier tried the character of Judge Garland out as a White House aide, and also as a professor like himself. He has said that in the end "only the judicial role really fit."
With Emperor Carter has moved (for the moment) from writing nonfiction to fiction—a shift which he downplays by noting "I have always viewed writing as a craft." But, while he has also indicated that another novel like this one is in the works, he sees himself as "principally a legal scholar and law professor" and plans to continue publishing nonfiction as well.
New England White, Carter's second novel, published in 2008, takes up the story of two secondary characters from The Emperor of Ocean Park, LeMaster and Julia Carlyle.
Extras
From a Barnes & Noble interview:
• An avid chess player, Stephen L. Carter is a life member of the United States Chess Federation. Although he says he plays less now than he once did, he still plays online through the Internet Chess Club. For The Emperor of Ocean Park, Professor Carter says he had to learn about "the world of the chess problemist, where composers work for months or years to set up challenging positions for others to solve."
• Carter lives with his wife, Enola Aird, and their two children, near New Haven, Connecticut.
• When asked what books most influenced his career as a writer or scholar, her is what he said:
I would have to say the Bible, especially as I began to read theology and philosophy in a serious way. The Bible has changed my life.
• Other favorite books include:
Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, for the sheer beauty of the prose and the seamless integration of metaphor into the story. Rarely have I encountered such remarkable characterizations and settings. And, oh, how deft her touch with dialogue!
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Simply put, one of the greatest novels ever written in English. Bringing an era to life and offering a withering critique without preaching at us. Marvelous characters, engaging story, and in so small a package.
James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain. A novel of immense passion and power, taking seriously the Christianity of its characters but presenting them as complex and flawed as he cuts back and forth across their stories. Just stunning. I am not sure I have read a finer inter-generational story.
E. L. Doctorow's Ragtime. Whether you think it is just a good read or, as some think, a novel-length metaphor for the '60s, a wonderfully evocative tale of a hundred years back, set in a time of great social flux, told in a prose so compelling that it is difficult to find a place to stop for breath.
Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. I read this in college, before it became a standard text for high schoolers, and its power nearly wore me out. No finer story, in my experience, of the conflict between traditional society and the modern world, with the possible exceptions of two others I rather like: Death and the King’s Horseman, by Wole Soyinka, and, more recently, The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro.
George Orwell's 1984. I have never read another novel that provides more food for thought, or more text for discussion. And as scary as they come.
Stephen King's Christine. Few people would probably rank this as King’s best, but I think that it creates as fully realized an adolescent world as one is likely to find in popular fiction. One of the few contemporary novels I find worth going back to again and again to learn more.
John le Carré's Smiley’s People and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy—the two modern masterpieces of the espionage genre. I suppose I could add some mystery writers, such as Sue Grafton and Agatha Christie.
(Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
In the 500-plus pages of New England White, [Carter is] up to more than suspense and the gothic apparatus—including coded anagrams and cracked mirrors—he wields with considerable aplomb. For one thing, he has spiked his thriller with wryly affectionate campus satire, somewhat in the vein of Randall Jarrell's Pictures From an Institution.... The plot of New England White is also sufficiently expansive to allow room for some serious thinking about the progress of "the darker nation" at a time when neither political party has much time for the intractable challenges of race and poverty, and when "as far as white America knew, nobody black ever had money or education before, say, affirmative action."
Christopher Benfey - New York Times
Carter's third-person narration does no favors for his pacing, and we can't help missing Talcott Garland, the earnest protagonist of The Emperor of Ocean Park. Sure, he was prone to pontificating, but he made up for it with his pitiable self-deprecations and fumbling attempts at love that indicated, in the end, he knew about as much as the rest of us. Which is to say, hardly anything. How did Talcott put it? "I have the sense that everybody else shares some crucial bit of knowledge that I have been denied." Don't we all. But let's be honest: No one should read a Carter novel for the mystery. We know by now that the author is only partly concerned with whodunit; he'd rather ponder why any of us does the things we do—especially the bad things. For instance, we know it's wrong to cheat, lie, steal or wound, and yet hardly a day passes in which most of us don't commit at least one of these transgressions on some scale. Human weakness is troubling, fascinating stuff, and Carter has spent much of his career plumbing its depths. He is, after all, an accomplished legal philosopher who has written persuasively about such cherished virtues as civility, integrity and faith. It's perversely pleasurable, then, to find that his fictional creations are reliably rude, dishonest and deliciously sinful.
Jabari Asim - Washington Post
(Starred Review.) Two lesser characters from Yale law professor Carter's bestselling first novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002)—husband and wife Lemaster and Julia Carlyle—take center stage in his second, a compelling, literate page-turner that effortlessly blends a gripping whodunit with complex discussions of politics and race in contemporary America. Lemaster, one of the country's most influential African-Americans, has recently begun his tenure as president of a prestigious New England university. As he and Julia, who serves as a dean in the university's divinity school, drive home one snowy night, they happen upon the corpse of Professor Kellen Zant, a brilliant economist as well as Julia's former lover. The murder threatens to shatter not only the Carlyles' marriage but also the fragile psyche of their precocious but troubled daughter, Vanessa—and may affect the upcoming, bitterly contested race for the White House. Julia proves an unlikely but dogged investigator, who looks beyond the official verdict that Zant was killed in a chance encounter with a robber. In the richness of his characters, both major and minor, and the intelligence of his writing, Carter rivals Scott Turow.
Publishers Weekly
When Kellen Zant, a brilliant black economist on the faculty of a New England college, is murdered in an apparent robbery attempt, the entire town of Elm Harbor is thrown into a stir.... Carter follows his highly-acclaimed Emperor of Ocean Park (2002) with another sharp, absorbing look at the black elite, academia, and power politics. Absolutely riveting. —Vanessa Bush
Booklist
A high-profile murder unsettles a New England college town in this eventful second novel from Carter. Economics professor and tireless lothario Kellen Zant, a charismatic black academic celebrity whose romantic conquests acknowledge no limits, is found dead on a remote back road. Suspicion falls among Zant's former lovers and their mates, his colleagues and the wealthy clients who shelled out big bucks for his advice—and even the (unnamed) college's president Lemaster Carlyle and his wife Julia (herself one of Zant's former paramours). The Carlyles were minor figures in Carter's debut novel, The Emperor of Ocean Park , but they occupy center stage in this beefy, neatly constructed melodrama, which distributes clues and juggles suspects with Grisham-like energy and efficiency. We're briskly introduced to the insular little world of the campus, a racially and ethnically mixed utopia whose sleek occupants nevertheless have secrets aplenty to conceal. And Carter expands the novel's scope with impressive assurance, as Zant's murder is connected to another (ostensibly accidental) death; the surpassingly odd behavior of the Carlyles' teenaged daughter Vanessa (who torches her dad's Mercedes for no discernible reason); and the 30-year-old murder of a white woman student (with which Vanessa has become obsessed), shock waves from which may reach as far as the White House—presently occupied by Lemaster's former college roommate. The embattled Julia Carlyle, a busy mother of four who's also dean of the college's divinity school, is obliged to perform some fairly intricate detective work of her own, as persons of interest and their histories glimpsedin old mirrors (a crucial clue) prove to be nearer than they appear. An overload of exposition and a truckload of involved characters aside, this is a virtually irresistible-and highly intelligent-thriller. Carter strikes again.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does the portrayal of the Carlyle family reveal about the complexities of the African-American community? In what ways does their life represent the historical divide between the entrenched upper class and immigrants and other strivers in American society? What do the beliefs and attitudes Julia grew up with reflect about the specific history and traditions of wealthy, successful blacks? Do they differ from the attitudes of upper-class whites? If so, why do you think this is the case?
2. When the police question him, Lemaster says that although he had berated Kellen for spending more time consulting with private corporations than on serious scholarship, reports of a feud between them "was media silliness, hunting for stories to make African Americans look bad" (p. 21). Do you think this is a fair claim about the media? If you are familiar with the much-examined controversy between the noted African-American writer and critic Cornel West and Harvard University president Lawrence Summers, discuss the parallels between the two situations. Can you think of other examples of the media's tendency to focus on the racial aspects of events they are covering?
3. Boris Gibbs remarks to Julia "the racism your people have to face these days is depressing" (p. 25), and her best friend Tessa forgives her own ex-husband's unfaithfulness by saying it was "simply a need all black males possessed, born of centuries of racial oppression, to liberate themselves from the repressive strictures of bourgeois sexual custom" (p. 55). What do these "sympathetic" statements show about the assumptions made by whites? Do you agree that many white intellectuals are guilty of "quick, sloppy racial judgment" (p. 56)?
4. Mona disdains both Kellen and Lemaster because "neither of them [is] really quite one of us" and also objects to Julia's raising her kids in an all-white suburb (p. 31). Is her criticism hypocritical, given the choices she has made in her own life?
5. How would you describe the Carlyles' marriage? What is the significance of Julia's explanation of their relationship—"He forced me to fall in love with him.... I didn't have a choice" (p. 15)? Based on their conversations, as well as the descriptions of life in their household, is Julia justified in "wondering if her husband even liked her, or viewed their marriage, as he did most of life, through the stultifying lens of duty" (p. 87)?
6. Despite her assertion that Kellen "had no right to drag her back into his life, even by dying and leaving a puzzle behind" (p. 59), Julia is soon caught up in the mystery. What particular people or which events convince to pursue her own investigation? Discuss the cumulative effects of her conversations with Mary Mallard (pp. 40–42, pp. 102–4), Seth Zant (p. 50–53), Frank Carrington (p. 73), Tony Tice (pp. 128–30), Cameron Knowland (pp. 203–5), and Senator Whisted and his wife (pp. 274–76).
7. What elements of a traditional mystery novel help drive New England White? Consider Carter's use of such conventions as cleverly coded messages, misleading statements by witnesses or suspects, and false conclusions about the motives and interests of various characters.
8. Compare and contrast the way Julia and Bruce Vallely conduct their investigations. What advantages does each one have in gathering information and putting the pieces of the puzzle together? Why is Julia reluctant to share her findings and feelings with Bruce? Could either of them have solved the case alone?
9. How valid is Lemaster's perception that "both parties have moved...far from any real interest in the future of African America" (p. 105)? What was your reaction to his saying, "You know what the trouble is? The Caucasians aren't afraid of us any more" (p. 106)? Compare this to Astrid's argument that "the best of our people reach a certain level of success, and they decide that they have moved beyond politics" (p. 91). Which statements most accurately reflect your own impressions or opinions?
10. Is Carter's portrait of a top-notch university realistic? How does he use humor and satire to bring various aspects of the academic community to life? Discuss, for example, Bruce's meetings with Trevor Land and his interview with Arthur Lewin (pp. 159–72), as well as Julia's encounters with her dean and other colleagues at the divinity school.
11. In addition to her obsession with Gina Joule, what role does Vanessa play in the novel? How and why does her relationship with Julia change over the course of the book? What insights do her attitudes and behavior provide, either implicitly or explicitly, into the confusion and ambiguities that upper-class African Americans face in white America? What do the portraits of Preston and Jeannie reflect about the same issues?
12. Mitch Huebner says, "You look at any town in New England, Mrs. Carlyle, and you'll find a line down the middle. On one side are the people who don't know the secrets. On the other are the people who've always been there, who hold on to the town's history like the roots that keep the trees standing" (pp. 313–14). Discuss how the division between those who know the secrets and those who don't applies not just to the events in Tyler's Landing, but to the novel as a whole.
13. Byron Dennison is proud that he taught Lemaster and other protégés "about power. How to use it. When" (p. 343), and goes on to say that power should not be used in pursuit of justice. Do the events in the novel support his point of view? Are there instances that contradict it? In light of both historical and contemporary race relations in this country, is the way the Empyreals use their power understandable? Is it ethical or is it a corruption of the values, however elusive, that define a civilized society?
14. Miss Terry represents a part of the African-American community far removed from the world Julia knows. Do her attitudes and opinions (pp. 383–86) express a reality the majority of African Americans—including those who have "made it"—experience? If, as Miss Terry maintains, "the white folks get to set the rules," does the responsibility for changing this lie within the African-American community? Talk about the different ways prominent public figures, both black and white, have approached this issue and how they relate to questions raised in New England White.
15. A variety of mirrors turn up as clues during Julia's investigation. Using Mona's argument that "the people in the mirror aren't free at all.... They just do what the people on this side of the mirror let them do" (p. 443) as a starting point, why is the mirror an appropriate symbol for the themes the novel explores?
16. Julia ultimately recognizes that Lemaster's "politics were the politics of pure and perfect righteousness" (p. 549). What do Julia's decisions regarding her future reveal about what she has learned of the ways in which power, idealism, and purely practical considerations affect both personal lives and politics realities?
17. In addition to racism, both blatant and subtle, what other biases do the characters confront? What light does the novel shed on how gender, economic status, and professional stature distort our perceptions of ourselves and others?
18. In his widely discussed nonfiction book, Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby, Carter addressed the impact of programs designed to promote racial equality in this country, including the pressure on black professionals to behave in a "politically correct" manner. In what ways is this thesis revisited in New England White? Do you think fiction is an effective tool to explore—and help clarify—real-life issues?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
New People
Danzy Senna, 2017
Penguin Publishing
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594487095
Summary
A subversive and engrossing novel of race, class and manners in contemporary America.
As the 20th century draws to a close, Maria is at the start of a life she never thought possible.
She and Khalil, her college sweetheart, are planning their wedding. They are the perfect couple, "King and Queen of the Racially Nebulous Prom." Their skin is the same shade of beige. They live together in a black bohemian enclave in Brooklyn, where Khalil is riding the wave of the first dot-com boom and Maria is plugging away at her dissertation, on the Jonestown massacre.
They've even landed a starring role in a documentary about "new people" like them, who are blurring the old boundaries as a brave new era dawns.
Everything Maria knows she should want lies before her—yet she can't stop daydreaming about another man, a poet she barely knows. As fantasy escalates to fixation, it dredges up secrets from the past and threatens to unravel not only Maria's perfect new life but her very persona.
Heartbreaking and darkly comic, New People is a bold and unfettered page-turner that challenges our every assumption about how we define one another, and ourselves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1970
• Raised—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University; M.F.A., University of California-Irvine
• Awards—Whiting Writers' Award; Dos Passos Prize
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Danzy Senna is an American novelist, born to two writers: her father, Carl Senna, is an Afro-Mexican poet and author, and her mother, Fanny Howe, an Irish-American writer. The family settled in Boston, Massachusetts, but the couple eventually underwent, as Danzy describes it, a "terrible divorce" that "affected me and my siblings quite profoundly." She wrote about her family history in her 2009 memoir, Where Did You Sleep Last Night?
Senna recevied her B.A. from Stanford University and an M.F.A. from the University of California at Irvine. There, she received several creative writing awards.
Her three novels — Caucasia (1998), Symptomatic (2004), and New People (2017) — all feature a view of society from a biracial perspective. The eight stories collected in You Are Free (2011) also deal with the intersection of race, family, and friendship.
Senna's books have been well received, gaining recognition from Book of the Month Club and American Library Association. In 2002, she received the Whiting Writers Award and in 2004 was named a Fellow for the New York Public Library's Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She has also been nominated for the Orange Prize and was a finalist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Danzy Senna lives in Los Angeles with her husband, writer Percival Everett, and their son. (Adapted from Wikipedia and bitchmedia. Retrieved 8/21/2017.)
Book Reviews
The frankness with which New People treats race as a kind of public performance is both uncomfortable and strangely cathartic.… Provocative.
Wall Street Journal
It says a great deal for New People—Danzy Senna’s martini-dry, espresso-dark comedy of contemporary manners — that its compound of caustic observations and shrewd characterizations could only have emerged from a writer as finely tuned to her social milieu as [Jane] Austen was to hers.… [A]rtfully strewn with excruciating and uproarious misperceptions…[New People] doesn’t pour cold water on one’s expectations for a better, more tolerant world. In fact, it implies that world has, to a great extent, already arrived.
Newsday
Slick and highly enjoyable.… Thrillingly, blackness is not hallowed in Senna’s work, nor is it impervious to pathologies of ego. Senna particularly enjoys lampooning the search for racial authenticity.… Identity, far from being a point of solidarity, is a beckoning void, and adroit comedy quickly liquefies into absurd horror.
New Yorker
Compellingly provocative.… [Senna] creat[es] a dense psychological portrait of a black woman nearing the close of the 20th century: inquisitive, obsessive, imaginative, alive.
New Republic
An of-the-moment novel [that] tackles identity and infatuation…slender but powerful, as seductive and urgent as a phone call from an old flame. At first blush, the book seems like a straightforward love story…but it’s more complicated than that.… This is not a book about race disguised as a romance, nor is it a love story saddled with a moral. Senna’s achievement is that she interlaces both threads in one ingenious tale.
Oprah Magazine
Danzy Senna bores into the dynamics of race, identity, heritage, poverty, and privilege in contemporary America.… Agile and ambitious, the novel is also a wild-hearted romance about secrets and obsessions, a dramedy of manners about educated middle-class blacks — the talented tenth — that is Senna’s authorial home ground.
Elle
In many ways, lines of color, alongside the complexities of what it means to pass as one thing or another, may be what best defines Danzy Senna’s epochal — in its most literal sense — new novel.… [It] is a paean to the psychosocial complexities of being racially mixed, and, as a result, color-lines, passing, and double-consciousness are everywhere.… The novel’s ultimate message seems, however, to be one both true and unsettling, if unsurprising: that color-lines have never left America and likely never will.
Los Angeles Review of Books
A darkly comic novel about race, about false utopias, and about the fine line between seemingly innocuous, everyday groupthink—the kind that’s the price of admission for being part of a marriage, or a band of friends, or a tribe of any sort.… Senna writes beautifully about the complexity of identity, the intersection of racial consciousness, and class awareness, and individual perspective.
Vogue
Set in the Rodney King-era ‘90s, New People is as mesmerizingly fast-paced as it is deeply reflective of monumental truths that resonate perhaps even more powerfully two decades in the future.
Harper’s Bazaar
[A] muddled third novel featuring a protagonist in search of her identity.… [D]iscussions about racism and white privilege…and a side plot involving Maria’s attempts to finish her dissertation…. Significant themes and issues…unfortunately get lost before fully landing.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [W]ell-constructed, brooding novel.… [A] great read, both compelling and thoughtful …[with] a page-turning urgency…. Maria tumbles toward a disaster of her own making, while her musings on race shift between provocative and cynical. —Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA
Library Journal
Senna’s meditation on 1996 America and its false sense of progress is an eerie picture of society today, too. With a dark sense of humor, Senna builds her story with a horror-like tension that releases with a tongue-in-cheek sigh. Sure to keep readers riding white-knuckled to the end.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Senna's fearless novel is equal parts beguiling and disturbing.… Every detail and subplot, including Maria's dissertation on the Jonestown massacre and her buried secret about a college prank gone awry, is resonant. A great book about race and a great book all around.!!!
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 New People … than take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Maria Pierce? As her mother observed of her twenty-odd years ago, while Maria was still in her crib, "She's perfectly cheerful, but I sense a coldness." Is that an accurate prediction of her 27 years later? What other characteristics do you find in her? Do you find her a sympathetic character? Does your attitude toward her change over the course of the novel?
2. Khalil, Maria's fiance, is the love of her life. Or is he? "He is the one she needs, the one who can repair her." What does that sentence mean … and what might the words (especially the last two, "repair her") harbinger for their relationship?
3. Maria and Khalil are named the Prom King and Queen Racially Nebulous Prom. Care to comment?
4. Talk about Maria's attraction to the tall, black poet. What is the pull he exudes toward her? Is it, as she herself wonders, the desire for "authenticity" or for something "real" that she's not finding in her own life? And why is he unnamed — why only ever referred to as "the poet"?
5. What do you think of the students at Stanford, their "Recovering Racist" pins and lobbing off their "colonized hair." How would you describe those gestures: genuinely supportive, empty, kind-hearted, over-the-top?
6. Discuss the racist phone prank Maria plays on Khalil and its repercussions.
7. What is the state of race relations in society at the time of this book? Are racial identity and acceptance in the '90s different from how they are today? Consider, for example, the white woman who mistakes Maria for her nanny. Funny? Maddening?
8. Maria's Ph.D. dissertation is on the Jonestown Massacre. What do you know about that event? And what does that event — its rhetoric of racial liberation and left-wing politics — have to do with the overall thematic concerns of Danzy Senna's novel?
9. Talk about the way in which the novel ends — with Maria left in a precarious position. Are you satisfied with that ending, or would you have preferred a different one?
10. Discuss the title of the book. What does it mean to be "new people"?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The New Woman (A Staggerford Novel)
Jon Hassler, 2005
Penguin Group USA
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780452287648
Summary
Since 1977, Jon Hassler's "Staggerford" series has entranced readers with its funny and charming depiction of life in small-town America. The New Woman is his last visit to this Minnesota hamlet
At the age of eighty-eight, Agatha McGee has grudgingly moved out of her house on River Street and into the Sunset Senior Apartments. She's not happy about giving up her independence, and Sunset Senior's arts and crafts activities and weekly excursions to the Blue Sky Casino are hardly a consolation.
Meanwhile two of her close friends pass away, her nephew Frederick is drifting into depression, and a kidnapped little girl has suddenly appeared on her doorstep. With characteristic poise and dignity, Agatha takes on her problems and finds that the bonds of friendship and family are still the key to happiness at any age. Affectionate and life-affirming, The New Woman is another delightful trip to a town with a soul as real as rural America itself. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 30, 1933
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Death—March 20, 2008
• Education—B.A., St. John's University; M.A., University of
North Dakota
Jon Hassler was an American writer and teacher known for his novels about small-town life in Minnesota. He held the positions of Regents Professor Emeritus and Writer-in-Residence at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota.
Hassler was born in Minneapolis, Minn., but spent his formative years in the small Minnesota towns of Staples and Plainview, where he graduated from high school. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from St. John's University in 1955. While teaching English at three different Minnesota high schools, he received his Master of Arts degree in English from the University of North Dakota in 1960. He continued to teach at the high school level until 1965, when he began his collegiate teaching career: first at Bemidji State University, then Brainerd Community College (now called Central Lakes College), and finally at Saint John's, where he became the Writer-in-Residence in 1980.
During his high-school teaching years, Hassler married and fathered three children. His first marriage lasted 25 years. He had two more marriages; the last was to Gretchen Kresl Hassler.
Much of Hassler's fiction involves characters struggling with transitions in their lives or searching for a central purpose. Many of his major characters are Catholic (or lapsed Catholics), and his novels frequently explore the role that small town life plays in shaping, or limiting, human potential.
Readers of Hassler's novels eventually will notice a number of recurring characters: for instance, Miles Pruitt (the protagonist in "Staggerford", who is referred to in A Green Journey, The Love Hunter, and The New Woman); Agatha McGee (in Staggerford, A Green Journey, Dear James, The Staggerford Flood, and The New Woman); Larry Quinn (in The Love Hunter and Rookery Blues); and Frank Healy (in North of Hope and The New Woman).)
In 1994, Hassler was diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a disease similar to Parkinson's. It caused vision and speech problems, as well as difficulty walking, but he was able to continue writing. He was reported to have finished a novel just days before his death.
The Jon Hassler Theater in Plainview, Minnesota, is named for him. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
John Hassler's Staggerfrod, Minnesota, is somewhere north of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon, and isn't far from Sinclair Lewis's Gopher Prairie.... His novels have a quiet legion of devoted readers.
Chicago Tribune
Fans of Jan Karon's "Mitford" series will enjoy Hassler's books. If your heart needs lifting, read The New Woman.
Detroit Free Press
The lively cast includes many we've met before in the "Staggerford" novels—Agatha's National Enquirer-loving friend Lillian Kite, amiable Father Healy, Agatha's depressive grand-nephew Frederick and the menacing murderess Corrine Bingham, just released from a mental hospital. Some of these people have cause to grieve; some cause grief. Some get into trouble. And some die. Indeed, sorrow, trouble and mortality are ever-present. Yet this is also one of Hassler's funniest novels.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
In the latest installment of Hassler's series set in the bucolic town of Staggerford, he turns his attention to the quirky residents of Sunset Senior Apartments and the tragicomic exploits of retired schoolteacher Agatha McGee. Staid and prim, Agatha is insulted by the idea of a retirement center even at the age of 87, but a severe ice storm shows her how helpless she's become, and she warms to the idea of trading independence for "neighbors in the next apartment who would come to her aid." However, she soon finds that Sunset Senior's wacky inhabitants are going to put an end to her orderly existence. After Agatha's brooch goes missing, her friend Lillian hatches a plan to hide the residents' most prized belongings in a shoebox. But the plan goes awry when Lillian dies and the box, which could contain a winning lottery ticket, is accidentally buried with the casket. The story chronicles a funeral, an exhumation, a lover spurned and a bumbled kidnapping, as Agatha finds that old age doesn't put an end to misadventure. Hassler's storytelling shines when he injects misbehavior, misanthropy and the malcontent with warmth and good-natured humor. His love of this town is palpable, making for an enjoyable read full of sweet characters and moments.
Publishers Weekly
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 New Woman:
1. Why does Agatha fear at first that moving into the Sunset Senior Apartments might not be such a good idea. Are those concerns typical of many her age?
2. Eventually, Agatha settles in and reaches out. In what way is she able to change lives? Do those who are older have special qualities unique to them, qualities that enable them to help those who are younger? Do our communities value the elderly to the extent that we should?
3. How would you describe Agatha? Is she right to be repulsed by John Beezer's manners, Edna's courseness, or the general pervasion of incivility? Are her standards fair? Is she too rigid, old-fashioned, or superior? Or is she correct in her assessments?
4. Were you surprised by the outcome of the diamond brooch? Losing or misplacing items seems to be a motif running throughout the novel. What larger issue might this represent?
5. Which episodes do you find particularly humorous in Hassler's book—the MX Box, digging up Lillian's coffin...others?
6. Talk about the characters in The New Woman? Aside from Agatha, whom do you find most interesting, funny or likeable? Do you find Hassler's portrayals realistic? Do you see yourself...or others you know...in his characters?
7. Overall, how does Jon Hassler treat small-town life? Does he make fun of the people? Does he celebrate their values? Is he nostalgic—does he overly romanticize small-town life in the MidWest?
8. If you've read other novels in the "Staggerford" series, how does this one compare? Are the characters which reappear here consistent with their appearances elsewhere in the series? If you haven't read other installments, does this book inspire you to do so?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Newlyweds
Nell Freudenberger, 2012
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307388971
Summary
A powerful, funny, richly observed tour de force by one of America’s most acclaimed young writers: a story of love and marriage, secrets and betrayals, that takes us from the backyards of America to the back alleys and villages of Bangladesh.
In The Newlyweds, we follow the story of Amina Mazid, who at age twenty-four moves from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York, for love. A hundred years ago, Amina would have been called a mail-order bride. But this is an arranged marriage for the twenty-first century: Amina is wooed by—and woos—George Stillman online.
For Amina, George offers a chance for a new life and a different kind of happiness than she might find back home. For George, Amina is a woman who doesn’t play games. But each of them is hiding something: someone from the past they thought they could leave behind. It is only when they put an ocean between them—and Amina returns to Bangladesh—that she and George find out if their secrets will tear them apart, or if they can build a future together.
The Newlyweds is a surprising, suspenseful story about the exhilarations—and real-life complications—of getting, and staying, married. It stretches across continents, generations, and plains of emotion. What has always set Nell Freudenberger apart is the sly, gimlet eye she turns on collisions of all kinds—sexual, cultural, familial.
With The Newlyweds, Freudenberger has found her perfect subject for that vision, and characters to match. She reveals Amina’s heart and mind, capturing both her new American reality and the home she cannot forget, with seamless authenticity, empathy, and grace. At once revelatory and affecting, The Newlyweds is a stunning achievement. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 21, 1975
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard Univeristy
• Awards—PEN/Malamud Award; Whiting Writer's Award; Guggenheim Fellowship
• Currently—lives in New York City (Brooklyn)
Nell Freudenberger is the author of three novels—Lost and Wanted (2019), The Newlyweds (2012), and The Dissident (2006). Her 2003 story collection, Lucky Girls, was winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists and one of The New Yorker’s "20 Under 40." She lives in Brooklyn with her family. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The Newlyweds...gradually opens out into a genuinely moving story about a woman trying to negotiate two cultures, balancing her parents' expectations with her own aspirations, her ambition and cynical practicality with deeper, more romantic yearnings.... The Amina-Nasir relationship and Amina's relationship with her aging parents are the nucleus of this novel and reveal the contradictions deep within Amina's own heart. Unlike her synthetic partnership with George, these are real, complex, deeply felt connections that have both endured and changed over time, and in depicting them Ms. Freudenberger demonstrates her assurance as a novelist and her knowledge of the complicated arithmetic of familial love and the mathematics of romantic passion.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
[T]ruths are indeed present in this novel—in its cleareyed openness and compassion toward the world, in its nuanced and human representation of Muslim characters and their varying Islams, and in the understanding and sympathy it displays for the nostalgia of migrants, which is to say for all human beings, even those who are born and die in the same town and travel only in time.
Mohsin Hammad - New York Times Book Review
[A] delight, one of the easiest book recommendations of the year.... The cross-cultural tensions and romance so well drawn here recall the pleasures of Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Helen Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand... [Freudenberger]'s that rare artist who speaks fluently from many different cultural perspectives, without preciousness or undue caution.... [She] knows Amina as well as Jane Austen knows Emma, and despite its globe-spanning set changes, The Newlyweds offers a reading experience redolent of Janeite charms: gentle touches of social satire, subtly drawn characters and dialogue that expresses far more than its polite surface.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Captivating.... Freudenberger’s latest novel explores the unexpected consequences when two distinct cultures collide.... This engaging story, with its page after page of effortless prose, ultimately offers up a deeper narrative of the protagonist’s yearning.
S. Kirk Walsh - Boston Globe
The Newlyweds crosses continents, cultures and generations.... It’s funny, gracefully written and full of loneliness and yearning. It’s also a candid, recognizable story about love—the real-life kind, which is often hard and sustained by hope, kindness, and pure effort.
USA Today
The Newlyweds...[is] really, really good. As always, [Freudenberger] is fascinated by culture clash, here encapsulated in the marriage of a young woman from Bangladesh and an American engineer from Rochester, New York, who’s 10 years her senior.... [T]he novel, which roams in a twisting, lavish storyline between America and Bangladesh, explores the strong and sometimes disastrous pull of....earlier attachments. The Newlyweds also tackles the promise of America and the payment—practical and psychic—it demands of immigrants.... [A] luscious and intelligent novel that will stick with you... Freudenberger keep[s] the wonderfulness coming.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR
Freudenberger’s delicately observed second novel is another account of cross-cultural confusion in the tale of a Bangladeshi woman, 24-year-old Amina Mazid, who becomes the email-order bride of 34-year-old George Stillman, an electrical engineer in Rochester, N.Y. Arriving in snowy Rochester in 2005 is a culture shock for Amina, but within three years she has her green card, is married to George, and is taking college courses when not pulling espresso at Starbucks. Her marriage, though, has its problems. Sex is awkward, George loses his job, and Amina discovers something that makes her doubt his sincerity. She eventually returns to Bangladesh to bring her parents to the U.S., but a problem with her father’s visa keeps Amina there and forces her back into the morass of her extended family’s resentments and petty jealousies, all of which she’d hoped to escape in marriage. Add to her troubles an old suitor, Nasir, waiting not so patiently in the wings. Freudenberger (The Dissident) does an excellent job of portraying the plight of a young Muslim woman not totally comfortable in either of the worlds she inhabits. But Amina’s passivity may frustrate many readers, and George is a complete cipher. In the end, Freudenberg’s anatomy of a modern arranged marriage is somewhat too dependent on cultural cliches to entirely satisfy.
Publishers Weekly
Mary is a serious lawyer, married with two kids, whose husband is a perennial mama's boy incapable of grocery shopping on his own. Mixed in with the trials and tribulations of the protagonists are humorous vignettes from the lives of some of their other friends and acquaintances—many of whom
Library Journal
Freudenberger (The Dissident, 2006, etc.) examines a marriage arranged via the Internet.... [She] does well in capturing the off-kilter feelings of a young woman in a country so unlike her birthplace, and the cultural differences prompt some enjoyably wry humor. The characters are all well drawn, if a trifle pallid, which points to a larger problem. Freudenberger's tone is detached and cool throughout, even when violent incidents are described, which makes it difficult to emotionally engage with the story. The novel is carefully researched rather than emotionally persuasive. Well executed but a bit too obviously studied—more willed than felt.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Amina thinks, “Their courtship had more in common with her grandparents’—which had been arranged through a professional matchmaker in their village—than with her parents’, who’d had a love marriage” (p. 28). Are there fundamental differences between finding a partner on the Internet and traditional matchmaking methods? What might make a traditional arranged marriage or one made online appealing to men and women in the twenty-first century?
2. What does Amina and George’s online correspondence reveal about their respective personalities and expectations? In what ways are they well suited to each other despite their different backgrounds? What do their decisions to seek a spouse online indicate about their approaches to and ideas about marriage? How do their personal motivations influence the information they offer—and hold back?
3. “In spite of all the preparation, there was something surprising about actually finding herself in Rochester, waiting for a green card in the mail” (pp. 7–8). What aspects of Amina’s new life does she find puzzling, pleasing, or difficult to accept? Consider, for example, the dinner at George’s mother’s house (p. 18); the wedding preparations and ceremony (pp. 38–40); and her various work experiences. What presents the greatest psychological challenges? What compromises does she make and why?
4. Spurred by “Amina’s anxiety about the Muslim ceremony, without which they wouldn’t really be married” (p. 34), the couple searches for an imam to marry them. Why does Amina decide against getting married at the Islamic Center of Rochester? What does the decision reflect about the role religion plays in her life? What does it convey about her complicated attachment to her past? How does she reconcile her decision with the promises she made to her parents?
5. “She struggled to find some connection between the girl she so often imagined at home in her parents’ apartment and this American wife. . . . The task was made more difficult by the fact that there was no one in Rochester who’d known that past-Munni, and no one back at home who knew the present one” (p. 59). How does this passage capture the isolation and sense of displacement that is often part of the immigrant experience? Are there parallels between Amina’s feelings and the feelings of any young wife (or husband) in the early years of marriage?
6. How would you characterize the friendship between Kim and Amina? What does each of them find appealing in the other? Is their relationship built on genuine affection or on false premises and selfish interests?
7. How do Kim’s experiences in India (pp. 122–26) and her life with Ashok in post-9/11 New York (p. 151–55) relate to the themes of the novel? What do their stories reveal about the effects of cultural and religious prejudices on ordinary people? How do their ordeals compare to Amina’s?
8. “She and George didn’t disagree very often, but when they did it was always because of ‘cultural differences’—a phrase so useful in forestalling arguments that she felt sorry for those couples who couldn’t employ it” (p. 66). To what extent are the problems or misunderstandings in their marriage attributable to “cultural differences”? What role do the emotional differences between them play?
9. Is Amina’s search of Kim’s apartment justifiable (pp. 141–42)? Why doesn’t she confront Kim directly? Are the conclusions Amina draws about George’s family as clear-cut as she assumes (p. 143)? Is her observation, made in a moment of bitterness—“You might cheat, steal, lie, but if you confessed, you could be instantly forgiven” (p. 147)—a valid assessment of American behavior?
10. What impact does Amina’s discovery about George’s past have on the dynamics of their marriage? Does his explanation of his deception (pp. 148–49) and his subsequent behavior (pp. 156–57) change your feelings about him? In light of his confession, are Amina’s demands reasonable, or do they amount to emotional blackmail? Consider her own interpretation: “What a strange thing, she thought, to find out one day that you had built your whole life on a mistake, and the next day to discover that this fact would allow you to have your dearest wish. She wondered if this was a unique predicament, something related to the unusual circumstances of her life, or a more general human condition” (p.156). Discuss your responses to this in terms of the novel and your own experiences.
11. When she arrives in Bangladesh, Amina thinks, “You thought you were the permanent part of your own experience, . . . until you discovered that there were many selves, dissolving into one another” (p. 207). Is Amina’s experience unusual, or is this a common reaction to returning home after a long absence?
12. How does Freudenberger bring the atmosphere and social milieu of Bangladesh to life in the narrative? Which details best evoke the emotional pull Amina feels toward her homeland?
13. During a lighthearted flirtation with Nasir, Amina thinks of the past and realizes, “She had the same feelings, sweeter because they’d been dormant for so long, but her wish from that time had been granted: she was a grown woman, with everything she would need to attract a man like Nasir” (pp. 250–51). Why are she and Nasir so drawn to each other? What part does nostalgia, the comfort of the familiar, and the loneliness they experienced—Nasir in London, Amina in America—have in the awakening of their feelings? What do you think would have happened had she chosen to pursue Nasir instead of returning home to George?
14. How do their families’ examples, opinions, and advice shape Amina and George’s relationship? Compare the influences of various family members (Amina’s parents and extended family in Bangladesh; George’s mother, Eileen Stillman, and his aunt Cathy and cousin Jessica). What does the novel show about the qualities, good and bad, shared by families from every culture or country?
15. Freudenberger often moves from a scene in Rochester to a past event or conversation in Dhaka. How does this affect the flow of the plot? What does it contribute to your understanding of Amina and the forces and feelings that have shaped her?
16. “She had escaped a broken country, and George a broken heart; they had chosen each other in spite of warnings from both sides. . . . Even if neither of their motives had been pure, wasn’t it possible that something pure had come of them now?” (pp. 174–75). Does Amina and George’s commitment to each other ever evolve into genuine love? Cite specific moments in the novel to support your point of view.
17. Freudenberger ends the novel with a twist: Amina’s “Reach for the Stars” essay, which has actually been composed by Kim for a writing competition sponsored by Starbucks. As Mohsin Hamid noted in his front-cover review of The Newlyweds in The New York Times Book Review (April 29, 2012), this essay has a certain parallel to Freudenberger’s own role as author—and it poses a larger question about authenticity and storytelling. What pitfalls might Freudenberger have faced, if any, in writing Amina’s story? Do you agree with Hamid’s statement that, for fiction “the question of authenticity...is a red herring: nationalities, ethnicities, genders and even species do not ‘own’ the right to fictional narratives spoken in what purport to be their voices”? To what extent is Amina in her new American life crafting a persona different from the “authentic” self she knew at home?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
News from Heaven: The Bakerton Stories
Jennifer Haigh, 2013
HarperCollins
244 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060889647
Summary
A collection of unforgettable short stories inspired by a Pennsylvania coal-mining town and the people who call it home.
When her iconic novel Baker Towers was published in 2005, it was hailed as a modern classic—"compassionate and powerful...a song of praise for a too-little-praised part of America, for the working families whose toils and constancy have done so much to make the country great" (Chicago Tribune). Its young author, Jennifer Haigh, was called "an expert natural storyteller with an acute sense of her characters' humanity" (New York Times).
Now, in this collection of interconnected short stories, Jennifer Haigh returns to the vividly imagined world of Bakerton, Pennsylvania, a coal-mining town rocked by decades of painful transition. From its heyday during two world wars through its slow decline, Bakerton is a town that refuses to give up gracefully, binding—sometimes cruelly—succeeding generations to the place that made them.
A young woman glimpses a world both strange and familiar when she becomes a live-in maid for a Jewish family in New York City. A long-absent brother makes a sudden and tragic homecoming. A solitary middle-aged woman tastes unexpected love when a young man returns to town. With a revolving cast of characters—many familiar to fans of Baker Towers—these stories explore how our roots, the families and places in which we are raised, shape the people we eventually become.
News from Heaven looks unflinchingly at the conflicting human desires for escape and for connection, and explores the enduring hold of home. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 16, 1968
• Where—Barnesboro, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Dickenson College; M.F.A., Iowa Writers'
Workshop
• Awards—2002 James A. Michener Fellowship; 2003;
PEN/Hemingway Award for Outstanding First Fiction, Mrs.
Kimble; 2006 PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book
by a New England author, Baker Towers
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
The daughter of a librarian and a high school English teacher, Jennifer Haigh was raised with her older brother in the coal-mining town of Barnesboro, Pennsylvania. Although she began writing as a student at Dickinson College, her undergraduate degree was in French. After college, she moved to France on a Fulbright Scholarship, returning to the U.S. in 1991.
Haigh spent most of the decade working in publishing, first for Rodale Press in Pennsylvania, then for Self magazine in New York City. It was not until her 30th birthday that she was bitten by the writing bug. She moved to Baltimore (where it was cheaper to live), supported herself as a yoga instructor, and began to publish short stories in various literary magazines. She was accepted into the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop and enrolled in their two-year M.F.A. program. While she was at Iowa, she completed the manuscript for her first novel, Mrs. Kimble. She also caught the attention of a literary agent scouting the grad school for new talent and was signed to a two-book contract. Haigh was astonished at how quickly everything came together.
Mrs. Kimble became a surprise bestseller when it was published in 2003. Readers and critics alike were bowled over by this accomplished portrait of a "serial marrier" and the three wives whose lives he ruins. The Washington Post raved, "It's a clever premise, backed up by three remarkably well-limned Mrs. Kimbles, each of whom comes tantalizingly alive thanks to the author's considerable gift for conjuring up a character with the tiniest of details." The novel went on to win the PEN/Hemingway Award for Outstanding First Fiction.
Skeptics who wondered if Haigh's success had been mere beginner's luck were set straight when Baker Towers appeared in 2005. A multigenerational saga set in a Pennsylvania coal-mining community in the years following WWII, the novel netted Haigh the PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author. (Haigh lives in Massachusetts.) The New York Times called it "captivating," and Kirkus Reviews described it as "[a]lmost mythic in its ambition, somewhere between Oates and Updike country, and thoroughly satisfying." High praise indeed for a sophomore effort.
In fact, Haigh continues to produce dazzling literary fiction in both its short and long forms, much of it centered on the interwoven lives of families. When asked why she returns so often to this theme, she answers, " In fact, every story is a family story: we all come from somewhere, and it's impossible to write well-developed characters without giving a great deal of thought to their childhood environments, their early experiences, and whose genetic material they're carrying around."
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• All my life I've fantasized about being invisible. I love the idea of watching people when they don't know they're being observed. Novelists get to do that all the time!
• When I was a child, I told my mother I wanted to grow up to be a genie, a gas station attendant, or a writer. I hope I made the right choice.
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, here is her response:
Light Years by James Salter. Probably the most honest book ever written about men and women—sad, gorgeous, unflinching.
• Favorite authors: James Salter and Vladimir Nabokov. For a writer, reading them is like taking vitamins. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
…Ms. Haigh is one of the most subtle, incisive fiction writers currently exploring the dynamics of big, secretive families, the kinds whose members are much more apt to betray private thoughts than speak them out loud. Throughout News From Heaven, her combined gifts for piercing acuity and discreet understatement make a powerful mix…Although News from Heaven may sound full of sad situations, it's an uplifting and radiant book.... It is Ms. Haigh's great gift to make all of these people come alive and to make readers really care how their destinies unfold.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
A vibrant, thought-provoking, profoundly readable contribution to the genre.... Each of these ten linked stories represents a distinct, shining example of Haigh’s remarkable gifts for lyricism, psychological insight, and stealth humor.
Boston Globe
After her success with Baker Towers (2005), Haigh returns to the familiarity of Bakerton, Pennsylvania—the small coal mining "town of churches and bars" where "everybody knows your business"—for this short story collection that weaves through the generations of hopes, dreams, and regrets of a community.... The melancholia of these interconnected stories exude guilt, disappointment, and terminated dreams alongside a quiet strength in the memories of each former or current resident. Haigh skillfully explores a community and their conflicting sentiments of family and responsibility against desires for a future beyond the narrow scope of their hometown.
Publishers Weekly
These connected short stories, set in the coal-mining town of Bakerton, PA, span the 1940s to the present. Beautifully written and deeply moving, they feature characters whose lives have not turned out the way they had imagined.... Some episodes end painfully, but occasionally the protagonists rise up and find hope and strength amid the disappointments. All of their struggles linger in the mind. This is a masterly collection. —Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Despite its treacly title, this collection of short stories shows depth, understanding and compassion rather than sentimentality. Most of the stories take place in or near Bakerton, Pa., populated largely by Polish and Italian Catholic immigrants.... Haigh's narratives are beautifully realized stories of heartbreak, of qualified love and of economic as well as personal depression.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is the significance of the title, News from Heaven?
2. Describe the Bakerton, Pennsylvania, that is captured in the pages of News from Heaven. What do these stories tell you about this place and the people who were born and raised there?
3. Do you think Bakerton is a typical American small town? How does it reflect American values and the nation's development over the course of the twentieth century, when these stories are set?
4. In Bakerton's heyday, the town proudly erected a sign that described its value: "Bakerton Coal Lights the World." Yet a half century later, the sign has been vandalized to read "Bakerton Coal Blights the World." How does time change the town and the people who live there? Do you think places like Bakerton will rise again?
5. What are the overarching themes that connect the stories and these characters? Choose a particular theme and trace it in an individual character's experience and throughout each of the storis in the book.
6. Some of the characters are desperate to escape Bakerton while others are content to remain. What drives their choices? What makes these people so different from each other? What do we gain—and what do we lose—by either choice? What are the benefits and the drawbacks of living in a place like Bakerton?
7. What means of escape are available to those characters who do leave town? What about those who may have contemplated leaving but have not? Is life harder on those who go—or the loved ones they leave behind? Think about Sandy Novak and his sister Joyce Novak Hauser, or Regina Yahner in the story "Broken Star." What are the consequences of their choices?
8. How did growing up in Bakerton shape various characters? Talk about one or two and use passages from the book to illustrate your argument. How is Bakerton reflected in the lives of those who choose to go? What does it offer those who remain?
9. What is life like in Bakerton for outsiders like Alan Spangler in "Something Sweet"? What connects him to his teacher, Miss Peale? Contrast Alan's experiences with those of Mitch Spanek in "Favorite Son." What does it take to fit in a place like Bakerton?
10. In "A Place in the Sun," Sandy Novak left Bakerton and it's "bleak small-town life worse than jail," for the promise of something better out west. Is the grass truly greener elsewhere? Why? Years later, the woman he loves, Vera Gold, tells his sister Joyce, "Whenever he got into trouble, he figured he'd always have this place to come back to." Could Sandy have ever gone back? Is it possible to "go home" again? What happens to those who do, like Ray in "The Bottom of Things"?
11. Ray had always believed that "there were two kinds of men: men who took advantage of their freedom and men who threw it away; men who lived big lives and men who were content being small." Can you live a big life in a small town? If you choose to stay in Bakerton, is that the same as being "content being small"? What does Ray learn about himself when he visits Bakerton for his parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary? Do you think he can find deliverance embracing the responsibilities he once longed to escape?
12. Talk about your own hometown. If you have revisited, do you hold the same opinions you did when you lived there? How can time and distance alter our outlook? What, ultimately, changes?
13. Did you have a favorite story or character in News of Heaven? Elaborate on your choices.
14. What do the experiences of the characters in News from Heaven teach us about ourselves, our home towns, and life itself?
15. The stories in News from Heaven are set in the same location as Jennifer Haigh's earlier book Baker Towers, and several characters from that novel—Sandy, Dorothy and George Novak, Viola Peale, Joyce and Ed Hauser—make appearances in News from Heaven. If you have read Baker Towers, how do the two books compare? What are some reasons a writer might return to the setting of an earlier book?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
News of the World
Paulette Jiles, 2016
HarperCollins
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062409201
Summary
It is 1870 and Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence.
In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna’s parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own.
Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows.
Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and refuses to act “civilized.
Yet as the miles pass, the two lonely survivors tentatively begin to trust each other, forging a bond that marks the difference between life and death in this treacherous land.
Arriving in San Antonio, the reunion is neither happy nor welcome. The captain must hand Johanna over to an aunt and uncle she does not remember—strangers who regard her as an unwanted burden.
A respectable man, Captain Kidd is faced with a terrible choice: abandon the girl to her fate or become—in the eyes of the law—a kidnapper himself. Exquisitely rendered and morally complex, News of the World is a brilliant work of historical fiction that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1943
• Where—Salem, Missouri, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Missouri
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives near San Antonio, Texas
Poet, memoirist, and novelist Paulette Jiles was born and raised in the Missouri Ozarks and moved to Canada in 1969 after graduating with a degree in Romance languages from the University of Missouri at Kansas City.
She spent eight years as a journalist in Canada, before turning to writing poetry. In 1984, she won the Governor General's Award (Canada's highest literary honor) for Celestial Navigation, a collection of poems lauded by the Toronto Star as "...fiercely interior and ironic, with images that can mow the reader down."
In 1992, Jiles published Cousins, a beguiling memoir that interweaves adventure and romance into a search for her family roots. Ten years later, she made her fiction debut with Enemy Women (2002), the survival story of an 18-year-old woman caged with the criminally insane in a St. Louis prison during the Civil War. Janet Maslin raved in the New York Times, "This is a book with backbone, written with tough, haunting eloquence by an author determined to capture the immediacy of he heroine's wartime odyssey." The book won the Willa Literary Award for Historical Fiction (U.S.) and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize (Canada).
In her second novel, 2007's Stormy Weather, Jiles mined another rich trove of American history. Set in Texas oil country during the Great Depression, the story traces the lives of four women, a widow and her three daughters, as they struggle to hold farm and family together in a hardscrabble world of dust storms, despair, and deprivation. In its review, the Washington Post praised the author's lyrical prose, citing descriptions that "crackle with excitement."
A dual citizen of the United States and Canada, Jiles currently lives on a ranch near San Antonio, Texas.
Books
1973 - Waterloo Express (poetry)
1984 - Celestial Navigation (poems)
1985 - The Golden Hawks (children)
1986 - Sitting in the Club Car Drinking Rum and Karma Kola
1986 - The Late Great Human Road Show
1988 - The Jesse James Poems
1988 - Blackwater (short stories)
1989 - Song to the Rising Sun (poems)
1992 - Cousins (memoir)
1995 - North Spirit: Travels Among the Cree and Ojibway Nations and Their Star Maps (memoir)
2002 - Enemy Women
2005 - Flying Lesson: Selected Poems
2007 - Stormy Weather
2009 - The Color of Lightning
2013 - Lighthouse Island
2016 - News of the World
2020 - Simon the Fiddler
Awards
Governor General’s Award for Poetry,Canada (Celestial Navigation)
Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, Canada (Enemy Women)
Willa Literary Award for Historical Fiction, U.S. (Enemy Women)
Extras
From a 2007 Barnes & Noble interview:
• When I lived in Nelson, British Columbia, there were three or four of us women who were struggling writers; we were very poor and we had a great deal of fun. We shared writing and money and wine. Woody (Caroline Woodward) had a great, huge Volkswagen bug—green—named Greena Garbo. When any of us managed to publish something there were celebrations. It was a wonderful time. They always managed to show up at my place just when I'd baked bread. One time Meagan and Joanie arrived to share with me a horrible dinner they had made of cracked wheat and onions—we were actually all short of food. I had just made lasagna—and they ate all of my lasagna and left me with that vile dish of groats and onions. And then we all got married and went in different directions.
• I have a small ranch that keeps me busy—two horses, a donkey, a cat, a dog, fences, a pasture—I and spend lots of time preventing erosion, clearing cedar, etc.
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:
Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays by Northrop Frye gives a clear and cogent analysis of the various sorts of imaginative narratives, among them the quest story. It does not assign value to any one type of story. I came upon Frye's The Well-Tempered Critic in college and loved it. It has the same sort of descriptive brilliance as Anatomy. It was a relief from the contemporary insistence that only the novel of psychological exploration was of literary value."
Other influential books include The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway; All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Stripped down to its bare bones, News of the World is the tale of a hero and heroine's journey. The bond that forms between Kidd and Johanna is visceral, no matter how many times Kidd near kicks himself for taking on responsibility for the wild child.... The last few pages gave me quite a sigh of relief, and that's all I'll say about how the journey of a wise old man and a wise-beyond-her-years young child turns out. I will be passing this fine book on to as many friends as possible and also think it would be a marvelous book club read. READ MORE.
Keddy Ann Outlaw - LitLovers
This Western is not to be missed by Jiles's fans and lovers of Texan historical fiction. The final chapter's solid resolution will satisfy those who like to know what ultimately becomes of beloved characters. —Wendy W. Paige, Shelby Cty. P.L., Morristown, IN
Library Journal
In post-Civil War Texas, a 10-year-old girl makes an odyssey back to her aunt and uncle's home after living with the Kiowa warriors who had killed her parents four years earlier.... Lyrical and affecting, the novel succeeds in skirting clichés through its empathy and through the depth of its major characters.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for News of the World...then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the ways in which Johanna Leonberger's life among the Kiowa Indians has shaped her identity, for better and for worse.
2. Captain Kidd is reluctant at first to be saddled with Johanna. What changes his mind: why does he agree to take her to San Antonio? What does it say about the kind of man he is? What kind of man, in fact, is he?
3. How does Paulette Jiles depict post-Civil War Texas? What kind of place is it? Talk about the landscape and the type of people Johanna and Captain Kidd encounter. Also, consider the effects of the Civil War on the populace: is the war actually over?
4. Trace the development of the bond that develops between Johanna and Kidd. What cements their relationship? Whom do you think benefits more from the other? Or is their relationship equally symbiotic?
5. Captain Kidd makes a living traveling through north Texas, reading the news to audiences who pay to hear hear him. Obviously, the novel's title refers to this activity, but what else might "the news of the world" refer to in the novel?
6. All literary journeys follow the arc of the hero's journey. How does this novel adhere to that ancient narrative? Who is the hero—and in what way? How do both Johanna and Kidd change or grow as individuals during the course of their travels?
7. Where you satisfied by the novel's ending? Does Captain Kidd do the right thing for Johanna? Would you have made the same choice, or a different one?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Next
Stephanie Gangi, 2016
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250110565
Summary
Is there a right way to die? If so, Joanna DeAngelis has it all wrong.
She’s consumed by betrayal, spending her numbered days obsessing over Ned McGowan, her much younger ex, and watching him thrive in the spotlight with someone new, while she wastes away. She’s every woman scorned, fantasizing about revenge ... except she’s out of time.
Joanna falls from her life, from the love of her daughters and devoted dog, into an otherworldly landscape, a bleak infinity she can’t escape until she rises up and returns and sets it right—makes Ned pay—so she can truly move on.
From the other side into right this minute, Jo embarks on a sexy, spiritual odyssey. As she travels beyond memory, beyond desire, she is transformed into a fierce female force of life, determined to know how to die, happily ever after. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—?
• Where—Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Rasied—on Long Island, New York
• Education—State Universit of New York-Buffalo
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Stephanie Gangi is an American writer living in New York City. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, raised in Long Island, New York, and after a spell in the outer suburbs of Rockland County finds herself back living in New York, this time in Manhattan. Gangi received her B.A. from the State University of New York-Buffalo.
Gangi had her publishing debut years ago—a children's book titled Lumpy: A Baseball Fable, which she co-authored with New York Met pitcher, Tug McGraw. Her second book, a gossipy tell-all, was maddeningly lost, never to be found, and obviously never published. The Next, her debut novel (for adults), came out in 2016. Gangi is also a poet working on a compiling a chapbook. She is also at work on another novel. (Adapted from the author's webpage.)
Book Reviews
Gangi has come up with a very cunning variation on the revenge fable.
New York Times
Fast-paced and engrossing.
Booklist
(Starred review.) There's a lot going on in this modern literary ghost story—love, death, family, revenge, Instagram—but it's never hard to follow.... Gangi's ability to create compelling stories and humanize her supporting characters will make readers empathize with them, too. —Samantha Gust, Niagara Univ. Lib., NY
Library Journal
Gangi has a blast with her undead harpy character, who dive-bombs her own memorial service, trashes Dr. Trudi’s penthouse, and makes Ned into a social media pariah.... Good fun, good writing, and strong characters keep this high-wire plot aloft.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Next is not simply a novel about the relationship between ex-lovers, but also one about the relationships between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, siblings, and dogs and their human companions. Which characters and relationships did you connect with the most as you were reading? How do we see these various relationships develop and change as the novel progresses?
2. What are some instances where we see the important role that music has played in the lives and relationships of the characters in this novel? Does music play a similarly important role in your own life? What are some specific songs that come to mind as significant to you?
3. What role does social media play in this novel? How does it result in both the rise and fall of characters?
4. What are the differences and similarities in the ways that Anna and Jules express and process their grief? On page 137, Anna’s grief is described as "the wrong kind of grief." What does this mean? How do they both work through this to a different sort of grief?
5. On page 282, Anna’s behavior toward Jules is described with this observation: "She had acted out precisely the behaviors she felt most aggrieved by, as humans do." What is meant by this? Do we see other characters doing the same thing elsewhere in the novel? Why do you think it is that people often do this?
6. What does Ned get from his relationship with Trudi that he does not get from Joanna? What does he get from his relationship with Joanna that he does not get from Trudi? How do you think he should have handled the discovery of Trudi’s pregnancy?
7. On page 173, Ned’s relationship with women is described as a fear of being consumed:
Or maybe she would consume him, just like he had always secretly worried that she would—that any woman would, that all women would….
Where does this fear stem from? Why does Ned feel the need to establish the "Ned-zone of plausible deniability"? Do you think he has changed at all by the end of the novel?
8. What do you imagine the future to hold for Ned? What about for Anna and Laney?
9. What was your reaction to the depiction of the waiting room Joanna goes to after she dies, and the depiction of her as a ghostly presence (and the other ghostly presences around her)? Is this how you would imagine it, or would you envision the ghostly world in a different way?
10. On page 182, Joanna rejects the idea that her lesson and her path to a Beaches ending is to "Feel it all, feel it all, leave it all behind. Love it and let it go." What is it that ultimately brings her peace and enables her to move on?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Next Best Thing
Jennifer Weiner, 2012
Simon & Schuster
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451617757
Summary
Actors aren’t the only ones trying to make it in Hollywood.…At twenty-three, Ruth Saunders left her childhood home in Massachusetts and headed west with her seventy-year-old grandma in tow, hoping to make it as a screenwriter.
Six years later, she hits the jackpot when she gets The Call: the sitcom she wrote, The Next Best Thing, has gotten the green light, and Ruthie’s going to be the showrunner. But her dreams of Hollywood happiness are threatened by demanding actors, number-crunching executives, an unrequited crush on her boss, and her grandmother’s impending nuptials.
Set against the fascinating backdrop of Los Angeles show business culture, with an insider’s ear for writer’s room showdowns and an eye for bad backstage behavior and set politics, Jennifer Weiner’s new novel is a rollicking ride on the Hollywood roller coaster, a heartfelt story about what it’s like for a young woman to love, and lose, in the land where dreams come true. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 28, 1970
• Where—De Ridder, Louisiana, USA
• Raised—Simsbury, Connecticut
• Education—B.A., Princeton University
• Currently—lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Jennifer Weiner is an American writer, television producer, and former journalist. She is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Background
Weiner was born in DeRidder, Louisiana, where her father was stationed as an army physician. The next year, her family (including a younger sister and two brothers) moved to Simsbury, Connecticut, where Weiner spent her childhood.
Weiner's parents divorced when she was 16, and her mother came out as a lesbian at age 55. Weiner has said that she was "one of only nine Jewish kids in her high school class of 400" at Simsbury High School. She entered Princeton University at the age of 17 and received her bachelor of arts summa cum laude in English in 1991, having studied with J. D. McClatchy, Ann Lauterbach, John McPhee, Toni Morrison, and Joyce Carol Oates. Her first published story, "Tour of Duty," appeared in Seventeen magazine in 1992.
After graduating from college, Weiner joined the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pennsylvania, where she managed the education beat and wrote a regular column called "Generation XIII" (referring to the 13th generation following the American Revolution), aka "Generation X." From there, she moved on to Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader, still penning her "Generation XIII" column, before finding a job with the Philadelphia Inquirer as a features reporter.
Novels and TV
Weiner continued to write for the Inquirer, freelancing on the side for Mademoiselle, Seventeen, and other publications, until after her first novel, Good in Bed, was published in 2001.
In 2005, her second novel, In Her Shoes (2002), was made into a feature film starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine by 20th Century Fox. Her sixth novel, Best Friends Forever, was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and made Publishers Weekly's list of the longest-running bestsellers of the year. To date, she is the author of 10 bestselling books, including nine novels and a collection of short stories, with a reported 11 million copies in print in 36 countries.
In addition to writing fiction, Weiner is a co-creator and executive producer of the (now-cancelled) ABC Family sitcom State of Georgia, and she is known for "live-tweeting" episodes of the reality dating shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. In 2011, Time magazine named her to its list of the Top 140 Twitter Feeds "shaping the conversation." She is a self-described feminist.
Personal
Weiner married attorney Adam Bonin in October of 2001. They have two children and separated amicably in 2010. As of 2014 she lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her partner Bill Syken.
Gender bias in the media
Weiner has been a vocal critic of what she sees as the male bias in the publishing industry and the media, alleging that books by male authors are better received than those written by women, that is, reviewed more often and more highly praised by critics. In 2010, she told Huffington Post,
I think it's a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance, or a beach book—in short, it's something unworthy of a serious critic's attention.... I think it's irrefutable that when it comes to picking favorites—those lucky few writers who get the double reviews AND the fawning magazine profile AND the back-page essay space AND the op-ed...the Times tends to pick white guys.
In a 2011 interview with the Wall Street Journal blog Speakeasy, she said, "There are gatekeepers who say chick lit doesn’t deserve attention but then they review Stephen King." When Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom was published in 2010 to critical acclaim and extensive media coverage (including a cover story in Time), Weiner criticized what she saw as the ensuing "overcoverage," igniting a debate over whether the media's adulation of Franzen was an example of entrenched sexism within the literary establishment.
Though Weiner received some backlash from other female writers for her criticisms, a 2011 study by the organization VIDA bore out many of her claims, and Franzen himself, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, agreed with her:
To a considerable extent, I agree. When a male writer simply writes adequately about family, his book gets reviewed seriously, because: "Wow, a man has actually taken some interest in the emotional texture of daily life," whereas with a woman it’s liable to be labelled chick-lit. There is a long-standing gender imbalance in what goes into the canon, however you want to define the canon.
As for the label "chick lit", Weiner has expressed ambivalence towards it, embracing the genre it stands for while criticizing its use as a pejorative term for commercial women's fiction.
I’m not crazy about the label because I think it comes with a built-in assumption that you’ve written nothing more meaningful or substantial than a mouthful of cotton candy. As a result, critics react a certain way without ever reading the books.
In 2008, Weiner published a critique on her blog of a review by Curtis Sittenfeld of a Melissa Bank novel. Weiner deconstructs Sittenfeld's review, writing,
The more I think about the review, the more I think about the increasingly angry divide between ladies who write literature and chicks who write chick lit, the more it seems like a grown-up version of the smart versus pretty games of years ago; like so much jockeying for position in the cafeteria and mocking the girls who are nerdier/sluttier/stupider than you to make yourself feel more secure about your own place in the pecking order.
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/21/2014.)
Book Reviews
Jennifer Weiner is a dynamo of a writer: witty and engaging with a series of best-selling novels.... But The Next Best Thing isn't on a par with Good in Bed or In Her Shoes.... Certainly, the TV business is overripe for ridicule, and Weiner leaves no Hollywood cliche unturned: the self-absorbed, empty-headed actress; the crass producer who makes casting decisions based on whether he would sleep with the actress...; the network executives who alter plots and themes on a whim. The book's nicest surprise is a lovely leading man for Ruth who is a handsome producer with a gentle wit, thinning hair and a house out of Architectural Digest—and who also happens to use a wheelchair.
USA Today
Weiner is coming off a year in Hollywood, and she puts the experience to excellent use in this utterly engaging story of a showrunner who, after six years of slogging, finally gets a series on the air, only to discover that her troubles are only beginning—meddling studio execs, egomaniacal actors and one crushable but unobtainable boss.
Time
Ruth [Saunders] gets the coveted green light for her show, but things go downhill from there.... Ruth's vision ends up getting a little watered down in the execution.... Weiner writes bitingly about the experience of women in Hollywood writers' rooms.
NPR Saturday Edition
Full of warm and interesting characters as well as a wealth of insider industry detail (Weiner was a cocreator of an ABC family sitcom), this is a must-read for Weiner’s many fans and anyone who enjoys smart, funny fiction.
Library Journal
A sitcom showrunner finds the road to her first series launch much rockier than expected. When Ruth Saunders gets "the call" from the network telling her that her original series, The Next Best Thing, is a go, at first she is incredulous....The plot, exposition and flashback, heavy at first, pick up speed as complications multiply. Spares no bon mot in exposing Hollywood's sexism, ageism and incurable penchant for extravagant silliness
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is the significance of swimming in The Next Best Thing? Why do you think it is such a cathartic activity for Ruth?
2. How does Ruth use humor to her advantage? What purpose does it serve her? What did you think about her involvement with Hellsmouth?
3. Throughout the novel, Ruth finds herself in situations where either she is disappointed by people involved in The Next Best Thing, or she knows she will be disappointing others. How does she handle these moments, and should she have handled any of them differently? What does Ruth mean when she says, “I could do it all as long as I felt like my toughness was in the service of something important; that I was protecting the essential heart of my story” (290)?
4. How does the novel depict male-female dynamics in Hollywood? For those people in positions of power, is their gender shown to be part of their success? Do you think that the outcome of The Next Best Thing would have been any different if the show had had a male show-runner, rather than a female?
5. Consider the various interiors described within the novel—Ruth and Grandma’s home in Framingham, the Two Daves’s offices, Little Dave’s home. What does each physical space convey about the individuals who inhabit it?
6. Why is television so sacred to Ruth? How do her beliefs about the power of television impact how she responds to the production process of The Next Best Thing?
7. After announcing that she and Maurice are engaged, Grandma says to Ruth, “I didn’t want to be alone, so I didn’t let you go when I should have...I should have pushed you out of the nest when it was time for you to go” (163). Do you agree with Grandma’s assessment, or do you think their living arrangements were more mutually beneficial? How does her relationship with Ruth evolve over the course of the novel?
8. Both Little Dave and Ruth have physical scars which are visibly apparent, but to what extent are they internally scarred as well? How do the ways in which they’ve been wounded shape their perspectives on the world—and how they view each other?
9. Turn to p. 299 and re-read Ruth’s description of the three major themes in literature. Which would you apply to The Next Best Thing? Is the novel more about man versus man—or man versus himself?
10. Why do you think Ruth is devastated by Cady Stratton’s weight loss? When Dave tries to console Ruth, saying, “There are pretty girls who can’t get out of their own way,” Ruth responds: “But nobody identifies with them.” With whom do you agree, and why?
11. How are traditional notions of beauty and sexuality challenged in the novel? Which couples get “happy endings” and what does that happiness look like?
12. Discuss what the words “compromise,” “collaboration,” and “concession” mean to you. Are they simply variations on the same concept, or do you think there are distinct differences between these terms? As a group, can you agree upon an example of each in the novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Next of Kin
Joanna Trollope, 1996
Penguin Group USA
331 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425184745
Summary
Joanna Trollope, adored for her pithy tales that deal with the nuances of human nature and emotion, continues her tradition with Next of Kin, the story of a family coping with the death of a loved one. When Californian Caro Meredith became an English farmer’s wife, she hoped it would help her find the happiness and stability her childhood lacked. But when she dies 24 years later, some well-kept secrets emerge that devastate her adopted daughter, Judy, her husband, Robin, and a host of in-laws.
As those who knew Caro mourn her passing, they find themselves pulled together by the commonality of their grief, even as they are torn apart by the forces of change brought about by startling revelations. It will take an outsider—Judy’s new roommate, Zoe—to help the family heal and move on. But first they must face some of the painful truths locked inside their own hearts. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Carolyn Harvey (pen name)
• Birth—December 9 1943
• Where—Gloucestershire, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Oxford University
• Awards—Order of the British Empire (OBE), 1996
• Currently—lives in London, England
Joanna Trollope (born in her grandfather's rectory in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire), is an English novelist. She was educated at Reigate County School for Girls, followed by St Hugh's College, Oxford. She is distantly related to Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope and is a cousin of the writer and broadcaster James Trollope.
From 1965 to 1967, she worked at the Foreign Office. From 1967 to 1979, she was employed in a number of teaching posts before she became a writer full-time in 1980. Trollope was formerly married to the television dramatist Ian Curteis. Trollope's books are generally upmarket family dramas and romances that somewhat transcend these genres via striking realism in terms of human psychology and relationships. Several of her novels have been adapted for television. The best-known is The Rector's Wife.
Trollope is the author of the novels Girl from the South, Next of Kin, Marrying the Mistress, Other People's Children, The Best of Friends, and A Spanish Lover, as well as The Choir and The Rector's Wife, which were both adapted for Masterpiece Theatre. Writing as Caroline Harvey, she is also the author of the historical novels The Brass Dolphin, Legacy of Love, and A Second Legacy. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Readers of Trollope (Marrying the Mistress, Other People's Children) have come to expect the unexpected, and this latest novel is no exception. It begins grimly, with the funeral of Caro Meredith, wife of a dairy farmer in the English Midlands. Caro's death is merely the prelude, however, to a series of shattering events for those she left behind from husband Robin and daughter Judy, a magazine "subeditor," to brother-in-law Joe and his wife, Lyndsay, to Robin's parents, Dilys and Harry. The arrival of Judy's unconventional roommate, Zoe, brings a measure of openness to this emotionally closed family and gives Robin some small amount of the love that he lacked throughout his marriage. Nevertheless, despite the transformative nature of tragedy, particularly for Judy, who chucks her London life, and Lyndsay, both of whom become farmers, the novel lacks the leavening that characterizes most of Trollope's work, and some readers may find it heavy going. Buy where Trollope is popular. —Francine Fialkoff
Library Journal
The popular Trollope (Marrying the Mistress, 2000, etc.) again deftly profiles ordinary men and women learning to adapt as their lives are disrupted by change and loss. Life on the Meredith family's two farms has been pretty predictable. They're not the most beautiful spreads in England, but they've offered solace to Robin, who runs Tideswell, and younger brother Joe, along with parents Harry and Dilys, who farm Dean's Place. But this seeming serenity is, as usual, only superficial. When Caro, Robin's American wife, dies from a brain tumor, the thin fabric of the Merediths' lives disintegrates. Judy, adopted daughter of Caro and Robin, is angry with her father because she feels he mistreated her mother, seeming cool and indifferent. Robin has his own sorrows, as well as financial worries, and Joe, long depressed, feels that with Caro gone he can no longer escape his demons. The pace of events accelerates when Zoe, a photographer who shares a flat with Judy in London, comes down for a weekend, then moves in and becomes Robin's lover. Soon he's telling her about his loveless marriage, and she's also befriending Dilys—a friendship that comforts the crusty matriarch when Joe commits suicide, Harry has an accident, and all learn that they may have to leave the farm. Robin has large debts too (farming is not cheap), and Trollope makes a quiet, heartfelt plea for those who love the land and till it. The Merediths must adapt if they're to survive, Dilys ruefully concludes: change, together with loss and growth, is life. This would all be more compelling if Caro and Zoe didn't both seem more like necessary plot catalysts than memorable characters; Caro's influence on the Merediths never becomes clear, and Zoe is a very sketchy figure. Still, despite its flaws: a refreshingly unsentimental story about people trying, not always successfully, to do what's right.
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 Next Thing on My List
Jill Smolinski, 2007
Crown Publishers
204 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307351296
Summary
Meet June Parker. She works for L.A. Rideshare, adores her rent-stabilized apartment in Santa Monica, and struggles with losing a few pesky pounds.
But June’s life is about to change.
After a dark turn of events involving Weight Watchers, a chili recipe, and a car accident in which her passenger, Marissa, dies, June finds herself in possession of a list Marissa has written, “20 Things to Do By My 25th Birthday.” Even though they barely knew each other, June is compelled by both guilt and a desire to set things right and finish the list for Marissa.
The tasks before her range from inspiring (Run a 5K), to daring (Go braless), to near-impossible (Change someone’s life), and as June races to achieve each goal before the deadline, she learns more about her own life than she ever bargained for.
Funny, engaging, and heartwarming, The Next Thing on My List features a loveable, relatable heroine and a story with plenty of humor and heart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—in Troy, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., Central Michigan University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California, area
Jill Smolinski is the author of the novels The Next Thing on My List and Flip-Flopped, as well as nine non-fiction titles on subjects including origami, travel games and supermodels. Her work has appeared in major women's magazines, as well as in an anthology of short stories, American Girls About Town. A transplanted midwesterner, she now lives in Los Angeles with her son (From the publishers.)
Extras
• At six years of age, Jill was invited to participate in a young authors conference because of a short story she wrote. From then on, she wanted to be a writer.
• She actually works, as June does, for a non-profit group that promotes carpooling or bus-riding. "Over the years, I've become somewhat of a rideshare expert—I can rattle off statistics and facts about carpooling in California so extensively...that I'm rarely invited to dinner parties anymore." (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Fresh and fun to read.... The details of [June’s] life are set out with a deft, light touch.
Boston Globe
Smolinski follows up her debut, Flip-Flopped, with an airy, hit and mostly-miss novel about one rudderless woman's accidental journey of self-discovery. After a Weight Watchers meeting, narrator June Parker offers a ride home to newly svelte Marissa Jones, and the two hit it off until Marissa dies in a nasty one-car accident. When June runs into Marissa's hot brother at the cemetery six months after the crash, she makes a rash promise to carry out the dead girl's list of 20 things to do before she turned 25 (even though June is 34). The challenges that follow—running a 5K, kissing a stranger, "dare to go braless"—serve less to improve June's life than to highlight how unfortunate it is that she's taken up a stranger's goals instead of her own. Smolinski's Los Angeles is a well-executed set—June tilts at windmills as a writer for a ride-sharing nonprofit—but the most human characters in it are June's tyrannical and calculating boss and her secretly sensitive, underused brother. Though completing the list is a transformative experience for June, the leadup fizzles.
Publishers Weekly
After June Parker offers a ride to Marissa, a virtual stranger, her passenger dies in a freak accident. Filled with guilt, June compares her own lackluster life as a mid-level L.A. Rideshare employee to the promise of Marissa, who had just lost 100 pounds and bought her first pair of sexy shoes. June knows this because she salvaged Marissa's list of "20 Things To Do by My 25th Birthday" from the crash, and those were the only two items crossed off. When June runs into Marissa's very attractive brother, she panics, telling him that she is finishing the list herself in Marissa's honor. At this point, of course, she must give up her procrastinating ways. She has six month to complete the tasks, and the challenge teaches her to embrace life and brings her closer to her friends, family, and coworkers. While the plot may sound like a recipe for unbridled sentimentality, in Smolinski's (Flip-Flopped) talented hands, June's odyssey is funny, charming, and moving. This well-paced novel with carefully crafted characters may appeal to readers of Merrill Markoe and Laura Zigman. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
June Parker's life is meandering along until a freak car accident leaves Marissa, her 24-year-old passenger, dead and June wracked with guilt. June discovers a list Marissa had been keeping.... Clever and winning, Smolinski's novel will have readers rooting for June as they eagerly turn the pages to keep up with her progress on the list. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
Smolinski's follow-up to Flip-Flopped (2002) offers a surprisingly un-morbid account of an underachieving young woman who decides to live out another's unrealized dreams after a tragic car accident. Technically, a piece of furniture toppling off a truck caused the crash that killed 24-year-old Marissa Jones. But June Parker can't help but feel responsible, since she had given Marissa a lift home from a Weight Watchers meeting. The guilt amplifies when June discovers a list in Marissa's purse detailing the 20 things she wanted to do before her 25th birthday. Throwing herself with gusto into completing tasks that range from silly ("go braless") to heartbreaking ("change someone's life"), June finds that they give her lackluster life a focus it has been missing. She mentors an inner city "little sister," trains for and finishes a 5K race, even finds a way for her childless brother and his wife to adopt a baby. Along the way, she grows closer to Marissa's older brother Troy, a helicopter traffic reporter with surfer-boy good looks. He not only helps June check off certain items, such as taking Marissa's mom and grandmother to Las Vegas to see Wayne Newton, but his high-flying job inspires her to do something that just might revolutionize her stalled career. As she powers through Marissa's list, June realizes that her own dreams need tending and tries to break some patterns that have held her back for far too long. Smolinski crafts a believable heroine, and her chipper carpe-diem message may have readers devising their own Top 20s. Sweet, though not particularly memorable.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Marissa died soon after she lost 100 pounds. Was the timing of this was significant to the story, and if so, in what way?
2. Why do you think the author had June complete someone else’s life list and not write it as a woman completing her own?
3. Which items on the list were most challenging to June? Which would you have the hardest time completing? Did any appeal to you?
4. Have you ever written a “life list?” If so, what sort of items were on it, and have you completed any of them? If you haven’t, why not?
5. Life lists aim to help people live more dynamically by doing things—how does fit in with your philosophy of what makes a person’s life important?
6. After the accident, June says that there are two types of horrible events: the type that make you grab life by the throat and never take it for granted, and the type that make you watch a lot of reality TV. Was her reaction realistic? How would you feel if a passenger died when you were driving?
7. What did you think about the relationship between June and Deedee? How would June’s experience have been different if she’d been given the type of “Little Sister” she’d been
expecting?
8. At Sebastian’s party, guests who learn about the list assume that Marissa must have been unhappy if she was fat. Were they being, as one woman put it, “size-ist?” or it is impossible to be overweight and happy in this society?
9. What characteristics attracted June to Troy? Do you think she would have been drawn to him if he wasn’t a traffic reporter? If he wasn’t Marissa’s brother?
10. Several of the items on the list were open to interpretation—do you think June did it in a way Marissa would have liked? What other ways might she have completed some of the tasks on the list?
11. If someone you loved died (or has died), what dream of his or hers would you most want to see fulfilled? What dream of yours do you fear might never happen if you died suddenly?
12. By the end of the book, June feels that she’s changed. What do you think had the biggest impact on her transformation?
(Questions from the author's website.)
The Next Time You See Me
Holly Goddard Jones, 2013
Simon & Schuster
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451683363
Summary
In The Next Time You See Me, the disappearance of one woman, the hard-drinking and unpredictable Ronnie Eastman, reveals the ambitions, prejudices, and anxieties of a small southern town and its residents.
There’s Ronnie’s sister Susanna, a dutiful but dissatisfied schoolteacher, mother, and wife; Tony, a failed baseball star-turned-detective; Emily, a socially awkward thirteen-year-old with a dark secret; and Wyatt, a factory worker tormented by a past he can’t change and by a love he doesn’t think he deserves.
Connected in ways they cannot begin to imagine, their stories converge in a violent climax that reveals not just the mystery of what happened to Ronnie but all of their secret selves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 18, 1979
• Where—Russellville, Kentucky, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Kentucky; M.F.A.,
Ohio State University
• Awards—Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award
• Currently—lives in Greensboro, North Carolina
Holly Goddard Jones was born and raised in Russellville, Kentucky. At the age of nineteen, after a year of college at nearby Western Kentucky University, she married her boyfriend, Brandon, and the two moved to Lexington, Kentucky, to pursue degrees at the University of Kentucky. In Lexington, Holly took her first fiction workshops and worked part-time as a marketing assistant at University Press of Kentucky.
Holly soon went on to receive an MFA in creative writing at The Ohio State Univerity, and to teach at Denison University, Murray State University, and most recently the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she is Assistant Professor of English. Over the years, she has also taught workshops for the Reynolds Young Writers' Workshop, the Sewanee Young Writers' Conference, the Sewanee School of Letters, and Centre College.
Holly's first book, Girl Trouble, a collection of stories, was published in 2009. Stories from the collection were published in various journals and anthologies, including Best American Mystery Stories, New Stories from the South 2007 and 2008, Southern Review, Epoch, Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, and Hudson Review. The book was also featured in O: The Oprah Magazine, People, New York Magazine, Chicago Tribune, and elsewhere.
The Next Time You See Me, Holly's debut novel, was published in 2013 by Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Her newest short fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming, in Tin House, Epoch, and Southern Review.
She was a 2007 recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award.
She and Brandon, who teaches interior design at High Point University, are still happily married, and they have two rowdy dogs, Bishop and Martha. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Have you turned the last pages of Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl and don't know what to pick up next? Try Holly Goddard Jones' debut novel, The Next Time You See Me, which Flynn herself has called "simply mesmerizing."... Like Flynn, Jones] not only creates young women with troubles, she also vividly depicts a part of the country often obscured from view.
Chicago Tribune
When Ronnie Eastman disappears from a small southern town in 1993, the residents start revealing their true characters, in Jones’s transparent debut novel (after Girl Trouble, a short story collection). Ronnie’s sister, Susanna, disappointed with her marriage and life, regrets not pursuing her teenage crush because of her father’s racism. That crush, a local baseball star named Tony, is now a detective assigned to find Ronnie. Tony and Susanna’s close proximity to each other for the first time in years brings the old feelings rushing back. Paralleling the story of the search is the story of Emily, a local teenager, awkward and teased, who finds a body a few days before Halloween. Emily is nursing her own crush, on a boy who just moved to the school, and rather than reporting her gruesome find, she uses it as a way to get closer to him. And Wyatt is a local factory worker, living a lonely life until he meets Sarah, a nurse he thinks he might be able to love. All of these lives connect through the search for Ronnie, with consequences for them all. Jones ties together the narratives effectively, cycling point-of-view between the three main players, but her characters are underdeveloped and there’s little doubt about the identity of the killer.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This first novel by award-winning Jones (Girl Trouble) is going to be hot. In the vein of Gone Girl, last summer’s runaway smash, Jones’s tightly written Southern thriller will be one of spring’s sizzling titles. Jones brilliantly weaves together story lines from unexpected angles. Her writing is fluid and she keeps a pace that will have readers lacing on their running shoes. And what a suspenseful, emotional, addictive run it is! Buy it now, read it now, share it now
Library Journal
The residents of a small Kentucky town react to the disappearance of a local woman in this first novel by short story writer Jones (Girl Trouble, 2009)... Susanna Mitchell...becomes increasingly concerned that she hasn't heard from her hard-drinking, slightly disreputable older sister Ronnie for longer than usual.... The police detective assigned to Ronnie's case is Tony Joyce, an old classmate of Susanna's.... Susanna is...excited to work on the case with Tony, whose reappearance in her life underlines her dissatisfaction with her marriage.... There's not much suspense about the possible crime, but Jones builds intense tension surrounding the choices her flawed but compellingly sympathetic characters make as they fight against lonely isolation within the tight confines of small-town America.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Emily’s initial shock at discovering Ronnie’s body develops, over time, into an intense fascination and a sense of connection to the corpse. What do you think drives Emily back to visit the body? What motivates her to keep it hidden?
2. How does Ronnie’s disappearance force Susanna to question her own life decisions? Do you think she was aware of her own unhappiness before Ronnie went missing?
3. Christopher experiences a range of emotions about Emily, from disdain to empathy to attraction. What do you think draws Christopher to Emily? In what ways are they similar?
4. Discuss Susanna and Dale’s relationship. What do you make of Dale’s treatment of his wife? Do they both share the blame for their unhealthy relationship?
5. On p.225, Susanna’s mother tells her, “If you’re going to leave what you’ve got, you better know what you’re getting.” Compare and contrast how the characters in the novel are defined by their comfort zones: Emily, Susanna, Christopher, Tony, Wyatt. In what ways do these characters find satisfaction and/or disappointment by taking risks?
6. Ronnie is a polarizing character, one that Holly Goddard Jones depicts primarily through the lens of other characters. What is your take on Ronnie?
7. On p.169, Jones writes of Mr. Wieland, Emily’s science teacher, “He didn’t like to think that had he been Emily’s peer rather than her teacher, he’d have been one of the students pelting her with her lunch. But he wondered.” In what ways do the characters in The Next Time You See Me discover their capacity for cruelty, particularly Christopher and Wyatt? What is the point that Jones is making about the dark side of human nature?
8. Wyatt is a sympathetic character in many ways, despite his mistakes. How did your opinion of Wyatt evolve as you learned more about him?
9. What do you think provokes Wyatt to attack Sam? Do you think he blames Sam for his own actions?
10. On p.385, when Emily’s mother expresses her remorse about advising Emily to “try to be normal,” Susanna responds, “I don’t that’s such bad advice.” Do you think that Susanna is being sincere? What do you make of Emily’s behavior throughout the story?
11. Tony and Susanna’s brief affair ends abruptly once Ronnie’s body is found. Was her disappearance the only reason they were drawn to each other?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Next Year in Havana
Chanel Cleeton, 2019
Penguin Publishing
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399586682
Summary
After the death of her beloved grandmother, a Cuban-American woman travels to Havana, where she discovers the roots of her identity—and unearths a family secret hidden since the revolution.
Havana, 1958.
The daughter of a sugar baron, nineteen-year-old Elisa Perez is part of Cuba's high society, where she is largely sheltered from the country's growing political unrest--until she embarks on a clandestine affair with a passionate revolutionary...
Miami, 2017.
Freelance writer Marisol Ferrera grew up hearing romantic stories of Cuba from her late grandmother Elisa, who was forced to flee with her family during the revolution. Elisa's last wish was for Marisol to scatter her ashes in the country of her birth.
Arriving in Havana, Marisol comes face-to-face with the contrast of Cuba's tropical, timeless beauty and its perilous political climate.
When more family history comes to light and Marisol finds herself attracted to a man with secrets of his own, she'll need the lessons of her grandmother's past to help her understand the true meaning of courage. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Chanel Cleeton is bestselling author of When We Left Cuba (2019), the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick Next Year in Havana.(2019), and The Last Train to Key West (2020).
Originally from Florida, she grew up on stories of her family's exodus from Cuba following the events of the Cuban Revolution. Her passion for politics and history continued during her years spent studying in England where she earned a bachelor's degree in international relations from Richmond, the American International University in London, and a master's degree in global politics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Chanel also received her Juris Doctor from the University of South Carolina School of Law. She loves to travel and has lived in the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Next Year in Havana reminds us that while love is complicated and occasionally heartbreaking, it's always worth the risk.
NPR
A sweeping love story and tale of courage and familial and patriotic legacy that spans generations.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review) Florida native Cleeton, drawing on her family history, brings the charm of 1950s Havana to life in her first novel.… An enticing and wonderful read for lovers of historical fiction and soul-searching journeys. —Adriana Delgado, Palm Beach Cty. Lib., Loxahatchee, FL
Library Journal
(Starred review) A poignant tale of aristocracy, subterfuge, tyranny, conflict, corruption and courage during the Cuban Revolution.… Next Year In Havana is an extraordinary journey that connects the past and present and will enthrall readers until the very end.
Romance Times
Romance… leavened with a sizable measure of earnest political history… Somber and humor-free, the novel feels uncomfortably strung between its twin missions to entertain and to teach detailed, repetitive factual lessons.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel alternates between Elisa Perez’s life in Cuba in 1958 and 1959 and her granddaughter Marisol Ferrera’s trip to Cuba in 2017. Which woman did you identify with more? What parallels can you see between their personalities and their lives? What differences?
2. The first chapter ends with Elisa wondering how long her family will be away from Cuba. The final chapter ends over a decade later with her posing the same question. How are the themes of hope and exile illustrated in the book? How does the weight of exile affect the Perez family?
3. When Marisol arrives in Cuba she struggles with identifying as Cuban because she grew up in the United States and because she has never set foot on Cuban soil. How much does a physical place define one’s identity? How does Marisol’s trip alter her views about being Cuban and change her perception of herself? How do Marisol and her family attempt to keep their heritage alive in exile? Are there stories and rituals handed down through the generations in your family?
4. Like her grandmother, Marisol falls in love with a man who has revolutionary political leanings. What similarities can you see between Pablo's and Luis’s dreams for Cuba? What differences are there in their worldview? How do they go about achieving their dreams for a better Cuba?
5. Sacrifice is a major theme that runs throughout the novel. How do the characters make sacrifices for one another, and what are some examples of them risking their safety and security for their loved ones? How do you think you would have acted in similar situations?
6. Family plays an important role in the novel, and each of the characters face their own struggles in their attempts to live up to their family’s expectations. What are some examples of this? Did you identify with one character’s point of view more? Are there certain expectations in your own family? Do you feel the need to live up to them? How have they shaped your life decisions?
7. Elisa’s final wish is to have her ashes scattered over Cuban soil. Do you agree with her decision? Would you have wanted your ashes spread in Cuba or would you have preferred to be buried on American soil? Do you think Marisol picked the best place to spread Elisa’s ashes? Where else would you have considered scattering them? Have you scattered the ashes of a loved one? What was the experience like?
8. What initially attracts Elisa to Pablo? Do you believe they would have been able to overcome the differences between them if they weren’t caught in the midst of the Cuban Revolution? Or was their love fueled by the urgency of the times?
9. Elisa chooses to save her letters from Pablo and her memories of their romance by burying them in a box in the backyard. If you had a box in which to bury your most precious possessions, what would you choose to keep safe?
10. What parallels do you see between life in modern Cuba and life in pre-revolutionary Cuba? What differences?
11. Pablo tells Elisa that everything is political. Do you agree with him?
12. Despite coming from very different backgrounds, Marisol and Luis share many similarities that bring them together as a couple. What are some examples of this? Why do you think they get along so well? Do you think they are a good influence on each other?
13. Pablo believes that the best way to change his country is from within. Others like Elisa’s family choose to leave Cuba because they can no longer support the regime. Which approach do you identify with? What are the differences between the Cubans who remained in Cuba and those who live in exile? What are the similarities?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Nickel Boys
Colson Whitehead, 2019
Knopf Doubleday
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385537070
Summary
Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.
As the Civil Rights movement begins to reach the black enclave of Frenchtown in segregated Tallahassee, Elwood Curtis takes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King to heart: He is "as good as anyone."
Abandoned by his parents, but kept on the straight and narrow by his grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But for a black boy in the Jim Crow South of the early 1960s, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy the future.
Elwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides "physical, intellectual and moral training" so the delinquent boys in their charge can become "honorable and honest men."
In reality, the Nickel Academy is a grotesque chamber of horrors where the sadistic staff beats and sexually abuses the students, corrupt officials and locals steal food and supplies, and any boy who resists is likely to disappear "out back."
Stunned to find himself in such a vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold onto Dr. King's ringing assertion "Throw us in jail and we will still love you." His friend Turner thinks Elwood is worse than naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble.
The tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades. Formed in the crucible of the evils Jim Crow wrought, the boys' fates will be determined by what they endured at the Nickel Academy.
Based on the real story of a reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 6, 1969
• Where—New York City, New York (USA)
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award; Whiting Award
• Currently—ives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Colson Whitehead is a New York-based novelist and nonfiction works. He was born and raised in New York City, attending attending Trinity, a private prep school, in Manhattan. He graduated from Harvard College in 1991.
Books
After leaving college, Whitehead wrote for The Village Voice and while there began working on his novels. His first, The Institutionalist, published in 1999, concerned intrigue in the Department of Elevator Inspectors, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and a winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award.
Next came John Henry Days in 2001. The novel is an investigation of the steel-driving man of American folklore. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. The novel received the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.
The Colossus of New York followed in 2003. A book of essays about the city, it is a meditation on life in Manhattan in the style of E.B. White's well-known essay "Here Is New York." Colossus became a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Apex Hides the Hurt, released in 2006, centers around a fictional "nomenclature consultant" who gets an assignment to name a town. The book earned Whitehead the PEN/Oakland Award.
Sag Harbor, set in 1985, follows a group of teenagers whose families (like Whitehead's own) spend the summer in Sag Harbor, Long Island. Published in 2009, the novel was a finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. In 2010 came Zone One, a post-apocalyptic story set New York City.
In 2014 Whitehead published his second work of nonfiction, this one about the 2011 World Series of Poker—The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky & Death. Two years later, in 2016, his novel The Underground Railroad, was released. Widely acclaimed, many critics agree that it is destined to become an American masterpiece.
In addition to his books, Whitehead's reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper's and Granta, and others.
Teaching and writing
He has taught at Princeton University, New York University, the University of Houston, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Wesleyan University, and been a Writer-in-Residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond, and the University of Wyoming.
In the spring of 2015, he joined The New York Times Magazine to write a column on language.
Honors
He has received a MacArthur Fellowship, A Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Dos Passos Prize, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. (Adapted from the author's website and Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/6/2016.)
Book Reviews
The Nickel Boys demonstrate the versatile gifts of a writer who is rounding into mastery. The impression left is that Mr. Whitehead can succeed at any kind of book he takes on. He has made himself one of the finest novelists in America.
Wall Street Journal
Whitehead's new novel… is in many ways a continuation of his reassessment of African American history. But The Nickel Boys is no mere sequel.… it's a surprisingly different kind of novel.… Whitehead reveals the clandestine atrocities of Nickel Academy with just enough restraint to keep us in a state of wincing dread.… It shreds our easy confidence in the triumph of goodness and leaves in its place a hard and bitter truth about the ongoing American experiment.
Washington Post
Possibly the single most anticipated novel of the year.
Los Angeles Times
This is a powerful book by one of America's great writers.… Without sentimentality, in as intense and finely crafted a book as you'll ever read, Whitehead tells a story of American history that won’t allow you to see the country in the same way again.
Toronto Star
The Nickel Boys is straight-ahead realism, distinguished by its clarity and its open conversation with other black writers: It quotes from or evokes the work of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison and more. Whitehead has made an overt bid to stand in their company—to write a novel that’s memorable, and teachable, for years to come. The Nickel Boys is its fulfilment.
USA Today
[A] stunning new novel.… The understated beauty of his writing, combined with the disquieting subject matter, creates a kind of dissonance that chills the reader. Whitehead has long had a gift for crafting unforgettable characters, and Elwood proves to be one of his best.… The final pages of the book are a heartbreaking distillation of the story that preceded them; it's a perfect ending to a perfect novel.
NPR
Again [Whitehead is] wrestling with American history's reverberations…. Since its moral concern is multigenerational anguish, the sense of mourning in The Nickel Boys is subvisceral—not detached, but restrained.… We are called to remember [Faulkner], "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
Oprah Magazine
[The Nickel Boys] should further cement Whitehead as one of his generation's best.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review) Inspired by horrific events that transpired at the real-life Dozier School for Boys, Whitehead’s brilliant examination of America’s history of violence is a stunning novel of impeccable language and startling insight.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Whitehead's magnetic characters exemplify stoicism and courage, and each supremely crafted scene smolders and flares with injustice and resistance, building to a staggering revelation.… A scorching work.
Booklist
(Starred review) Whitehead's novel displays its author's facility with violent imagery and his skill at weaving narrative strands into an ingenious, if disquieting whole. There's something a tad more melodramatic…, giving it a drugstore-paperback glossiness that enhances its blunt-edged impact.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the prologue, the narrator observes that after the truth about Nickel Academy comes out, "even the most innocent scene—a mess hall or the football field—came out sinister, no photographic trickery necessary." Can you think of a time in your life when discovering the history of a place (a particular building, a statue, a historical landmark, etc.) dramatically changed your perception of it?
2. Elwood says that both he and Yolanda King "woke to the world," or discovered racism, at six years old. How old were you when you became aware of racism and inequality? How do you think this experience is different for different people?
3. While in the infirmary, Elwood reads a pamphlet about Nickel that details the contributions the school has made to the community, including bricks from the brick-making machine "propping up buildings all over Jackson County." What do you think of the ways that the wider community seemed to benefit from labor performed by Nickel students? Do you see any historical or modern-day parallels to this symbiotic relationship?
4. One student, Jaimie, is half-Mexican and constantly shuffled between the "white" and "colored" sections of Nickel Academy. Why do you think the author included a character with Jaimie’s ethnic identity in this story?
5. One of Elwood’s takeaways from Dr. King’s speeches is the importance of maintaining one’s dignity in the face of oppression. Is Elwood’s decision to escape (and risk the consequences of capture) rooted in the realization that he can no longer maintain his dignity in a place like Nickel?
6. At one point, the narrator writes that "laughter knocked out a few bricks from the wall of segregation, so tall and so wide." Does humor truly lighten the burden for the boys? Or is it merely one of the very few things that can’t be taken away from them?
7. Who do you think was the true "villain" of the story? The teachers? The school itself? Something or someone else?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Night Circus
Erin Morgenstern, 2011
Knopf Doubleday
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385534635
Summary
The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Reves, and it is only open at night.
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors.
Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.
True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.
Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Marshfield, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Smith College
• Currently—lives Massachusetts
Erin Morgenstern is a writer and artist. Most of her writings and paintings are fairy tales, in one way or another. She lives in Massachusetts. (From the publisher.)
In her words
I’m a Cancerian with a Leo Moon and Taurus rising and, yes, I know what all of that means.
I studied theatre & studio art at Smith College.
I grew up in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Steve Carrell now owns the store where I bought penny candy and blue raspberry Slush Puppies as a child. This both amuses and disturbs me.
I was reading Stephen King at age 12 and J.K. Rowling at age 21. This likely speaks volumes about my literary development.
I currently live in Salem, Massachusetts & will be relocating to Boston in the foreseeable future. Kittens are looking forward to the impending influx of cardboard boxes. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[E]ven if you're not ready for clown shoes, you'll enjoy escaping into Erin Morgenstern's enchanting first novel…more than merely re-creating the Greatest Show on Earth, Morgenstern has spun an extravaganza that makes P.T. Barnum look smaller than Tom Thumb.... Morgenstern manages to conjure up a love story for adults that feels luxuriously romantic.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
[A] dark and extravagantly imagined debut.... The plot follows the separate and then intertwining lives of Celia and Marco, both forced to spend their lives pitting their unusual talents against each other in a cruel competition. But their world is Morgenstern's most vivid creation, a fantastical circus featuring illusionists whose powers transcend mere sleight of hand; like those performers, the author entices her audience to suspend disbelief and rewards its members with captivating pleasure.
People
Debut author Morgenstern doesn't miss a beat in this smashing tale of greed, fate, and love set in a turn of the 20th-century circus. Celia is a five-year-old with untrained psychokinetic powers when she is unceremoniously dumped on her unsuspecting father, Hector Bowen, better known as Le Cirque des Reves' Prospero the Entertainer. Hector immediately hatches a sinister scheme for Celia: pit her against a rival's young magician in an epic battle of magic that will, by design, result in the death of one of the players, though neither Celia nor her adversary, Marco, is informed of the inevitable outcome. What neither Hector nor his rival count on is that Celia and Marco will eventually fall in love. Their mentors—Marco's mentor, Alexander, plucked him from the London streets due to his psychic abilities—attempt to intervene with little success as Celia and Marco barrel toward an unexpected and oddly fitting conclusion. Supporting characters—such as Bailey, a farm boy who befriends a set of twins born into the circus who will drastically influence his future; Isobel, a circus employee and onetime girlfriend of Marco's; and theatrical producer Chandresh Christophe Lefevre—are perfectly realized and live easily in a giant, magical story destined for bestsellerdom. This is an electric debut on par with Special Topics in Calamity Physics.
Publishers Weekly
To enter the black-and-white-striped tents of Le Cirque des Reves is to enter a world where objects really do turn into birds and people really do disappear. Even though visitors believe the performances are all illusion, they are obsessively drawn to this extraordinary night circus. Those who run and perform in the circus are its lifeblood. Marco Alisdair runs the operation from London as assistant to the eccentric proprietor. Celia Bowen holds it all together from her role as illusionist. As magicians, Marco and Celia are bound to each other in a deadly competition of powers, creating ever more fantastical venues for circus goers to marvel at. But falling in love was never part of the game, and the players struggle to extricate themselves from this contest while keeping the circus afloat. Verdict: Debut novelist Morgenstern has written a 19th-century flight of fancy that is, nevertheless, completely believable. The smells, textures, sounds, and sights are almost palpable. A literary Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, this read is completely magical. —Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib., Malibu, CA
Library Journal
Self-assured, entertaining debut novel that blends genres and crosses continents in quest of magic.... Generous in its vision and fun to read. Likely to be a big book—and, soon, a big movie, with all the franchise trimmings.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel opens with a quote from Oscar Wilde:
A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
How is this sentiment explored in The Night Circus? Who in the novel is a dreamer? And what is their punishment for being so?
2. The novel frequently changes narrative perspective. How does this transition shape your reading of the novel and your connection to the characters and the circus? Why do you think the author chose to tell the story from varied perspectives?
3. The narrative also follows a non-linear sequence—shifting at times from present to past. How effective was this method in regards to revealing conflict in the novel?
4. There are a number of allusions to Shakespeare throughout the text: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and As You Like It. Explain these references—how does each play reveal itself in the novel?
5. What role does time play in the novel? From Friedrick Thiessen’s clock, to the delayed aging of the circus developers, to the birth of the twins—is time manipulated or fated at the circus?
6. How does the following statement apply to both Le Cirque des Reves and the competition? Which audience is more valuable: one that is complicit or one that is unknowing?
Chandresh relishes reactions. Genuine reactions, not mere polite applause. He often values the reactions over the show itself. A show without an audience is nothing, after all. In the response of the audience, that is where the power of performance lives.
7. Chandresh is portrayed as a brilliant and creative perfectionist at the beginning of the novel, yet he slowly unravels as the competition matures. Is Chandresh merely a puppet of the competition—solely used for his ability to provide a venue for the competition—or do his contributions run deeper?
8. Marco asserts that Alexander H. is a father figure to him (though his paternal instincts aren’t readily noticeable). In what ways does Alexander provide for Marco and in what ways has he failed him?
9. Celia emphasizes that keeping the circus controlled is a matter of “balance.” And Marco suggests that the competition is not a chess game, but rather, a balancing of scales. However, both the circus and the competition get disordered at times—leaving both physical and emotional casualties in their wake. Is the circus ever really in “balance,” or is it a pendulum swinging from one extreme to the next?
10. From the outside, the circus is full of enchantments and delights, but behind the scenes, the delicate push and pull of the competition results in some sinister events: i.e. Tara Burgess and Friedrick Thiessen’s deaths. How much is the competition at fault for these losses and how much is it the individual’s doing?
11. How do you view the morality of the circus in regards to the performers and developers being unknowing pawns in Celia and Marco’s competition? Do Celia and Marco owe an explanation to their peers about their unwitting involvement?
12. Friedrick Thiessen asserts that he thinks of himself “not as a writer so much as someone who provides a gateway, a tangential route for readers to the circus.” He is a voice for those unable to attend the circus and suggests that the circus is bigger than itself. What role do the reveurs play in keeping the spirit of the circus alive outside of the confines of the circus tents?
13. What is Hector’s role in determining the final fate of the competition? He lectures Celia about remaining independent and not interfering with her partner, but ultimately, Hector largely influences the outcome of the competition. Explain this influence.
14. Poppet and Widget are especially affected by the lighting of the bonfire. How crucial are their “specialties” to the ongoing success of the circus?
15. Isobel is a silent, yet integral, partner in both the circus and the competition. She has an ally in Tsukiko, but seemingly no one else, especially not Marco. How much does Marco’s underestimation of Isobel affect the outcome of the competition?
16. How does Isobel serve as a foil to Celia? Who, if anyone, fills that role for Marco?
17. Tsukiko is aware of Isobel’s “tempering of the circus” from the outset and when Isobel worries that it is having no effect, Tsukiko suggests: “perhaps it is controlling the chaos within more than the chaos without.” What, and whose, chaos is Tsukiko alluding to here?
18. Mr. Barris, Friedrick Thiessen, Mme. Padva, and even Bailey are aware that the circus has made a profound, inexplicable, change in their lives, but they each choose not to explore the depth of these changes. Friedrick Thiessen confirms that, “I prefer to remain unenlightened, to better appreciate the dark.” Do you agree with this standpoint? What inherent dangers accompany a purposeful ignorance? What dangers present themselves when ignorance is not chosen? Is one choice better/safer than the other or are they equally fraught?
19. Celia tells Bailey that he is “not destined or chosen” to be the next proprietor of the circus. He is simply “in the right place at the right time…and care[s] enough to do what needs to be done. Sometimes that’s enough.” In this situation, is that “enough?” Can the responsibility of maintaining the circus be trusted to just anyone, or unlike Celia suggests, is Bailey truly special?
20. At the closing of the novel, we are left to believe that the circus is still traveling—Bailey’s business card provides an email address as his contact information. How do you think the circus would fare over time? Would the circus need to evolve to suit each generation or is it distinctive enough to transcend time?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Night Country (Hazel Wood Series, 2)
Melissa Albert, 2020
Flatiron Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250246073
Summary
In The Night Country, Alice Proserpine dives back into a menacing, mesmerizing world of dark fairy tales and hidden doors of The Hazel Wood.
Follow her and Ellery Finch as they learn The Hazel Wood was just the beginning, and that worlds die not with a whimper, but a bang.
With Finch’s help, Alice escaped the Hinterland and her reclusive grandmother’s dark legacy. Now she and the rest of the dregs of the fairy tale world have washed up in New York City, where Alice is trying to make a new, unmagical life.
But something is stalking the Hinterland’s survivors—and she suspects their deaths may have a darker purpose.
Meanwhile, in the winking out world of the Hinterland, Finch seeks his own adventure, and—if he can find it—a way back home. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1984-85 (?)
• Raised—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia College of Chicago
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, NY
Melissa Albert is the founding editor of the Barnes & Noble Teen Blog and the managing editor of BN.com. She has written for McSweeney’s, Time Out Chicago, MTV, and more. Melissa is from Illinois and lives in Brooklyn. The Hazel Wood (2018) is her first novel; Night Country (2020) is its sequel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Albert’s legion of fans will relish her return to the bloody, terrifying, seductive world of her debut and the inventive brilliance of her storytelling.
Guardian
A lush and enchanting tale. Albert effortlessly draws on a wide range of literary references and builds a world where magic really does emerge from pages and where books are not just figurative but literal doors. Dreamy and disturbing in equal measure, it’s the perfect antidote to a grey winter’s day.
Irish Times
(Starred review) This fairy tale noir adventure blends romance and mystery with plenty of action...a must-read for fans of portal fantasies, mysteries, and readers who prefer their magic with bloody sharp edges.
School Library Journal
(Starred review) What Albert renders on the page is audacious: with resounding success, she keeps a firm grip on her characters and their stories, and her prose weaves a magic of its own, animating the ever-expanding fantastical premise through lyrical language, striking metaphor, and a mastery of tone that forces readers to feel the magic along with the underlying emotional stakes.
Booklist
This follow-up to the astonishing The Hazel Wood (2018) displays the same lush prose, dizzying imagination, and macabre sensibilities…. Alternating… plots don’t intersect until the surreal, shattering climax.… [A] necessary read for Hinterland fans (16-adult).
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 NIGHT COUNTRY … and then take off on your own:
1. To what degree, if any, have either Alice or Ellery—or both—changed since their appearances in The Hazel Wood, this book's prequel. Are they different? If so how?
2. Do you find the city of New York a fitting milieu for the dark enchantment of this fantasy? Did you find the urban setting for the Alice chapters as mesmerizing as the Hinterland? How does the author depict the city to conform to her fairytale ethos.
3. Alice frequently questions her own humanity, her goodness. What do you think about her following observation regarding her soul?
To be honest, I don’t know if I’ve even got a soul. If a soul is what makes you human, then I probably don’t. Unless a soul is something you can grow, like, after the fact. And I don’t think it is. So. No Soul.
4. Alice believes that, despite her yearning, she'll never quite achieve normalcy. She says she is doomed by "the loneliness of singularity." How so? How does she differ from the "junk drawer of ex-Story oddballs" in the novel? What do they hope for and why?
5. Discuss Alice's transformation toward the end of the book. How does she gain control of her life?
5. Ellery is tasked with his own project. Talk about role in this dark tale.
6. How does Night Country compare with The Hazel Wood? Do you prefer one over the other? Does the sequel fulfil the
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Night Cruiser: Short Stories about Creepy, Amusing or Spiritual Encounters with the Shadow
Veronica Dale, 2014
Nika Press
98 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780692344613
Summary
Ten different people come face to face with the dark side. Will they run from it in horror, challenge it with humor, or deal with it in hope? And what exactly is "the shadow" they encounter?
For lonely Isabel, it's the whisper from the basement that invites her to come on down. For second-grader Emma, it's the tortured spirit that has haunted her family for generations. For the grieving Deacon William, it's the damaged android that frightens visitors in the retreat house halls.
Psychologist Carl Jung maintained that everyone has a shadow—the dark side of ourselves we don't want to look at, the faults and foibles that we keep hidden, or the challenges we think we can't cope with. If left to fester, all these can get projected into our nightmares, our monster movies, and even onto other people and groups. His experience told him, however, that those who meet the shadow's challenge can find an inner light.
Discover how this works out for Brent, who consults his psychologist friend about a weird marital problem. Or for the practical young woman who must get rid of the wizard who somehow stumbled into her apartment. Or for Miles, who desperately seeks a reason not to take his own life. If you're intrigued by clever and imaginative writing, crave fascinating stories that pack a lot in a short space, and appreciate an author who never lets religion get in the way of her highly spiritual and deeply psychological message, take a wild ride on the Night Cruiser. It will be fun, spooky, and strange.
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Education—M.S., WAyne State University; M.A., Marygrove College
• Currently—lives in southeast Michigan
Veronica Dale is a former librarian with twenty-six years of experience in pastoral ministry. Her fiction has received recognition from Writer's Digest, Writers of the Future, the National League of American Pen Women, and five stars from readers. She released her short story collection Night Cruiser in December 2014 and plans to launch Blood Seed, the first volume of her epic fantasy-romance series Coin of Rulve, in the fall of 2015.
Many of her themes have roots in Carl Jung's concept of the shadow, insights of traditional and modern-day theologians, and J.R.R. Tolkien's idea of the "eucatastrophe," the belief that even the worst catastrophe can be redeemed. She's an enthusiastic member of a book discussion group held at her church. Even though Veronica has a ministerial background, romance writer Cynthia Harrison says she "never lectures or lets religion get in the way of her highly spiritual and deeply psychological message."
Dale is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Alliance of Independent Authors, and Detroit Working Writers. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Veronica on Facebook.
Book Reviews
I enjoyed each of the stories especially the way the author was able to capture the different moods. I won't write about all of them, but wanted to give kudos to a few of my favorites.... "One Level Down".... "Within Five Feet".... "Dried Beans".... "End of Story".... Keep up the great work! Five stars.
Martha. Amazon review
[A]spects of the monster under the bed and one.... Advent is an exceptional piece of writing which is worth buying this collection for just to read it.... Interestingly, this is one of the few stories which the author doesn't appear to have entered in to any competition which is a shame, if so, as it is fabulous. Four stars.
Bodicia. A Woman's Wisdom-The Book Blog for Lovers of the Written Word
Concise, clever, imaginative writing. Fun, spooky and the strange. Ms. Dale has her writing act together. A joy to read. Five stars.
Stanley D. Williams, Ph.D. Amazon review
The last story, about a creative writing class, was so rich in real detail (I have taught creative writing) that the twist, when it came, flipped me from reality to fantasy and horror and even humor with a few skillful shakes.... Dale shows signs in this slim volume of capturing the world wide web zeitgeist with the zeal and terror of Kafka. Five stars.
Cynthia Harrison. Amazon review
Veronica Dale's compilation of short and sometimes spooky stories covers a lot of ground - from outright sci-fi to dealing with our fears in the dark. I particularly applaud "Dried Beans."... Be sure to read this one to your children, and help them understand. Five of five stars.
Linda. Goodreads review
I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the stories and can understand why several of them won writing contests. My favorite is One Level Down...kept me awake for so long after reading it. So realistic, you'll feel you're right there in the story. Five stars.
Sid Frost. Amazon review
Each story held my interest and I look forward to reading more from Veronica Dale. Five stars.
Matthew Murphy. Amazon review
I was fascinated, disturbed, haunted by "Within Five Feet," the story of Brent who is convinced his wife is weaving a deadly web around him.... What courage it takes to seek peace! Thank you Ms. Dale for your insight. Five stars.
Marie Van De Putte. Amazon review.
Amusing and soul searching. Five stars.
Geri Filar. Amazon review
Discussion Questions
1. Which is your favorite story in Night Cruiser? Why?
2. Psychologist Carl Jung defines the shadow as "everything the subject refuses to acknowledge about himself." These can be inferior character traits, unmet challenges, or our own dark side. Of the ten stories, which ones would you say shine a spiritual or insightful light on how the different characters deal with their shadow?
3. Which story did you find most creepy? How might it relate to your own fears?
4. Julian of Norwich, a 14th century mystic, famously wrote that "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well." Which story seems best to echo her belief?
5. Individuals must deal with their shadow, but so must larger communities. Which story do you think focuses on a shadow that haunts today's society the most?
6. In "Persons of Marred Appearance," what is the shadow that Deirdre faces? That Deacon William faces? How is Chris a wounded healer?
7. The stories in Night Cruiser, the author said in an interview, are really more about hope than horror. What do you think?
8. Taking all the stories into consideration, how many examples can you point to in which something bad got redeemed? Are there any instances in which a character refuses redemption?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Night Film
Marisha Pessl, 2013
Random House
640 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812979787
Summary
On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise.
As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.
For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.
Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.
The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.
Night Film, the gorgeously written, spellbinding new novel by the dazzlingly inventive Marisha Pessl, will hold you in suspense until you turn the final page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1977
• Where—near Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Raised—Asheville, North Carolina
• Education—B.A., Barnard College (Columbia University)
• Currently—New York, New York
Marisha Pessl is an American writer best known for her debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, published in 2006. Her second novel, Night Film, came out in 2013.
Pessl was born in Clarkston, Michigan, to Klaus, an Austrian engineer for General Motors, and Anne, an American homemaker. Pessl's parents divorced when she was three, and she moved to Asheville, North Carolina with her mother and sister.
Pessl had an intellectually stimulating upbringing, recalling that her mother read "a fair chunk of the Western canon out loud" to her and her sister before bed, and entered her in lessons for riding, painting, jazz, and French. She started high school at the Asheville School, a private, co-educational boarding school, but graduated from Asheville High School in 1995. She attended Northwestern University for two years before transferring to Barnard College, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English Literature.
After graduating, Pessl worked as a financial consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, while writing in her free time. After two failed attempts at novels, she began writing a third in 2001 about the relationship between a daughter and her controlling, charismatic father. She completed the novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, in 2004 and it was published in 2006 to "almost universally positive" reviews, translated into thirty languages, and eventually becoming a New York Times Best Seller.
Pessl's second novel, Night Film, a psychological literary thriller, was published in 2013 to mixed reviews. Janet Maslin of the New York Times suspected it "was more exciting to write than to read," while Kirkus referred to it as "an inventive—if brooding, strange and creepy—adventure in literary terror."
Pessl married Nic Caiano, a hedge fund manager, in 2003, and they lived in New York City. Pessl and Caiano divorced in 2009.
Pessl was also a contributing musician to The Pierces' third studio album, Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge, released in 2007. She is credited in the liner notes as having played the French horn on track 9 titled "The Power Of..." (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/18/2013.)
Book Reviews
There is a haunting suspicion running all through Night Film: that this book was more exciting to write than to read, and that Ms. Pessl reveled too contentedly in the universe she created. On the rare occasions when she calls attention to double meanings or bits of wordplay, they fall terribly flat.... But Night Film is content to deliver small, self-satisfied rewards. Ms. Pessl seems to take it as a given that this book, like its absent genius, warrants fascination. Where’s the evidence? Not on the page.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
No one can accuse Marisha Pessl of unfamiliarity with the tools of the modern thriller. With pages of faked-up old photos, invented Web sites and satellite maps, Night Film...asserts itself as a multimedia presentation more than an old-fashioned book. There are over a hundred chapters, most of the James Patterson two-page variety, a technique that adds a giddy accelerant to Pessl’s already zippy pacing.... Pessl is capable of fine prose, so her willingness to serve up “Hardy Boys” nuggets like these suggests she’s willfully dumbing herself down. Still and all, Night Film has been precision-engineered to be read at high velocity, and its energy would be the envy of any summer blockbuster. Your average writer of thrillers should lust for Pessl’s deft touch with character.
Joe Hill - New York Times Book Review
[T[wisted and intelligent.... The “night films” of Stanislas Cordova have a cult following: ...to see his work is to “leave your old self behind, walk through hell, and be reborn.” Ashley Cordova is his enigmatic daughter...[who] apparently commits suicide at 24. Scott McGrath is a reporter...can’t resist his need to uncover the real story of Ashley’s death.... Pessl does wonderful work giving the hard-headed Scott reason to question the cause of Ashley’s death, and readers will be torn between logic and magic.
Publishers Weekly
Expands from a seemingly straightforward mystery into a multifaceted, densely byzantine exploration of much larger issues.... Into this mazelike world of dead ends and false leads, [reporter Scott] McGrath ventures with his two, much younger helpers, Nora and Hopper, brilliantly portrayed Holmesian "irregulars" who may finally understand more about Ashley than their mentor, whose linear approach to fact finding might miss the point entirely.
Booklist
An inventive—if brooding, strange and creepy—adventure in literary terror.... Pessl hits the scary ground running....when [filmmaker Stanislas Cordova's] daughter is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in Chinatown. Scott McGrath, reporter on the way to being washed-up, finds cause for salvation of a kind in the poor young woman’s demise.... A touch too coyly postmodern at times, but a worthwhile entertainment all the same
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Professor Wolfgang Beckman accuses Scott of having “no respect for the murk. For the blackly unexplained. The un-nail downable.” How does Scott’s perspective on mystery and the “blackly unexplained” change over the course of the novel?
2. Nora asks Scott, “How much evidence do you need before you wonder if it just might be real?” Do you think Scott’s skepticism is a mark of pride, as well as rationality, as Nora suggests? Why does he wish to believe in the curse after his conversation with Inez Gallo? How ready were you to believe in the curse?
3. Scott is relentless in his pursuit of the truth about Cordova. How far would you have gone, in his situation? Is there a point at which you would have stopped pursuing the truth?
4. Cordova’s films were filled with such horror and violence that, in many cases, they were banned from theaters. What is your perspective on violence—its role and its effects—in movies today?
5. Cordova’s philosophy is in many ways antithetical to our modern world, where transparency, over-sharing and social media are the norm. Did you feel drawn to Cordova’s philosophy, or repelled, or both? Why?
6. Discuss how Scott advertently or inadvertently involved his daughter Samantha in his investigation. What did you think of the role she wound up playing, in his discovery?
7. How does your perception of Scott change, from the beginning to the end of the novel?
8. What did you think of the evolution of Nora and Scott’s relationship?
9. Both Scott and Nora reflect on the power of memory and story to alter the way we relate to our experiences. Scott says: “It was never the act itself but our own understanding of it that defeated us, over and over again.” Nora says: “The bad things that happen to you don’t have to mean anything at all.” Do you agree?
10. Beckman says “Every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart.” Consider Nora, Hopper, Ashley, Cordova, and Scott. What do their boxes contain, and in what ways do these secrets motivate them? Imprison them?
11. What do you think helped Hopper come to peace with Ashley’s memory?
12. New York City is just as much a character in the novel as any one person. How does your personal experience of, or relationship with, the city affect your reading?
13. How did the visual elements throughout the book enhance or impact your reading experience?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Night of Miracles
Elizabeth Berg, 2018
Random House
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525509509
Summary
A delightful novel of friendship, community, and the way small acts of kindness can change your life, by the bestselling author of The Story of Arthur Truluv
Lucille Howard is getting on in years, but she stays busy.
Thanks to the inspiration of her dearly departed friend Arthur Truluv, she has begun to teach baking classes, sharing the secrets to her delicious classic Southern yellow cake, the perfect pinwheel cookies, and other sweet essentials.
Her classes have become so popular that she’s hired Iris, a new resident of Mason, Missouri, as an assistant. Iris doesn’t know how to bake but she needs to keep her mind off a big decision she sorely regrets.
When a new family moves in next door and tragedy strikes, Lucille begins to look out for Lincoln, their son. Lincoln’s parents aren’t the only ones in town facing hard choices and uncertain futures.
In these difficult times, the residents of Mason come together and find the true power of community—just when they need it the most.
“Elizabeth Berg’s characters jump right off the page and into your heart” said Fannie Flagg about The Story of Arthur Truluv. The same could be said about Night of Miracles, a heartwarming novel that reminds us that the people we come to love are often the ones we don’t expect. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 2, 1948
• Where—St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• Education—A.A.S, St. Mary’s College
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Before she became a writer, Elizabeth Berg spent 10 years as a nurse. It's a field, as she says on her website, that helped her to become a writer:
Taking care of patients taught me a lot about human nature, about hope and fear and love and loss and regret and triumph and especially about relationships—all things that I tend to focus on in my work.
Her sensitivity to humanity is what Berg's writing is noted for. As Publishers Weekly wrote in reviewing The Dream Lover, her 2015 portrayal of George Sand, "Berg offers vivid, sensual detail and a sensitive portrayal of the yearning and vulnerability" behind her main character.
Background
Berg was born in St. Paul Minneapolis. When her father re-enlisted in the Army, she and her family were moved from base to base—in one single year, she went to three different schools. Her peripatetic childhood makes it hard for Berg to answer the usually simple question, "where did you grow up?"
Berg recalls that she loved to write at a young age. She was only nine when she submitted her first poem to American Girl magazine; sadly, it was rejected. It was another 25 years before she submitted anything again—to Parents Magazine—and that time she won.
In addition to nursing, Berg worked as a waitress, another field she claims is "good training for a writer." She also sang in a rock band.
Writing
Berg ended up writing for magazines for 10 years before she finally turned to novels. Since her 1993 debut with Durable Goods, her books have sold in large numbers and been translated into 27 languages. She writes nearly a book a year, a number of which have received awards and honors.
Recognition
Two of Berg's books, Durable Goods and Joy School, were listed as "Best Books of the Year" by the American Library Association. Open House became an Oprah Book Club Selection.
She won the New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, and Boston Public Library made her a "literary light." She has also been honored by the Chicago Public Library. An article on a cooking school in Italy, for National Geographic Traveler magazine, won an award from the North American Travel Journalists Association.
Personal
Now divorced, Berg was married for over twenty years and has two daughters and three grandchildren. She lives with her dogs and a cat in Chicago. (Author bio adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Mason, Mo., is the enchanting setting for a series of small but life-changing events in Berg’s winning novel (following The Story of Arthur Truluv).… [T]he story moves along at a comfortable pace to a fitting, albeit easy, ending.
Publishers Weekly
Fans of Meg Wolitzer, Emma Straub, or Berg’s previous novels will appreciate the richly complex characters and clear prose. Redemptive without being maudlin, this story of two misfits lucky to have found one another will tug at readers’ heartstrings.
Booklist
Berg's sequel to The Story of Arthur Truluv (2017)…. We long for more substance as Berg touches on, but does not really engage, topics like aging, mortality, and America's obsession with appearance.…Psychological realism sacrificed on the altar of niceness.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is your idea of a miracle? How do you think the inhabitants of Mason would each answer that question?
2. The author has said that she had specific individuals in mind when she wrote the visitation scenes. Who do you think was Lucille’s angel? Who do you think visited Abby in the hospital?
3. Do you think the small-town charms so prevalent in the Mason, Missouri, books exist in the real world? Have you ever seen the evidence? Would you like to live in a small town like Mason? Why or why not?
4. What do you think of Lucille’s baking classes? What do people learn at Lucille’s classes besides baking tips?
5. Which recipe of Lucille’s would you most like to sample?
6. Night of Miracles, like The Story of Arthur Truluv, features friendships between characters of different ages and backgrounds at the heart of the story. What do Lucille and Lincoln teach each other? What do Lucille and Iris teach each other? How do they help each other?
7. How is Tiny changed by his relationship with Iris? What does he need to learn about himself before accepting himself in a relationship?
8. Who was your favorite character in the book? Why?
9. In your opinion, what is the greatest friendship or love story in Night of Miracles?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Night Road
Kristin Hannah, 2011
St. Martin's Press
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312364427
Summary
For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children’s needs above her own, and it shows—her twins, Mia and Zach—are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable.
Jude does everything to keep her kids on track for college and out of harm’s way. It has always been easy—until senior year of high school. Suddenly she is at a loss. Nothing feels safe anymore; every time her kids leave the house, she worries about them.
On a hot summer’s night her worst fears come true. One decision will change the course of their lives. In the blink of an eye, the Farraday family will be torn apart and Lexi will lose everything. In the years that follow, each must face the consequences of that single night and find a way to forget…or the courage to forgive.
Vivid, universal, and emotionally complex, Night Road raises profound questions about motherhood, identity, love, and forgiveness. It is a luminous, heartbreaking novel that captures both the exquisite pain of loss and the stunning power of hope. This is Kristin Hannah at her very best, telling an unforgettable story about the longing for family, the resilience of the human heart, and the courage it takes to forgive the people we love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September, 1960
• Where—Southern California, USA
• Reared—Western Washington State
• Education—J.D., from a school in Washington (state)
• Awards—Golden Heart Award; Maggie Award; National Reader's Choice
• Currently—lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington
In her words
I was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When I was eight years old, my father drove us to Western Washington where we called home.
After working in a trendy advertising agency, I decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words I will never forget from my mother. I was in my third-and final-year of law school and my mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. I was shocked to discover that she believed I would become a writer. For the next few months, we collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.
After my mom's death, I packed up all those bits and pieces of paper we'd collected and put them in a box in the back of my closet. I got married and continued practicing law.
Then I found out I was pregnant, but was on bed rest for five months. By the time I'd read every book in the house and started asking my husband for cereal boxes to read, I knew I was a goner. That's when my darling husband reminded me of the book I'd started with my mom. I pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time my son was born, I'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred me to try harder, work more. In 1990, I got "the call," and in that moment, I went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and I've never looked back. In all the years between then and now, I have never lost my love of, or my enthusiasm for, telling stories. I am truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. (From the author's website .)
Book Reviews
Hannah follows up Winter Garden with a strained story of friendship, social pressures, love, and forgiveness. After a string of foster homes and the death of her heroin-addict mother, Lexi Baill is taken in by a newly discovered great-aunt who lives a spartan life near Seattle. Despite financial problems, the two are glad to have found each other, and though Lexi resolves to stay safely on the periphery at her new high school, she soon meets Mia, unhappy and awkward despite a solid family life, a loving twin brother, Zach, and a closetful of clothes. The friendship flourishes, and Mia's mother, Jude, relieved and pleased for her daughter, draws Lexi into the family circle. But trouble begins in senior year with a slowly growing attraction between Zach and Lexi, who take great pains to make Mia comfortable with the change in the dynamics. This familiar story takes an unfortunate turn deep into after-school-special territory when Lexi, Mia, and Zach collectively make a bad decision that results in a tragedy with extreme repercussions. Even readers who like their melodrama thick will have problems as Hannah pushes credibility to the breaking point, and more than once.
Publishers Weekly
Hannah (Winter Garden), long a favorite in women's fiction, has written a novel that should propel her onto the book club fiction circuit. Although infused with a tad too much soap opera drama, at its heart is a story about the agonizing choices parents face daily as they try to raise their children to be happy, independent, and well-adjusted adults. Jude is devoted to her two children, twins Zach and Mia. Haunted by a distant relationship with her own mother, she is determined to give her son and daughter every possible opportunity along with an abundance of love and support. Her physician husband, Miles, is supportive but takes a more laid-back approach. Zach is one of the popular kids in high school, Mia not so much. When Mia becomes friends with Lexi, the new girl in school, things begin to look up. Then an unexpected tragedy forces several of the main characters to face a profound and life-changing event. Verdict: Not quite at the level of a Jodi Picoult or Chris Bohjalian story but awfully darn close. Longtime fans will love this rich, multilayered reading experience, and it's an easy recommendation for book clubs. —Margaret Hanes, Civic Center Lib., Warren, MI
Library Journal
Hannah effectively builds tension as the novel moves towards the pivotal tragedy and maintains suspense afterward not only with several surprising twists but, more subtly, with the way she limns the grief and eventual healing of her appealing characters. A breakout for popular novelist Hannah. —Kristine Huntley
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Jude Farraday is obviously a tenacious and committed mother. She very clearly tries to do anything and everything she can to keep her children safe. Do you think all of this effort makes her a “good” mother? Or is she over-invested in her children’s lives? Does this kind of micro-managing keep kids safe, or put them in a position where they don’t trust their own judgment?
2. One of the powerful themes in this novel is the delicate balance a mother must find between holding on to her children and letting them go. How does Jude succeed in finding this balance? How does she fail?
3. At one point or another in this book, every character feels extreme growing pains. How do you feel each character “grew up” throughout the story?
4. On page 71, Jude observes that her husband accused her of being a helicopter parent, all noise and movement, hovering too close to her children, but if that were true, he was a satellite, positioned so far up in the sky he needed a telescope to track the goings on his own home. How does this sentence illustrate Jude’s view of motherhood? Is she right? Is Miles unaware of what’s going on in his children’s lives? How does Jude render Miles ineffective and what is the price for that?
5. Jude seems to make all the rules for her children. Why does she ignore Miles’ suggestions and advice? Why does he let her?
6. For years, Jude promised her children than they could “tell her anything, that she would pick them at night up no questions asked.” But when put to the test, she fails. Can you understand why she disciplined her children for drinking? What would you have done?
7. When the senior year partying starts, Jude knows that her kids are going to parties where alcohol is served, and she gets proof that they are drinking. How should she have handled this? Should she and Miles have forbidden them from going to parties? Why didn’t they? What were they afraid of?
8. In knowing about the drinking, were Jude and Miles tacitly allowing it? Is it enough to tell your kids about the dangers of drinking and driving and then trust them to make good decisions?
9. In many parts of the country, parents choose to have a “take the keys” party for their teenage children, with the thought that it will be a safer environment. What do you think of this? Would you do it?
10. Jude seems to find a kind of solace in her grief. It appears that she would rather stop feeling anything than to experience her own pain. Do you think this is believable? Understandable?
11. How did Jude’s handling of grief add to the heartache her family suffered? How do her perceptions of fault play into her coldness?
12. Jude has an extremely strained relationship with her own mother. How does this broken relationship contribute to the story?
13. Lexi comes from a very different world than the Farradays. How does her past contribute to the unfolding of the events? How is her past responsible for the decision she makes to drive that night?
14. When Jude discovers the romance between Zach and Lexi, she is immediately worried for Mia. Why? Were her fears justified?
15. Lexi pays an very high price for her actions that night. Did she do the right thing by admitting guilt? How does her past play into and contribute to the decisions she makes about Grace?
16.The author seems to be making some strong statements about the judicial system, especially with regard to power and money. Do you agree that Lexi paid a higher price for her guilt because she was powerless and broke?
17. Jude says at one point that she is seeking "justice" from the court. Is she? Did she find it?
18. Assign blame for what happened on that tragic night. How much of what happened is Lexi’s fault? Zach’s? Jude’s? Mia’s?
19. Discuss your thoughts about Grace’s "invisible" friend. Who is she? How did she help Grace deal with her emotions?
20. In the end of the novel, Jude learns that in the sea of grief, there were moments of grace, moments of time when one could remember what was left, rather than all that had been lost. What does she mean by this? How does it summarize the lessons learned she and Lexi learned? How will this new understanding change all their lives? Do you believe it? Do you think a person can ever truly overcome a tragedy of this magnitude, and if so, how?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Night Strangers
Chris Bohjalian, 2011
Crown Publishing
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307395009
Summary
From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Secrets of Eden, comes a riveting and dramatic ghost story.
In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts.
The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure.
Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine—a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village—self-proclaimed herbalists—and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters.
Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous?
The result is a poignant and powerful ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply.
The difference this time? Some of those characters are dead. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—White Plains, New York, USA
• Education—Amherst College
• Awards—Anahid Literary Award, 2000; New England Book Award, 2002
• Currently—lives in Lincoln, Vermont
Christopher Aram Bohjalian, who goes by the pen name Chris Bohjalian, is an American novelist. Bohjalian is the author of 15 novels, including New York Times bestsellers Midwives, Secrets of Eden, The Law of Similars, Before You Know Kindness, The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and The Night Strangers.
Bohjalian is the son of Aram Bohjalian, who was a senior vice president of the New York advertising agency Romann & Tannenholz. Chris Bohjalian graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In the mid-1980s, he worked as an account representative for J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York.
He and his wife lived in a co-op in Brooklyn until March 1986, when the two were riding in a taxicab in which the driver refused to let them out of the car for 45 minutes, ignoring all traffic lights and stop signs. Around midnight, the driver dropped them off at a near-deserted street in front of a crack house, where the police were conducting a raid and Bohjalian and his wife were forced to drop to the ground for their protection. The incident prompted the couple to move from Brooklyn; Bohjalian said, "After it was all over, we just thought, "Why do we live here?" A few days later, the couple read an ad in The New York Times referencing the "People's Republic of Vermont," and in 1987 the couple moved to Lincoln, Vermont.
Early career
After buying their house, Bohjalian began writing weekly columns for local newspaper and magazine about living in the small town, which had a population of about 975 residents. The Concord Monitor said of Bohjalian during this period, "his immersion in community life and family, Vermont-style, has allowed him to develop into a novelist with an ear and empathy for the common man." Bohjalian continued the column for about 12 years, writing about such topics as his own daily life, fatherhood and the transformation of America. The column has run in the Burlington Free Press since 1992. Bohjalian has also written for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.
Bohjalian's first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was released in 1988. Almost two decades after it was released, Bohjalian said of the book, "It was a train wreck. I hadn't figured things out yet." His third novel, Past the Bleachers, was released in 1992 and adapted as a Hallmark Channel television movie in 1995.
In 1998, Bohjalian wrote his fifth book, Midwives, a novel focusing on rural Vermont midwife Sibyl Danforth, who becomes embroiled in a legal battle after one of her patients died following an emergency Caesarean section. The novel was critically acclaimed and was selected by Oprah Winfrey as the October 1998 selection of her Oprah's Book Club, which helped push the book to great financial success. It became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Victoria Blewer has often described her husband as having "a crush" on the Sybil Danforth character. In 2001, the novel was adapted into a Lifetime Movie Network television film starring Sissy Spacek in the lead role. Spacek said the Danforth character appealed to her because "the heart of the story is my character's inner struggle with self-doubt, the solo road you travel when you have a secret."
Later career
Bohjalian followed Midwives with the 1999 novel The Law of Similars, about a widower attorney suffering from nameless anxieties who starts dating a woman who practices alternative medicine. The novel was inspired by Bohjalian's real-life visit to a homeopath in an attempt to cure frequent colds he was catching from his daughter's day care center. Bohjalian said of the visit, "I don't think I imagined there was a novel in homeopathy, however, until I met the homeopath and she explained to me the protocols of healing. There was a poetry to the language that a patient doesn't hear when visiting a conventional doctor." The protagonist, a father, is based in part on Bohjalian himself, and his four-year-old daughter is based largely on Bohjalian's daughter, who was three when he was writing the book., Liz Rosenberg of The New York Times said the novel shared many similarities with Midwives but that it paled in comparison; Rosenberg said, "Unlike its predecessor, it fails to take advantage of Bohjalian's great gift for creating thoughtful fiction featuring characters in whom the reader sustains a lively interest." Megan Harlan of The Boston Phoenix described it as "formulaic fiction" and said Bohjalian focused too much on creating a complex plot and not enough of complex characterizations. The Law of Similars, like Midwives, made the New York Times bestsellers list.
He won the New England Book Award in 2002, and in 2007 released "The Double Bind," a novel based on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
In 2008, Bohjalian released Skeletons at the Feast, a love story set in the last six months of World War II in Poland and Germany. The novel was inspired by an unpublished diary written by German citizen Eva Henatsch from 1920 to 1945. The diary was given to Bohjalian in 1998 by Henatsch's grandson Gerd Krahn, a friend of Bohjalian, who had a daughter in the same kindergarten class as Bohjalian's daughter. Bohjalian was particularly fascinated by Henatsch's account of her family's trek west ahead of the Soviet Army, but he was not inspired to write a novel from it until 2006, when he read Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, Max Hastings' history of the final years of World War II. Bohjalian was struck not only by how often Henatsch's story mirrored real-life experiences, but also the common "moments of idiosyncratic human connection" found in both. Skeletons of the Feast was considered a departure for Bohjalian because it was not only set outside of Vermont, but set in a particular historical moment.
His 2010 novel, Secrets of Eden, was also a critical success, receiving starred reviews from three of the four trade journals (Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly), as well as many newspapers and magazines. It debuted at # 6 on The New York Times bestseller list.
His next novel, The Night Strangers, published in 2011, represents yet another departure for Bohjalian. The is both a gothic ghost story and a taut psychological thriller.
He has written a weekly column for Gannett's Burlington Free Press since February 1992 called "Idyll Banter." His 1,000th column appeared in May 2011.
Personal comments
In a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview, Bohjalian offered up these personal comments:
I was the heaviest child, by far, in my second-grade class. My mother had to buy my pants for me at a store called the "Husky Boys Shop," and still she had to hem the cuffs up around my knees. I hope this experience, traumatizing as it was, made me at least marginally more sensitive to people around me.
I have a friend with Down syndrome, a teenage boy who is capable of remembering the librettos from entire musicals the first or second time he hears them. The two of us belt them out together whenever we're driving anywhere in a car.I am a pretty avid bicyclist. The other day I was biking alone on a thin path in the woods near Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, and suddenly before me I saw three bears. At first I saw only two, and initially I thought they were cats. Then I thought they were dogs. Finally, just as I was approaching them and they started to scurry off the path and into the thick brush, I understood they were bears. Bear cubs, to be precise. Which is exactly when their mother, no more than five or six feet to my left, reared up on her hind legs, her very furry paws and very sharp claws raised above her head in a gesture that an optimist might consider a wave and guy on a bike might consider something a tad more threatening. Because she was standing on a slight incline, I was eye level with her stomach—an eventual destination that seemed frighteningly plausible. I have never biked so fast in my life in the woods. I may never have biked so fast in my life on a paved road.
I do have hobbies—I garden and bike, for example—but there's nothing in the world that gives me even a fraction of the pleasure that I derive from hanging around with my wife and daughter.
He lives with his wife and daughter in Lincoln, Vermont, where he is active in the local church and the Vermont theater community—always off-stage, never on.
Writing style
Bohjalian novels often focus on a specific issue, such as homelessness, animal rights and environmentalism, and tend to be character-driven, revolving around complex and flawed protagonists and secondary characters. Bohjalian uses characteristics from his real life in his writings; in particular, many of his novels take place in fictional Vermont towns, and the names of real New Hampshire towns are often used throughout his stories. Bohjalian said, "Writers can talk with agonizing hubris about finding their voices, but for me, it was in Vermont that I discovered issues, things that matter to me." His novels also tend to center around ordinary people facing extraordinarily difficult situations resulting from unforeseen circumstances, often triggered by other parties. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Bohjalian has been a reliable bestseller of literary and historical fiction, earning praise from critics and a large audience, but The Night Strangers represents a more sinister turn. It boasts all the trappings of a classic Gothic horror story, reminiscent in places of the spousal secrets in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s "Young Goodman Brown," the thrills of Rosemary’s Baby, and the psychological frights of Daphne du Maurier.... A perfect book for Halloween....That thump thump you hear as you read is only your heart leaping from your chest.
Keith Donohue - Washington Post
After losing passengers in a forced landing, a pilot seeks respite by moving his family to New England. But the house is haunted and local witches won't leave them alone. Good 'n' spooky.
Good Housekeeping
Put a haunted man in a haunted house. . .and you have a Halloween hair-raiser. But it's more than that. Bohjalian, with a dozen well-received novels to his credit, understands trauma: how long it takes to recover from unimaginable pain, and how people who have never experienced it rarely understand.
Tim Clark - Yankee Magazine
Bestseller Bohjalian’s latest novel (after Secrets of Eden) is a gripping paranormal thriller set in a remote New England town. Airline pilot Chip Linton is beset by survivor’s guilt after crashing his plane upon takeoff, killing all but nine aboard. His family moves to Bethel, N.H., to escape the media glare while Chip recovers from PTSD, but they soon discover that the sleepy village harbors evil things. Their new home, once the site of a young boy’s suicide, contains mysterious passageways, hidden weapons, and a secret crypt. And their neighbors, New Age gardeners and homeopaths, soon reveal themselves to be occultists with designs on the Lintons’ twins. Chip begins receiving visits from his dead passengers, including an eight-year-old and her bloodthirsty father, who demands Chip find her a friend—at any cost. Meticulous research and keen attention to detail give depth and character to Bohjalian’s eerie world, but the spookiness consistently gives way to silliness, and the Lintons’ typical response to the strange goings on, an uneasy mix of suspicion and credulity, is a problem. Still, Bohjalian is a master, and the slow-mounting dread makes this a frightful ride.
Publishers Weekly
(Stared review.) Chip Linton, an airline pilot suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after a tragic crash from which he is one of only nine survivors, retreats with his family to a Victorian house in New Hampshire, but peace proves elusive. Why do the town's "herbalists," a group of gardening women who all have the first names of plants and flowers, take such an intense interest in the family, particularly Chip and Emily's ten-year-old twin daughters? And what is behind the mysterious door bolted shut in the basement? Verdict: Bohjalian (Secrets of Eden) has crafted a genre-defying novel, both a compelling story of a family in trauma and a psychological thriller that is truly frightening. The story's more gothic elements are introduced gradually, so the reader is only slightly ahead of the characters in discerning, with growing horror, what is going on. Fans of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones and Margaret Atwood's Cat's Eye and The Robber Bride will find similar appeal here. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., MN
Library Journal
Bohjalian's (Secrets of Eden, etc.) latest effort finds its dark magick in a coven of herbalists, ghosts from an air crash and the troubled history of a derelict Victorian house.... A practical magick horror story with a not-entirely-satisfying resolution..
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 Night Strangers:
1. Talk about he plane crash and the way in which it affects Chip Linton. To what degree was he to blame?
2. Why does Chris Bohjalian structure the back story of the crash as he does—unfolding it bit by bit as the story progresses? Why not recount it as one continuous chapter? What effect does spreading it out have on your reading of the novel?
3. Bohjalian uses an unusual point of view for the crash scenes—the second-person "you." Why might he have chosen this method to recount the crash story? Is the technique off-putting ... or effective?
4. Speaking of narrators, what about the family cat?
5. When first reading, at what point did you begin to suspect that all is not well with the Linton family's neighbors? What early tell-tale signs did you pick up on? What first struck you as odd?
6. Describe the characters of both Emily and Chip? Is Emily the book's hero? Is she overly removed or distracted by events to be a good parent for her daughters? If you were in Emily's position, what would you do?
7. Why do the Linton's stay in the house even after they discover it's haunted?
8. What does the haunted house, and especially the basement, represent metaphorically in the novel?
9. Where you surprised, perhaps shocked, by the epilogue?
10. Overall, what was your experience reading The Night Strangers? Does Bohjalian do a good job of ratcheting up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxiously turning pages?
11. Comparisons of Bohjalian's book have been made to Stephen King's 1977 horror/ghost story, The Shining. Have you read King's book—or seen the film with Jack Nicholson? If so, how similar are the two stories?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Night Swim
Megan Goldin, 2020
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250219688
Summary
A true crime podcast host covering a controversial trial finds herself drawn deep into a small town’s dark past and a brutal crime that took place there years before.
Ever since her true-crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall has become a household name—and the last hope for people seeking justice.
But she’s used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help.
The new season of Rachel's podcast has brought her to a small town being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. A local golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping the beloved granddaughter of the police chief.
Under pressure to make Season 3 a success, Rachel throws herself into her investigation—but the mysterious letters keep coming.
Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insist she was murdered—and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody in town wants to answer.
The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases—and a revelation that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.
Electrifying and propulsive, The Night Swim asks: What is the price of a reputation? Can a small town ever right the wrongs of its past? And what really happened to Jenny? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Megan Goldin is the author of The Escape Room (2018) and The Night Swim (2020). Prior to becoming an author, Goldin worked as a correspondent for Reuters and other media outlets where she covered war, peace, international terrorism and financial meltdowns in the Middle East and Asia.
Goldin is now based in Melbourne, Australia, where she raises three sons and is a foster mum to Labrador puppies learning to be guide dogs. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) [an]outstanding thriller…. Goldin casts a searing light on small-town politics and how bias can affect the way people view rape victims and their alleged assailants.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Goldin’s prose is inviting, at times electrifying, and always sensitive in dealing with hot-button issues…. [W]ell done.
Booklist
A podcast investigator covering her first present-tense criminal trial is thrown for a loop by a radical new development in a much older case…. Not as intense as Goldin’s blistering debut, The Escape Room (2018), but a remarkably strong contender for second place.
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 NIGHT SWIM … then take off on your own:
1. As Rachel covers the Scott Blair/Kelly Moore rape trial, amidst the "he-said/she-said testimony, she finds herself increasingly sympathetic toward Kelly? Why does her objectivity, which she has promised her listeners, begin to dissolve?
2. Talk about the way rape trials play out in courtrooms—and in the public arena. Consider, especially, the process of victim shaming. Given that consensuality is often used as a defense, how can accusations of rape be prosecuted fairly? Is "fair" even possible? To what degree, if any, have things changed with the #MeToo movement?
3. How does The Night Swim portray small towns, especially towns with disturbing secrets and long memories?
4. What role does reputation play in ascertaining ugly truths? And how is reputation connected with money and influence? In other words, talk about the role of class—the haves and the have-nots.
5. Were you surprised at the manner in which the two cases intersected? Did you find their resolution satisfactory?
6. Rachel rescues a bird at the end of the novel. What might her act signify, symbolically?
7. Of the three perspectives in The Night Swim—Hannah, Rachel, and the podcast transcripts—did you find one more engaging over the others? Or did you find all three equally compelling?
8. Make this into a movie? Who plays what roles?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Night Tiger
Yangsze Choo, 2019
Flatiron
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250175458
Summary
An utterly transporting novel set in 1930s colonial Malaysia, perfect for fans of Isabel Allende and Min Jin Lee
Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts.
But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for.
Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever.
As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths racks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes.
Yangsze Choo's The Night Tiger pulls us into a world of servants and masters, age-old superstition and modern idealism, sibling rivalry and forbidden love.
But anchoring this dazzling, propulsive novel is the intimate coming-of-age of a child and a young woman, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible. (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
This is the kind of book that when you read it, you really are transported back to that time and place…. [Choo has] captured, in a very atmospheric way, the time period and the superstitions [of colonial Malaysia in the 1930s]. It’s a pretty wonderful book.
Nancy Pearl - NPR
A mesmerizing tale of murder, romance, and superstition…. So vividly told, you can practically smell the oleander blossoms outside Acton’s house. The Night Tiger is worth a prowl.
USA Today
A book for fans of Isabel Allende and for those who love a murder mystery with a beautiful backdrop.
Glamour
Fans of Isabel Allende will likely soar through Yangsze Choo’s The Night Tiger at a breakneck pace, so you might want to clear your schedule before sitting down to read it.
PopSugar
So engrossing you could spend a day reading this lush historical novel without staring at your phone once…. A sweeping novel with something for everyone—and incredible writing.
Refinery29
(Starred review) [R]iveting…. Mythical creatures, conversations with the dead, lucky numbers, Confucian virtues, and forbidden love provide the backdrop for Choo’s superb murder mystery.… Choo wonderfully combines a Holmes-esque plot with Chinese lore.
Publishers Weekly
Choo presents complex characters and multilayered stories in a vivid setting that coalesce into a richly evocative and mesmerizing tale in which myths and folklore intertwine in daily life. For fans of Kate Mosse or Isabel Allende. —Joy Gunn, Paseo Verde Lib., Henderson, NV
Library Journal
(Starred review) A work of incredible beauty...Astoundingly captivating and striking in its portrayal of love, betrayal, and death, The Night Tiger is a transcendent story of courage and connection.
Booklist
(Starred review) [R]eaders will be so caught up in the natural and supernatural intrigue that the serious themes here… are absorbed with equal delicacy. Choo has written a sumptuous garden maze of a novel that immerses readers in a complex, vanished world.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel’s title evokes the story of the were tiger, "a beast who, when he chooses, puts on a human skin and comes from the jungle into the village to prey on humans." What is the significance of that Malayan folktale in the novel? What does it represent for the different characters?
2. Discuss the structure of the novel, alternating between Ren’s and Ji Lin’s perspectives. How do their narrative styles and worldviews compare? Do you prefer one to the other? How would the novel have been different had it only been from one perspective?
3. Discuss Ren’s relationship with Dr. MacFarlane. Does Ren’s desire to bring the finger to his former master’s grave come from a place of love or fear? How is Ren’s life shaped by the masters for whom he works, and how does he determine his own fate?
4. As a surgeon in Batu Gajah, William Acton straddles two worlds, that of the locals and that of the foreigners. What is his relationship to the local people, specifically the young women he sleeps with? Do you think his impact on the community is ultimately positive or negative? What does this novel have to say about race and class more generally?
5. Ji Lin is a more talented student than her stepbrother, Shin, but because she is a girl, she isn’t allowed to continue on to medical school with him. How does this novel portray gender dynamics in colonial Malaya? How do Ji Lin, Lydia, and the other women in the novel either conform to or rebel against societal expectations? What parallels do you see with today’s world?
6. At the beginning of the novel, Ji Lin leads two different lives—one as a dressmaker’s apprentice and one as "Louise," a dance-hall instructor. What are the pros and cons of each role? Does she find a way to reconcile these two sides of herself by the end of the novel?
7. Ji Lin reflects, "When people talked about being lucky, perhaps they simply wanted to feel powerful, as though they could manipulate fate." Discuss the role of superstition in this novel, in which the supposed luck of certain numbers in Chinese tradition motivates many of the characters. What about in your own life? Do you consider yourself to be superstitious?
8. While speaking with Ji Lin about the other Confucian Virtues, Yi notes, "there’s something a bit wrong with each of us." How do each of these characters—Ji Lin(knowledge), Ren (humanity), Shin (integrity), Yi (righteousness), and William/Lydia (ritual)—stray from their namesake values? At the end of the novel, are they more"right" or "wrong"?
9. In Chinese culture, the five Confucian Virtues are considered a matched set. Ji Lin reflects: "I had the odd fancy that the five of us were yoked by some mysterious fate. Drawn together, yet unable to break free, the tension made a twisted pattern. We must either separate ourselves, or come together." Discuss the tension between independence and dependence for these characters.
10. In his conversations with Ji Lin, Yi hints that the Confucian Virtue Li, meaning order or ritual, has been disrupted. What are some examples from the novel of characters, relationships, and other elements that are seemingly out of order or unconventional?
11. Discuss Ji Lin’s relationships with the men in her life. How do her experiences at the dance hall shape her views of men, in particular Shin? At the end of the novel, she wonders, "Had I managed to catch up to Shin, or had he, by playing a cool and patient game, ensnared me instead?" What does she mean, and what do you think the answer is? Do you think Ji Lin and Shin will ultimately get married?
12. Why do you think Yi disappears from Ji Lin’s and Ren’s lives at the end of the novel? What previously unfinished business does he complete? Discuss how the supernatural twines through this novel. Do you believe that the dead can continue to communicate with the living, as Yi does?
13. Although Lydia is proven to be a murderer, she also works hard to improve the lives of Malayan women. Does her charity work at all redeem her in your eyes? Do you think she is in part a victim of her circumstances?
14. The novel ends with Ji Lin, Shin, Ren, Ah Long, and Rawlings all headed to Singapore. What do you think the future holds for them? Are you glad the ending leaves open the possibility of a sequel?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
Night Train to Lisbon
Pascal Mercier, 2004 (Trans., 2008)
Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
438 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802143976
Summary
Raimund Gregorius teaches classical languages at a Swiss lycée, and lives a life governed by routine. One day, a chance encounter with an enigmatic Portuguese woman inspires him to question his life—and leads him to an extraordinary book that will open the possibility of changing his existence.
He takes the train to Lisbon that same night, and with him the words of Amadeu de Prado, a doctor whose practice and principles led him into confrontation with Salazar’s dictatorship, and a man whose intelligence and magnetism left a mark on everyone who met him.
As Gregorius becomes fascinated with unlocking the mystery of who Prado was—meeting, among others, Prado’s eighty-year-old sister, who keeps the man’s house like a musem, an elderly torture survivor now confined to a nursing home, and Prado’s childhood friend and eventual partner in the resistance movement—an extraordinary tale takes shape, centered on a group of people working in utmost secrecy to fight dictatorship, and the betrayals that threaten to expose them.
A haunting tale of repression, resistance, and the universal human struggle to connect, Night Train to Lisbon is richly layered, wonderfully told, and inexorably propelled by the mystery at its heart.
Recalling Bernhard Schlink and Nicole Krauss in its affirmation of the power of literature, will, and the individual, Night Train to Lisbon is a book of sensual beauty and artistic excellence, one that will be remembered for its soul and wit as well as its universality and great intellectual depth.
A huge international best seller, Night Train to Lisbon was published in hardcover in January with a modest first printing. It has been hailed by booksellers and critics, and embraced by readers. As this catalog goes to press, the hardcover has gone into its fourth printing, and appeared on best-seller lists across the country. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Peter Bieri
• Birth—June 23, 1944
• Where—Bern, Switzerland
• Education—Ph. D., University of Heidelberg
• Currently—N/A
Peter Bieri, is a Swiss writer and professor of philosophy, who writes under the pseudonym Pascal Mercier. Night Train to Lisbon is his third novel.
Bieri studied philosophy, English studies and Indian studies in both London and Heidelberg. From there he was awarded a doctoral degree for his work on the philosophy of time. After the conferral of his doctorate, Bieri worked as a scientific assistant at the Philosophical Seminar at University of Heidelberg.
Bieri co-founded the research unit "Cognition and Brain" at the German Research Foundation. The focuses of his research were the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and ethics. From 1990 through 1993, he was a professor of the history of philosophy at the University of Marburg; from 1993 he taught philosophy at the Free University of Berlin while holding the chair of philology, succeeding his mentor, Ernst Tugendhat. (From Barnes & Noble and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
All of which is interesting enough, but in a rather clinical way. One problem with Night Train to Lisbon is that its plot, if plot is the word for it, consists almost entirely of talk—talk, talk, talk—about people and events in the past. The effect of this endless conversation is numbing rather than stimulating. The subject of seeking a new life is rich, as innumerable American novels have made plain, but it's never really clear here whether the central story belongs to Gregorius or to Prado, and there's scarcely a hint of dramatic tension as Gregorius stumbles his way toward what he learns about Prado. Possibly, Mercier's American publisher thinks that his fiction offers the kind of intellectual puzzles and trickery that many readers love in the work of Umberto Eco, but there are no such pleasures to be found here. Night Train to Lisbon never engages the reader, in particular never makes the reader care about Gregorius. It's an intelligent book, all right, but there's barely a breath of life in it.
Washington Post
Celebrates the beauty and allure of language.... Adroitly addresses concepts of sacrifice, secrets, memory, loneliness, infatuation, tyranny, and translation. It highlights how little we know about others.
Tony Miksanek - Chicago Sun-Times
The text of Amadeu’s writing is filled not with mere nuggets of wisdom but with a mother lode of insight, introspection, and an honest, self-conscious person’s illuminations of all the dark corners of his own soul.... Mercier has captured a time in history—one of time times—when men must take a stand.
Valerie Ryan - Seattle Times
Dreamlike.... A meditative, deliberate exploration of loneliness, language and the human condition.... The reader is transported and, like Gregorius, better for having taken the journey.
Debra Ginsberg - San Diego Union-Tribune
Might call to mind the magical realism of Jorge Amado or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.... Allusive and thought-provoking, intellectually curious and yet heartbreakingly jaded.... Its lyricism and aura of the mysterious only enhance the tale’s clear-sighted confrontation with the enduring questions.
Tony Lewis - Providence Journal
Rich, dense, star-spangled.... The novels of Robert Stone come to mind, and Elias Canetti’s Auto-da-Fe, and Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, and Kobo Abe’s The Ruined Map, not to mention Marcus Aurelius and Wittgenstein.... [But] what Night Train to Lisbon really suggests is Roads to Freedom, Jean-Paul Sartre’s breathless trilogy about identity-making.
John Leonard - Harpers
In Swiss novelist Mercier's U.S. debut, Raimund Gregorius is a gifted but dull 57-year-old high school classical languages teacher in Switzerland. After a chance meeting with a Portuguese woman in the rain, he discovers the work of a Portuguese poet and doctor, Amadeu de Prado, persecuted under Salazar's regime. Transfixed by the work, Gregorius boards a train for Lisbon, bent on discovering Prado's fate and on uncovering more of his work. He returns to the sites of Prado's life and interviews the major players—Prado's sisters, lovers, fellow resistors and estranged best friend—and begins to lose himself. The artful unspooling of Prado's fraught life is richly detailed: full of surprises and paradoxes, it incorporates a vivid rendering of the Portuguese resistance to Salazar. The novel, Mercier's third in Europe, was a blockbuster there. Long philosophical interludes in Prado's voice may not play as well in the U.S., but the book comes through on the enigmas of trying to live and write under fascism.
Publishers Weekly
Raimund Gregorius, a Swiss professor of classical languages, is crossing a rainy bridge in Bern when a mysterious woman writes a phone number on his forehead and utters a single word in Portuguese. Later that day, he wanders into a bookstore and finds himself drawn to a Portuguese book titled A Goldsmith of Words, self-published in Lisbon 30 years earlier. These unexplained and seemingly unrelated events conspire to tear myopic bookworm Gregorius out of his solitary and unvarying existence and send him to Lisbon in search of both the woman and Amadeu de Prado, the book's (fictional) author. This third novel by the pseudonymous Mercier caused a sensation in Europe and spent 140 weeks on the German best-sellers lists, feats unlikely to be duplicated in the United States because of the book's slow pacing. Patient readers will be rewarded, however, by the involving, unpredictable, and well-constructed plot and Mercier's virtuosic orchestration of a large and memorable cast of characters. As the stories of Gregorius and de Prado draw together, this becomes a moving meditation on the defining moments in our lives, the "silent explosions that change everything." Recommended for all fiction collections.
Forest Turner - Library Journal
An elegant meditative book teaches a painfully ironic life lesson in German-Swiss author Mercier's searching 2004 novel, a critically acclaimed international bestseller being published in the United States for the first time. He who learns the lesson is 50ish Raimund Gregorius, a philologist who teaches Latin, Greek and Hebrew at a Swiss high school-until an unknown woman excites the scholar's interest in an obscure book of philosophical observations penned by an equally unknown Portuguese author. Impulsively abandoning his academic responsibilities, Gregorius acquires the rare volume, ponders its contents and travels to Lisbon to research the life of its "vanished" author. He discovers that Amadeu de Prado, a would-be priest who became a renowned physician, had led an even more complex life as a member of the resistance movement opposing Portugal's notorious dictator Antonio Salazar. The story emerges from Gregorius's meetings: with Prado's aged sister Adriana, the stoical though not uncritical preserver of his memory; a contemplative priest with whom the nonbelieving doctor had often debated theology; the brilliant and beautiful colleague Estefania, who may have been Prado's true soul mate; and the Resistance comrade V'tor Coutinho, who discloses the "evil" act (saving the life of a vicious secret police official) that motivated Prado to forsake the life of the mind for that of a man of violent action. The nearer Gregorius comes to the truth of Prado's passionate commitment, the more insistent becomes the question he asks himself: "Had he perhaps missed a possible life, one he could easily have lived with his abilities and knowledge?" It's the age-old intellectual's dilemma, considered in a compelling blend of suspenseful narrative and discursive commentary (quoted from Prado's text). An intriguing fiction only occasionally diluted by redundancy and by Mercier's overuse of the metaphor of a train journey.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the first chapter we meet Raimund Gregorius, aka Mundus, aka Papyrus and learn about his essential habits. Now that you have finished the book, as the story progressed, and in light of what you learned about him, throughout, how are his nicknames appropriate? “That was the moment that decided everything,” (p. 5). What do you think was decided?
2. After he leaves his classroom what makes Mundus head for the bookstore? Why does he have such an instinctive reaction to the book Um Ourives das Palavras by Amadeu Inácio de Almeida Prado? Cite some passages from A Goldsmith of Words to support your view.
3. Why did the woman on the bridge, strange as their interaction was, have such a lasting effect on Gregorius? What incident in Gregorius’s past makes the consequences less surprising?
4. “That words could cause something in the world, make someone move or stop, laugh or cry: even as a child he had found it enigmatic and it had never stopped impressing him.” (p. 42). Why is this small piece essential to our understanding of the puzzle that is Gregorius? How is his métier, teaching ancient languages, involved with everything he thinks? What is the importance of books in the life of Gregorius and Prado? How do books connect the two?
5. In Lisbon Mundus has an accidental collision with a rollerblader. Are there other fortuitous “collisions”? Because his glasses were broken by the rollerblader, he gets new lenses prescribed by Mariana Eça. “With the new glasses the world was bigger and for the first time, space really had three dimensions where things could extend unhindered.” (p. 88). Discuss Gregorius and his eyesight. Concern with his vision has led him to some very important links. Connect some of these links to make a chain encircling Amadeu Prado. What other physical changes besides new glasses does Gregorius make? Discuss chance vs. choice.
6. Mundus interacts with three different physicians, Doxiades, his Greek doctor and friend in Bern, Eça, his Portuguese ophthalmologist, and of course, Amadeu Prado the man he encounters only through his writing. Why is a man of the mind drawn to medical practitioners concerned with the body?
7. Only six days pass between the moment that Gregorius leaves his old life in Bern to the moment when he first encounters Prado’s sister, Adriana, at the casa azul, “As if my whole future were behind this door,” (p. 97). In this short time he has become immersed in another man’s life, a life that was ended by an aneurysm thirty-one years before. How does time and memory have an effect on what he learns inside the house?
8. What is the nature of Adriana’s relationship with her brother, before and after his death? What are the important events that formed their bond? Why does she always wear the black ribbon around her neck? Is she a reliable source?
9. Mundus wishes to meet Mariana’s uncle João Eça because he knows that he had been in the resistance movement as had Prado. Mariana sets him up with an errand to deliver a recording of Schubert’s sonatas. Prado and Eça had first met on a train during Amadeu and Fatima’s honeymoon in England. Senhor Eça, as well as train journeys, in addition to the sonatas all take their place in the unraveling of some of the mysteries of Prado’s life. Is it all serendipity or is something else at work here? “Was he still Mundus, the myopic bookworm, who had gotten scared only because a few snowflakes had fallen in Bern?” (p.114). Was he?
10. Once trust is established between João Eça and Gregorius he learns a great deal from the older man. What part does the game of chess play in their relationship? In what other personal associations does chess figure?
11. Prado appears to have had a very different relationship with his sister Rita/Melodie than with his sister Adriana. After his wife, Fatima’s death, he writes a long letter to Melodie from Oxford in which he speaks of an Irishman with a red soccer ball. “No meeting of minds?” I asked. “What?” he shouted and howled with laughter. “What?” And then he shot the soccer ball he had been carrying the whole time onto the sidewalk. I would like to have been the Irishman, an Irishman, who dared to appear in All Souls College for the evening lecture with a bright red soccer ball.” (p. 137). What is Amadeu trying to communicate to his sister? Why does he want to be like the Irishman? How would his life have been different if he had been?
12. In order to find out more about Prado’s early days, Gregorius visits Father Bartolomeu, now in his nineties, who had been a teacher at the Liceu. Father Bartolomeu speaks of Prado’s funeral. “Two people, a man and a young woman, of restrained beauty came toward each other from each end of the path to the grave. Each had to cover an equally long way to the grave and they seemed to adapt the speed of their steps precisely to one another, so they arrived at the same time. Their eyes did not meet one single time on the way but were aimed toward the ground. To this day, I don’t know what kind of secret bound the two people or what it had to do with Amadeu” (p. 160). Who were these people and what was their secret, and what did it have to do with Prado?
13. Father Bartolomeu gives Gregorius an envelope containing Amadeu Prado’s “blasphemous” graduation speech. “I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals. I need the luster of their windows, their cool stillness, their imperious silence. I need the deluge of the organ and the sacred devotion of praying people” (p. 171). What does the speech reveal about Prado? Why was he sometimes called the “priest of truth”?
14. What does the note written by Prado about saving Mendes, “the doctor of death,” reveal? “Here what experience always kept teaching me is confirmed, quite against the original temperament of my thought: that the body is less corrupt than the mind” (p. 193). Does Prado think of himself primarily as a doctor? The question of sacrificing one life for many arises once again in the case of Estafânia Espinhosa. Do you think that there is a consistency between the two instances? What is ironic about Estâfania? Did you find Prado’s behavior inevitable?
15. Prado’s close friendship with Jorge O’Kelly, would be pianist, Lisbon pharmacist, former resistance fighter, and accomplished chess player, began when they were boys and flourished even though they differed in significant ways. In order to understand Prado, Gregorius must understand O’Kelly. In what ways were they different? What drew them to each other? “All the blood had drained out of his face. In this one single second, I realized that the most horrible thing had happened: our lifelong affection had turned into hate. That was the moment, the dreadful moment, when we lost each other” (p. 335). What split them apart?
16. Gregorius tracks down another close friend of Prado’s from his school days, Maria João Ávila. “If there was anybody who knew all his secrets, it was Maria Joao. In a certain sense, she, only she, knew who he was.” (p. 337). What does Gregorius perceive about her? How did this relationship develop? Was there any similarity to Prado’s other liaisons with women?
17. Gregorius eventually leaves his hotel in Lisbon to live in the apartment of a man, Senhor Da Silveira, whom he had met and befriended on the night train. What are the parallels in the friendship between these two and Prado/O’Kelly? What else has changed about Gregorius besides his address? What are the parallels between Raimundo Gregorius and Amadeu Prado? Cite some specific events in the narrative to sustain your views.
18. Many letters are quoted in this book. Gregorius reads one of these from the father, Judge Prado, to his son Amadeu and from the son, Doctor Prado to his father. “It was crazy, thought Gregorius: both men, father and son, had lived on opposite hills of the city like opposing actors in an ancient drama, linked in an archaic fear of each other and in an affection they didn’t find the words for, and had written letters to each other that they didn’t trust themselves to send. Clasped in muteness neither understood, and blind to the fact that one muteness produced the other.” (p. 291). What do the letters contain, and what is learned from them? What is the nature of the father-son relationship?
19. “And there’s something else about the intricate way you created me according to your will-like a wanton sculptress of an alien soul: the names you gave me Amadeu Inacio. Most people don’t think anything of it, now and then somebody says something about the melody. But I know better, for I have the sound of your voice in my ear, a sound full of conceited devotion. I was to be a genius. I was to possess godlike grace. And at the same time-the same time!-I was to embody the murderous rigidity of the holy Ignacio and his abilities to perform as a priestly general” (p. 312). What kind of a woman was Senhora Prado? What was the nature of the mother-son relationship?
20. “He had disappointed all expectations and broken all taboos, and that was his bliss. In the end, he was at peace with the bent judging father, the soft dictatorship of the ambitious mother, and the lifelong stifling gratitude of the sister.” (p. 379). Gregorius sees this image of Prado late in the story when he himself may be facing death. When the bookseller from the Spanish bookstore asks him if the book kept its promise, Gregorius says that it did, absolutely. How have the memories of the doctor/poet’s life helped him to bring together his own life and to find his own peace?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Night Watchman
Louise Erdrich, 2020
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062671189
Summary
Based on the extraordinary life of National Book Award-winning author Louise Erdrich’s grandfather, who worked as a night watchman and carried the fight against Native dispossession from rural North Dakota all the way to Washington, D.C.
Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota.
He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress.
It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination” that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run”?
Since graduating from high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother.
Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis.
Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.
Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.
In The Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature.
Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure. (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
Erdrich’s reverence for her heroic grandfather and her moral passion about the mistreatment of her people irradiate the magisterial, beautiful, important fiction she creates here…. Thomas is our literal night watchman, and Patrice must also watch out for her father’s lurking presence, but Erdrich beautifully evokes and explores the many figurative implications and resonances of both words…. Some readers may find the novel’s kaleidoscope of perspectives confusing or its ambling pace too slow. But those who can surrender to Erdrich’s intricate tapestry of a vision, who appreciate her remarkable ability to veer from humor to pathos in a pithy phrase and, as one character says of another, to 'make life’s bitterness into comedy,' who admire her luminous empathy, will place The Night Watchman alongside the best of her remarkable fiction.
Boston Globe
That a family history forms the novel’s skeleton is fitting, because it is a sense of family that holds the whole story together ... What is most beautiful about the book is how this family feeling manifests itself in the way the people of The Night Watchman see the world, their fierce attachment to each other, however close or distant, living or dead ... [there is a] dark strand running though the book, and through the American story—one that, for all its chauvinism, Erdrich frames with remarkable care.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Night Watchman is above all a story of resilience…It is a story in which magic and harsh realities collide in a breathtaking, but ultimately satisfying way. Like those ancestors who linger in the shadows of the pages, the characters Erdrich has created will remain with the reader long after the book is closed.
New York Journal of Books
[The] stirring tale of a young Chippewa woman and her uncle’s effort to halt the Termination Act of 1953.… Erdrich’s inspired portrait of her own tribe’s resilient heritage masterfully encompasses an array of characters and historical events. Erdrich remains an essential voice.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) In Erdrich's hand, daily life on the reservation comes alive…. Erdrich once again calls upon her considerable storytelling skills to elucidate the struggles of generations of Native people to retain their cultural identity and their connection to the land. —Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL
Library Journal
(Starred review) [S]spellbinding, reverent, and resplendent…. Through the personalities and predicaments of her many charismatic characters,… Erdrich traces the indelible traumas of racism and sexual violence and celebrates the vitality and depth of Chippewa life…. Erdrich at her radiant best.
Booklist
(Starred review) In this unhurried, kaleidoscopic story, the efforts of Native Americans to save their lands from …the U.S. government in the early 1950s come intimately, vividly to life.… A knowing, loving evocation of people trying to survive with their personalities and traditions intact.
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.)
The Nightingale
Kristin Hannah, 2015
St. Martin's Press
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250104687
Summary
In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.
FRANCE, 1939
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent.
When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can...completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women’s war.
The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France—a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September, 1960
• Where—Southern California, USA
• Reared—Western Washington State
• Education—J.D., from a school in Washington (state)
• Awards—Awards—Golden Heart Award; Maggie Award; National Reader's Choice
• Currently—lives in Bainbridge Island, Washington
In her words
I was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When I was eight years old, my father drove us to Western Washington where we called home.
After working in a trendy advertising agency, I decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words I will never forget from my mother. I was in my third-and final-year of law school and my mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. I was shocked to discover that she believed I would become a writer. For the next few months, we collaborated on the worst, most cliched historical romance ever written.
After my mom's death, I packed up all those bits and pieces of paper we'd collected and put them in a box in the back of my closet. I got married and continued practicing law.
Then I found out I was pregnant, but was on bed rest for five months. By the time I'd read every book in the house and started asking my husband for cereal boxes to read, I knew I was a goner. That's when my darling husband reminded me of the book I'd started with my mom. I pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time my son was born, I'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred me to try harder, work more. In 1990, I got "the call," and in that moment, I went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and I've never looked back. In all the years between then and now, I have never lost my love of, or my enthusiasm for, telling stories. I am truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. (From the author's website .)
Book Reviews
The bestselling author hits her stride in this page-turning tale about two sisters, one in the French countryside, the other in Paris, who show remarkable courage in the German occupation during WWII.... The author ably depicts war’s horrors through the eyes of these two women, whose strength of character shines through no matter their differences.
Publishers Weekly
Character growth and development is a strength of this World War II-set novel, although the middle plods during some sections.... Readers who enjoy stories with ethical dilemmas and character-driven narratives will enjoy this novel full of emotion and heart. —Julia M. Reffner, Midlothian, VA
Library Journal
I read The Nightingale in one sitting, completely transported to wartime France, completely forgetting where I was. A historical novel—built on Kristin Hannah’s proven skill with story, complex and enduring family ties, and passion—one that will captivate readers. —Marilyn Dahl
Shelf Awareness
Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis...demoralized the French, engineering...the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah's proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale. Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Nightingale opens with an intriguing statement that lays out one of the major themes of the book: “If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.” What do you think the narrator means by this? Is love the ideal and war the reality? How does war change the way these characters love? How does love influence their actions in the war? On a personal level, has love affected your life choices? Have those choices affected who and how you love?
2. Take a moment to talk about the narrative structure of The Nightingale. Why do you think Kristin Hannah chose to keep the narrator’s identity a secret in the beginning and end of the novel? Were you surprised by who it turned out to be? Did you go back and reread the beginning of the novel once you finished? Were you satisfied when you discovered who was narrating the novel?
3. Many characters chose to construct a secret identity in The Nightingale. How did pretending to be someone else determine each character’s fate, for better or worse? And what about those who had no choice, like Ari and Julien?
4. The sisters Isabelle and Vianne respond to the war in very different ways. Isabelle reacts with anger and defiance, risking her life to join the resistance against Nazi occupation. Vianne proceeds with caution and fear, avoiding conflicts for the sake of her children. Who do you admire—or relate to, or sympathize with—more, Vianne or Isabelle? Discuss your reasons. You may choose to share your own stories and experiences as well.
5. The book captures many of the era’s attitudes about men and women. Isabelle, for example, is told that women do not go to war. Vianne is confused by her new wartime role as provider. Their father, Julien, is cold and distant, unwilling to fulfill his parental duties after his wife dies. Have gender roles changed much since World War II? Have women always been strong in the face of adversity, but not recognized for their efforts? Vianne says that “men tell stories . . .women get on with it.” Do you agree with her?
6. Isabelle’s niece, Sophie, admires her aunt’s courage: “Tante Isabelle says it’s better to be bold than meek. She says if you jump off a cliff at least you’ll fly before you fall.” Do you agree? Is it better to take a risk and fail than never try at all? Do you think you could have acted as heroically as Isabelle under such horrifying circumstances? Who is more heroic in your mind—Isabelle or Vianne?
7. Perhaps one of the most chilling moments in the book is when Vianne provides Captain Beck with a list: Jews. Communists. Homosexuals. Freemasons. Jehovah’s Witnesses. We know now how wrong it was to provide this list, but can you understand why Vianne did it? What do you think you would have done?
8. Each of the sisters experiences love in a different way. Vianne’s love is that of a mature woman, a wife and a mother devoted to her family; Isabelle’s love is youthful and impulsive, more of a girlish dream than a reality. How did Isabelle’s feelings of abandonment shape her personality and her life? How did Vianne’s maternal love lead to acts of heroism, saving the lives of Jewish children? How did love—and war—bring these two sisters closer together?
9. Take a moment to talk about Beck. Is he a sympathetic character? Did you believe he was a good man, or was he just trying to seduce Vianne. Did he deserve his fate?
10. When Isabelle works with Anouk and other women of the French resistance, she notices “the wordless bond of women.” What does she mean? Do you agree that women who come from different backgrounds but share a common path can create a silent bond with other women? Why do you think this is so?
11. Vianne recalls her husband, Antoine, telling her that “we choose to see miracles.” What does he mean by this? Is it his way of telling his wife he knows the truth about their son’s biological father? Or is it his way of looking at life, of coping with the terrible events they’ve lived through? Is seeing the beauty in the world an active choice?
Is it possible to find miracles in our lives, if we look for them?
12. Discuss the scene in which Ari is taken away. What do you believe is the right answer in his situation—if there is one? What would you have done in Vianne’s position?
13. Do you think Julien had a right to know who his real father was? Would you have made the same decision Vianne did?
14. Finally, a show of hands: Who cried—or at least got a little choked up—while reading this book? Which scenes moved you the most? Which character’s fate would you say was the most tragic? The most poignant? The most harrowing? Did the book give you a better understanding of life under Nazi occupation during World War II? Did it move you, inspire you, haunt you? And finally, what will you remember most about The Nightingale?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Nights in Rodanthe
Nicholas Sparks, 2003
Grand Central Publishing
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446612708
Summary
Adrienne Willis is forty-five and has been divorced for three years, abandoned by her husband for a younger woman. The trials of raising her teenage children and caring for her sick father have worn her down, but at the request of a friend and in hopes of a respite, she’s gone to the coastal village of Rodanthe in North Carolina’s outer banks to tend the local inn for the weekend. With a major storm brewing, the time away doesn’t look promising…until a guest named Paul Flanner arrives.
At fifty-four, Paul is a successful surgeon but in the previous six months his life has unraveled into something he doesn’t recognize. Estranged from his son and recently divorced, he’s sold his practice and his home and has journeyed to this isolated coastal town in hopes of closing a painful chapter in his past, completely unaware that his life is about to change forever.
Adrienne and Paul come together as the storm gathers strength over Rodanthe, but what begins between them over the weekend will resonate throughout the rest of their lives, intertwining past and future, love and loss. (From the publisher.)
Nights in Rodanthe was adapted to film in 2008, starring Diane Lane and Richard Gere.
Author Bio
• Birth—December 31. 1965
• Where—Omaha, Nebraska, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Notre Dame
• Currently—lives in New Bern, North Carolina
Nicholas Charles Sparks is an American novelist, screenwriter and producer. He has published some 20 novels, plus one non-fiction. Ten have been adapted to films, including Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Notebook, Nights in Rodanthe, Dear John, The Last Song, The Lucky One, and most recently The Longest Ride.
Background
Sparks was born to Patrick Michael Sparks, a professor of business, and Jill Emma Marie Sparks (nee Thoene), a homemaker and an optometrist's assistant. He was the middle of three children, with an older brother and a younger sister, "Dana", who died at the age of 33 from a brain tumor. Sparks said that she is the inspiration for the main character in his novel A Walk to Remember.
His father was pursuing graduate studies at University of Minnesota and University of Southern California, and the family moved a great deal, so by the time Sparks was eight, he had lived in Watertown, Minnesota, Inglewood, California, Playa del Rey, California, and Grand Island, Nebraska, which was his mother's hometown during his parents' one year separation.
In 1974 his father became a professor of business at California State University, Sacramento teaching behavioral theory and management. His family settled in Fair Oaks, California, and remained there through Nicholas's high school days. He graduated in 1984 as valedictorian from Bella Vista High School, then enrolled at the University of Notre Dame under a full track and field scholarship. In his freshman year, his team set a record for the 4 x 800 relay.
Sparks majored in business finance and graduated from Notre Dame with honors in 1988. He also met his future wife that year, Cathy Cote from New Hampshire, while they were both on spring break. They married in 1989 and moved to New Bern, North Carolina.
Writing career
While still in school in 1985, Sparks penned his first (never published) novel, The Passing, while home for the summer between freshman and sophomore years at Notre Dame. He wrote another novel in 1989, also unpublished, The Royal Murders.
After college, Sparks sought work with publishers or to attend law school, but was rejected in both attempts. He then spent the next three years trying other careers, including real estate appraisal, waiting tables, selling dental products by phone and starting his own manufacturing business.
In 1990, Sparks co-wrote with Billy Mills Wokini: A Lakota Journey to Happiness and Self-Understanding. The book was published by Random House sold 50,000 copies in its first year.
In 1992, Sparks began selling pharmaceuticals and in 1993 was transferred to Washington, DC. It was there that he wrote another novel in his spare time, The Notebook. Two years later, he was discovered by literary agent Theresa Park, who picked The Notebook out of her agency's slush pile, liked it, and offered to represent him. In October 1995, Park secured a $1 million advance for The Notebook from Time Warner Book Group. The novel was published in 1996 and made the New York Times best-seller list in its first week of release.
With the success of his first novel, he and Cathy moved to New Bern, NC. After his first publishing success, he began writing his string of international bestsellers.
Personal life and philanthropy
Sparks continues to reside in North Carolina with his wife Cathy, their three sons, and twin daughters. A Roman Catholic since birth, he and his wife are raising their children in the Catholic faith.
In 2008, Entertainment Weekly reported that Sparks and his wife had donated "close to $10 million" to start a private Christian college-prep school, The Epiphany School of Global Studies, which emphasizes travel and lifelong learning.
Sparks also donated $900,000 for a new all-weather tartan track to New Bern High School. He also donates his time to help coach the New Bern High School track team and a local club track team as a volunteer head coach.
In addition to track, he funds scholarships, internships and annual fellowship to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Sparks (A Bend in the Road, etc.) logs more miles on the winding high road of romance with the story of two middle-aged people who meet by chance in the small North Carolina coastal town of Rodanthe. The impassioned but doomed romance seems to owe much to Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County. Once again, a housewife who has focused on everyone but herself indulges in a brief, intense, secret affair with a stranger who changes her life forever. As the story begins, Adrienne Willis is 60, the divorced mother of three grown children. To help her troubled daughter cope with the untimely recent death of her husband, Adrienne tells her the tale of her love affair, which took place 15 years before. At the time, Adrienne was an uptight matron whose ex-husband had just left her for a younger woman. This rejection colors her entire life, and Sparks realistically portrays a vulnerable and isolated woman who throws herself into raising her children to escape her despair. Paul Flanner, her paramour, is a surgeon and an obsessive workaholic with no genuine connection to his wife or son, whose world completely falls apart when one of his patients inexplicably dies. Sparks builds a taut, plausible relationship between his protagonists, but even fans may be irked by the obviousness of their story and the inevitability of their fate.
Publishers Weekly
Sparks...is back at it with his latest mix of love story and pathos. He doesn't disappoint, whipping up plenty of melodrama in the story of two shattered people, both badly scarred by past experiences, who find each other late in life and realize they are soul mates. —Kathleen Hughes
Booklist
A mother unburdens a story of past romance to her troubled daughter for no good reason. Adrienne Willis is a middle-aged mother with three kids who, not surprisingly, finds herself in an emotional lurch after her husband dumps her for a younger, prettier thing. Needing to recharge her batteries, Adrienne takes a holiday, watching over her friend's small bed-and-breakfast in the North Carolina beach town of Rodanthe. Then Dr. Paul Flanner appears, himself a cold fish in need of a little warming up. This is the scene laid out by Adrienne to her daughter, Amanda, in a framing device of unusual crudity from Sparks (A Bend in the Road, 2001, etc.). Amanda's husband has recently died and she hasn't quite gotten around to figuring out how to keep on living. Imagining that nothing is better for a broken heart than somebody else's sad story, Adrienne tells her daughter about the great lost love of her life. Paul came to Rodanthe in order to speak with the bereaved family of a woman who had just died after he had operated on her. Paul, of course, was not to blame, but still he suffers inside. Add to that a recent divorce and an estranged child and the result is a tortured soul whom Adrienne finds absolutely irresistible. Of course, the beach, an impending storm, the fact that there are no other visitors around, a roaring fireplace, and any number of moments that could have been culled from a J. Crew catalogue and a Folgers's commercial make romance just about inevitable. Sparks couldn't be less subtle in this harshly mechanical story that adheres to formula in a way that would make an assembly-line romance writer blush. Short, to the point, and absolutely unremarkable: sure to be another medium-hotromance-lite hit for Sparks, who at the very least can never be accused of overstaying his welcome.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the opening scene, Adrienne decides to tell her daughter about a story from her past about Paul Flanner, a relationship that had obviously ended. Did you realize that he had died, or did you think that the relationship had ended differently? How would the novel have been different had the author decided not to let the reader know the ending in advance? Could the story have been told in another way, as simply a remembrance for instance, and still had the same impact?
2. Amanda lost her husband to cancer, and Adrienne lost Paul to an accident. Adrienne also lost her husband to a younger woman. Yet Adrienne found a way to heal, despite her losses, while Amanda has not. Is this difference a function of age and maturity, or simply the passage of time? If its both, do you believe that Amanda will eventually fall in love again? Is that important to her? What other lessons did she draw from her mother's story?
3. Rodanthe is described in detail. How does the setting play a role in the story? Could this story have occurred in a larger city? Why or why not?
4. The novel deals with the theme love and sacrifice. How did the major characters -- Adrienne, Paul, Amanda and Robert Torrelson -- sacrifice? How did love play a role? What else played a role? Is sacrifice an act, or is sacrifice an on-going process? Explain.
5. In this novel, as in Message in a Bottle, there are scenes that take place in the beach. What is the significance of the beach in this story? How does it play into the theme of the novel? Also in this novel is a storm, just as there was in The Notebook. What is the significance of the storm? How does it play into the theme of the novel?
6. Adrienne never told her children about Paul in the year that followed their relationship in Rodanthe. Think about Adrienne at that point in her life. Why wouldn't she tell the children about him? Is that believable? How do her children remember her from that time? How does Amanda see her mother now, in knowing that she'd kept him a secret?
7. Paul is a wounded character when the novel opens because he feels that all the sacrifices in his life haven't been worth it. His wife has left him, he's estranged from his son, he's sold his medical practice, and has come to Rodanthe to meet Robert Torrelson. Was he a necessary character in this novel? Why or why not? How does Robert Torrelson influence the relationship between Paul and Adrienne? Would you like to read a novel based on the love story between Robert and his wife?
8. Mark plays a central role in letting us get to know Paul Planner. He also writes a letter that lets Adrienne know what had happened. Why did the author choose to use the epistolary method for describing these things? Is the letter more effective than a conversation? Why or why not? What is the relationship between Mark and Paul like in the final moments of Paul's death? How do you think Mark views Paul now? Is this typical of father/son relationships?
9. The inn is described in the opening paragraph of the novel. Why did the author start the novel with a description of an inn? How does the inn play a role in all that happens?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Nightwoods
Charles Frazier, 2011
Random House
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400067091
Summary
The extraordinary author of Cold Mountain and Thirteen Moons returns with a dazzling new novel of suspense and love set in small-town North Carolina in the early 1960s.
Charles Frazier puts his remarkable gifts in the service of a lean, taut narrative while losing none of the transcendent prose, virtuosic storytelling, and insight into human nature that have made him one of the most beloved and celebrated authors in the world. Now, with his brilliant portrait of Luce, a young woman who inherits her murdered sister’s troubled twins, Frazier has created his most memorable heroine.
Before the children, Luce was content with the reimbursements of the rich Appalachian landscape, choosing to live apart from the small community around her. But the coming of the children changes everything, cracking open her solitary life in difficult, hopeful, dangerous ways.
Charles Frazier is known for his historical literary odysseys, and for making figures in the past come vividly to life. Set in the twentieth century, Nightwoods resonates with the timelessness of a great work of art. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Asheville, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;
M.A., Ph.D., Appalachian State University
• Awards—National Book Award for Fiction, 1997
• Currently—lives in Raleigh, North Carolina
Charles Frazier grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. Cold Mountain, his highly acclaimed first novel, was an international bestseller, and won the National Book Award in 1997. In 2006 Mr. Frazier published Thirteen Moons.
Frazier had been teaching University-level literature part-time when he first became spellbound by the story of his great-great uncle W. P. Inman. Inman was a confederate soldier during the Civil War who took a harrowing foot-journey from the ravaged battle fields back to his home in the mountains of North Carolina. The specifics of Inman's history were sketchy, indeed, but Frazier's father spun his tale with such enticing drama that Frazier began filling in the gaps, himself. Bits of the life of Frazier's grandfather, who also fought in the Civil War, helped flesh out the journey of William Pinkney Inman.
He also looked toward the legendary epic poem The Odyssey for inspiration. Slowly, a gripping tale of devotion, faith, redemption, and love coalesced in Frazier's mind. For six or seven years, he toiled away on the story that would ultimately become Cold Mountain, and with the novel's publication in 1997, the first-time author had a modern classic of American literature on his hands.
In Cold Mountain, Inman is a wounded confederate soldier who abandons the war to venture home to his beloved Ada. Along the way, he is confronted by various obstacles, but he journeys on valiantly, regardless. Frazier cleverly divides the narrative between Inman's trek and Ada's story as she struggles to make due in the wake of her father's death and the absence of her love.
When Frazier was only half finished with the book, he passed it along to friend and novelist Kaye Gibbons (Ellen Foster; A Virtuous Woman), who then got it into the hands of her agent. Much to his disbelief, Frazier's novel went on to become the smash sensation of the late-‘90s. Winning countless laudatory reviews from publications throughout the nation, Cold Mountain also became a must-read commercial smash. The novel ultimately won the coveted National Book Award for fiction and was adapted into an Oscar-winning motion picture starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and best supporting actress Renee Zellweger.
Nearly ten years after the publication of Cold Mountain, Frazier published Thirteen Moons. While Thirteen Moons returns to a 19th century setting, 12-year old Will is quite a different protagonist from Inman. With only a horse, a key, and a map, the boy is prodded into Indian country with the mission of running a trading post. In this dangerous environment, Will learns to empathize with the Cherokees, who open his mind to a much broader world than he had ever seen before.
In 2011 Frazier published Nightwoods, the story of a young woman living alone in the Appalachians who takes on the care of her murdered sisters young children, traumatized, violent and mute.
Extras
• Frazier grew up not far from the mountain he immortalized in Cold Mountain in the Blue Ridge of North Carolina. Although the actual Cold Mountain exists, the town after which it is named in the novel is entirely fictional.
• Reportedly, Frazier was offered a whopping $8 million advance for Thirteen Moons. Sadly, the book never reached the sales potential Random House had expected. (From Widkipedia.)
Book Reviews
Nightwoods...is a departure from its predecessors in some respects. It’s set in the early 1960s rather than the 19th century, and it involves no literary or historical elements of comparable grandeur and gravity [as his previous two novels]. Indeed, based on its premise, the new book feels remarkably stripped down: a young woman named Luce, the caretaker of an old lodge in small-town North Carolina, becomes the guardian of the twin children of her murdered sister.... It’s too bad the writing gets in the way of the storytelling—or, to be truer to Frazier, it’s plangently unfortunate the writing style gets all up and troublesome-like in the whisper-leaved way of the true and fine telling of this terrible and valiant tale of priapic violence and distaff recompense.... Writing that invites this much attention, that so strives to concentrate our attention on its effects, has to achieve more than precious and overwrought evocation.
Randy Boyagoda - New York Times Book Review
This is a fantastic book: an Appalachian Gothic with a low-level fever that runs alternately warm and chilling. Frazier has left the 19th century and the picaresque form to produce a cleverly knitted thriller about a tough young woman in the 1960s who has given up on the people of her small town and gone to live alone in the woods. Much of the terror and pleasure of “Nightwoods” comes from detecting the ligaments that connect these wounded folks, who don’t always realize how they’re connected until a knife is already in flight.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Frazier is very good at the slow and nuanced process by which...emotionally thwarted, and justifiably suspicious, characters come together, but that meeting always happens against a backdrop of violence and social upheaval.
John Burnside - Guardian (UK)
Though the details are vivid, there is a fog hanging over the story. The plot seems frozen, until events take place without explanation, leaving the reader confused about whether an old house has burned down, whether two characters are related, how Bud ends up in a shooting range... Part of this fog comes from the style of Frazier's writing, which can be descriptive and powerful but incomplete.... His full sentences, when he bothers to write them, are much more powerful, such as when he describes a character's feeling that "the week before Labor Day became its own tiny season of gloom, like a hundred Sunday nights crowded together."... The landscape of the book may be vivid and poetic throughout, but descriptions of beauty alone don't make a novel. In Nightwoods the landscape overshadows the humans it's supposed to illuminate.
Alana Semuels - Los Angeles Times
National Book Award–recipient Frazier’s third novel (after Thirteen Moons) turns around Luce, a beautiful and lonely young woman who has retreated to a vast abandoned lodge in the mountains of Appalachia. Traumatized by negligent parents (“Mother a long-gone runaway. Father, a crazy-ass, violent lawman”), Luce now lives off the land in relative contentment—until her sister Lily is murdered, and Lily’s deeply damaged twins, Dolores and Frank, are sent to live with her. We are briefly allowed to hope for happily-ever-after when an old flame of Luce’s, a thoughtful and kind man by the name of Stubblefield, reenters her life, but he is not the only newcomer to town. Unbeknownst to Luce, her sister’s husband—and killer, Bud, on the prowl for money he believes Lily’s children stole from him, has arrived and will readily perform sudden, cold violence on anyone who stands in his way. Frazier’s characters lack nuance (they are either very, very good or very, very bad) and his prose is often self-consciously folksy. But his great strength, as well as presenting us with a fully realized physical backdrop, is the tenderness with which he renders the relationships at the core of this book, creating a compelling meditation on violence and the possibility that human love can heal even the deepest wound.
Publishers Weekly
With this dark tale of murder, New York Times best-selling author Frazier (Cold Mountain; Thirteen Moons) hauntingly evokes rural North Carolina in the early 1960s. Luce, a young woman far removed from the outside world, becomes foster mother to young twins when her sister is murdered by her husband. The traumatized children seem to have reverted to a wild state; they do not speak and have a troubling inclination to set fires. So isolated is Luce that she never hears the news that the suspect has somehow been declared innocent and is headed her way, in search of money he believes his deceased wife may have passed along to her. Time passes slowly for Luce and the children: she takes up with a local man who has inherited the rundown hotel where she lives, and the twins gradually begin to open up. Frazier paints a vibrant picture of the rhythms of life and the flora and fauna of western North Carolina. When the children's father arrives on their doorstep, the story takes a shocking turn. Verdict: Frazier's poetic and reflective style is perfectly suited to the novel's setting and to his vivid portrayal of the dark side of humanity. Recommended. —Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. at Oneonta
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Luce's strategy for dealing with her troubled past is to withdraw from her community, her emotions, and in some sense from life itself. Does Luce find this an effective coping mechanism for dealing with trauma? How does it help her, and how does it hurt her? In our digital world, is it still possible for someone to withdraw in this way?
2. Luce feels obligated to care for her sister's children even though she admits she is not a maternal person and does not love the children. Discuss this choice. How is Luce's sense of obligation informed by her relationship with her own mother and father?
3. Think about Luce's connection to her elder friends. What is it about Luce that draws her toward Maddie, old Stubblefield, and her grade school teachers?
4. Think about the scene in which Luce tells Lit about the rape. Is he only being insensitive and rude, or is there a part of him that is actually trying to protect Luce from more pain and disruption, albeit in an insensitive way?
5. Luce and Stubblefield are alike in some ways, and in others they are very different. Why do you think they are attracted to each other? Discuss which character changes the most over the course of the novel.
6. Discuss the children, and their eccentric and violent behavior. Are they misunderstood? Mentally or emotionally disturbed? How do they function as a narrative engine? In today's environment, a caretaker of these children would probably look for some kind of diagnosis. Apart from abuse, think about what might drive the kids' behavior that may have been misunderstood in the early 1960s. What are the challenges of raising children without the medical or psychiatric support we take for granted today?
7. Bud and Lit manage to form an unlikely bond. What is Bud looking for in Lit? And what is Lit looking for in Bud? What draws the two men apart, and ultimately leads to Lit's death?
8. Blood is a prominent symbol in Nightwoods. How does the metaphor of blood affect your interpretation of the story, and how does it shape Bud's confused worldview?
9. The beautifully rendered Appalachian landscape plays a central role in Nightwoods. Is the landscape merely a setting for the story? Or is it something more? A symbol? A kind of character? And what do you think the giant pit in the woods represents?
10. In the end, Luce opens up to Stubblefield and accepts that he intends to be a permanent fixture in her life. The children also seem to have accepted him. What do you think of this unlikely, cobbled-together family? What does it say about what makes a family? Will they be successful in making each other whole again?
11. What do you think happened to Bud? Does he continue to represent a threat to Luce, Stubblefield, and the kids?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Nine Coaches Waiting
Mary Stewart, 1958
Chicago Review Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781556526183
Summary
A governess in a French chateau encounters an apparent plot against her young charge's life in this unforgettably haunting and beautifully written suspense novel. When lovely Linda Martin first arrives at Chateau Valmy as an English governess to the nine-year-old Count Philippe de Valmy, the opulence and history surrounding her seems like a wondrous, ecstatic dream.
But a palpable terror is crouching in the shadows. Philippe's uncle, Leon de Valmy, is the epitome of charm, yet dynamic and arrogant—his paralysis little hindrance as he moves noiselessly in his wheelchair from room to room. Only his son Raoul, a handsome, sardonic man who drives himself and his car with equally reckless abandon, seems able to stand up to him.
To Linda, Raoul is an enigma—though irresistibly attracted to him, she senses some dark twist in his nature. When an accident deep in the woods nearly kills Linda's innocent charge, she begins to wonder if someone has deadly plans for the young count. (From the publisher.)
About the Author Bio
• Birth—September 17, 1916
• Where—Durham, England, UK
• Education—Durham University
• Currently—lives in England
Mary Florence Elinor Stewart (nee Rainbow), a popular English novelist, is best known for her series about Merlin, which straddles the boundary between the historical novel and the fantasy genre.
Stewart was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England and graduated from Durham University, from where she received an honorary D.Litt in 2009. She was a lecturer in English Language and Literature there until her marriage in 1945 to Sir Frederick Stewart, former chairman of the Geology Department of Edinburgh University. Sir Frederick died in 2001.
In addition to her five fantasy novels, Stewart is also the author of approximately 20 others: children's books, crime fiction, gothic fiction and romance novels, several of which have been adapted for television and/or film. Several of her books are set in Scotland; others are set in more exotic locations such as Damascus, the Greek islands, Spain, France, or Austria.
She was at the height of her popularity in the 1960s and 1970s when many of her suspense and romantic novels were translated into many languages. Stewart is considered one of the founders of the romantic suspense subgenre, blending romance novels and mystery. Her novels seamlessly combined the two genres, maintaining a full mystery while focusing on the courtship between two people. In her novels, the process of solving the mystery "helps to illuminate" the hero's personality, helping the heroine to fall in love with him (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Older works have few mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
A delightful concoction. A beautifully written mingling of romance and mystery.
Washington Post
A wonderful hue and cry story.... A Mona Lisa tale that beckons you on while suspense builds up.
Boston Herald
Readers will be glued to the complex story in which no one seems truly trustworthy.
Vive Magazine
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 Nine Coaches Waiting:
1. What does the title suggest about the kind of story Stewart wants to tell...and the kind of story her readers might expect?
2. What kind of character is Linda Martin? How would you describe her?
3. Why must Linda pretend ignorance of the French language, which she is quite facile at speaking?
3. Talk about young Philippe. How well does Linda relate to him as a charge?
4. What about Uncle Leon as a character? How does he treat his nephew? What might his injury suggest symbolically about him?
5. What makes Linda first suspect that the "accidents" are anything but accidents?
6. What draws Raoul and Linda together? Did you feel their attachment was genuine on both sides?
7. Linda finds herself in the middle of a murder plot and must spirit Philippe away to keep him safe. What will Linda have to sacrifice as she makes her decision? Whom does she suspect ...and whom, at this point, did you suspect?
8. Does this book deliver in terms of its triple objectives: to be a mystery / suspense / and romance in one book? Does Stewart succeed? Did you find yourself quickly turning pages to find out what happens next? Were you surprised by the turn of events, or did you find them predictable? Were you satisfied with the ending of the book? Does it end how you had hoped it would?
9. Loneliness is an underlying theme in this book. How does it evidence itself within the story?
10. Are there other literary heroines of whom Linda reminds you? And if you've read other Mary Stewart works, how does this one compare?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Nine Women, One Dress
Jane L. Rosen, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385541404
Summary
A charming, hilarious, irresistible romp of a novel that brings together nine unrelated women, each touched by the same little black dress that weaves through their lives, bringing a little magic with it.
Natalie is a Bloomingdale's salesgirl mooning over her lawyer ex-boyfriend who's engaged to someone else after just two months.
Felicia has been quietly in love with her boss for seventeen years and has one night to finally make the feeling mutual.
Andie is a private detective who specializes in gathering evidence on cheating husbands—a skill she unfortunately learned from her own life—and lands a case that may restore her faith in true love.
For these three women, as well as half a dozen others in sparkling supporting roles—a young model fresh from rural Alabama, a diva Hollywood star making her Broadway debut, an overachieving, unemployed Brown grad who starts faking a fabulous life on social media, to name just a few—everything is about to change, thanks to the dress of the season, the perfect little black number everyone wants to get their hands on. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Jane L. Rosen is an author and Huffington Post contributor. She lives in New York City and Fire Island with her husband and three daughters. She often takes inspiration from the city she lives in and the people she shares it with.
She is the author of a young adult novel, The Thread, which she self-published with a print-on-demand company. In addition to her writing she has spent time in film, television and event production and is the cofounder of It’s All Gravy LLC, a web and app-based gifting company. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Nine Women, One Dress is a love letter to New York. Rosen deftly peels back the layers and reveals the lives that inhabit the skyscrapers, brownstones, the department stores, hotels, and parks.
Liz Matthews - Town & Country
[A] witty debut novel featur[ing] a transformative item of clothing. This is a fun book, tightly plotted and perfectly timed for the summer season.
Publishers Weekly
[An] "it dress" from New York's fashion season and how it affects the lives of the women who wear it.... Chick lit at its best. If this book were a dress, it would fit everyone perfectly and flatter everyone's figure. —Jennifer Mills, Shorewood-Troy Lib., IL
Library Journal
A charming story that twists the lives of New Yorkers around a little black dress. Or is it the other way around?... Rosen's debut novel is rich in relationships, written with clarity and humor and surprise twists that bring the tale to a satisfying conclusion. A pure pleasure to read.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions.
1. On the boat to America, Max Hammer tells Morris Siegel that he know he wanted to marry his wife, Dorothy, since he saw her at age twelve. Do you know childhood sweethearts who are still married today? What do you think is different about their relationship?
2. What did you think about the scenes between Jeremy and his publicist and agent? Did you think it was accurate to in terms of how celebrity images are manipulated in the media?
3. Discuss the role that Bloomingdales plays in the novel. What’s your go-to store for occasions when only "the dress" will do?
4. Sometimes fate needs a helping hand and a "buttinski" like Tomás can be a godsend. Do you agree or disagree?
5. The portrayal of New York City is filled with affection. Would it have been possible for this novel to be set anywhere else?
6. In Chapter 10 we learn how Arthur wound up dating the much-younger Sherri. Did it offer a new perspective on how older men wind up with much younger women?
7. Andie’s 100th client has not been entirely truthful with her. Were you surprised when Caroline reveals her real reason for retaining Andie’s services?
8. In Nine Women, One Dress, people find love in very unusual but very satisfying ways. Who was your favorite couple and why?
9. Sophie’s use of Instagram to portray a glamorous life she really doesn’t lead is not so far from the truth. Do you feel pressure to portray yourself a certain way on social media?
10. "The right dress makes an ordinary woman feel extraordinary," says Morris Siegel at the end of the novel. Why do women have a more complicated and intimate relationship with clothing than men?
11. Do you have a dress like "the dress" in the novel?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Nineteen: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Model
D.L. Janney, 2016
E F Lee Publishing
390 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780997467802
Summary
Depressed, broke, and suffering the effects of a brutal childhood; our hero heads to New York City. He leaves behind college life in a small midwestern town to earn a living in one of the most competitive fields in the world.
Pushing aside his overwhelming self-doubt and insecurities, he arrives in New York City with only a bag filled with clothes.
Nineteen is his story. Enter his world and walk beside him as D.L. paints a portrait of his life as an outsider in the 1980s fashion world. Without help or any contacts, our protagonist attempts to make enough money to go to a good university and change his life forever.
Embark on this intimate journey into a world remembered and created from the troubled, yet determined mind of a nineteen year old boy. His pragmatic mind coupled with a tortured soul will lead the way. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—21, 1962
• Where—Moorestown, New Jersey, USA
• Raised—state of Illinois
• Education— B.A., Boston University
• Currently—lives in the state of Connecticut
D.L. Janney is a married writer and father of seven children. He currently lives in Connecticut. Born in Moorestown, New Jersey he moved with his family to Illinois when he was three years old.
At 17 D.L. left home to attend Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, but left college in the fall of his sophomore year and headed to New York City. After two years working as a professional model he returned to school at Boston University and obtained a degree in English literature with Distinction.
D.L. has worked as a carpenter and contractor for the past 25 years. He spends his time with his beautiful wife watching his children grow up (much too fast!). He spends his remaining time writing, reading and sleeping. He is currently writing a sequel to Nineteen, as well as a book of short stories.
When modeling, D.L. was featured in GQ, British Vogue, Italian Vogue, Mademoiselle, Lei, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire. He also did campaigns for Christian Dior, Wrangler, Daniel Hechter, Perry Ellis, and Panchetti. He worked with many of the top photographers in the early 80’s, including Fabrizio Gianni, Bruce Weber, Arthur Elgort, Knut Bry, Steven Meisel, Richard Avedon, Hans Fuerer, Francois De Connick, Ken Haak, Michel Momy, Alain Larue, Rico Puhlman, and Neil Kirk. (From the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow D.L. on Facebook . . . and on Twitter.
Book Reviews
Nineteen by D.L. Janney is the gritty story of a vulnerable but spike-tough young man determined to make a better life for himself. He has a “look,” and this will catapult him into the glam-fashion model world of the 80’s. You live Daryl’s story by his side as he barely survives in a grubby postage-stamp room outside NYC, to an equally depressing prostitute-ridden boarding house in Milan, and finally on to exotic locales only the rich and famous may ever see.
Daryl’s journey invites us into the mind of a young man who, when he was small, was repeatedly nearly drowned by his father in the public swimming pool of his mid-western town. A young person who saw little love and even less encouragement growing up. A young person of rare physical attraction and toughness and decency, but drained of self-confidence and wracked by painful and persistent self-doubt. There is no fairy tale ending for this young man...but there is hope.
J Bean Palmer, Author, Massachusetts
Nineteen is everything you expect from a novel about the modeling biz, and less: sure, the glamour and high drama are there, but the story conventions are overshadowed by a little something extra: the naked truth.
Ron Skla - Modern Magazine
Discussion Questions
1. How do Macklevane’s principles conflict with the world of modeling?
2. If you were in Macklevane’s shoes, what would you do differently in the 1982 world of fashion?
3. How is Macklevane similar to a classic hero? How does Macklevane differ to a classic hero?
4. How would you characterize Macklevane’s childhood? Do you think Macklevane’s childhood has a significant impact on his perceptions of the world and the way that he fits into that world?
5. If Macklevane were to marry one female in Nineteen, who would he choose and why?
6. After reading Nineteen, would you want to be a model. Why or why not?
7. Would you be friends with someone like Macklevane? Why or why not?
8. Do you find the way in which Macklevane behaves to be admirable, or self-serving?
9. Do you find the attitude which Macklevane brings to his own life inspirational. If so, why?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Nineteen Minutes
Jodi Picoult
Simon & Schuster
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743496735
Summary
In this emotionally charged novel, Jodi Picoult delves beneath the surface of a small town to explore what it means to be different in our society.
In Sterling, New Hampshire, seventeen-year-old high school student Peter Houghton has endured years of verbal and physical abuse at the hands of his classmates. His best friend, Josie Cormier, succumbed to peer pressure and now hangs out with the popular crowd that often instigates the harassment. One final incident of bullying sends Peter over the edge and leads him to commit an act of violence that forever changes the lives of Sterling's residents.
Even those who were not inside the school that morning find their lives in an upheaval, including Alex Cormier. The superior court judge assigned to the Houghton case, Alex—whose daughter, Josie, witnessed the events that unfolded—must decide whether or not to step down. She's torn between presiding over the biggest case of her career and knowing that doing so will cause an even wider chasm in her relationship with her emotionally fragile daughter. Josie, meanwhile, claims she can't remember what happened in the last fatal minutes of Peter's rampage. Or can she? And Peter's parents, Lacy and Lewis Houghton, ceaselessly examine the past to see what they might have said or done to compel their son to such extremes. Nineteen Minutes also features the return of two of Jodi Picoult's characters—defense attorney Jordan McAfee from The Pact and Salem Falls and Patrick DuCharme, the intrepid detective introduced in Perfect Match.
Rich with psychological and social insight, Nineteen Minutes is a riveting, poignant, and thought-provoking novel that has at its center a haunting question. Do we ever really know someone? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 19, 1966
• Where—Nesconset (Long Island), New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University; M.Ed., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Hanover, New Hampshire
Jodi Lynn Picoult is an American author. She was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction in 2003. Picoult currently has approximately 14 million copies of her books in print worldwide.
Early life and education
Picoult was born and raised in Nesconset on Long Island in New York State; when she was 13, her family moved to New Hampshire. Even as a child, Picoult had a penchant for writing stories: she wrote her first story— "The Lobster Which Misunderstood"—when she was five.
While still in college—she studied writing at Princeton University—Picoult published two short stories in Seventeen magazine. To pay the bills, after graduation she worked at a variety of jobs, including copy writing and editing textbooks; she even taught eighth-grade English and attained a Masters in Education from Harvard University.
In 1989, Picoult married Timothy Warren Van Leer, whom she met in college, and while pregnant with their first child, wrote her first book. Song of the Humpbacked Whale, her literary debut, came out in 1992. Two more children followed, as did a string of bestseller novels. All told, Picoult has more than 20 books to her name.
Writing
At an earlier time in her life, Picoult believed the tranquility of family life in small-town New England offered little fodder for writing; the truly interesting stuff of fiction happened elsewhere. Ironically, it is small-town life that has ended up providing the settings for Picoult's novels. Within the cozy surroundings of family and friends, Picoult weaves complex webs of relationships that strain, even tear apart, under stress. She excels at portraying ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Disoriented by some accident of chance, they stumble, whirl, and attempt to regain a footing in what was once their calm, ordered world.
Nor has Picoult ever shied from tackling difficult, controversial issues: school shooting, domestic violence, sexual abuse, teen suicide, and racism. She approaches painful topics with sympathy—and her characters with respect—while shining a light on individual struggles. Her legions of readers have loved and rewarded her for that compassion—and her novels have been consistent bestsellers.
Personal life
Picoult and her husband Timothy live in Hanover, New Hampshire. They have three children and a handful of pets. (Adapted from a 2003 Barnes and Noble interview and from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/28/2016.)
Book Reviews
Part of what's disappointing is the gimmicky cliff-hangers. Picoult is too good a writer to fall back on chintzy tricks—though I admit she kept me turning pages till 3 a.m.
What's admirable about Nineteen Minutes is the daring risk Picoult took with her subject matter—school shootings—and presenting it from shifting points of view. She achieves the near impossible—building sympathy and understanding for the young shooter and his family.
A LitLovers LitPick (Sept. '08)
It's absorbing and expertly made. On one level, it's a thriller, complete with dismaying carnage, urgent discoveries and 11th-hour revelations, but it also asks serious moral questions about the relationship between the weak and the strong, questions that provide what school people call "teachable moments." If compassion can be taught, Picoult may be just the one to teach it.
Frances Taliaferro - Washington Post
Bestseller Picoult (My Sister's Keeper) takes on another contemporary hot-button issue in her brilliantly told new thriller, about a high school shooting. Peter Houghton, an alienated teen who has been bullied for years by the popular crowd, brings weapons to his high school in Sterling, N.H., one day and opens fire, killing 10 people. Flashbacks reveal how bullying caused Peter to retreat into a world of violent computer games. Alex Cormier, the judge assigned to Peter's case, tries to maintain her objectivity as she struggles to understand her daughter, Josie, one of the surviving witnesses of the shooting. The author's insights into her characters' deep-seated emotions brings this ripped-from-the-headlines read chillingly alive.
Publishers Weekly
Many things can happen in the span of 19 minutes—fun things, mundane things, and downright horrific things. Best-selling author Picoult (My Sister's Keeper) shows just how quickly lives can be changed in this story of a school massacre much like Columbine that is told through the voice not only of the victims but also of the troubled teen who did the shooting. Readers will be pleased to see the return of two favorite characters. Patrick DuCharme, the detective from Perfect Match, is assigned to the case, while Jordan McAfee, the lawyer from The Pact, finds himself representing the shooter. Picoult has that rare ability to write about an unnerving subject in a way readers will find absorbing. What appears on the surface of a Picoult novel is never as it seems, which is why her books are so popular with book groups. Her 14th novel, perhaps her best, is highly recommended for all public libraries.
Marika Zemke - Library Journal
Picoult's 14th novel (after The Tenth Circle, 2006, etc.) of a school shooting begins with high-voltage excitement, then slows by the middle, never regaining its initial pace or appeal. Peter Houghton, 17, has been the victim of bullying since his first day of kindergarten, made all the more difficult by two factors: In small-town Sterling, N.H., Peter is in high school with the kids who've tormented him all his life; and his all-American older brother eggs the bullies on. Peter retreats into a world of video games and computer programming, but he's never able to attain the safety of invisibility. And then one day he walks into Sterling High with a knapsack full of guns, kills ten students and wounds many others. Peter is caught and thrown in jail, but with over a thousand witnesses and video tape of the day, it will be hard work for the defense to clear him. His attorney, Jordan McAfee, hits on the only approach that might save the unlikable kid—a variation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by bullying. Thrown into the story is Judge Alex Cormier, and her daughter Josie, who used to be best friends with Peter until the popular crowd forced the limits of her loyalty. Also found dead was her boyfriend Matt, but Josie claims she can't remember anything from that day. Picoult mixes McAfee's attempt to build a defense with the mending relationship of Alex and Josie, but what proves a more intriguing premise is the response of Peter's parents to the tragedy. How do you keep loving your son when he becomes a mass murderer? Unfortunately, this question, and others, remain, as the novel relies on repetition (the countless flashbacks of Peter's victimization) rather than fresh insight. Peter fits the profile, but is never fully fleshed out beyond stereotype. Usually so adept at shaping the big stories with nuance, Picoult here takes a tragically familiar event, pads it with plot, but leaves out the subtleties of character. Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Alex and Lacy's friendship comes to an end when they discover Peter and Josie playing with guns in the Houghton house. Why does Alex decide that it's in Josie's best interest to keep her away from Peter? What significance is there to the fact that Alex is the first one to prevent Josie from being friends with Peter?
2. Alex often has trouble separating her roles as a judge and a mother. How does this affect her relationship with Josie? Discuss whether or not Alex's job is more important to her than being a mother.
3. A theme throughout the novel is the idea of masks and personas and pretending to be someone you're not. To which characters does this apply, and why?
4. At one point defense attorney Jordan McAfee refers to himself as a "spin doctor," and he believes that at the end of Peter's trial he "will be either reviled or canonized" (250). What is your view of Jordan? As you were reading the book, did you find it difficult to remain objective about the judicial system's standing that every defendant (no matter how heinous his or her crime) has the right to a fair trial?
5. Peter was a victim of bullying for twelve years at the hands of certain classmates, many of whom repeatedly tormented him. But he also shot and killed students he had never met or who had never done anything wrong to him. What empathy, if any, did you have for Peter both before and after the shooting?
6. Josie and Peter were friends until the sixth grade. Is it understandable that Josie decided not to hang out with Peter in favor of the popular crowd? Why or why not? How accurate and believable did you find the author's depiction of high school peer pressure and the quest for popularity? Do you believe, as Picoult suggests, that even the popular kids are afraid that their own friends will turn on them?
7. Josie admits she often witnessed Matt's cruelty toward other students. Why then does it come as such a surprise to Josie when Matt abuses her verbally and physically? How much did you empathize with Josie?
8. Regarding Lacy, Patrick notes that "in a different way, this woman was a victim of her son's actions, too" (53). How much responsibility do Lewis and Lacy bear for Peter's actions? How about Lewis in particular, who taught his son how to handle guns and hunt?
9. At one point during Peter's bullying, Lacy is encouraged by an elementary school teacher to force Peter to stand up for himself. She threatens to cancel his play dates with Josie if he doesn't fight back. How did you feel, when you read that scene? Do you blame Lacy for Peter's future actions because of it? Do you agree or disagree with the idea that it a parent's job to teach a child the skills necessary to defend himself?
10. Discuss the novel's structure. In what ways do the alternating narratives between past and present enhance the story? How do the scenes in the past give you further insight into the characters and their actions, particularly Peter and Josie?
11. When Patrick arrives at Sterling High after the shooting, "his entire body began to shake, knowing that for so many students and parents and citizens today, he had once again been too late" (24). Why does Patrick blame himself for not preventing an incident he had no way of knowing was going to happen?
12. Dr. King, an expert witness for the defense, states that Peter was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of chronic victimization. "But a big part of it, too," he adds, "is the society that created both Peter and those bullies" (409). What reasons does Dr. King give to support his assertion that society is partly to blame for Peter's actions as well as those of the bullies? Do you agree with this? Why or why not?
12. Why does Josie choose to shoot Matt instead of shooting Peter? Why does Peter remain silent about Josie's role in the shooting? In the end, has justice been satisfactorily dealt to Peter and to Josie?
13. Discuss the very ending of the novel, which concludes on the one-year anniversary of the Sterling High shooting. Why do you suppose the author chose to leave readers with an image of Patrick and Alex, who is pregnant? In what way does the final image of the book predict the future?
14. Shootings have occurred at a number of high schools across the country over the last several years. Did Nineteen Minutes make you think about these incidents in a more immediate way than reading about them in the newspaper or seeing coverage on television? How so? In what ways did the novel affect your opinion of the parties generally involved in school shootings—perpetrators, victims, fellow students, teachers, parents, attorneys, and law enforcement officials?
15. What do you think the author is proposing as the root of the problem of school violence? What have you heard, in the media and in political forums, as solutions? Do you think they will work? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Ninth Hour
Alice McDermott, 2017
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374280147
Summary
A magnificent new novel from one of America’s finest writers—a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn.
On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens the gas taps in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his badgering, pregnant wife—"that the hours of his life belong to himself alone."
In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Savior, an aging nun appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child.
We begin deep inside Catholic Brooklyn, in the early part of the twentieth century. Decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence. Yet his suicide, although never spoken of, reverberates through many lives and over the decades testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations.
The characters we meet, from Sally, the unborn baby at the beginning of the novel, who becomes the center of the story to the nuns whose personalities we come to know and love to the neighborhood families with whose lives they are entwined, are all rendered with extraordinary sympathy and McDermott’s trademark lucidity and intelligence.
Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement by one of the premiere writers at work in America today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 27, 1953
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., State University of New York-Oswego;
M.A., University of New Hampshire
• Awards—National Book Award; American Book Award
• Currently—lives in Bethesda, Maryland
Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.
McDermott is Johns Hopkins University's Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities. Born in Brooklyn, New York, McDermott attended St. Boniface School in Elmont, New York, on Long Island (1967), Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead (1971), and the State University of New York at Oswego, receiving her BA in 1975. She received her MA from the University of New Hampshire in 1978.
She has taught at UCSD and American University, has been a writer-in-residence at Lynchburg College and Hollins College in Virginia, and was lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire. Her short stories have appeared in Ms., Redbook, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker and Seventeen. She has also published articles in the New York Times and Washington Post.
Ms. McDermott lives outside Washington, D.C. with her husband, a neuroscientist, and three children.
Works
• 1982—A Bigamist's Daughter
• 1987—That Night (finalist for National Book Award, Pen/Faulkner Award, and Pulitzer Prize)
• 1992—At Weddings and Wakes (finalist for Pulitzer Prize)
• 1998—Charming Billy (winner, National Book Award and American Book Award)
• 2002—Child of My Heart (nominated for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award)
• 2006—After This (finalist for Pulitzer Prize)
• 2013—Someone
• 2017—The Ninth Hour
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/14/13.)
Book Reviews
Alice McDermott has taken the risk of writing about nuns, and the risk has been more than worth it.… Known and admired for her portrayal of Irish-American family life, she has now extended her range and deepened it, allowing for more darkness, more generous lashings of the spiritual.... McDermott has extended her range and deepened it, allowing for more darkness, more generous lashings of the spiritual.… Vivid and arresting.… Marvelously evocative.
Mary Gordon - New York Times Book Review
Beautifully observed, quietly absorbing.… This enveloping novel, too, is a tonic, if not a cure.
Heller McAlpin - NPR
[T]he precision of a master.… [A] great novel.
Wall Street Journal
Stunning.… McDermott has created a haunting and vivid portrait of an Irish Catholic clan in early 20th century America.
Associated Press
Brilliant.… [P]erhaps her finest work to date.
Michael Magras - Houston Chronicle
McDermott is a poet of corporeal description.… [I]t's the way she marries the spirit to the physical world that makes her work transcendent.… The Ninth Hour is a story with the simple grace of a votive candle in a dark church.
Sarah Begley - Time
(Starred review.) [A]n immense, brilliant novel about the limits of faith, the power of sacrifice, and the cost of forgiveness.… Scenes detailing her benevolent encounters…are paradoxically grotesque and irresistible.… McDermott exhibits a keen eye for character.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [S]eamlessly written…McDermott asks how much we owe others, how much we owe ourselves, and…how much we owe God.… In lucid, flowing prose, McDermott weaves her character’ stories to powerful effect.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [E]nveloping, emotionally intricate, suspenseful.… McDermott is profoundly observant and mischievously witty.… This is one of literary master McDermott’s most exquisite works. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
(Starred review.) Everything that her readers, the National Book Award committee, and the Pulitzer Prize judges love about McDermott's stories of Irish-Catholic American life is back in her eighth novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Despite his suicide in the opening pages, Annie’s husband, Jim, remains a presence throughout The Ninth Hour. He abandons his pregnant wife and defies the tenets of his faith to prove that "the hours of his life… belonged to himself alone." How does Annie choose to remember him? How is his daughter, Sally, like him? When his grandchildren finally learn the truth about his death, what is their response?
2. How did Sister Lucy, Sister Jeanne, and Sister Illuminata each come to the convent of the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, Congregation of Mary Before the Cross? How does the work each of them chose suit their talents and personalities? How do they differ in their beliefs about God and faith, sin and human weakness?
3. What wisdom do the old impart to the young? What is gained when older and younger characters connect with each other, as Sister St. Saviour with Annie when she is newly widowed? What is lost when they fail to connect, as Patrick Tierney’s father and grandfather?
4. Who are the people and what are the events that influence Sally’s character, values, and beliefs as she grows into adulthood? How is the girl who left for Chicago to enter the convent different from the girl who returns home the next day? What happens that changes her? What does she still have to learn that the nuns can’t teach her?
5. Sally and Patrick are infants the first time we see them together. Their mothers were introduced by Sister Lucy. Patrick has jokingly told his children that when he saw their mother riding in her baby carriage, he immediately said to himself, "There’s the girl I’ll marry." Over the years, how do Annie and Liz Tierney support each other? As a young girl, how does Sally feel about Liz’s household? What kind of man is Patrick?
6. The Ninth Hour is as much a series of linked stories as it is one story told chronologically. How do the individual stories deal with themes such as truth, faith, motherhood, love, and sacrifice? What is the Ninth Hour, and how is it observed in the convent? What is its biblical meaning? Why might Alice McDermott have chosen it as her title?
7. The full name of the order to which the sisters belong and that Sally decides to join is the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, Congregation of Mary Before the Cross, Stabat Mater. To Sister Jeanne, Stabat Mater symbolizes the triumph of love over brutality. To Sister Illuminata, it means that love applied to suffering is "like a clean cloth to a seeping wound." Why is "Stabat Mater" the title of the chapter about Sally coming home from Chicago and discovering the truth about Annie and Mr. Costello?
8. What do we know about Sally and Patrick’s married life? What strengths and faults have each of them brought to their life together? What do we know about the lives of their children? Sister Jeanne remains close to the family into her old age. What is the "pernt" of the story she tells about Jeanne Jugan? What else does she teach the Tierney children?
9. In contrast to Sister Jeanne, Sister Lucy seems skeptical, pragmatic, and often disgruntled. "All joy was thin ice to Sister Lucy," McDermott writes. But Sister Lucy is also a skilled nurse and a fierce advocate of people who are poor, sick, or mistreated. What does Sally learn from Sister Lucy, not only about nursing, but also about the human capacity for cruelty and kindness?
10. Who is Red Whelan? How does his fate reverberate down through the generations of the Tierney family? What are other examples of sacrifice?
11. Liz and Annie become close friends when their children are small, yet their lives are very different. What kind of Catholic is Liz Tierney? What is her opinion of the nuns? How are her beliefs and the practice of her faith not like Annie’s?
12. Sister Jeanne teaches the Tierney children that "God wants us to know the truth in all things," yet there are many parts of their family story they do not know the truth about. Who are the truth tellers in the book? Who lies, embellishes, or withholds the truth? How does the family’s story change as it is told and retold? How might Patrick and Sally each tell the story of the day they fell in love?
13. What do the other characters think about Annie’s relationship with Mr. Costello? Why is she not dismissed from the convent laundry when the nuns learn of what they call her "indiscretion?" What are the different kinds of "hunger" in the chapter "A Tonic"? What is the tonic?
14. Is Mrs. Costello a pathetic or a sympathetic character? How does Sister Lucy feel about her? What are Sally’s motives for choosing to spend time with her? How is Sally changed by her death?
15. What is the sequence of events leading up to Mrs. Costello’s death? Does Sister Lucy believe that the nuns were doing the right thing by keeping her alive when she wanted to die? What does Sister Jeanne mean when she tells Sally, "God is fair. He knows the truth." Why, years later, does Sister Jeanne tell Sally’s children that she has "lost heaven"?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Ninth House
Leigh Bardugo, 2019
Flatiron Books
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250313072
Summary
The mesmerizing adult debut from Leigh Bardugo, a tale of power, privilege, dark magic, and murder set among the Ivy League elite.
Galaxy "Alex" Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale’s freshman class. Raised in the Los Angeles hinterlands by a hippie mom, Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse.
In fact, by age twenty, she is the sole survivor of a horrific, unsolved multiple homicide.
Some might say she’s thrown her life away. But at her hospital bed, Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world’s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What’s the catch, and why her?
Still searching for answers, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. Their eight windowless "tombs" are the well-known haunts of the rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street’s biggest players.
But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1975
• Where—Jerusalem, Israel
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—lives in Hollywood, California, USA
Leigh Bardugo is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Shadow and Bone (2012) and Siege and Storm (2013). Ruin and Rising (2014) is the third installment in her Grisha Trilogy.
Six of Crows came out in 2015, which, although not yet announced, appears to be the first volume of a new series.
Leigh was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Los Angeles, and graduated from Yale University. She has worked in advertising, journalism, and most recently, makeup and special effects. These days, she’s lives and writes in Hollywood where she can occasionally be heard singing with her band. (Adapted from the author's website .)
Book Reviews
Bardugo's greatest power is ushering readers of any age through big, cast-heavy books with clarity and narrative precision. She is great at crime capers and misdirection…. Bardugo makes unexpectedly strong rivers of stories, purposed by swift currents of feeling. As you step further into the nasty and confusing dark of Ninth House, you feel for her caught-up characters. That's what usually gets discarded first in these genres when writers get distracted by world-building or struggle with plot. But Bardugo's characters feel real—and she doesn't forget that everyone hurts.
New York Times Book Review
Simultaneously elegant and grotesque, eerie and earthbound…. Wry, uncanny, original and, above all, an engrossing, unnerving thriller.
Washington Post
Ninth House is a lot of things. Its emotional superstructure is a fish-out-of-water story…. And Bardugo lives believably in this first skin, this initial level of ugly duckling strangeness that is familiar to anyone who has ever gone anywhere or done anything new.
NPR
(Starred review) Excellent… Bardugo gives [her protagonist] a thoroughly engaging mix of rough edge, courage and cynicism.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Genuinely terrific… The worldbuilding is rock solid, the plot is propulsive, and readers will be clamoring for a sequel as soon as they read the last page.
Library Journal
(Starred review) Atmospheric…Part mystery, part story of a young woman finding purpose in a dark world.
Booklist
(Starred review) With an aura of both enchantment and authenticity, Bardugo’s compulsively readable novel leaves a portal ajar for equally dazzling sequels.
Kirkus Reviews
(Starred review) Instantly gripping…. Creepy and thrilling…. The world of this book is so consistent and enveloping that pages seem to rush by.
BookPage
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 NINTH HOUSE ... then take off on your own:
1. Describe Galaxy "Alex" Stern and her troubled past, a background less than privileged compared to students at Yale. Why does Lethe enlist her? What is she tasked with as a member of the secret society?
2. How does Alex feel vis-a-vis her Yale classmates—her outsider status? How would you describe Yale itself: it's elitism, its customs, history, and even its vibe.
3. When Galaxy is first shown magic, she observes with near relief that "the world they’d been promised as children was not something that had to be abandoned, that… everything [really] was full of mystery.” What does she mean by having to "abandon" the world because it didn't live up to its childhood promises? As an adult, do you ever feel disappointed by the world as it is? Have you ever yearned (do you yearn) for a magical world from your childhood fantasies? What would that world look like for you?
4. What are the specialties of each of the Houses of the Veil, and how does each house use its power in the larger world?
5. Power is one of the central concerns in Ninth House—who has it, who wants it, who uses it for good, and who uses it for evil. Line up the characters in terms of their drive and motivations for power. Where does Alex fall in all of this?
6. Alex simply wants to be a good student and to succeed in her life at Yale. Why then does she refuse to let go of Tara Hutchinson's death? Why is Alex so affected by it?
7. What do we learn, bit by bit, as Alex's story is pieced out to us? And what do you learn, by the end, why Alex finds herself alone, with no one by her side, trying to solve the mystery of Tara's death?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy, 2005
Knopf Doubleday
309 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375706677
Summary
In his blistering new novel, Cormac McCarthy returns to the Texas-Mexico border, setting of his famed Border Trilogy. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones.
One day, a good old boy named Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by a bodyguard of dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction of catastrophic violence that not even the law–in the person of aging, disillusioned Sheriff Bell–can contain.
As Moss tries to evade his pursuers–in particular a mysterious mastermind who flips coins for human lives–McCarthy simultaneously strips down the American crime novel and broadens its concerns to encompass themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 20, 1933
• Where—Providence, Rhode Island, USA
• Education—University of Tennessee, US Air Force
• Awards— Ingram-Merrill Aware, 1959 and 1960; Faulkner
Prize, 1965; Traveling Fellowship from American Academy
of Arts and Letters, 1965; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1969;
MacArthur Fellowship, 1981; National Book Award, 1992;
National Book Critics Circle Award, 1992; James Tait Black
Memorial Prize UK, 2006; Pulitzer Prize, 2007 for The Road.
• Currently—lives in Tesuque, New Mexico (Santa Fe area)
Cormac McCarthy (born Charles McCarthy) is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, ranging from the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres. He has also written plays and screenplays.
He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He received a National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award for his 1992 novel, All the Pretty Horses.
His previous novel, Blood Meridian, (1985) was among Time's poll of the best English-language books published between 1923 and 2005 and he placed joint runner-up in a poll taken in 2006 by the New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years.
Literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth. In 2010 the London Times ranked The Road no.1 on its list of the 100 best fiction and non-fiction books of the past 10 years. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner.
Early years
McCarthy was born in Providence, Rhode Island on July 20, 1933, and moved with his family to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1937. He is the third of six children, with three sisters and two brothers. In Knoxville, he attended Knoxville Catholic High School. His father was a successful lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority from 1934 to 1967.
McCarthy entered the University of Tennessee in 1951-1952 and was a liberal arts major. In 1953, he joined the United States Air Force for four years, two of which he spent in Alaska, where he hosted a radio show. In 1957, he returned to the University of Tennessee. During this time in college, he published two stories in a student paper and won awards from the Ingram Merrill Foundation in 1959 and 1960. In 1961, he and fellow university student Lee Holleman were married and had their son Cullen. He left school without earning a degree and moved with his family to Chicago where he wrote his first novel. He returned to Sevier County, Tennessee, and his marriage to Lee Holleman ended.
Writing
McCarthy's first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published by Random House in 1965. He decided to send the manuscript to Random House because "it was the only publisher [he] had heard of." At Random House, the manuscript found its way to Albert Erskine, who was William Faulkner's editor until Faulkner's death in 1962. Erskine continued to edit McCarthy for the next twenty years.
In the summer of 1965, using a Traveling Fellowship award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, McCarthy shipped out aboard the liner Sylvania, hoping to visit Ireland. While on the ship, he met Anne DeLisle, who was working on the ship as a singer. In 1966, they were married in England. Also in 1966, McCarthy received a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, which he used to travel around Southern Europe before landing in Ibiza, where he wrote his second novel, Outer Dark. Afterward he returned to America with his wife, and Outer Dark was published in 1968 to generally favorable reviews.
In 1969, McCarthy and his wife moved to Louisville, Tennessee, and purchased a barn, which McCarthy renovated, even doing the stonework himself. Here he wrote his next book, Child of God, based on actual events. Child of God was published in 1973. Like Outer Dark before it, Child of God was set in southern Appalachia. In 1976, McCarthy separated from Anne DeLisle and moved to El Paso, Texas. In 1979, his novel Suttree, which he had been writing on and off for twenty years, was finally published.
Supporting himself with the money from his 1981 MacArthur Fellowship, he wrote his next novel, Blood Meridian, which was published in 1985. The book has grown appreciably in stature in literary circles. In a 2006 poll of authors and publishers conducted by The New York Times Magazine to list the greatest American novels of the previous quarter-century, Blood Meridian placed third, behind only Toni Morrison's Beloved and Don DeLillo's Underworld.
McCarthy finally received widespread recognition in 1992 with the publication of All the Pretty Horses, which won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was followed by The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, completing a Western trilogy. In the midst of this trilogy came The Stonemason, McCarthy's second dramatic work. He had previously written a film for PBS in the 1970s, The Gardener's Son.
McCarthy's next book, 2005's No Country for Old Men, stayed with the western setting and themes, yet moved to a more contemporary period. It was adapted into a film of the same name by the Coen Brothers, winning four Academy Awards and more than 75 film awards globally. McCarthy's latest book, The Road, was published in 2006 and won international acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for literature. A film adaptation starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee was released on November 25, 2009. Also in 2006, McCarthy published a play entitled The Sunset Limited.
Extras
• According to Wired magazine in December, 2009, McCarthy's Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter was put up for auction at Christie's. The Olivetti Lettera 32 has been in his care for 46 years, since 1963. He picked up the used machine for $50 from a pawn shop in Knoxville, Tennessee. McCarthy reckons he has typed around five million words on the machine, and maintenance consisted of “blowing out the dust with a service station hose”. The typewriter was auctioned on Friday, December 4 and the auction house, Christie’s, estimated it would fetch between $15,000 and $20,000; it sold for $254,500. The Olivetti’s replacement for McCarthy to use is another Olivetti, bought by McCarthy’s friend John Miller for $11. The proceeds of the auction are to be donated to the Santa Fe Institute, a nonprofit interdisciplinary scientific research organization.
• McCarthy now lives in the Tesuque, New Mexico, area, north of Santa Fe, with his wife, Jennifer Winkley, and their son, John. He guards his privacy. In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy reveals that he is not a fan of authors who do not "deal with issues of life and death," citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples. "I don't understand them," he said. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange." McCarthy remains active in the academic community of Santa Fe and spends much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute, which was founded by his friend, physicist Murray Gell-Mann.
• Talk show host Oprah Winfrey chose McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road as the April 2007 selection for her Book Club. As a result, McCarthy agreed to his first television interview, which aired on The Oprah Winfrey Show on June 5, 2007. The interview took place in the library of the Santa Fe Institute; McCarthy told Winfrey that he does not know any writers and much prefers the company of scientists.
• During the interview he related several stories illustrating the degree of outright poverty he has endured at times during his career as a writer. He also spoke about the experience of fathering a child at an advanced age, and how his now-eight-year-old son was the inspiration for The Road. Cormac noted to Oprah that he prefers "simple declarative sentences" and that he uses capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, a colon for setting off a list, but "never a semicolon." He does not use quotation marks for dialogue and believes there is no reason to "block the page up with weird little marks." (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Such sinister high hokum might be ridiculous if McCarthy didn't keep it moving faster than the reader can pause to think about it. He's a whiz with the joystick, a master-level gamer who changes screens and situations every few pages. The choreographed conflicts, set on a stage as big as Texas but as spiritually claustrophobic as a back-room cockfight ring, resolve themselves with a mechanistic certitude that satisfies the brain's brute love of pattern and bypasses its lofty emotional centers. Like Bell, we can only sit back and watch the horror, not wishfully influence its outcome. The clock has been wound, the key's been thrown away, and the round will not end until the hands reach midnight. The book leaves the feeling that we don't have long to wait.
Walter Kirn - New York Times
For 40 years, since The Orchard Keeper, Cormac McCarthy has brought forth literature as important as it is rare. Beyond that, critics and readers tend to diverge wildly with each novel, which to my eye is further proof of the writer's power. No Country for Old Men will have the same effect.... This is a profoundly disturbing and gorgeously rendered novel that will certainly be quibbled withThis is an entertaining novel from one of our best writers. Often seen as a fabulist and an engineer of dark morality tales, McCarthy is first a storyteller. But No Country for Old Men is a minor addition to his work. Rumor has it that this novel came to the publisher at around 600 pages. If that is the case, one can't help but wonder if a truly magnificent work was lost at the cost of pruning with an eye toward the marketplace.
Jeffery Lent - Washington Post
Feels like a genuine diagnosis of the postmillennial malady, a scary illumination of the oncoming darkness.
Time
He is nothing less than our greatest living writer, and this is a novel that must be read and remembered.
Houston Chronicle
(Starred review.) Seven years after Cities of the Plain brought his acclaimed Border Trilogy to a close, McCarthy returns with a mesmerizing modern-day western. In 1980 southwest Texas, Llewelyn Moss, hunting antelope near the Rio Grande, stumbles across several dead men, a bunch of heroin and $2.4 million in cash. The bulk of the novel is a gripping man-on-the-run sequence relayed in terse, masterful prose as Moss, who's taken the money, tries to evade Wells, an ex–Special Forces agent employed by a powerful cartel, and Chigurh, an icy psychopathic murderer armed with a cattle gun and a dangerous philosophy of justice. Also concerned about Moss's whereabouts is Sheriff Bell, an aging lawman struggling with his sense that there's a new breed of man (embodied in Chigurh) whose destructive power he simply cannot match. In a series of thoughtful first-person passages interspersed throughout, Sheriff Bell laments the changing world, wrestles with an uncomfortable memory from his service in WWII and—a soft ray of light in a book so steeped in bloodshed—rejoices in the great good fortune of his marriage. While the action of the novel thrills, it's the sensitivity and wisdom of Sheriff Bell that makes the book a profound meditation on the battle between good and evil and the roles choice and chance play in the shaping of a life.
Publishers Weekly
McCarthy has reached the pinnacle of literary success, with critical recognition, best-seller status, and cult-author cachet. It is a difficult position to maintain, and it doesn't help that his idiosyncratic prose style, which tries to wrest poetry from hardscrabble lives, has become increasingly mannered. In his latest novel, McCarthy stumbles headlong into self-parody. Llewelyn Moss is a humble welder who hunts not for sport but to put food on the table. Tracking a wounded antelope one morning, Moss finds an abandoned truck filled with bullet-ridden corpses, sealed packages of "Mexican brown," and $2 million in cash. He leaves the dope behind but takes the money, changing in that moment from hunter to prey. Moss is tailed by Anton Chigurh, an updated version of the satanic Judge Holden from Blood Meridian (1985). Straight-arrow Sheriff Bell, the old man of the title, tries his best to save young Moss, but Chigurh is unstoppable. McCarthy lays out his rancorous worldview with all the nuance and subtlety of conservative talk radio. It is hard to believe that this is the same person who wrote Suttree (1979). A made-for-television melodrama filled with guns and muscle cars, this will nonetheless be in demand; for public and academic libraries. —Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. The title of the novel comes from William Butler Yeats's poem "Sailing to Byzantium": "That is no country for old men, the young / In one another's arms, birds in the trees, / —Those dying generations—at their song." The poem also contains the lines: "An aged man is but a paltry thing, / A tattered coat upon a stick, / Unless soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing / For every tatter in its mortal dress." Why has McCarthy chosen a line from Yeats' poem for his title? In what ways is No Country for Old Men about aging? Does Sheriff Bell experience any kind of spiritual rejuvenation as he ages?
2. McCarthy has a distinctive prose style-pared down, direct, colloquial-and he relies on terse, clipped dialogue rather than narrative exposition to move his story along. Why is this style so powerful and so well-suited to the story he tells in No Country for Old Men?
3. Early in the novel, after Bell surveys the carnage in the desert, he tells Lamar: "I just have this feelin we're looking at something we really aint never even seen before" [p. 46]. In what way is the violence Sheriff Bell encounters different than what has come before? Is Anton Chigurh a new kind of killer? Is he a "true andliving prophet of destruction," [p. 4] as Bell thinks? In what ways does he challenge Bell's worldview and values?
4. After Llewelyn finds the money and comes home, he decides to go back to the scene of the crime. He tells his wife: "I'm fixin to go do somethin dumbern hell but I'm goin anways" [p. 24]. Why does he go back, even though he knows it is a foolish and dangerous thing to do? What are the consequences of this decision?
5. When asked about the rise in crime in his county, Bell says that "It starts when you begin to overlook bad manners. Any time you quit hearin Sir and Mam the end is pretty much in sight" [p. 304]. Is he right about this? Why would deteriorating manners signal a larger social chaos?
6. How can Anton Chigurh's behavior be explained? What motivates him to kill so methodically and heartlessly? How does he regard the people he kills?
7. Llewellyn tells the young woman he picks up hitchhiking: "Things happen to you they happen. They don't ask first. They dont require your permission" [p. 220]. Have things simply happened to Llewellyn or does he play a more active role in his fate? Does his life in fact seem fated?
8. What motivates Sheriff Bell? Why does he feel so protective of Llewellyn and his wife? In what ways does Sheriff Bell's past, particularly his war experience, affect his actions in the present?
9. McCarthy will often tell the reader that one of his characters is "thinking things over" without revealing what the character is thinking about [see p. 107]. Most novelists describe in great detail what their characters are thinking and feeling. Why does McCarthy choose not to do this? What does he gain by leaving such information out?
10. Sheriff Bell says, "The stories gets passed on and the truth gets passed over.... Which I reckon some would take as meanin the truth cant compete. But I don't believe that. I think that when the lies are all told and forgot the truth will be there yet.... You cant corrupt it any more than you can salt salt" [p. 123]. What incorruptible truths emerge from the story that McCarthy tells in No Country for Old Men?
11. In the italicized sections of the novel, Sheriff Bell reflects on what he feels is the moral decline and growing violence of the world around him. What is the moral code that Bell lives by? What are his strongest beliefs? How has he acquired these beliefs?
12. Jeffery Lent, writing in the Washington Post Book World, described No Country for Old Men as "profoundly disturbing" ["Blood Money," Washington Post Book World, July 17, 2005]. What is it about the story that McCarthy tells and the way he tells it that is so unsettling?
13. Near the end of the novel, Bell says: "I think we are all of us ill prepared for what is to come and I dont care what shape it takes" [p. 295]. What kind of future is Bell imagining? Why does he think we are not ready for it? How can No Country for Old Men be understood as an apocalyptic novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
No Exit
Taylor Adams, 2019
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062875655
Summary
A brilliant, edgy thriller about four strangers, a blizzard, a kidnapped child, and a determined young woman desperate to unmask and outwit a vicious psychopath.
A kidnapped little girl locked in a stranger’s van. No help for miles. What would you do?
On her way to Utah to see her dying mother, college student Darby Thorne gets caught in a fierce blizzard in the mountains of Colorado. With the roads impassable, she’s forced to wait out the storm at a remote highway rest stop. Inside are some vending machines, a coffee maker, and four complete strangers.
Desperate to find a signal to call home, Darby goes back out into the storm . . . and makes a horrifying discovery. In the back of the van parked next to her car, a little girl is locked in an animal crate.
Who is the child? Why has she been taken? And how can Darby save her?
There is no cell phone reception, no telephone, and no way out. One of her fellow travelers is a kidnapper. But which one?
Trapped in an increasingly dangerous situation, with a child’s life and her own on the line, Darby must find a way to break the girl out of the van and escape.
But who can she trust?
With exquisitely controlled pacing, Taylor Adams diabolically ratchets up the tension with every page. Full of terrifying twists and hairpin turns, No Exit will have you on the edge of your seat and leave you breathless. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Taylor Adams is the author of No Exit (2019), Our Last Night (2016), and Eyeshot (2014).
In addition to novels, Adams both writes and directs independent films: in 2008 he directed the short film "And I Feel Fine." On graduating from Eastern Washington University, he received the Excellence in Screenwriting Award and the Edmund G. Yarwood Award.
His directorial work has screened at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival and his writing has been featured on KAYU-TV’s Fox Life blog. He lives in Washington state. (Adapted from the publisher and author's website.)
Book Reviews
[A] nail-biting thriller…. Darby has to figure out a way to save Jay. The only problem, she doesn’t know which traveler is [a] kidnapper or who can be trusted. The action drives to a climatic and emotionally charged ending.… [A] satisfying page-turner.
Publishers Weekly
Which one of the people inside is the monster behind the [kidnapping]…? This well-written, fast-paced thriller by Adams has enough twists to ensure an enjoyable read for even the most seasoned suspense fans. —Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD
Library Journal
[A]n enthralling tale that features a wonderfully relatable and gutsy heroine. Give it to readers looking for a female-led drama in the mode of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sibling works
Booklist
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 NO EXIT … then take off on your own:
m. Who was your first suspect as kidnapper? Why? Did you move on to others …or stay with your original suspect?
m. What do you think of Darby as a character? How would you describe her? Were some of the decisions she made frustrating for you? Does she grow/change during the course of the novel?
m. What would you have done in Darby's shoes?
m. All who have reviewed No Exit, confess to being in thrall to it, rushing toward the end, unable to put the book down until the last page. How did you experience the book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
No One Is Coming to Save Us
Stephanie Powell Watts, 2017
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062472984
Summary
The Great Gatsby brilliantly recast in the contemporary South: a powerful first novel about an extended African-American family and their colliding visions of the American Dream
JJ Ferguson has returned home to Pinewood, North Carolina to build his dream home and to woo his high school sweetheart, Ava. But he finds that the people he once knew and loved have changed, just as he has.
Ava is now married, and wants a baby more than anything. The decline of the town’s once-thriving furniture industry has made Ava’s husband Henry grow distant and frustrated.
Ava’s mother Sylvia has put her own life on hold as she caters to and meddles with those around her, trying to fill the void left by her absent son. And Don, Sylvia’s undeserving but charming husband, just won’t stop hanging around.
JJ’s newfound wealth forces everyone to consider what more they want and deserve from life than what they already have—and how they might go about getting it. Can they shape their lives to align with their wishes rather than their realities? Or are they resigned to the rhythms of the particular lives they lead? No One Is Coming to Save Us is a revelatory debut from an insightful voice that combines a universally resonant story with an intimate glimpse into the hearts of one family. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—North Carolina
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina; Ph.D., University of Missouri
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; Whiting Award; Ernest J. Gaines Award
• Currently—lives in Pennsylvania
Stephanie Powell Watts is an American author, who first novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, was published in 2017. Watts, born in the foothills of North Carolina, received her BA from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and her PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She now lives with her husband and son in Pennsylvania where she is an associate professor of English at Lehigh University.
atts won a Whiting Award in 2013 and an Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence in 2012] for her short story collection We are Taking Only what We Need, a book of 11 stories chronicling the lives of African-Americans in North Carolina. Her short fiction has been included in two volumes of the Best New Stories from the South anthology and honored with a Pushcart Prize.
Her debut novel, No One Is Coming to Save Us, follows the return of a successful native son to his home in North Carolina and his attempt to join the only family he ever wanted but never had. As Ms. Watts describes it, “Imagine The Great Gatsby set in rural North Carolina, nine decades later, with desperate black people.” (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/12/2018.)
Book Reviews
Watts’s book envisions a backwoods African-American version of The Great Gatsby. The circumstances of her characters are vastly unlike Fitzgerald’s, and those differences are what make this novel so moving. No frivolity or superficiality here.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Stephanie Powell Watts's skillful riff on The Great Gatsby … revolves around a contemporary black family in a declining North Carolina town. Which doesn't mean that No One Is Coming to Save Us is some kind of Jay Z Gatsby fantasy.… Watts writes about ordinary people leading ordinary lives with an extraordinary level of empathy and attention.… Watts is interested in what black people are allowed to want — and allow themselves to want — in 21st-century America, and what it takes to venture a real claim for a place, a home.… The ways in which No One Is Coming to Save Us intersects with and veers away from Fitzgerald's familiar plot can be very rewarding…Every departure can be seen as a sly comment on what it means to be a person of color in today's America.
Jade Chang - New York Times Book Review
Watts is so captivating a writer. She’s unusually deft with dialogue.… [The novel is] conveyed in a prose style that renders the common language of casual speech into natural poetry, blending intimate conversation with the rhythms of gossip, town legend, even song lyrics.… An indelible story.
Washington Post
Watts’ lyrical writing and seamless floating between characters’ viewpoints make for a harmonious narrative chorus. This feels like an important, largely missing part of our ongoing American story. Ultimately, Watts offers a human tale of resilience and the universally understood drive to hang on and do whatever it takes to save oneself.
Chicago Review of Books
Inspired by The Great Gatsby, Watts loosely (masterfully, too) retells the American saga from the present day perspective of a once thriving African American community, breathing fresh life into a classic in a way that feels more essential, more moving than the original.
Marie Claire
A deep, moving read.
Real Simple
In her patient yet rich first novel, a Great Gatsby reboot, Watts … takes a beat too long to find its rhythm, but when it does, it hits home — and hard.… [R]elevant and memorable.
Publishers Weekly
This quiet debut novel takes its time, much like the conversations among the various characters, which meander and loop around before reaching their point. The resolution is believable and gratifying without being pat. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal
Watts’ lyrical writing and seamless floating between characters’ viewpoints make for a harmonious narrative chorus … an important, largely missing part of our ongoing American story. Ultimately, Watts offers a human tale of resilience and the universally understood drive to hang on and do whatever it takes to save oneself.
Booklist
(Starred review.) The Great Gatsby is revived in an accomplished debut novel.… Watts' gently told story, like Fitzgerald's, is only superficially about money but more acutely about the urgent, inexplicable needs that shape a life.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is this significance of the novel’s allusions to The Great Gatsby? In what way does No One Coming to Save Us both complement and contrast with Fitzgerald’s classic?
2. The novel is written from a number of perspectives: how does that multi-perspective approach help to shape the reading experience?
3. JJ is the lynchpin of the story, but the novel is mostly comprised of female voices. What is the effect of having the central cast made up of mostly women?
4. The mother/daughter relationship between Sylvia and Ava is a fascinating portrayal of intergenerational tension. How is their dynamic presented on the page, and what are the conflicts that threaten their relationship?
5. At the start of the novel, Ava and her husband Henry have been draining their savings trying to conceive for years, and Henry is dealing with cutbacks in his hours at the furniture factory where he works. How do their economic anxieties bleed into their marriage?
6. Sylvia talks to Marcus, a prisoner, after his friends and family have given up on him. Do you think Sylvia is right to have hope for him? Do you think he has a chance at turning his life around?
7. JJ builds an empty dream house, while Sylvia reminisces about the people who once filled her little house. What do houses mean to these characters? What is the difference between a house and a home?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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No One Is Here Except All of Us
Ramona Ausubel, 2012
Penguin Group USA
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594486494
Summary
In 1939, the families in a remote Jewish village in Romania feel the war close in on them. Their tribe has moved and escaped for thousands of years—across oceans, deserts, and mountains—but now, it seems, there is nowhere else to go.
Danger is imminent in every direction, yet the territory of imagination and belief is limitless.
At the suggestion of an eleven-year-old girl and a mysterious stranger who has washed up on the riverbank, the villagers decide to reinvent the world: deny any relationship with the known and start over from scratch. Destiny is unwritten. Time and history are forgotten. Jobs, husbands, a child, are reassigned. And for years, there is boundless hope.
But the real world continues to unfold alongside the imagined one, eventually overtaking it, and soon our narrator—the girl, grown into a young mother—must flee her village, move from one world to the next, to find her husband and save her children, and propel them toward a real and hopeful future.
A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history, No One Is Here Except All of Us explores how we use storytelling to survive and shape our own truths. It marks the arrival of a major new literary talent. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Ramona Ausubel has been published in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review Daily, The Best American Fantasty and elsewhere and has received special mentions in The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Nonrequired Reading, and was a finalist for the Puschcart Prize. She is a recipient of the Glenn Schaeffer Award in Fiction and a graduate of the MFA program at the University of California, Irvine. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Fantastical and ambitious.... Infused with faith in the power of storytelling.... Light and tenderness persevere—in a shining moon, in a candle still aglow, in a mother’s embrace of her child.
New York Times Book Review
Ramona Ausubel's first novel, No One Is Here Except All of Us, is a poetic fable about a part of history after which some people say poetry is an obscenity.... Ausubel's fable-like tone is effective in creating a sensation of tale and dream. For conveying the full horror of the events surrounding the Holocaust, it is less so, but this isn't what she's trying to do. Instead, she is comfortable reshaping, in a safe time and place, stories that were handed to her, using her rhetorical and narrative skill to create something that can be carried without cutting the one who carries it.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
No One Is Here Except All of Us contains so many achingly beautiful passages, it's as if language itself is continually striving to be a refuge.... If a book can be said to have a consciousness, the consciousness here is infinitely tender and soulful, magical and true. It's the kind of God we wish for.
San Francisco Chronicle
Debut novelist Ausubel casts a vibrant, dreamlike spell in this tale of a remote Romanian Village whose citizens try to save themselves from the Holocaust by reinventing their own history.
Marie Claire
Romanian Jews in 1939 reinvent their own reality in this inspiring novel about the power of community and imagination.
O, the Oprah Magazine
Ramona Ausubel’s debut, No One Is Here Except All of Us captures the magical group-think of a Romanian village that retreats into an imaginary reality at the outbreak of war.
Vogue
When danger threatens, would that we could simply change reality's rules. That's what one little Romanian village tries to do in 1939, as war thunders on the horizon.... A wonderfully fresh and inventive premise replicating exactly what literature can do.... Ausubel repeatedly writes with warmth and flare.
Library Journal
A bittersweet fable of war and survival set in a Romanian shtetl.... Ausubel's sustained, idiosyncratic take on the Holocaust is double-edged, alternating affecting heartache with sentimental poetic overkill. Opinion may be divided, but there's an undeniable element of talent here.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the opening of the novel, Lena tells Chaya in her letter, "Maybe, when the world began, everything had been clean and pure." When the villagers start their world over, does the world begin "clean and pure," or are the seeds of its destruction built into its founding?
2. When the villagers start their world over, they begin with storytelling. What importance does storytelling have for the novel? What is its power? How does each of the characters employ storytelling? What do these uses tell you about each character
3. One of the bonds that is the most transient in the novel is that between parent and child. How does the author depict this bond? Consider the situations in which children are transferred in the novel: were the parents right to let their children be adopted by others? What do you think about the motivations of the adoptive parents?
4. What is the stranger’s role in the re-creation of the world? Could the villagers have done it without her? Why does she decide to help protect the village from the outside world? What eventually makes her allow it back in?
5. Igor is the only character who is captured, yet his imprisonment ends up ensuring his safety, while the characters who remain "free" must fight for their own survival. What does this say about the concept of freedom? In this novel, is personal choice a gift or a burden, or both?
6. With the reinvention of the world , time is upended. Lena is made to grow up at an unusual rate. Does she really age faster? Do you think she and the other villagers realize the truth but allow Hersh and Kayla to believe their own story? What about when Lena gets married and bears a child—has the story about her aging process had a real and actual effect?
7. How does Lena know what happens to the other characters? Given the role that imagination and storytelling play in the novel , does it matter whether Lena has outside information? Would that make her version any more or less true?
8. Many unfair things happen to Lena during the course of the book-her parents’ giving her away, her losing her sons, and so on. How does she cope? Does she forgive the other characters? What role does forgiveness play in the novel?
9. What do you think the title No One is Here Except All of Us means?
10. At the end of the book , Lena writes to Chaya, "Someday, your children will ask what happened, and you will tell a new version, and in this way, the story will keep living. Truth is not in facts. The truth is in the telling." What does Lena mean by this? Is there a difference between truth and accuracy?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency
Alexander McCall Smith, 1998
Knopf Doubleday
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307456632
Summary
The No.1 Ladies´ Detective Agency, located in Gaborone, Botswana, consists of one woman, the engaging Precious Ramotswe. A cross between Kinsey Millhone and Miss Marple, this unlikely heroine specializes in missing husbands, wayward daughters, con men and imposters.
When Precious Ramotswe sets out on the trail of a missing child she is tumbled headlong into some strange situations and not a little danger. Deftly interweaving tragedy and humor to create a memorable tale of human desires and foibles, the book is also an evocative portrait of a distant world. (From the publisher.)
In 2008 the series was adapted as an HBO film series, starring Jill Scott as Precious Ramotswe.
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1948
• Where—Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
• Education—Christian Brothers College; Ph.D., University
Edinburgh
• Honors—Commandre of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE); Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE
• Currently—lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Alexander (R.A.A.) "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a Rhodesian-born Scottish writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues. He has since become internationally known as a writer of fiction. He is most widely known as the creator of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.
Alexander McCall Smith was born in Bulawayo, in what was then Southern Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe. His father worked as a public prosecutor in what was then a British colony. He was educated at the Christian Brothers College before moving to Scotland to study law at the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Ph.D. in law.
He soon taught at Queen's University Belfast, and while teaching there he entered a literary competition: one a children's book and the other a novel for adults. He won in the children's category, and published thirty books in the 1980s and 1990s.
He returned to southern Africa in 1981 to help co-found and teach law at the University of Botswana. While there, he cowrote what remains the only book on the country's legal system, The Criminal Law of Botswana (1992).
He returned in 1984 to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he lives today with his wife, Elizabeth, a physician, and their two daughters Lucy and Emily. He was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh at one time and is now Emeritus Professor at its School of Law. He retains a further involvement with the University in relation to the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
He is the former chairman of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee (until 2002), the former vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom, and a former member of the International Bioethics Commission of UNESCO. After achieving success as a writer, he gave up these commitments.
He was appointed a CBE in the December 2006 New Year's Honours List for services to literature. In June 2007, he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws at a ceremony celebrating the tercentenary of the University of Edinburgh School of Law.
He is an amateur bassoonist, and co-founder of The Really Terrible Orchestra. He has helped to found Botswana's first centre for opera training, the Number 1 Ladies' Opera House, for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta.
In 2009, he donated the short story "Still Life" to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project—four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. McCall Smith's story was published in the Air collection. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
One of the most entrancing literary treats of many a year.... A tapestry of extraordinary nuance and richness.
Wall Street Journal
Smart and sassy...Precious’ progress is charted in passages that have the power to amuse or shock or touch the heart, sometimes all at once.
Los Angeles Times
Characters…who are as familiar as neighbors and as welcome as the best of friends.
Chicago Tribune
The African-born author of more than 50 books, from children's stories (The Perfect Hamburger) to scholarly works (Forensic Aspects of Sleep), turns his talents to detection in this artful, pleasing novel about Mma (aka Precious) Ramotswe, Botswana's one and only lady private detective. A series of vignettes linked to the establishment and growth of Mma Ramotswe's "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" serve not only to entertain but to explore conditions in Botswana in a way that is both penetrating and light thanks to Smith's deft touch. Mma Ramotswe's cases come slowly and hesitantly at first: women who suspect their husbands are cheating on them; a father worried that his daughter is sneaking off to see a boy; a missing child who may have been killed by witchdoctors to make medicine; a doctor who sometimes seems highly competent and sometimes seems to know almost nothing about medicine. The desultory pace is fine, since she has only a detective manual, the frequently cited example of Agatha Christie and her instincts to guide her. Mma Ramotswe's love of Africa, her wisdom and humor, shine through these pages as she shines her own light on the problems that vex her clients. Images of this large woman driving her tiny white van or sharing a cup of bush tea with a friend or client while working a case linger pleasantly. General audiences will welcome this little gem of a book just as much if not more than mystery readers.
Publishers Weekly
Botswana's only female detective, Precious Ramotswe—whose investigation of whether the father who's incontinently turned up on the doorstep of Happy Bapetsi, who's been getting along fine without him, is really her father edges her toward considerably darker waters—isn't just ready to confront everything from theft to kidnapping to murder: she's ready for prime time.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Introduction: When Precious Ramotswe decides to use the money her beloved father left her to open the first ever Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana, everyone is skeptical. “Can women be detectives?” asks the bank’s lawyer. Mma Ramotswe herself feels unsure of her success. After all, her only assets are a tiny white van, two desks, two chairs, a telephone, an old typewriter, a teapot, and three teacups. But she does possess the intangible assets of intuition and intelligence. These she has in great supply, along with perseverance, a keen knowledge of the human mind and heart, a steadfast sense of right and wrong, and a personality that inspires trust and loquaciousness in nearly all who meet her. What she also has is a deep love for Africa generally and for Botswana and its people especially. “They are my people, my brothers and sisters. It is my duty to help them to solve the mysteries of their lives. That is what I am called to do” [p. 4].
These mysteries aren’t the standard stuff of detective novels. There are no bludgeoned millionaires or murdered sexpots in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. Mma Ramotswe’s cases range from exposing a freeloader posing as a father, to discovering whether or not a young Indian girl has a boyfriend, to determining the legitimacy of a worker’s injury claim, to revealing the real reason behind a doctor’s inconsistent performance. Mundane concerns, by the standards of most American mysteries, but much of the charm of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency lies in just this quality of ordinariness–the problems that ordinary people confront in the course of their everyday lives. The threat of something more violent, more sinister, appears when a young boy goes missing and Mma Ramotswe suspects he has fallen victim to witch doctors. This crime will bring Mma Ramotswe face-to-face with one of Africa’s most frightful traditions–the use of human bones in the making of muti (medicine).
Throughout, readers are treated to Mma Ramotswe’s penetrating observations on human behavior–“It was curious how some people had a highly developed sense of guilt, she thought, while others had none. Some people would agonize over minor slips or mistakes on their part, while others would feel quite unmoved by their own gross acts of betrayal or dishonesty” [p. 125]–as well as her trenchant and often humorous assessments of the failings of men, her unflinching struggle for gender equity, her keen love for her country and its people, and the warmth, generosity, and intelligence of her expansive spirit.
_________________
1. Unlike in most other mysteries, in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Mma Ramotswe solves a number of small crimes, rather than a single major one. How does this affect the narrative pacing of the novel? What other unique features distinguish The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency from the conventional mystery novel?
2. What makes Precious Ramotswe such a charming protagonist? What kind of woman is she? How is she different from the usual detective? Why does she feel “called” to help her fellow Africans “solve the mysteries of their lives” [p. 4]?
3. What is surprising about the nature of the cases Mma Ramotswe is hired to solve? By what means does Alexander McCall Smith sustain the reader’s interest, in the absence of the kind of tension, violence, and suspense that drive most mysteries?
4. Mma Ramotswe’s first client, Happy Bapetsi, is worried that the man who claims to be her father is a fraud taking advantage of her generosity. “All he does,” she says, “is sit in his chair outside the front door and tell me what to do for him next.” To which Mma Ramotswe replies, “Many men are like that” [p. 10]. What is Mma Ramotswe’s view of men generally? How do men behave in the novel?
5. Why does Mma Ramotswe feel it is so important to include her father’s life story in the novel? What does Obed Ramotswe’s life reveal about the history of Africa and of South Africa? What does it reveal about the nature and cost of working in the mines in South Africa?
6. Mma Ramotswe purchases a manual on how to be a detective. It advises one to pay attention to hunches. “Hunches are another form of knowledge” [p. 79]. How does intuition help Mma Ramotswe solve her cases?
7. When Mma Ramotswe decides to start a detective agency, a lawyer tells her “It’s easy to lose money in business, especially when you don’t know anything about what you’re doing.... And anyway, can women be detectives?” To which Mma Ramotswe answers, “Women are the ones who know what’s going on. They are the ones with eyes. Have you not read Agatha Christie?” [p. 61]. Is she right in suggesting women are more perceptive than men? Where in the novel do we see Mma Ramotswe’s own extraordinary powers of observation? How does she comically undercut the lawyer’s arrogance in this scene?
8. As Mma Ramotswe wonders if Mma Malatsi was somehow involved in her husband’s death and whether wanting someone dead made one a murderer in God’s eyes, she thinks to herself: “It was time to take the pumpkin out of the pot and eat it. In the final analysis, that was what solved these big problems of life. You could think and think and get nowhere, but you still had to eat your pumpkin. That brought you down to earth. That gave you a reason for going on. Pumpkin” [p. 85]. What philosophy of life is Mma Ramotswe articulating here? Why do the ongoing daily events of life give her this sense of peace and stability?
9. Why does Mma Ramotswe marry Note? Why does this act seem so out of character for her? In what ways does her love for an attractive and physically abusive man make her a deeper and more complicated character? How does her marriage to Note change her?
10. Mma Ramotswe imagines retiring back in Mochudi, buying some land with her cousins, growing melons, and living life in such a way that “every morning she could sit in front of her house and sniff at the wood-smoke and look forward to spending the day talking with her friends. How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn’t do any of this, and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eating grass? None, in her view; none at all” [p. 162]. Is Mma Ramotswe’s critique of white people on the mark or is she stereotyping? What makes her sense of what is important, and what brings happiness, so refreshing? What other differences between black and white cultures does the novel make apparent?
11. Mma Ramotswe does not want Africa to change, to become thoroughly modern: “She did not want her people to become like everybody else, soulless, selfish, forgetful of what it means to be an African, or, worse still, ashamed of Africa” [p. 215]. But what aspects of traditional African culture trouble her? How does she regard the traditional African attitude toward women, marriage, family duty, and witchcraft? Is there a contradiction in her relationship to “old” Africa?
12. How surprising is Mme Ramotswe’s response to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s marriage proposal? How appropriate is the ending of the novel?
13. Alexander McCall Smith has both taught and written about criminal law. In what ways does in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency draw upon this knowledge? How are lawyers and the police characterized in the novel?
14. Is The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency a feminist novel? Does the fact that its author is a man complicate such a reading? How well does Alexander McCall Smith represent a woman’s character and consciousness in Mma Ramotswe?
15. Alexander McCall Smith’s "Precious Ramotswe" books have been praised for their combination of apparent simplicity with a high degree of sophistication. In what ways does in The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency have the appeal of simple storytelling? In what ways is it sophisticated? What does it suggest about the larger issues of how to live one’s life, how to behave in society, how to be happy?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Noah's Compass
Anne Tyler, 2010
Knopf Doubleday
277 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345516596
Summary
From the incomparable Anne Tyler, a wise, gently humorous, and deeply compassionate novel about a schoolteacher, who has been forced to retire at sixty-one, coming to terms with the final phase of his life.
Liam Pennywell, who set out to be a philosopher and ended up teaching fifth grade, never much liked the job at that run-down private school, so early retirement doesn't bother him.
But he is troubled by his inability to remember anything about the first night that he moved into his new, spare, and efficient condominium on the outskirts of Baltimore. All he knows when he wakes up the next day in the hospital is that his head is sore and bandaged.
His effort to recover the moments of his life that have been stolen from him leads him on an unexpected detour. What he needs is someone who can do the remembering for him. What he gets is—well, something quite different.
We all know a Liam. In fact, there may be a little of Liam in each of us. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 25, 1941
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—B.A., Duke University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize (see below)
• Currently—lives in Baltimore, Maryland
Anne Tyler is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, short story writer, and literary critic. She has published 20 novels, the best known of which are Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant (1983), The Accidental Tourist (1985), and Breathing Lessons (1988). All three were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the third won it.
She has also won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, the Ambassador Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2012 she was awarded The Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence. She is recognized for her fully developed characters, her "brilliantly imagined and absolutely accurate detail" (New York Times), and her "rigorous and artful style" and "astute and open language" (also, New York Times). While many of her characters have been described as quirky or eccentric, she has managed to make them seem real through skillfully fleshing out their inner lives in great depth.
Her subject in all her novels has been the American family and marriage: the boredom and exasperating irritants endured by partners, children, siblings, parents; the desire for freedom pulling against the tethers of attachments and conflicted love; the evolution over time of familial love and sense of duty. Tyler celebrates unremarkable Americans and the ordinary details of their everyday lives. Because of her style and subject matter, she has been compared to John Updike, Jane Austen, and Eudora Welty, among others.
Childhood
The eldest of four children, she was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her father, Lloyd Parry Tyler, was an industrial chemist and her mother, Phyllis Mahon Tyler, a social worker. Both her parents were Quakers who were very active with social causes in the Midwest and the South. Her family lived in a succession of Quaker communities in the South until they settled in 1948 in a Quaker commune in Celo, in the mountains of North Carolina near Burnsville.
The Celo Community settlement was founded by conscientious objectors and members of the liberal Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends, with community labor needs shared by the residents. Tyler lived there from age 7 through 11 and helped her parents and others with caring for livestock and organic farming. While she did not attend formal public school in Celo, lessons were taught in art, carpentry, and cooking in homes and in other subjects in a tiny school house. Her early informal training was supplemented by correspondence school.
Her first memory of her own creative story-telling was of crawling under the bed covers at age 3 and "telling myself stories in order to get to sleep at night." Her first book at age 7 was a collection of drawings and stories about "lucky girls...who got to go west in covered wagons." Her favorite book as a child was The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton. Tyler acknowledges that this book, which she read many times during this period of limited access to books, had a profound influence on her, showing how the years flowed by, people altered, and nothing could ever stay the same."
This early perception of changes over time is a theme that reappears in many of her novels decades later, just as The Little House itself appears in her novel Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Tyler also describes reading Little Women 22 times as a child. When the Tyler family left Celo after four years to move to Raleigh, NC, 11-year-old Anne had never attended public school and never used a telephone. This unorthodox upbringing enabled her to view "the normal world with a certain amount of distance and surprise."
Raleigh, North Carolina
It also meant that Tyler felt herself to be an outsider in the public schools she attended in Raleigh, a feeling that has followed her most of her life. She believes that this sense of being an outsider has contributed to her becoming a writer:
I believe that any kind of setting-apart situation will do [to become a writer]. In my case, it was emerging from the commune…and trying to fit into the outside world.
Despite her lack of public schooling prior to age 11, Anne entered school academically well ahead of most of her classmates in Raleigh. With access now to libraries, she discovered Eudora Welty, Gabriel García Márquez, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and many others. Welty remains one of her favorite writers, and she credits Welty with showing her that books could be about the everyday details of life, not just about major events.
During her years at N. B. Broughton High School in Raleigh, she was inspired and encouraged by a remarkable English teacher, Phyllis Peacock. Peacock had previously taught the writer Reynolds Price, under whom Tyler would later study at Duke University. She would also later teach the writer Armistead Maupin. Seven years after high school, Tyler would dedicate her first published novel to "Mrs. Peacock, for everything you’ve done."
Education
Tyler won a full scholarship to Duke University, which her parents urged her to go accept it because they also needed money for the education of her three younger brothers. At Duke, Tyler enrolled in Reynolds Price's first creative writing class, which also included a future poet, Fred Chappell. Price was most impressed with the sixteen-year-old Tyler, describing her as "frighteningly mature for 16," "wide-eyed," and "an outsider." Years later Price would describe Tyler as "one of the best novelists alive in the world,… who was almost as good a writer at 16 as she is now."
While an undergraduate, Tyler published her short story "Laura" in the Duke literary journal Archive, for which she won the newly created Anne Flexner award for creative writing. She wrote many short stories, one of which impressed Reynolds Price so that he later stated that it was the "most finished, most accomplished short story I have ever received from an undergraduate in my thirty years of teaching." "The Saints in Caesar’s Household" was published in Archive also and won her a second Anne Flexner award. This short story led to her meeting Diarmuid Russell, to whom Price had sent it with kudos. Russell, who was an agent for both Reynolds Price and for Tyler’s "crowning influence" Eudora Welty, later became Tyler’s agent.
Tyler majored in Russian Literature at Duke—not English—and graduated in 1961, at age 19, having been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. With her Russian Literature background she received a fellowship to graduate school in Slavic Studies at Columbia University although she left after a year without her master's degree. She returned to Duke where she got a job in the library as a Russian bibliographer. It was there that she met Taghi Modarressi, a resident in child psychiatry in Duke Medical School and a writer himself, and they were married a year later (1963).
Early writing
While working at the Duke library—before and after marrying Modarressi—Tyler continued to write short stories, which appeared in The New Yoker, Saturday Evening Post, and Harpers. She also started work on her first novel, If Morning Ever Comes, eventually published 1964, followed by The Tin Can Tree in 1965. Years later she disowned both of these novels, as well as many of the short stories she wrote during this period, going so far as to say she "would like to burn them." She feels that most of this early work suffers from the lack of thorough character development and her failure to rework material repeatedly.
After the birth of two children (1965 and 1967), followed by a move from Montreal, Canada, to Baltimore in the U.S., Tyler had little time or energy for writing. She published nothing from 1965 to 1970. By 1970, however, she began writing again and published three more novels by 1974—A Slipping-Down Life, The Clock Winder, and Celestial Navigation. In her own opinion, her writing improved considerably during this period; with her children entering school, she was able to devote more time—and focus more intensely—than at any time since her undergraduate days.
National recognition
With Celestial Navigation, Tyler began to get wider recognition. Morgan's Passing (1980) won her the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction and was nominated for both the American Book Awards and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
With her next novel (her ninth), Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, Tyler truly arrived as a recognized artist in the literary world. (She considers Homesick her best work.) Her tenth novel, The Accidental Tourist, was awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction in 1985. It was also made into a 1988 movie starring William Hurt and Geena Davis. The popularity of this well-received film further increased the growing public awareness of her work. Her 11th novel, Breathing Lessons, received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1989 and was Time magazine’s "Book of the Year." It was adapted into a 1994 TV movie, as eventually were four other of her novels.
Since her Pulitzer Prize with Breathing Lessons, Tyler has written 9 more novels, all of favorably reviewed, many Book of the Month Club Main Selections and New York Times Bestsellers.
Analysis
In Tyler’s own words, the characters are the driving forces behind the stories and the starting point for her writing:
I do make a point of writing down every imaginable facet of my characters before I begin a book, trying to get to know them so I can figure out how they’ll react in any situation…..My reason for writing now is to live lives other than my own, and I do that by burrowing deeper and deeper….till I reach the center of those lives.
The magic of her novels starts with her ability to create those characters in the reader’s mind through the use of remarkably realistic details. The late Canadian author Carol Shields, writing about Tyler's characters, observes:
Tyler has always put her characters to work. Their often humble or eccentric occupations, carefully observed and threaded with humor, are tightly sewn to the other parts of their lives, offering them the mixed benefit of tedium and consolation, as well as a lighted stage for the unfolding of their dramatic selves. She also allows her men and women an opportunity for redemption.
Tyler has clearly spelled out the importance of her characters to her stories: "As far as I’m concerned, character is everything. I never did see why I have to throw in a plot, too."
Stylistically, Tyler's writing is difficult to categorize or label. Novelist Cathleen Schine describes how her "style without a style" manages to pull the reader into the story:
So rigorous and artful is the style without a style, so measured and delicate is each observation, so complex is the structure and so astute and open the language, that the reader can relax, feel secure in the narrative and experience the work as something real and natural.
The San Francisco Chronicle made a similar point: "One does not so much read a Tyler novel as visit it.
While Tyler herself does not like to think of her novels in terms of themes, numerous reviewers and scholars have noted the importance of family and marriage relationships to her characters and stories. Reviewing Noah's Compass, New York Times' Mitchiko Kakutani noted that
The central concern of most of this author’s characters has always been their need to define themselves in terms of family—the degree to which they see themselves as creatures shaped by genetics, childhood memories and parental and spousal expectations, and the degree to which they are driven to embrace independent identities of their own.
Tyler is not without her critics. The most common criticism is that her works are "sentimental," "sweet," and "charming and cosy." Even Kakutani has also occasionally bemoaned a "cloying cuteness," noting that "her novels—with their eccentric heroes, their homespun details, their improbable, often heartwarming plots—have often flirted with cuteness." In her own defense, Tyler has said,
For one thing I think it is sort of true. I would say piss and vinegar for [Philip] Roth and for me milk and cookies. I can’t deny it…. [However] there’s more edge under some of my soft language than people realize.
Also, because almost all of Tyler’s work covers the same territory—family and marriage relationships—and are located in the same setting, she has come under criticism for being repetitive and formulaic.
Tyler’s advice to beginning writers:
They should run out and buy the works of Erving Goffman, the sociologist who studied the meaning of gesture in personal interactions. I have cause to think about Erving Goffman nearly every day of my life, every time I see people do something unconscious that reveals more than they’ll ever know about their interiors. Aren’t human beings intriguing? I could go on writing about them forever."
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/10/2015.)
Book Reviews
Perhaps Tyler intends Liam’s desire for what he calls “someone else to experience your life for you” to justify the lengths to which she forces this slow-moving, passive man in his attempt to finagle a transaction with a stranger glimpsed at a doctor’s office. But the madcap nature of the quest feels out of character and doesn’t succeed as comedy.... What this novel needs is a heroine.... If Bootsie doesn’t arrive in time to save Noah’s Compass, she...shows us what we’ve been missing: a female voice that can’t be ignored or dismissed.
Katherine Harris - New York Times Book Review
A small story that provides an interesting variation on those dismal tales of aging by [Philip] Roth & Co…"Just trying to stay afloat"—neither sinking into Roth's existential despair nor ascending into Oprah's blinding self-delight—that's the difficult, totally unhip theme that Tyler takes clear to the end of this understated novel. In fact, Noah's Compass is likely to dissatisfy many of the author's fans, who have come to count on her for more fully resolved tragedies or more satisfying personal insights. Instead, with Liam, she has articulated the melancholy stasis of many older people's lives.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Noah’s Compass is immensely readable. It displays many of Tyler’s finest qualities: her sharp observation of humanity, her wry comedy; the luminous accuracy of her descriptions.... Hers is a fine-grained art, whose comedy could easily coarsen into the self-consciously quirky. If it does not, this is because her surprises are rooted in character: it is human nature that she evidently finds infinitely fascinating and surprising, with its constantly unforeseeable capacity for change.... [A] novel by Anne Tyler is cause for celebration.
Caroline Moore - The Sunday Telegraph
Tyler reveals, with unobtrusive mastery, the disconcerting patchwork of comedy and pathos that marks all our lives.
Wall Street Journal
Tyler’s artistry and intelligence are both firmly in evidence in her newest novel – as are the compassion and deep well of melancholy that run through her best work. The action in Noah’s Compass is as muted as its hero, but its drab, meandering exterior hides something profound. Tyler has crafted a novel in which very little changes, and yet a man is completely transfigured.
Yvonne Zipp - Christian Science Monitor
Everyone loves Anne Tyler...and her 18th novel will doubtless supply another reason.
San Francisco Chronicle
Tyler's gift is to make the reader empathize with this flawed but decent man, and to marvel at how this determinedly low-key, plainspoken novelist achieves miracles of insight and understanding.
Publishers Weekly
Unlike similar Updike and Roth characters, who worry more about their inability to perform sexual athletics any longer, Tyler's character struggles with the visceral loss of identity brought on by forced retirement and the indignities of memory loss. Verdict: Another winning effort by Tyler.
Library Journal
[D]eceptively rich and enigmatically titled.... Beneath the comedy on the surface of any Tyler novel lies an undercurrent of existential melancholy.... By the end of the novel, the particulars of Liam's life really haven't changed that much, but he is utterly transformed. And so will be the reader.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When Anne Tyler was just starting to write Noah’s Compass, a journalist asked her what it was about. She replied, “I’d like to write about a man who feels he has nothing more to expect from his life; but it’s anybody’s guess what the real subject will turn out to be in the end.” Did that turn out to be the real subject of the book?
2. What does the title mean?
3. After reading the first chapter, did you have any idea where the story would lead?
4. On page 26, Tyler writes, “The distressing thing about losing a memory, he thought, was that it felt like losing control.” Why is Liam so interested in control?
5. Is this really the first memory he’s lost?
6. At the top of page 49, Liam thinks about his true self, and how it seemed to have disappeared after the incident. What does Liam consider to be his “true self”? Is he right?
7. Why does Liam become so obsessed with Ishmael Cope?
8. Discuss Liam’s attitude toward women. Does he treat his blood relatives differently from Barbara and Eunice? Why or why not?
9. Why does Liam’s initial impression of Eunice transform into something completely different? Why does he keep their relationship a secret from his daughters?
10. What does religion represent in the novel?
11. On page 186, Eunice insists, “I’m not...devious, Liam!” What does she mean by this? Does she actually believe it?
12. What does the palm-reading scene on page 204–5 tell us about Liam? What point is Tyler making?
13. Reread Barbara’s description of Liam on page 224. Is it accurate? Why or why not?
14. Ultimately, why does Liam turn Eunice away, soon after telling her, “You’re the woman I love, and life is too short to go through it without you!” (page 230)?
15. When does Liam stop wishing he could remember the break-in? Why?
16. On page 243 Liam wonders, “Why was it that he had known so many sad women?” How would you answer this question?
17. What is the meaning of the Epictetus quote on page 266? What does Liam intend by reciting it?
18. Discuss the ending. Is Liam happy?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Noah's Wife: 5500 B.C.E
T.K. Thorne, 2009
Blackburn Fork Publishing
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780983787808
Summary
A ForeWord Reviews BOOK OF THE YEAR for Historical Fiction.
Noah’s Wife transports readers to an ancient time and place, while delving into issues that affect our contemporary lives—family relationships, autism, religious freedom, kidnapping and cultural change.
A biblical novel that is not “Religious Fiction,” T.K. Thorne’s version weaves myth, history, and archeological findings with her vivid imagination, wisdom and humor into an epic tale you will not forget. Told from the unique perspective of a young girl with what is now called Aspergers, this is the story of Noah’s completely unknown wife, Na’amah.
Na’amah wishes only to be a shepherdess on her beloved hills in ancient Turkey—a desire shattered by the hatred of her powerful brother and the love of two men.
Her savant abilities and penchant to speak truth forces her to walk a dangerous path in an age of change—a time of challenge to the goddess’ ancient ways, when cultures clash and the earth itself is unstable. When foreign raiders kidnap her, Na’amah’s journey to escape and return home becomes an attempt to save her people from the disaster only she knows is coming.
A few interesting tidbits:
- Scientists (including Robert Ballard, the explorer who found the sunken Titanic) discovered evidence that the Black Sea was once a fresh water lake that flooded in a cataclysmic event around 5500.
- The oldest known worshipped deity was female! The role of the feminine in the divine was entwined with early Judaism and keeps reappearing throughout history.
- One in every 88 persons has a form of autism. The choice to make Noah’s wife an Asperger savant stemmed from personal experience in the author’s life and gives the story a distinctive perspective. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Born—N/A
• Where—Montgomery, Alabama, USA
• Education—M.S.W, University of Alabama, magna cum laude
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives near Birmingham, Alabama
Awards
- ForeWord Reviews "BOOK OF THE YEAR" for Historical Fiction
- Winner of Portland Book Review for Short Fiction
- Winner of Chattahoochee Valley Writer's Contest for Short Fiction
- Winner of Eugene Walters Writers Festival Termite Hall for Screenplay
- Winner of Magic City Writers' Contest for Short Fiction
Storyteller
T.K.Thorne’s childhood passion for storytelling deepened when she became a police officer in Birmingham, Alabama. “It was a crash course in life and what motivated and mattered to people.” When she retired as a captain, she took on Birmingham’s business improvement district as the executive director. Both careers provide fodder for her writing, which has garnered several awards, including “Book of the Year for Historical Fiction” (ForeWord Reviews) for her debut novel Noah’s Wife. Her first non-fiction book, Last Chance for Justice, was featured on the New York Post’s “Books You Should Be Reading” list. She loves traveling, especially to research her novels, and speaking about her books and life lessons.
Thorne is step-mother to three and grandmother to four, all boys. She lives with her husband, Roger, on a mountain in Alabama where she writes, often with two dogs and a cat vying for her lap.
Community
A Leader in her community, she has served on numerous community boards and been recognized with various community awards including:
- Birmingham International Center’s “Motivating Women”
- Chamber of Commerce’s Jesse Lewis Community Service Award
- Girl Scouts Women of Distinction Award
- Operation New Birmingham’s Achievement Award
- The Community Affairs’ “Liberty & Justice Award”
- Birmingham Business Journal’s “Top Birmingham Business Women”
T.K. Shares A Few Fun Facts About Herself:
- I’m a 4th degree black belt in the martial art of Aikido.
- At age 8, I won a ribbon for being stubborn.
- I dove the Great Blue Hole in Belize, the largest sea hole in the world.
- As a rookie police officer, I had to devise a different way to hold a gun because my hands were too small.
- I need Indian food at least once a week.
- Frogs make me smile. (From the author.)
More information available on Wikepedia: T.K. Thorne
Blogs at TKs-Tales.com
Website: www.tkthorne.com
T.K. Talks About Her Writing...(see About page)
Book Reviews
T.K. Thorne is a magical writer. In Noah’s Wife, she turns Biblical lore upside down...and makes us believe every word of this novel is true. Her writing is flat-out brilliant and spellbinding.
Elsa Rutherford, NiftyPickle.com columnist, novelist
. . . a terrific storyteller.
Sena Jeter Naslund, Bestselling novelist, Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, etc.
. . . an extraordinary work.
Dianne Mooney, founder of Southern Living At Home
. . . a novel of epic sweep, emotional power, and considerable beauty.”
Ron Gholson, The Blount Countian
. . . awed at Thorne’s ability to work magic with words. Her mastery kept me awake many nights.
Sherry Kughn, Anniston Star
Noah's Wife is one of the best novels I have ever read—and I average about a book a week.
Barry Marks, Alabama Poetry Book of the Year
So compelling and readable. Brava! Excellent! I am basking in the glow of a fascinating, complex read.
Jane Archer, Professor of English, Birmingham Southern College
Well-researched, well-written, engaging book that is absolutely one of the best reads I have had in a long time.
Gail Sheldon, Director, Oneonta Public Library
Masterfully created. It is a MUST READ! Thorne is exceptionally gifted in her sensitivity to life, love, and loss.
L. Nolan-Ruiz, Editor, InternationalBookCafé.com
A novel of great enchantment, suspense and power . . . looks like a BESTSELLER to me.
Malcom R. Campbell, author, Sun Seeker and Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire
. . .new depth to an old story in a beautiful novel of truth, love, and survival.
Irene Latham, author & poet, Leaving Gee's Bend and What Came Before
. . . with an understanding of what makes us humans tick, Thorne looks at our origins in a brand new way. It’s more Clan of the Cave Bear than theological treatise—and that's a whole lot more fun!
John Archibald, Birmingham News
Not since Mists of Avalon or Ahab’s Wife have I enjoyed such a finely crafted woman’s point of view on an oft-told tale.
Perle Champion, freelance writer and artist, Alabama Writer's Forum
Discussion Questions
1. How does this book challenge your perception of the way the story of Noah is traditionally told?
2. Noah’s Wife predates organized religion. How and why did the author use the concepts of Father God and Mother Goddess in the book? Do they have validity today?
3. How does Na’amah perceive and relate to the world because of her Asperger Syndrome?
4. How does her condition help her/limit her on her journey?
5. How did Savta influence Na’amah’s development and journey?
6. Discuss how your perception of Tubal changes as the story evolves.
7. What part does understanding the “cycle of violence” play in forgiveness? Can you forgive Tubal? Yanner?
8. What is the significance of Bennu in the story?
9. What is the significance of water for Na’amah?
10. Why do you think bees are a reoccurring theme?
11. How did the story use the distinctions between clans, Elders and the gods?
12. How do the relationships between Yanner, Noah, and Na’amah define the different aspects of love?
Nobody's Fool
Richard Russo, 1993
Knopf Doubleday
560 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679753339
Summary
In this slyly funny and moving novel, Russo follows the unexpected operation of grace in a deadbeat, upstate New York town—and in the lives of the unluckiest of its citizens. (From the publisher.)
More
Sully, a man who has never personally met with good luck, is in pain and jobless. He works, but gets paid under the table because his disability case has not yet come up in court. He deals with his ex-wife, his landlady, his soon to be ex-girlfriend, and his son while suffering his knee pain.
In this intricately woven novel, Russo allows readers to enjoy its humor while appreciating the stark realities of the lives that people it. While Russo won the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls (2001), many people still consider this to be their favorite of his works. (J.P. from AudioFile.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 15, 1949
• Where—Johnstown, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., M.F. A. and Ph.D., University of Arizona
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Camden, Maine
Prizewinning author Richard Russo is regarded by many critics as the best writer about small-town America since Sherwood Anderson and Sinclair Lewis. "He doesn't over-sentimentalize [small towns]," said Maureen Corrigan, the book critic for NPR's "Fresh Air." Nor does he belittle the dreams and hardships of his working-class characters. "I come from a blue-collar family myself and I think he gets the class interactions; he just really nails class in his novels," said Corrigan.
When Russo left his own native small town in upstate New York, it was with hopes of becoming a college professor. But during his graduate studies, he began to have second thoughts about the academic life. While finishing up his doctorate, he took a creative writing class; and a new career path opened in front of him.
Russo's first novel set the tone for much of his later work. The story of an ailing industrial town and the interwoven lives of its inhabitants, Mohawk won critical praise for its witty, engaging style. In subsequent books, he has brought us a dazzling cast of characters, mostly working-class men and women who are struggling with the problems of everyday life (poor health, unemployment, mounting bills, failed marriages) in dilapidated, claustrophobic burghs that have—like their denizens—seen better days. In 2001, Russo received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, a brilliant, tragicomic set-piece that explores past and present relationships in a once-thriving Maine town whose textile mill and shirt factory have gone bust.
Russo's vision of America would be bleak, except for the wit and optimism he infuses into his stories. Even when his characters are less than lovable, they are funny, rueful, and unfailingly human. "There's a version of myself that I still see in a kind of alternative universe and it's some small town in upstate New York or someplace like that," Russo said in an interview. That ability to envision himself in the bars and diners of small-town America has served him well. "After the last sentence is read, the reader continues to see Russo's tender, messed-up people coming out of doorways, lurching through life," said the fiction writer Annie Proulx. "And keeps on seeing them because they are as real as we are."
Extras
From a 2005 Barnes & Noble interview:
• In 1994, Russo's book Nobody's Fool was made into a movie starring Paul Newman and Bruce Willis. Newman also starred in the 1998 movie Twilight, for which Russo wrote the screenplay. Russo now divides his time between writing fiction and writing for the movies.
• When he wrote his first books, Russo was employed full-time as a college teacher and would stop at the local diner between classes to work on his novels. After the success of Nobody's Food (the book and movie), he was able to quit teaching—but he still likes to write in tight spots, such as the Camden Deli. It's "a less lonely way to write," he told USA Today. "I'm less self-conscious when it's not so quiet."
• When asked what his favorite books are, he offered this list:
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens—All of Dickens, really. The breadth of his canvas, the importance he places on vivid minor characters, his understanding that comedy is serious business. And in the character of Pip, I learned, even before I understood I'd learned it, that we recognize ourselves in a character's weakness as much than his strength. When Pip is ashamed of Joe, the best man he knows, we see ourselves, and it's terrible, hard-won knowledge.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain—Twain's great novel demonstrates that you can go to the very darkest places if you're armed with a sense of humor. His study of American bigotry, ignorance, arrogance, and violence remains so fresh today, alas, because human nature remains pretty constant. I understand the contemporary controversy, of course. Huck's discovery that Jim is a man is hardly a blinding revelation to black readers, but the idea that much of what we've been taught by people in authority is a crock should resonate with everybody. Especially these days.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald—Mostly, I suppose, because his concerns -- class, money, the invention of self -- are so central to the American experience. Fitzgerald understood that our most vivid dreams are often rooted in self-doubt and weakness. Many people imagine that we identify with strength and virtue. Fitzgerald knew better.
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck—For the beauty of the book's omniscience. It's fine for writers to be humble. Most of us have a lot to be humble about. But it does you no good to be timid. Pretend to be God? Why not? (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Small towns, like seagoing vessels, have always suited fiction: manageable little pressure cookers with a fixed cast of characters, whose lack of privacy and enforced proximity may cause the plot to boil over.... One wants to congratulate Mr. Russo for what he avoids. Nobody's Fool never slides into the corn-pone hokiness so often found in novels of small-town life, fiction in which the rural setting is either a Walker Evans photo or Dogpatch. In these books, the characters talk as if they were auditioning for the Henry Fonda part in The Grapes of Wrath. But dialogue is what Mr. Russo does best, and the fun of this novel is in hearing these guys (and women) talk, giving one another a hard time— they're funny, quick and inventive.
Francine Prose - New York Time
Sully is reminiscent, in a way, of Bellow's old men.... One never tires of watching him, because he has the capacity to make everyone around him feel better, including the reader.
The New Yorker
Sixty-year-old Sully is "nobody's fool," except maybe his own. Out of work (undeclared-income work is what he does, when he can), down to his last few bucks, hampered by an arthritic broken knee, Sully is worried that he's started on a run of bad luck. And he has. The banker son of his octogenarian landlady wants him evicted; Sully's estranged son comes home for Thanksgiving only to have his wife split; Sully's own high-strung ex-wife seems headed for a nervous breakdown; and his longtime lover is blaming him for her daughter's winding up in the hospital with a busted jaw. But Sully's biggest problem is the memory of his own abusive father, a ghost who haunts his every day. As he demonstrated in Mohawk (Random, 1986) and The Risk Pool (Random, 1989), Russo knows the small towns of upstate New York and the people who inhabit them; he writes with humor and compassion. A delight. —Charles Michaud, Turner Free Lib., Randolph, MA
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. This novel's title, Nobody's Fool, is a punning reference to its protagonist, Donald Sullivan, who at age 60 is "divorced from his own wife, carrying on halfheartedly with another man's, estranged from his son, devoid of self-knowledge, badly crippled and virtually unemployable—all of which he stubbornly confuse[s] with independence." Why is Sully so insistent on remaining nobody's fool? How has this determination affected his relationships with other people?
2. One consequence of Sully's prickly autonomy is his tendency to go off on "stupid streaks." Is Sully a stupid man? How would you evaluate a freedom whose defining characteristic seems to be the freedom to do the wrong thing at the wrong time?
3. From the beginning we know that Sully has a bad knee, and his refusal to treat—or even favor—it generates many of the novel's complications. In what ways does this injury resonate with the novel's theme.
4. Sully's string of misfortunes may also be due to bad luck or malign predestination. Is he destined to be unlucky? To what extent are his actions and character predetermined?
5. Sully's father brutalized him as a child. Sully deserted his son, Peter. Peter abandoned his timid eldest son, Will, to the mercies of his sociopathic little brother. What causes does the author posit for this four-generation history of cruelty and neglect?
6. Perhaps to compensate for Sully's brutal father, Russo supplies Sully with a very good, if somewhat sharp-tongued, surrogate mother, Beryl Peoples. She may, in fact, be the most real and enduring attachment Sully has. How does their relationship compare with Beryl's relationship with her real son, Clive, Jr.? How is the antagonism between Clive and Sully an extension of their childhood rivalry for the affections of Beryl's late husband?
7. How would you characterize Russo's portrayal of relations between the sexes, and why are most of his characters divorced, widowed, or unhappily married?
8. The sudden flashes of good luck (or simple happiness) that illuminate Sully's life and the lives of other characters may be attributable to grace, which The Random House Dictionary of the English Language defines as "the influence or spirit of God operating in humans to regenerate or strengthen them." At what moments does grace seem to operate in this novel?
9. Nobody's Fool is also a novel about a town, North Bath, New York, whose misfortunes, like Sully's, may be due to collective stupidity or fate. Even North Bath's venerable elms now constitute a threat to its communal life and property. In what ways do the novel's principal locales—Hattie's, the OTB, and the White Horse-—function as a microcosm of the town as a whole? To what extent are North Bath's decline and grandiose visions of renewal symptomatic of the political and economic climate of America in the 1980s?
10. What role does class play in this novel? To what extent are its characters shaped by economic circumstances?
11. One critic has described Nobody's Fool as "a sad novel camouflaged in comedy." How is this true? What is the nature of the book's sadness? How does Russo balance his comic and tragic impulses?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Noir
Christopher Moore, 2018
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062433978#
Summary
The absurdly outrageous, sarcastically satiric, and always entertaining New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore returns in finest madcap form with this zany noir set on the mean streets of post-World War II San Francisco, and featuring a diverse cast of characters, including a hapless bartender; his Chinese sidekick; a doll with sharp angles and dangerous curves; a tight-lipped Air Force general; a wisecracking waif; Petey, a black mamba; and many more.
San Francisco. Summer, 1947. A dame walks into a saloon …
It’s not every afternoon that an enigmatic, comely blonde named Stilton (like the cheese) walks into the scruffy gin joint where Sammy "Two Toes" Tiffin tends bar.
It’s love at first sight, but before Sammy can make his move, an Air Force general named Remy arrives with some urgent business. ’Cause when you need something done, Sammy is the guy to go to; he’s got the connections on the street.
Meanwhile, a suspicious flying object has been spotted up the Pacific coast in Washington State near Mount Rainer, followed by a mysterious plane crash in a distant patch of desert in New Mexico that goes by the name Roswell. But the real weirdness is happening on the streets of the City by the Bay.
When one of Sammy’s schemes goes south and the Cheese mysteriously vanishes, Sammy is forced to contend with his own dark secrets—and more than a few strange goings on—if he wants to find his girl.
Think Raymond Chandler meets Damon Runyon with more than a dash of Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes All Stars. It’s all very, very Noir. It’s all very, very Christopher Moore. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 5, 1958
• Where—Toledo, Ohio, USA
• Education—Ohio State Univ., Brooks Inst. of Photography
• Awards—Quill Award, 2005 and 2006
• Currently—Hawaii and San Francisco, California
A 100-year-old ex-seminarian and a demon set off together on a psychotic road trip...
Christ's wisecracking childhood pal is brought back from the dead to chronicle the Messiah's "missing years"...
A mild-mannered thrift shop owner takes a job harvesting souls for the Grim Reaper...
Whence come these wonderfully weird scenarios? From the fertile imagination of Christopher Moore, a cheerfully demented writer whose absurdist fiction has earned him comparisons to master satirists like Kurt Vonnegut, Terry Pratchett, and Douglas Adams.
Ever since his ingenious debut, 1992's Practical Demonkeeping and his 2002 Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff , Moore has attracted an avid cult following. But, over the years, as his stories have become more multi-dimensional and his characters more morally complex, his fan base has expanded to include legions of enthusiastic general readers and appreciative critics.
Asked where his colorful characters come from, Moore points to his checkered job resume. Before becoming a writer, he worked at various times as a grocery clerk, an insurance broker, a waiter, a roofer, a photographer, and a DJ — experiences he has mined for a veritable rogue's gallery of unforgettable fictional creations. Moreover, to the delight of hardcore fans, characters from one novel often resurface in another. For example, the lovesick teen vampires introduced in 1995's Bloodsucking Fiends are revived (literally) for the 2007 sequel You Suck—which also incorporates plot points from 2006's A Dirty Job.
For a writer of satirical fantasy, Moore is a surprisingly scrupulous researcher. In pursuit of realistic details to ground his fiction, he has been known to immerse himself in marine biology, death rituals, Biblical scholarship, and Goth culture. He has been dubbed "the thinking man's Dave Barry" by none other than The Onion, a publication with a particular appreciation of smart humor.
As for story ideas, Moore elaborates on his website: "Usually [they come] from something I read. It could be a single sentence in a magazine article that kicks off a whole book. Ideas are cheap and easy. Telling a good story once you get an idea is hard." Perhaps. But, to judge from his continued presence on the bestseller lists, Chris Moore appears to have mastered the art.
Extras
From a 2006 Barnes & Noble interview:
• In researching his wild tales, Moore has done everything from taking excursions to the South Pacific to diving with whales. So what is left for the author to tackle? He says he'd like to try riding an elephant.
• One of the most memorably weird moments in Moore's body of work is no fictional invention. The scene in Bloodsucking Fiends where the late-night crew of a grocery store bowls with frozen turkeys is based on Moore's own experiences bowling with frozen turkeys while working the late shift at a grocery store.
• When asked what book influenced his career as a writer, he answered:
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. In Cannery Row, Steinbeck writes about very flawed people, but with great affection, and by doing so, shows us that it is our flaws that make us human, and that is what we share, that is our humanity. A friend of mine used to say, "He writes with the voice of a benevolent God." In the process, the book is also very funny. I think I saw that as a model, as a guide. I'd always written humor that was fairly edgy, but here was a guy writing with great power and gentle humor. I was moved and inspired." (Author bio Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Christopher Moore gives us dizzy dames and shadowy gangsters in Noir. Sammy, Moore’s comic revision of Sam Spade, will take you on a silly-thrilly ride through late-1940s San Francisco, and you’ll be laughing all the way.
Washington Post
Moore is a master of metaphor and a sultan of simile.… It takes an author of remarkable talents to keep a profitably urinating snake, a dame named for a dairy product, and a slimy extraterrestrial all running through a narrative.
Washington Independent Review of Books
[A] irreverent send-up.… [T]hings just get stranger in this work that puts an amusing spin on the noir subgenre. An author’s note gives fair warning of the characters’ era-appropriate language and attitudes, which may be disturbing to some readers.
Publishers Weekly
Raymond Chandler meets the SyFy channel in Moore's latest humorous adventure. Fans of noir film and fiction will find a lot to enjoy in this loving genre tribute, and those already familiar with Moore's books will simply be in love. —Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola
Library Journal
(Starred review) [A] pedal-to-the-metal, exquisitely written comic romp through a neon-lit San Francisco that may never have actually existed, but that, in Moore’s supremely talented hands, sure feels like it could have.
Booklist
There is a laugh-out-loud moment every couple of pages. And possibly a space alien, because, hey, this is a Christopher Moore book, after all.
Bookage
Moore's introduction of an interrupting, semi-omniscient second narrator between Sammy's first-person tale can be jarring, even if it is explained late in the book. The novel finally coalesces in its back half…. A frantically comic tale of guys and dolls that shoots and just misses.
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 NOIR … then take off on your own:
1. In Christopher Moore's other novels, his main characters are hardly "alpha males"; in fact, they tend to be "beta males." How does Sammy Tiffin fit that description—perhaps he's a little aimless or unfocused or … what else? How would you describe Sammy?
2. Noir takes place two years after the end of World War II. What is post-war American life like—in San Francisco and especially Chinatown—as portrayed by Moore?
3. Moore riffs on the noir genre*—crime stories first made famous in the 1930s & 40s by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Talk about certain elements that are part-and-parcel to the genre (tough-guy language, for one) and how "noir" is distinct from other crime tales. What are the ways in which Moore's novel both pokes fun at and pays tribute to the noir style?
4. Noir writers draw on analogies in their writing. Point to some of Moore's: this one, for instance, "he smiled like a dog at a barbecue for the blind."
5. What, in particular, made you laugh? Does Moore sustain the comedy and wacky banter throughout the novel? Does it become funnier … or does the humor fall off? Do you have some favorite lines?
6. Do you have any characters you were fond of—Petey, say, or Eddie? Cheese? Moonman?
7. Did the shift in point-of-view, from the first person to third-person narrative, confuse you? When did you figure out the identity of the speaker?
8. If you've read other Christopher Moore books, how does Noir compare?
* "Noir" in our usage is comparable to what is also called the "hardboiled" genre.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Nora Webster
Colm Toibin, 2014
Scribner
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781439138335
Summary
A magnificent new novel set in Ireland, about a fiercely compelling young widow and mother of four, navigating grief and fear, struggling for hope.
Set in Wexford, Ireland, Colm Tobin’s superb seventh novel introduces the formidable, memorable and deeply moving Nora Webster. Widowed at forty, with four children and not enough money, Nora has lost the love of her life, Maurice, the man who rescued her from the stifling world to which she was born.
And now she fears she may be drawn back into it. Wounded, strong-willed, clinging to secrecy in a tiny community where everyone knows your business, Nora is drowning in her own sorrow and blind to the suffering of her young sons, who have lost their father. Yet she has moments of stunning empathy and kindness, and when she begins to sing again, after decades, she finds solace, engagement, a haven—herself.
Nora Webster is a masterpiece in character study by a writer at the zenith of his career, "beautiful and daring" (The New York Times Book Review) and able to "sneak up on readers and capture their imaginations" (USA TODAY). In Nora Webster, Tobin has created a character as iconic, engaging and memorable as Madame Bovary or Hedda Gabler. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 30, 1955
• Where—Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland, UK
• Education—B.A. University College, Dublin
• Awards—Costa Award
• Currently—lives in Dublin, Ireland
Colm Toibin is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and, most recently, poet.
Toibin is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester. He was hailed as a champion of minorities as he collected the 2011 Irish PEN Award. In 2011, he was named one of Britain's Top 300 Intellectuals by The Observer, despite being Irish.
Early Life
Toibin's parents were Bríd and Michael Toibin. He was born in 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland. He is the second youngest of five children. His grandfather, Patrick Tobin, was a member of the IRA, as was his grand-uncle Michael Tobin. Patrick Tobin took part in the 1916 Rebellion in Enniscorthy and was subsequently interned in Frongoch in Wales. Colm's father was a teacher who was involved in the Fianna Fail party in Enniscorthy. He received his secondary education at St Peter's College, Wexford, where he was a boarder between 1970 and 1972. He later spoke of finding some of the priests attractive.
In July 1972, aged 17, he had a summer job as a barman in the Grand Hotel in Tramore, County Waterford, working from six in the evening to two in the morning. He spent his days on the beach, reading The Essential Hemingway, the copy of which he still professes to have, "pages stained with seawater." It developed in him a fascination with Spain, led to a wish to visit that country, gave him "an idea of prose as something glamorous, smart and shaped, and the idea of character in fiction as something oddly mysterious, worthy of sympathy and admiration, but also elusive. And more than anything, the sheer pleasure of the sentences and their rhythms, and the amount of emotion living in what was not said, what was between the words and the sentences."
He progressed to University College Dublin, graduating in 1975. Immediately after graduation, he left for Barcelona. His first novel, 1990's The South, was partly inspired by his time in Barcelona; as was, more directly, his non-fiction Homage to Barcelona (1990). Having returned to Ireland in 1978, he began to study for a masters degree. However, he did not submit his thesis and left academia, at least partly, for a career in journalism.
The early 1980s were an especially bright period in Irish journalism, and the heyday for the monthly news magazine Magill. He became the magazine's editor in 1982, and remained in the position until 1985. He left due to a dispute with Vincent Browne, Magill's managing director.
Toibin is a member of Aosdana and has been visiting professor at Stanford University, The University of Texas at Austin and Princeton University. He has also lectured at several other universities, including Boston College, New York University, Loyola University Maryland, and The College of the Holy Cross. He is professor of creative writing at The University of Manchester succeeding Martin Amis and currently teaches at Columbia University.
Work
The Heather Blazing (1992), his second novel, was followed by The Story of the Night (1996) and The Blackwater Lightship (1999). His fifth novel, The Master (2004), is a fictional account of portions in the life of author Henry James. He is the author of other non-fiction books: Bad Blood: A Walk Along the Irish Border (1994), (reprinted from the 1987 original edition) and The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe (1994).
Toibin has written two short story collections. His first Mothers and Sons which, as the name suggests, explores the relationship between mothers and their sons, was published in 2006 and was reviewed favourably (including by Pico Iyer in The New York Times). His second, broader collection The Empty Family was published in 2010.
Toibin wrote a play, titled Beauty in a Broken Place: this was staged in Dublin in August 2004. He has continued to work as a journalist, both in Ireland and abroad, writing for the London Review of Books among others. He has also achieved a reputation as a literary critic: he has edited a book on Paul Durcan, The Kilfenora Teaboy (1997); The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (1999); and has written The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English since 1950 (1999), with Carmen Callil; a collection of essays, Love in a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodovar (2002); and a study on Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Toothbrush (2002).
He sent a photograph of Borges to Don DeLillo who described it as "the face of Borges against a dark background—Borges fierce, blind, his nostrils gaping, his skin stretched taut, his mouth amazingly vivid; his mouth looks painted; he’s like a shaman painted for visions, and the whole face has a kind of steely rapture." DeLillo often seeks inspiration from it.
During Desmond Hogan's sexual assault case he defended him in court as "a writer of immense power and importance who dealt with human isolation."
In 2011, The Times Literary Supplement published his poem "Cush Gap, 2007".
Toibín works in the most extreme, severe, austere conditions. He sits on a hard, uncomfortable chair which causes him pain. When working on a first draft he covers the right-hand side only of the page; later he carries out some rewriting on the left-hand side of the page. He keeps a word processor in another room on which to transfer writing at a later time.
Themes
Toibin's work explores several main lines: the depiction of Irish society, living abroad, the process of creativity and the preservation of a personal identity, focusing especially on homosexual identities — Toibín is openly gay — but also on identity when confronted with loss. The "Wexford" novels, The Heather Blazing and The Blackwater Lightship, use Enniscorthy, the town of Toibín's birth, as narrative material, together with the history of Ireland and the death of his father. An autobiographical account and reflection on this episode can be found in the non-fiction book, The Sign of the Cross. In 2009, he published Brooklyn, a tale of a woman emigrating to Brooklyn from Enniscorthy.
Two other novels, The Story of the Night and The Master revolve around characters who have to deal with a homosexual identity and take place outside Ireland for the most part, with a character having to cope with living abroad. His first novel, The South, seems to have ingredients of both lines of work. It can be read together with The Heather Blazing as a diptych of Protestant and Catholic heritages in County Wexford, or it can be grouped with the "living abroad" novels. A third topic that links The South and The Heather Blazing is that of creation. Of painting in the first case and of the careful wording of a judge's verdict in the second. This third thematic line culminated in The Master, a study on identity, preceded by a non-fiction book in the same subject, Love in a Dark Time. The book of short stories "Mothers and Sons" deal with family themes, both in Ireland and Catalonia, and homosexuality.
Toibín has written about gay sex in several novels, though Brooklyn contains a heterosexual sex scene in which the heroine loses her virginity. In his 2012 essay collection New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families he studies the biographies of James Baldwin, J. M. Synge and W. B. Yeats, among others.
His personal notes and work books reside at the National Library of Ireland. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Colm Toibin's high-wire act of an eighth novel…is written without a single physical description of its characters or adverbial signpost to guide our interpretation of their speech. The emotional distance between protagonist and reader is so great that at times the title character seems almost spectral. Yet it is precisely Toibin's radical restraint that elevates what might have been a familiar tale of grief and survival into a realm of heightened inquiry. The result is a luminous, elliptical novel in which everyday life manages, in moments, to approach the mystical.
Jennifer Egan - New York Times Book Review
Miraculous… a strikingly restrained novel about a woman awakening from grief and discovering her own space, her own will…extraordinary... [Toibin] portrays Nora with tremendous sympathy and understanding.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Toibin’s restraint, sly humor and gentle prose cadence echo those of another Irish master, William Trevor. So does his affection for his characters… How Nora chooses to make her voice heard and how her children find ways to express their own pain provide Nora Webster’s plot and pleasure…a so-called average life can make for a thrilling read…Toibin presents one woman’s life keenly observed and honored with compassion. With Enniscorthy, he also creates a town, constrained and forever behind the times though it is, that feels like the whole world.
Miami Herald
[A] quietly moving study of a complex character and her ambiguous feelings toward the web of family and neighbors surrounding her in the small town of Enniscorthy…. All his books share precise, restrained prose, which can, in its simplicity, reach elegance.
Maya Muir - Portland Oregonian
Toibin artfully shows us a Nora unmoored…This quiet, wrenching novel conceals considerable human turbulence beneath its placid surface. So Toibin has learned well from Henry James…In many ways, Nora Webster would bring an admiring smile to the Master’s lips.
Daniel Dyer - Cleveland Plain Dealer
Fascinating... Revelatory... More thoughtful than Emma Bovary and less self-destructive, in the end far and away a better parent than the doomed Anna Karenina for all the latter’s dramatic posturing, Nora Webster is easily as memorable as either—and far more believable. To say more would spoil a masterful— and unforgettable—novel.
Betsy Burton - NPR
[C]ompelling portrait of an Irish woman for whom fate has prescribed loneliness...until [she] gradually finds an unexpected fulfillment in a talent she had never acknowledged. Toibin never employs dramatic fireworks to add an artificial boost to the narrative.... [Nora] she remains a brave woman learning how to find a meaningful life as she goes on alone.
Publishers Weekly
The Ireland of four decades ago is beautifully evoked… Completely absorbing [and] remarkably heart-affecting.
Booklist
Nora Webster is widowed at 40, with four sons in her care and little money to support them. She's desperate to retain her independence and so grief-stricken that she barely registers how much her sons need her. But gradually she returns to singing, which she had abandoned years before, and finds herself. The multi-award-winning Toibin has a gift for portraiture.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A subtle, pitch-perfect sonata of a novel.... Nora exists in a "world filled with absences." ... A novel of mourning, healing and awakening; its plainspoken eloquence never succumbs to the sentimentality its heroine would reject.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel opens with Nora discussing her intrusive visitors with her neighbor Tom O’Connor (p. 1). How does this set the tone for Nora Webster? What is your first impression of Nora?
2. What motivates Nora to sell the house in Cush? Is she just taking advantage of Jack Lacey’s offer (p. 6), or is it more emotional? Should she have consulted the children?
3. When Nora visits Josie to discuss Donal and Conor, Josie asks Nora, "Did you think they would come home unchanged?" (p. 54) What did Nora expect? Was it realistic? Is Josie being fair when she points out that Nora never called or visited the boys?
4. For her memory card for Maurice, Nora chooses "Too young to die, they say. Too young? No, rather he is blessed in being so young thus to be made swiftly an immortal. He has escaped the tremulous hands of age" (p. 57). Why do Jim and Margaret dislike it? Why does Nora insist on it?
5. When Nora gets her "fashionable cut" from Bernie, her enthusiasm turns to dismay, and she thinks that "anyone who saw her on the way home would think that she had lost her mind" (p. 63). Why does Nora react this way? Sometimes she seems to worry about what others think. Sometimes she is defiant. Where else does she second-guess her choices?
6. When Nora meets with William and Peggy Gibney to discuss working for them, she thinks of how Peggy and Francie Kavanaugh’s lives have changed since Nora first worked at Gibney’s. Is Nora comparing herself to them? Do either of them have anything that Nora wants?
7. On a beach trip with her sons (p. 129), Nora wonders about having never thought about whether the boys are happy or not. "Being with Donal sometimes made her afraid, but being with Conor could make her even more afraid, afraid for his innocence, his sweet loyalty, his open need to be taken care of." Why does Nora feel this way?
8. After Francie cuts up Nora’s folders and Nora storms out of Gibney’s (p. 146), unsure if she’ll return, why does she go to the sea at Keatings’ (p. 149)? What effect does Sister Thomas have on Nora?
9. When Nora decides to join the union meeting, she reflects, "Perhaps it was not wise. . . . But it pleased her to be grateful to no one" (p. 176). Where does this need to be unbeholden come from?
10. Why does Donal become so engrossed in photography? Nora thinks he wouldn’t have if Maurice had lived (p. 221). How are his camera and Margaret’s gift of a darkroom a reaction to his father’s death?
11. Laurie tells Nora, "You kept [your singing] to yourself. You saved it up" (p. 242). Is Laurie right? Why would Nora do that?
12. Why is Nora’s record player so dear to her (p. 280)? Consider the passages on pages 282 and 314–15. What does the woman of the Archduke Trio group come to mean to Nora?
13. What is it about Josie that allows Nora to turn to her after she struggles with her pain and insomnia (p. 358)? Is it the same thing that caused her to send the boys to Josie when Maurice was dying? What are the differences and similarities between these two episodes?
14. Throughout the story, family members make plans and keep secrets from Nora—about Una’s engagement (p. 155), Donal’s darkroom (p. 169), Josie’s offer of a trip to Spain (p. 261), Fiona’s worry that Nora is too interested in Paul Whitney (pp. 289–94), and Donal’s decision to go to boarding school (p. 298). Why do they do this?
15. When the British Embassy in Dublin is burned, are they right to panic over Aine? Is Nora correct that they all have a "lingering unease" that can be triggered by any crisis (p. 326)?
16. Does Maurice really appear to Nora or is it a dream (pp. 356–57)? What does it mean?
17. Why does Nora finally burn Maurice’s letters and let her sisters take his clothes away (p. 372)?
18. Nora thinks that no one notices her, but we see Mick Sinnott invite her to the union meeting (p. 174), Phyllis take her to the quiz (p. 192), Laurie give her voice lessons (p.236), and Dan Bolger help her fix up her house (p. 333). Phyllis tells her, "After all you’ve been through, everyone thinks you are.... Well, dignified" (p. 254). Is Phyllis right? Why doesn’t Nora see this?
19. Nora Webster is bold and independent, fierce and sympathetic at the same time. Does she remind you of other literary heroines? Which ones, and how so?
- See more at Simon & Schuster.
(Questions courtesy of publisher.)
Normal People
Salley Rooney, 2019
Crown/Archetype
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781984822178
Summary
Winner, An Post Irish Award
Winner, Costa Novel Award
A universal story of love, friendship, and growing up.
At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school football team, while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private.
But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers—one they are determined to conceal.
A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain.
Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.
Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1991
• Where—Mayo, Ireland
• Education—M.A., Trinity College
• Awards—Costa Novel Award, An Post Irish Award
• Currently—lives in Dublin, Ireland
(Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Sally Rooney's sentences are droll, nimble and matter-of-fact. There's nothing particularly special about them, except for the way she throws them. She's like one of those elite magicians who can make a playing card pierce the rind of a watermelon. Rooney employs this artery-nicking style while writing about love and lust among damaged and isolated and yearning young people. They're as lonely as Frank Sinatra on some of his album covers, as lonely as Hank Williams's whip-poor-will. The effect can be entrancing.… [Normal People is] fresh and accessible…There is, in the pointed dialogue, a reminder of why we call it a punch line.… [Rooney's] an original writer who, you sense, is just getting started.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
Arguably the buzziest novel of the season, Sally Rooney’s elegant sophomore effort… is a worthy successor to Conversations With Friends. Here, again, she unflinchingly explores class dynamics and young love with wit and nuance (12 Best Books of Spring).
Wall Street Journal
[Rooney’s] two carefully observed and gentle comedies of manners… are tender portraits of Irish college students.… Remarkably precise—she captures meticulously the way a generation raised on social data thinks and talks.
New York Review of Books
I’m transfixed by the way Rooney works, and I’m hardly the only one.… [L]ike any confident couturier, she’s slicing the free flow of words into the perfect shape.… She writes about tricky commonplace things (text messages, sex) with a familiarity no one else has.
Paris Review
[Rooney] has invented a sensibility entirely of her own: sunny and sharp, free of artifice but overflowing with wisdom and intensity.… The novel touches on class, politics, and power dynamics and brims with the sparky, witty conversation that Rooney’s fans will recognize.
Vogue
Normal People tackles millennial concerns with nineteenth-century wit.… [T]he millennial generation would no doubt be happy to accept her as its spokesperson were she so inclined.
Elle
Funny and intellectually agile.… [Combines] deft social observation—especially of shifts of power between individuals and groups—with acute feeling.… [Rooney is] a master of the kind of millennial deadpan that appears to skewer a whole life and personality in a sentence or two.
Harper’s
Keenly observed, deeply perceptive, and psychologically acute, Normal People brims with disarming insights into how men and women wrestle with sex, class, popularity, and young love (Best Books to Read This Spring).
Esquire
(Starred review) Rooney stuns with her depiction of an on-again off-again relationship between two young adults navigating social pressures.… [A] devastating story from a series of everyday sorrows… traversing female and male anxieties over sex, class, and popularity.… [M]agnificent.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) This brilliantly nuanced second novel fulfills the promise evident in the stunning debut.… Rooney is a formidable talent. A major literary achievement.
Library Journal
(Starred review) [S]uperb.… Showcasing Rooney’s focus and ability in building character relationships that are as subtle and infinite as real-life ones, and her perceptive portrayal of class, Normal People gets at the hard work of becoming a person and the near impossibility of knowing if a first love is a true one.
Booklist
(Starred review) In outline it’s a simple story, but Rooney tells it with bravura intelligence, wit, and delicacy. Rooney’s genius lies in her ability to track her characters’ subtle shifts in power, both within themselves and in relation to each other.… Absolutely enthralling. Read it.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. While living at home in Carricklea, Connell’s sense of self is managed by the opinions of his peers in secondary school. To that end, he avoids being publicly seen with Marianne, an outcast in school, fearing how their association might damage his reputation.
Were you critical of Connell for the way he treated Marianne in school, or were you sympathetic toward his adolescent self-consciousness? Do you think he became less concerned by the thoughts of others as he grew older?
2. With Marianne, Connell feels a sense of "total privacy" in which "he could tell her anything about himself, even weird things, and she would never repeat them, he knows that. Being alone with her is like opening a door away from normal life and then closing it behind him" (6–7).
Why do you think Connell is sometimes unnerved by their intense and intimate connection? Further, why do you think he’s unsettled by the sense that Marianne would do anything to please him?
3. The first time Connell tells Marianne he loves her, we are told that…
She has never believed herself fit to be loved by any person. But now she has a new life, of which this is the first moment, and even after many years have passed she will still think: Yes, that was it, the beginning of my life (46).
Do you think Marianne had ever been told that she was loved, in any sense of the word, by anyone before Connell? How can the experience of "first love" transform a person’s self-image and view of the world?
4. In Normal People, Marianne only barely opens up to Connell about her relationship with her family—how her father had been violent when he was alive, how her brother verbally and physically attacks her, and how her mother essentially forbids her to believe that she is "special" in any way.
How does Marianne’s family influence her opinion of herself and affect her relationships with other people? How does she attempt to distance herself from her family? And how does Connell’s upbringing compare and contrast to Marianne’s?
5. When they move from the countryside to attend college in Dublin, there is somewhat of a role reversal between Connell and Marianne. Connell, once popular in secondary school, is scrutinized and mocked at Trinity College for his fashion sense and thick Galway accent, and he is even called a "milk-drinking culchie" (154). Marianne on the other hand, herself from a wealthy family, moves at ease through an elitist social scene.
How do class dynamics affect Connell and Marianne in Dublin? How do their reactions to class prejudice and snobbery shade your view of them as characters?
6. How would you describe the power that Connell and Marianne hold over each other? Did you notice a power relation shift and evolve between them over the years? How might it have had both positive and negative effects in different moments?
7. Despite being so close, Connell and Marianne sometimes miscommunicate and misinterpret each other. This can be seen when Connell, unable to pay rent in Dublin, moves back to Carricklea to save money during the summer of 2012, after he fails to directly ask Marianne if he can move in with her.
How does the structure of Normal People, oscillating between the experiences of both characters during this time, reveal the ways in which they misunderstood each other? How do you think their relationship would have turned out differently if Connell had stayed with Marianne that summer?
8. As the narrative progresses, Marianne becomes increasingly submissive in her sexual encounters with other people. Why do you think she is so repulsed by Lukas during "the game" when he tells her that he loves her (203)? Does she try to separate love from sex? Why do you think she later asks Connell if he will hit her during sex, and why does she shut down when he declines?
9. Both Marianne and Connell undergo certain crises of meaning during their later years in college. For instance, Marianne becomes increasingly dissociated from herself and from other people when she is studying in Sweden, and Connell suffers from depression after his friend Rob commits suicide.
Do you think that people are generally more vulnerable to internal crises and mental health issues in their late teens and early twenties? Why or why not? What are the most important support systems and coping mechanisms for someone going through such a difficult time, and do you think that Connell and Marianne find them in Normal People?
10. Connell is disillusioned by the contrived and stale performances he witnesses during a reading at Trinity College Dublin. Consider the following quote:
It was culture as class performance, literature fetishized for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys.… All books were ultimately marketed as status symbols, and all writers participated to some degree in this marketing. Presumably this was how the industry made money. Literature, in the way it appeared at these public readings, had no potential as a form of resistance to anything (228).
Do you agree with this assessment? What kind of "resistance" do you think Connell has in mind? Were you surprised to find such a critique in a recently published book? Do you think that by illuminating prejudices and injustices, as well as commonalities that exist between people, literature might still serve an important social purpose? You might illustrate your answers by pointing to passages from Normal People or by referencing other books that have been released in the past few years.
11. In an interview with The New Yorker, Sally Rooney mentioned that "A lot of critics have noticed that my books are basically nineteenth-century novels dressed up in contemporary clothing." Would you agree with this comment? How might Normal People and Rooney’s first novel, Conversations with Friends, be compared, structurally and thematically, to nineteenth-century romantic literature?
12. Despite the magnetic attraction that persists between Connell and Marianne, they are never officially "together" in this book. Considering the highs and lows they each go through over the years, do you think that they could have ever had a normatively structured boyfriend-girlfriend relationship? Did reading this novel lead you to question why we tend to put rigid labels on our relationships?
13. At the end of Normal People, when Connell is offered a place in an MFA program in New York, Marianne thinks,
He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another (273).
In what ways did you see Marianne and Connell change each other’s lives? How did they find parts of themselves in and through each other? Do you worry about what could happen to Marianne without Connell? Or do you think it might be important for them to spend time apart and grow independently after college?
14. At times, we see that Marianne considers herself intrinsically damaged, unlovable, and "bad." In other words, she believes that she will never be a normal person.
Having read about their innermost insecurities, feelings of alienation, sexual drives, desires, and so on, do you think that Connell and Marianne are any more or less "normal" than other people? What qualifies a person as normal, and do you think that such a completely normal person can exist?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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Norse Mythology
Neil Gaiman, 2017
W.W. Norton & Co.
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780393609097
Summary
An instant classic—master storyteller Neil Gaiman presents a dazzling version of the great Norse myths. Neil Gaiman has long been inspired by ancient mythology in creating the fantastical realms of his fiction. Now he turns his attention back to the source, presenting a bravura rendition of the great northern tales.
In Norse Mythology, Gaiman stays true to the myths in envisioning the major Norse pantheon:
? Odin, the highest of the high, wise, daring, and cunning;
? Thor, Odin’s son, incredibly strong yet not the wisest of gods;
? Loki—son of a giant—blood brother to Odin and a trickster and unsurpassable manipulator.
Gaiman fashions these primeval stories into a novelistic arc that begins with the genesis of the legendary nine worlds and delves into the exploits of deities, dwarfs, and giants. Once, when Thor’s hammer is stolen, Thor must disguise himself as a woman—difficult with his beard and huge appetite—to steal it back.
More poignant is the tale in which the blood of Kvasir—the most sagacious of gods—is turned into a mead that infuses drinkers with poetry. The work culminates in Ragnarok, the twilight of the gods and rebirth of a new time and people.
Through Gaiman’s deft and witty prose emerge these gods with their fiercely competitive natures, their susceptibility to being duped and to duping others, and their tendency to let passion ignite their actions, making these long-ago myths breathe pungent life again. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Portchester, Hampshire, England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Awards—See below
• Currently—lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Early life
Gaiman's family is of Polish and other Eastern European Jewish origins; his great-grandfather emigrated from Antwerp before 1914 and his grandfather eventually settled in the Hampshire city of Portsmouth and established a chain of grocery stores. His father, David Bernard Gaiman, worked in the same chain of stores; his mother, Sheila Gaiman (nee Goldman), was a pharmacist. He has two younger sisters, Claire and Lizzy.
After living for a period in the nearby town of Portchester, Hampshire, where Neil was born in 1960, the Gaimans moved in 1965 to the West Sussex town of East Grinstead where his parents studied Dianetics at the Scientology centre in the town; one of Gaiman's sisters works for the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles. His other sister, Lizzy Calcioli, has said, "Most of our social activities were involved with Scientology or our Jewish family. It would get very confusing when people would ask my religion as a kid. I’d say, 'I’m a Jewish Scientologist.'" Gaiman says that he is not a Scientologist, and that like Judaism, Scientology is his family's religion.
Gaiman was able to read at the age of four. He said...
I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them-which would mean that I'd know what was coming up, because I'd read it.
One work that made a particular impression on him was J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings from his school library, although it only had the first two books in the trilogy. He consistently took them out and read them. He would later win the school English prize and the school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third book in the trilogy.
For his seventh birthday, Gaiman received C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series. Years later, he said...
I admired his use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just talk to you.... I'd think, 'Oh, my gosh, that is so cool! I want to do that! When I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses.' I liked the power of putting things in brackets.
Narnia also introduced him to literary awards, specifically the 1956 Carnegie Medal won by the concluding volume. When he won 2010 Medal himself, the press reported him recalling, "....It had to be the most important literary award there ever was" and observing, "if you can make yourself aged seven happy, you're really doing well – it's like writing a letter to yourself aged seven."
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was another childhood favourite, and "a favourite forever. Alice was default reading to the point where I knew it by heart." He also enjoyed "Batman" comics as a child.
Gaiman was educated at several Church of England schools, includging Fonthill School in East Grinstead, Ardingly College (1970–74), and Whitgift School in Croydon (1974–77). His father's position as a public relations official of the Church of Scientology was the cause of the seven-year-old Gaiman being blocked from entering a boys' school, forcing him to remain at the school that he had previously been attending. He lived in East Grinstead for many years, from 1965–1980 and again from 1984–1987. He met his first wife, Mary McGrath, while she was studying Scientology and living in a house in East Grinstead that was owned by his father. The couple were married in 1985 after having their first child, Michael.
Early Writings
As a child and a teenager, Gaiman read the works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, James Branch Cabell, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Rudyard Kipling, Lord Dunsany and G. K. Chesterton. He later became a fan of science fiction, reading the works of authors as diverse as Alan Moore, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, Robert A. Heinlein, H. P. Lovecraft, Thorne Smith, and Gene Wolfe.
In the early 1980s, Gaiman pursued journalism, conducting interviews and writing book reviews, as a means to learn about the world and to make connections that he hoped would later assist him in getting published. He wrote and reviewed extensively for the British Fantasy Society. His first professional short story publication was "Featherquest", a fantasy story, in Imagine Magazine in May 1984, when he was 24.
When waiting for a train at Victoria Station in 1984, Gaiman noticed a copy of Swamp Thing written by Alan Moore, and carefully read it. Moore's fresh and vigorous approach to comics had such an impact on Gaiman that he would later write; "that was the final straw, what was left of my resistance crumbled. I proceeded to make regular and frequent visits to London's Forbidden Planet shop to buy comics".
In 1984, he wrote his first book, a biography of the band Duran Duran, as well as Ghastly Beyond Belief, a book of quotations, with Kim Newman. Even though Gaiman thought he did a terrible job, the book's first edition sold out very quickly. When he went to relinquish his rights to the book, he discovered the publisher had gone bankrupt. After this, he was offered a job by Penthouse. He refused the offer.
He also wrote interviews and articles for many British magazines, including Knave. As he was writing for different magazines, some of them competing, and "wrote too many articles", he sometimes went by a number of pseudonyms: Gerry Musgrave, Richard Grey, "along with a couple of house names". Gaiman ended his journalism career in 1987 because British newspapers can "make up anything they want and publish it as fact."
In the late 1980s, he wrote Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion in what he calls a "classic English humour" style. Following on from that he wrote the opening of what would become his collaboration with Terry Pratchett on the comic novel Good Omens, about the impending apocalypse.
Comics and Graphic Novels
After forming a friendship with comic book writer Alan Moore, Gaiman started writing comic books, picking up "Marvelman" after Moore finished his run on the series. Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham collaborated on several issues of the series before its publisher, Eclipse Comics, collapsed, leaving the series unfinished. His first published comic strips were four short "Future Shocks for 2000 AD" in 1986–7. He wrote three graphic novels with his favorite collaborator and long-time friend Dave McKean: "Violent Cases", "Signal to Noise", and "The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch". Impressed with his work, DC Comics hired him, and he wrote the limited series "Black Orchid". Karen Berger, who later became head of DC Comics's Vertigo, read "Black Orchid" and offered Gaiman a job: to re-write an old character, The Sandman, but to put his own spin on him.
"The Sandman" tells the tale of the ageless, anthropomorphic personification of Dream that is known by many names, including Morpheus. The series began in December 1988 and concluded in March 1996: the 75 issues of the regular series, along with an illustrated prose text and a special containing seven short stories, have been collected into 12 volumes that remain in print.
In 1989, Gaiman published "The Books of Magic" (collected in 1991), a four-part mini-series that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the DC Universe through a frame story about an English teenager who discovers that he is destined to be the world's greatest wizard. The miniseries was popular, and sired an ongoing series written by John Ney Rieber.
In the mid-90s, he also created a number of new characters and a setting that was to be featured in a title published by Tekno Comix. The concepts were then altered and split between three titles set in the same continuity: "Lady Justice, Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man, and Teknophage".They were later featured in Phage: Shadow Death and Wheel of Worlds. Although Gaiman's name appeared prominently on all titles, he was not involved in writing of any of the above-mentioned books (though he helped plot the zero issue of Wheel of Worlds).
Gaiman wrote a semi-autobiographical story about a boy's fascination with Michael Moorcock's anti-hero Elric of Melniboné for Ed Kramer's anthology Tales of the White Wolf. In 1996, Gaiman and Ed Kramer co-edited The Sandman: Book of Dreams. Nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the original fiction anthology featured stories and contributions by Tori Amos, Clive Barker, Gene Wolfe, Tad Williams, and others.
Asked why he likes comics more than other forms of storytelling Gaiman said “One of the joys of comics has always been the knowledge that it was, in many ways, untouched ground. It was virgin territory. When I was working on Sandman, I felt a lot of the time that I was actually picking up a machete and heading out into the jungle. I got to write in places and do things that nobody had ever done before. When I’m writing novels I’m painfully aware that I’m working in a medium that people have been writing absolutely jaw-droppingly brilliant things for, you know, three-four thousand years now. And you go, well, I don’t know that I’m as good as that and that’s two and a half thousand years old. But with comics I felt like I can do stuff nobody has ever done. I can do stuff nobody has ever thought of. And I could and it was enormously fun.”
In 2009, Gaiman wrote a two-part "Batman" story for DC Comics to follow "Batman R.I.P." It is titled "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" a play off of the classic Superman story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore. He also contributed a twelve-page "Metamorpho" story drawn by Mike Allred for Wednesday Comics, a weekly newspaper-style series.
Novels
In a collaboration with author Terry Pratchett (best known for his series of Discworld novels), Gaiman's first novel Good Omens was published in 1990. In recent years Pratchett has said that while the entire novel was a collaborative effort and most of the ideas could be credited to both of them, Pratchett did a larger portion of writing and editing if for no other reason than Gaiman's scheduled involvement with "Sandman".
The 1996 novelization of Gaiman's teleplay for the BBC mini-series Neverwhere was his first solo novel. The novel was released in tandem with the television series though it presents some notable differences from the television series. In 1999 first printings of his fantasy novel Stardust were released. The novel has been released both as a standard novel and in an illustrated text edition.
American Gods became one of Gaiman's best-selling and multi-award winning novels upon its release in 2001. A special 10th Anniversary edition was released, with the "author's preferred text" 12,000 words longer than the original mass-market editions. This is identical to the signed and numbered limited edition that was released by Hill House Publishers in 2003. This is also the version released by Headline, Gaiman's publisher in the UK, even before the 10th Anniversary edition. He did an extensive sold-out book tour celebrating the 10th Anniversary and promoting this edition in 2011.
In 2005, his novel Anansi Boys was released worldwide. The book deals with Anansi ('Mr. Nancy'), a supporting character in American Gods. Specifically it traces the relationship of his two sons, one semi-divine and the other an unaware Englishman of American origin, as they explore their common heritage. It debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.
In late 2008, Gaiman released a new children's book, The Graveyard Book. It follows the adventures of a boy named Bod after his family is murdered and he is left to be brought up by a graveyard. It is heavily influenced by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. As of late January 2009, it had been on the New York Times Bestseller children's list for fifteen weeks.
As of 2008, Gaiman has several books planned. After a tour of China, he decided to write a non-fiction book about his travels and the general mythos of China. Following that, will be a new 'adult' novel (his first since 2005's Anansi Boys). After that, another 'all-ages' book (in the same vein as Coraline and The Graveyard Book). Following that, Gaiman says that he will release another non-fiction book called The Dream Catchers. In December 2011, Gaiman announced that in January 2012 he would begin work on what is essentially, American Gods 2.
Literary Allusions
Gaiman's work is known for a high degree of allusiveness. Meredith Collins, for instance, has commented upon the degree to which his novel Stardust depends on allusions to Victorian fairy tales and culture. Particularly in The Sandman, literary figures and characters appear often; the character of Fiddler's Green is modelled visually on G. K. Chesterton, both William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer appear as characters, as do several characters from within A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. The comic also draws from numerous mythologies and historical periods. Such allusions are not unique to Sandman; Stardust, for example, also has a character called Shakespeare.
Clay Smith has argued that this sort of allusiveness serves to situate Gaiman as a strong authorial presence in his own works, often to the exclusion of his collaborators. However, Smith's viewpoint is in the minority: to many, if there is a problem with Gaiman scholarship and intertextuality it is that "...His literary merit and vast popularity have propelled him into the nascent comics canon so quickly that there is not yet a basis of critical scholarship about his work."
David Rudd takes a more generous view in his study of the novel Coraline, where he argues that the work plays and riffs productively on Sigmund Freud's notion of the Uncanny, or the Unheimlich.
Though Gaiman's work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure laid out in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Gaiman says that he started reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces but refused to finish it: "I think I got about half way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true – I don’t want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it’s true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."
Awards
British Fantasy Award
British Sci-Fi Awards (2)
Bram Stoker Awards (4)
Carnegie Medal
Eisner Awards (19)
Geffen Awards (3)
Hugo Awards (4)
International Horror Guild Award
Locus Awards (5)
Nebula Awards (2)
Newbery Medal
Mythopoeic Awards (2)
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/27/2013.)
Book Reviews
Who else but Neil Gaiman could become an accomplice of the gods, using the sorcery of words to make their stories new? The author of American Gods transforms Norse myths into addictive reading for young and old, with high-wattage retellings that preserve the monumental grandeur of the Nordic universe but also turn it into a world that is up close and personal, full of antic wit and dark intrigue.
Maria Tatar, Chair - Harvard University, (Folklore and Mythology)
The fascinating ancient tales in the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda have always needed gifted storytellers to breathe new life into them from century to century, and who better now than Neil Gailman to retell the tantalizing Norse myths with great gusto. Gaiman has such a profound understanding of the conflicts of Odin, Thor, Loki, and other gods that he revitalizes them through his imaginative depictions. His interpretation of major Norse myths will draw readers into a strange realm that will dazzle and baffle and lead to a new appreciation of Norse mythology.
Jack Zipes, Ed. - Norton Anthology of Children’s Literature
Gaiman turns his restless imagination to a retelling of Norse folklor.… [He] provides a dramatic continuity to these stories…[and] has great fun in bringing these gods down to a human level.… Gaiman takes a well-worn subject and makes it his own.
Publishers Weekly
( Starred review.) [T]he classic stories of Norse mythology but with no less humor, sense of adventure, and imagination than when [Gaiman's] playing in worlds of his own making.… A spectacularly entertaining and elucidating collection of stories with wide crossover appeal. —Stephanie Klose
Library Journal
[Gaiman] does a bang-up job of it.… His simple, Anglo-Saxon-canted diction…couldn’t sound better to modern ears used to the clipped, the droll, the laconic that a century of hard-boiled literary patter has made normal.… Gaiman’s retelling of these ever-striking and strange stories should be every reader’s first book of Norse mythology.
Booklist
( Starred review.) Gaiman writes assuredly and evocatively and with a precise eye for the atmospheric detail…. Superb. Just the thing for the literate fantasy lover and the student of comparative religion and mythology alike.
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 start a discussion for Norse Mythology...then take off on your own:
1. Talk about each of the primary gods: Odin, Thor, and Loki. Consider their passions, humor, conflicts, bravery, and flaws. Which god do you find most interesting, admirable, cruel, weird, cool? Consider also Odin's wife,Freya, and his son, Balder, as well as Tyr, the one-handed god.
2. Which of the stories do you find most engaging or funny? Are any of the stories instructive or especially tragic? What larger meanings, if any, might the stories offer?
3. What is the role of mythology in culture? Why have all civilizations created their stories: what do myths signify? What do the Norse myths, in particular, say about the Germanic/Norse cultures…and their view of humankind.
4. Follow-up to Questions #3: Does mythology, particularly Neil Gaiman's volume have relevance today? Are they universal cautionary tales? Do they offer age-old wisdom? Or are they primarily for entertaining?
5. What other mythologies are you familiar with: perhaps Ancient Greek, African, Hindi, Native American, Sumerian? How do the Norse myths compare—are there similarities with any other group of myths that you are familiar with?
6. In Norse mythology all roads lead to Ragnarok (also known as Gotterdammerung for Wagner opera buffs). How did they get there? Is the cataclysmic end inevitable—is it dictated by fate or by the innate nature of the gods?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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North of Boston
Elisaabeth Elo, 2014
Pamela Dorman Books
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780670015658
Summary
A big discovery in the world of female suspense, about an edgy young woman with the rare ability to withstand extreme conditions.
Elisabeth Elo’s debut novel introduces Pirio Kasparov, a Boston-bred tough-talking girl with an acerbic wit and a moral compass that points due north.
When the fishing boat Pirio is on is rammed by a freighter, she finds herself abandoned in the North Atlantic. Somehow, she survives nearly four hours in the water before being rescued by the Coast Guard. But the boat’s owner and her professional fisherman friend, Ned, is not so lucky.
Compelled to look after Noah, the son of the late Ned and her alcoholic prep school friend, Thomasina, Pirio can’t shake the lurking suspicion that the boat’s sinking—and Ned’s death—was no accident. It’s a suspicion seconded by her deeply cynical, autocratic Russian father, who tells her that nothing is ever what it seems. Then the navy reaches out to her to participate in research on human survival in dangerously cold temperatures.
With the help of a curious journalist named Russell Parnell, Pirio begins unraveling a lethal plot involving the glacial whaling grounds off Baffin Island. In a narrow inlet in the arctic tundra, Pirio confronts her ultimate challenge: to trust herself.
A gripping literary thriller, North of Boston combines the atmospheric chills of Jussi Adler-Olsen with the gritty mystery of Laura Lippman. And Pirio Kasparov is a gutsy, compellingly damaged heroine with many adventures ahead. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; Ph.D. Brandeis University
• Currently—lives in Brookline, Massachusetts
Elisabeth Elo grew up in Boston and went to Brown University. She worked as an editor, an advertising copywriter, a high-tech project manager, and a halfway house counselor before getting a PhD in American Literature at Brandeis University. Since then, she’s taught writing in the Boston area. She lived next to the ocean for many years and now resides in Brookline, Massachusetts. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
The novel’s subplots ripple out from the opening collision, circling a story rich with wicked smart allusions to Russian literature and clever nods to Western culture's most famous fishing story—Moby-Dick. Pirio is a fascinating character and Elo a noteworthy new voice in the genre.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The author chose the thriller genre for her debut novel because she loves a strong protagonist who drives the action. She’s created a dandy in Pirio Kasparov.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
(Starred review.) Elo’s outstanding debut stars an intelligent, confident woman of Russian descent, Pirio Kasparov, who survives for nearly four hours in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.... Pirio begins to believe that the collision at sea was deliberate.... The brisk plot smoothly incorporates such far-flung subjects as environmental issues, the fishing industry, and the perfume business.
Publishers Weekly
Gritty downtown Boston and the awe-inspiring but unforgiving North Atlantic coast come to life in Elisabeth Elo’s debut suspense novel...readers will...be rooting for the doggedly determined Pirio right to the end.
BookPage
(Starred review.) Pirio Kasparov is an alluring heroine. She’s sharp-witted, hell-bent on finding the truth, and her narrative voice is laced with surly sexiness. Pirio’s baldly honest, slightly melancholic reflections and Elo’s use of extreme natural settings will have strong appeal for Scandinavian crime fans. An impressive debut with surprising literary depth.
Booklist
North of Boston grapples with and melds seemingly disparate subject matter (commercial fishing, perfume, alcoholism, issues of class, environmental consciousness, self-determination) in an original and entertaining way.... Judging from North of Boston, Pirio’s next puzzle promises to be nothing short of unpredictable and exciting.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1.What do you think of Pirio as a protagonist? What do you find, say...most endearing about her? What do you see as her flaws?
2. There is a tension in the novel between Boston society and the wildness of the open sea. Talk about Pirio's journey toward knowledge (and self-knowledge) as the trappings of civilized Boston society fall away. The author has said in a publisher interview, "the outward journey is always an inner one."
3. Why did you think Elo choose to make Pirio the daughter of perfumers? What significance might it have for the story?
4. The story is framed with Thomasina’s substance abuse struggles. Do you find her a sympathetic character? Is her struggle with alcohol realistic? Does it have any resonance in your life or someone close to you?
5. Class and political divisions are a subtle thread throughout North of Boston. In what ways do they define Pirio, Thomasina, and others?
6. Talk about the world onboard the Galaxy. How did you experience reading those scenes?
7. The author has more books planned for Pirio Kasparov in the future? Does this first book make you want to follow her new adventures?
(Questions based on an author interview by her publisher.)
North Star Conspiracy (A Glynis Tyron Mystery)
Miriam Grace Monfredo, 1993
Penguin Group USA
353 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425147207
Summary
The year is 1854. In Seneca Falls, New York, everyone is busy with the opening of a new theater, no one notices the death of a freed slave. As a supporter of the Underground Railroad, Glynis hears information that raises her suspicions, and soon discovers more than she wants to know about some of the so-called sympathizers.
Glynis Tryon, the delightful Seneca Falls, New York, librarian introduced in Seneca Falls Inheritance, returns, still balancing her own life against the momentous events of the times. With sure authenticity, the author evokes the atmosphere of 1854, seven years before the Civil War, and brings to life the vivid cast of characters involved. A local election is pending, from which Glynis and Elizabeth Cady Stanton hope will come gains for women's rights. A wealthy resident has started Seneca Falls's first theater, and its production of Macbeth looms large in the story.
Glynis herself faces a wrenching decision: Constable Cullen Stuart wants her as his wife when he moves west to become a Pinkerton man. Warm as her regard for Cullen may be, Glynis is reluctant, knowing how her life must change after marriage. Meanwhile, Seneca Falls has become an important stop on the Underground Railroad. Fugitive slaves following the North Star to Canada find support from many of the town's inhabitants, including Glynis.
It is a difficult commitment at best, and when complicated by murder, a perilous one as well. Once again, Miriam Grace Monfredo has combined historical events, a moving personal story, and an engrossing mystery in a work of extraordinary interest.
North Star is the second of six books in the Seneca Falls Mystery Series. The series includes (in order): Seneca Falls Inheritance, North Star Conspiracy, Blackwater Spirits, Through a Gold Eagle, The Stalking Horse, and Must the Maiden Die. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Miriam Grace Monfredo, a former librarian and a historian, lives in Rochester, New York. This is the second "Seneca Falls Mystery" series. A previous "Seneca Falls Mystery," The Stalking Horse, was chosen by the Voice of Youth Advocacy as one of 1998’s best adult mysteries for young adults and received a “best” review in Library Journal’s young adult section. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Fresh, original and creative, this lively [work] brings together a cross section of women from Seneca Falls in 1848—a librarian, women's rights activist, former slave, brothel keeper, plantation wife/slave owner and town cultural advocate—each with strong opinions that will reflect on the history of activism prior to the Civil War.
Syracuse Post-Standard
North Star Conspiracy is a reasonably serious mystery that is also a good bit of fun, set in 1854. With her friends Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Seneca Falls librarian Glynis Tryon also works on such feminist issues as suffrage. Glynis is no dilettante; when she has an opportunity early in the book to marry a man she truly cares for, she turns him down. To assent would man the end of her career. Fully involved in the life of the community, Glynis becomes caught in a web of intrigue that includes murder and shows herself a capable ratiocinator. Like other entries in the series, the novel features historical notes at the end detailing people, places, and things the reader meets or hears about in the course of the story. A bit too much late-20th-century sensibility manifests itself in Glynis Tryon's point of view, but the story remains enjoyable.
Grant Burns - Librarians in Fiction, A Critical Bibliography
In 1854, six years after her adventures with Elizabeth Cady Stanton described in Seneca Falls Inheritance, librarian Glynis Tryon returns for a suspense-filled adventure based on the northward escape of fugitive slaves. Women's rights' advocate Glynis rejects the marriage proposal of her friend Constable Cullen Stuart, who leaves Seneca Falls, N.Y., to join the Pinkertons. Missing him, she busies herself in the planning of the town's new theater and the upcoming campaign for state assembly of a banker who favors women's rights. She is puzzled by both the recent suspicious death of a freed slave from Virginia and the murder of a slave-catcher who was last seen with a woman from the theater group. Then Niles, her landlady's son, returns from Virginia to announce his plans to marry Kiri, a slave whom he has convinced to run away. Glynis's role in helping Kiri farther along the Underground Railroad and her observations at Niles's trial in Virginia for abetting the slave's escape mesh seamlessly with details of the librarian's personal life in this intricately plotted, historically vivid, thoroughly satisfying mystery.
Publishers Weekly
Unmarried (by choice) librarian Glynis Tryon (Seneca Falls Inheritance) learns firsthand of the iniquities of slavery when her boardinghouse landlady's son Niles returns to their western New York home with Kiri—a beautiful mulatto slave he helped escape from a Virginia plantation. A slave-catcher is on their trail, and though Glynis manages to get Kiri to her sister's house in Rochester, a stop on the Underground Railroad, Niles is captured and returned to Virginia to stand trial. In Richmond to help Niles's lawyer, Glynis learns that three recent murders back home all tie in with Kiri—and with the murder of her fleeing family 13 years before by a villainous overseer, now living up north under another identity. With help from Constable Sundown and Cullen Stuart, a Pinkerton detective, Glynis and Kiri bait a trap for the villain and spring it during the debut performance of Macbeth at Seneca Falls's just-opened theater. Stimulating fare (despite a subplot or two too many) that effectively parallels the powerlessness of slaves and women—the disenfranchised—building to a dramatic courtroom sequence. Sojourner Truth, Matthew Brady, et al., appear in memorable cameos.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• Generic Discussion Questions
• Read-Think-Talk About a Book
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for North Star Conspiracy:
1. Why does Glynis refuse to marry Cullen Stuart, despite her fondness for him? In what ways would her life have changed as a married woman? You might use that question to segue into a discussion of the conditions for women in the mid-19th century. Does Monfredo make any connection between the powerlessness of white women and their slave counterparts?
2. On what basis does Glynis decide to help Kiri flee her captors? To what extent is an individual free—or compelled—to disobey laws that violate the conscience? ? Who decides when laws are unjust?
3. What is the effect of Monfredo's inserting real-life historical figures into her fictional world? Why might she use that technique? Does Monfredo's treatment of those historical individuals make them, or the era in which they lived, come alive for you?
4. Did Monfredo's book enable you learn more about the Underground Railroad and abolitionist movement? Monfredo has been praised for her historical accuracy, which brings up an interesting question—is the ability to appreciate history enhanced through fictional tellings? How useful did you find the mini-encyclopedia at the back of the book?
5. As has been said, "the past is never past. In what way does Kiri's past come back to haunt her?
6. What does the journey to Richmond reveal about the era's political divisiveness between northern abolitionists and southern slaveholders?
7. How does Glynis arrive at her courtroom revelation? What steps lead her to uncover the key evidence?
8. Does the entrapment of Thomas Farley make for a good ending...or an unrealistic one, forced or tacked on?
9. This is a mystery after all. Talk about how Monfredo buries clues, misleads the reader, uses plot twists, builds suspense, and reveals the solution? How well does she do all that? Did you find the revelation surprising...or predictable?
10. Finally, consider Monfredo's use of a theatrical production, Macbeth. How does it function in the story (think about role playing...)?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution.)
The North Water
Ian McGuire, 2016
Henry, Holt & Co.
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250118141
Summary
A nineteenth-century whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic with a killer aboard in this dark, sharp, and highly original tale that grips like a thriller.
Behold the man: stinking, drunk, and brutal. Henry Drax is a harpooner on the Volunteer, a Yorkshire whaler bound for the rich hunting waters of the arctic circle.
Also aboard for the first time is Patrick Sumner, an ex-army surgeon with a shattered reputation, no money, and no better option than to sail as the ship's medic on this violent, filthy, and ill-fated voyage.
In India, during the Siege of Delhi, Sumner thought he had experienced the depths to which man can stoop. He had hoped to find temporary respite on the Volunteer, but rest proves impossible with Drax on board. The discovery of something evil in the hold rouses Sumner to action.
And as the confrontation between the two men plays out amid the freezing darkness of an arctic winter, the fateful question arises: who will survive until spring?
With savage, unstoppable momentum and the blackest wit, Ian McGuire's The North Water weaves a superlative story of humanity under the most extreme conditions. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1963-64
• Where—Hull, England, UK
• Education—M.A., University of Sussex; Ph.D., University of Virginia
• Currently—lives in Manchester, England
Ian McGuire grew up near Hull, England. He studied at the University of Manchester, the University of Sussex where he earned his M.A., and the University of Virginia where he earned his Ph.D. in 19th-century American literature.
He has taught at Manchester University since 1996, first as a lecturer in American Literature and more recently as a lecturer in Creative Writing. He now co-directs the Centre for New Writing.
Writing
His first novel, Incredible Bodies (2006), a spoof of academic life and ambition, was described as "hugely entertaining" and "a 21st century Lucky Jim" by the (London) Times. The Sunday Times found it "very funny and disconcertingly sad," while John Mullan in the New Statesman referred to it as a "refreshingly low-minded campus novel."
His second novel, The North Water (2016) draws on his knowledge of American literature, particularly Melville. A thriller/adventure/survival narrative, the Independent called it "a stunning achievement, by turns great fun and shocking, thrilling and provocative" as well as "one of the finest books of the year."
McGuire has written and published on Whitman, Melville and Howells, and is particularly interested in the American realist tradition from the 1880s to the present day. In addition, his stories have been published in Chicago Review, Paris Review, and elsewhere. (Adapted from the publisher and Manchester Centre for New Writing.)
Book Reviews
[A] great white shark of a book—swift, terrifying, relentless and unstoppable…[McGuire's] exhaled his knowledge of literature into a gripping thriller that pulses with echoes of countless classics, from Melville's Moby-Dick…to Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket…Mr. McGuire is such a natural storyteller—and recounts his tale here with such authority and verve—that The North Water swiftly immerses the reader in a fully imagined world…it is also genuinely suspenseful, its plot catapulting dangerously toward a fateful confrontation between Drax and Sumner…. [McGuire] has written an allusion-filled novel that still manages to feel original, a violent tale of struggle and survival in a cinematically beautiful landscape reminiscent of the movie The Revenant but rendered with far more immediacy and considerably less self-importance.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Ian McGuire's riveting and darkly brilliant novel The North Water…feels like the result of an encounter between Joseph Conrad and Cormac McCarthy in some run-down port as they offer each other a long, sour nod of recognition…. McGuire has an extraordinary talent for picturing a moment, offering precise, sharp, cinematic details. When he has to describe complex action, he manages the physicality with immense clarity. He writes about violence with unsparing color and, at times, a sort of relish…. There is an intensity in the way [the characters] live, breathe, and respond to the world that etches them more deeply on the page and on the imagination of the reader…It is possible at certain moments to sense the battle between [Sumner and Drax] as a clash between darkness and light, good and evil. It is a mark of McGuire's subtlety as a novelist, however, that he leaves this in the shadows while placing at the forefront enough felt life and closely imagined detail to resist any simple categories. He allows each of the two men their due strangeness and individuality.
Colm Toibin - New York Times Book Review
Mesmerizing.... Told in grisly language that calls to mind Cormac McCarthy, The North Water begs such ontological questions as: What profit it a man who saves his skin but misplaces his soul?
Wall Street Journal
It is a vivid read, full of twists, turns, period detail and strong characters. The setting is original too, and the description of harpooning and flensing of a whale have been forever etched on my memory. This melodramatic blood and urine-stained tale is an enjoyable contrast to most literary fiction.
The Times (UK)
Uncompromising in its language, relentless in the unfolding of its blood-soaked narrative, this is not a novel for the squeamish, but it has exceptional power and energy.
Sunday Times (UK)
Terrific, seamed with pitch black humour and possessed of a momentum that's kept up to the final, unexpected but resoundingly satisfying scene….[I]nspired.
Daily Mail (UK)
The strength of The North Water lies in its well-researched detail and persuasive descriptions of the cold, violence, cruelty, and the raw, bloody business of whale-killing.
Guardian (UK)
Compared with this savage tale of Arctic survival, Leonardo DiCaprio’s bear-wrestling ordeal in The Revenant looks like something out of A. A. Milne…. McGuire expertly arranges all this mayhem, and the narrative is horrifically gripping. The North Water is smoothly readable despite the horrors it depicts, and that’s testament to the quality of McGuire’s prose. Such fine writing might have been lifted from the pages of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
Independent on Sunday (UK)
The North Water is a conspiracy thriller stuffed into the skin of a blood-and-guts whaling yarn.... The novel is a stunning achievement, by turns great fun and shocking, thrilling and provocative.... Behold: one of the finest books of the year.
Independent (UK)
McGuire delivers one bravura set-piece after another…. The North Water has, in places, a Conrad–Melville undercurrent, but for the most part it is Dickens’s influence that is most keenly felt….This is a stunning novel, one that snares the reader from the outset and keeps the tightest grip until its bitter end.
Financial Times (UK)
McGuire’s prose is fresh and vivid and his novel as a whole is atmospheric and intellectually fecund. Its surface might be awash with blood; but beneath it flows a current of dark and transporting beauty.
Spectator (UK)
Beware: this book is quite a ride. The violence is ghastly, the queasy sense of moral decay all-pervasive. McGuire makes Quentin Tarantino look like Jane Austen….the language has a harsh, surprising beauty that contrasts the spectacular setting with the greedy bankrupt men who force their way northward, armed with harpoons for slaughter.
New Statesman (UK)
McGuire’s novel is a dark, brilliant yarn set on a 19th-century Yorkshire whaler in the dead of winter.... There is no light, no letup in this gruesome tale, so there is great significance in the rare but moving acts of kindness and camaraderie between these men in peril. An amazing journey.
Publishers Weekly
McGuire delivers not only arresting depictions of bloody destruction, but moments of fine prose that recall Seamus Heaney's harsh music, as when an iceberg is described as "an albinistic butte unmoored from the desert floor." For noirish thrills in an unusual setting, McGuire has the goods and the gore, but this book—graphic in its violence, language, and sexual references—is not for the squeamish.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if they're made available. In the meantime, use these to kick off a discussion for The North Water...then take off on your own:
1. Reviewers have talked about the gruesome writing in The North Water. Were you disturbed by its blood and gore, its overt descriptions of violence? Is the violence sensationalized or is it important to the story? Does it, perhaps, reflect the novel's world view of a life that, in Thomas Hobbes's famous words, is "nasty, brutish, and short"—a world beset with fear, pain, and death?
2. Describe Henry Drax. Is he a monster? The Devil himself? He insists that "the law is just a name they give to what a certain kind of men prefer." What does he mean, and what are the ways in which he acts according to that belief?
3. How do the opening scenes with Drax portend future events or, at the very least, set the novel's narrative tone? What other events foreshadow, or hint at, future plot developments?
4. Patrick Sumner is the book's hero. How does he react to the dishonest, violent men who surround him? Talk about the secret Sumner harbors and the ways it has influenced his life decisions. What are his reasons for joining the whaling expedition? How does he change over the course of the voyage?
5. What do we gradually come to learn about Captain Bownlee?
6. The book suggests that the assertion of decency and morality in the face of corruption and violence is futile. Is that an overly cynical or dark assessment of this story? Is it representative of life in general?
7. Follow-up to Question 6: What is the moral response when horror is at the core of existence as it is on this ship...and in this story?
8. If you've read Moby-Dick or Conrad's Lord Jim or Heart of Darkness, can you identify some of the parallels found in McGuire's novel?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Norumbega Park
Anthony Giardina, 2012
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374278670
Summary
Richie Palumbo, the most prosaic of men, gets lost one night in 1969 while driving home with his family. He finds himself in the town of Norumbega—hidden, remote, and gorgeous, at the far edges of Boston’s western suburbs. He sees a venerable old house and, without quite knowing why, decides he must have it.
The repercussions of Richie’s wild dream to own a house in this town lead to a forty-year odyssey for his family. For his son, Jack, Norumbega becomes a sexual playground—until he meets one ungraspable girl and begins a lifelong pursuit of her. Joannie, Richie’s daughter, finds that the challenges of living in Norumbega encourage her to pursue the contemplative life. For Stella, Richie’s wife, life in Norumbega leads to surprising growth as both a sexual and a spiritual being.
Norumbega Park—by Anthony Giardina, the critically acclaimed author of White Guys—is about class and parental dreams, sex and spirituality, the way visions conflict with stubborn reality, and a family’s ability to open up for others a world they can never fully grasp for themselves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—Fordham University
• Currently—lives in Northhampton, Massachusetts
Anthony Giardina is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright. Anthony Giardina started his professional career as an actor. He switched to playwriting, and eventually began writing novels.
His work is particularly influenced by American culture in the 1950s. He was born in 1950 and grew up on a street in Waltham, Massachusetts, a largely Italian and Irish working class "sleeper" suburb of Boston on the trolley line to Cambridge. The protagonist's childhood neighborhood and schools in his book, Recent History, were largely modeled on Waltham.
According to the author, Recent History (2001) was marketed toward the "gay market." Though Giardina himself is not gay, he possesses a remarkable ability to express the internal dialogue and emotional motivations of a diverse range of characters.
Giardina's plays have been produced in New Haven, New York City, and Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to publications such as the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, and Harper's. His books include Men With Debts (1984), A Boy's Pretensions (1988), The Country of Marriage (stories, 1998), Recent History (2001), and White Guys (2006). His newest novel, Norumbega Park, was released in 2012.
Teaching
He has held teaching positions at Mount Holyoke College, the University of Rochester the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of Texas, Giardina currently teaches at Smith College.
Anthony Giardina says of his writing:
When I write fiction, I become the character I'm writing about, just as an actor becomes a character he's playing. You use parts of yourself, people you have known, things that have happened to you, but you're always aware that these things are being used to create a persona that's distinctly not you. Otherwise it wouldn't be any fun. (Author bio from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Norumbega Park, which moves from the late 1960s to the early 21st century, contains a good deal of graceful writing, especially in its initial sections. The subtle nuances of class; the charged eroticism between siblings, between husband and wife, between parents and children; the examination of faith and its loss — all are explored in rich, believable ways.
Jennifer Gilmore - New York Times Book Review
The beautiful, audacious fifth novel from author and playwright Anthony Giardina, follows the lives of Richie [Palumbo] and his family for 40 years.... Giardina is a master of prose that’s engaging but never seems rushed—he covers four decades in just over 300 pages. But his pacing remains natural and unhurried. His characters are as emotionally rich and complex as any you’ll find in the novels of Richard Ford, John Updike and Richard Yates.... Like Updike, [Giardina] deals with some uncomfortable themes—much of Norumbega Park deals with the delicate, sometimes awkward intersection of family and sexuality—but he handles them beautifully. And while many authors reflexively lapse into despair and pessimism, Giardina sticks with a truer kind of realism. Things might be bad; they might even be worse than they seem; but there’s always at least a chance of redemption.... There are countless emotional pitfalls authors can fall into, but Giardina has avoided every one, and the result is majestic—Norumbega Park is one of the bravest, most memorable American novels in years.
Michael Schaub - National Public Radio
One night in 1969, while driving with his family, Richie Palumbo accidentally discovers the (fictional) New England town of Norumbega, a WASPy enclave west of Boston, and falls in love at first sight with an old house near the town center—as well as what he and his family could become there. So begins Giardina’s contemplative new novel, which weaves the perspectives of the Palumbo family—wife Stella, son Jack, and daughter Joannie—over the course of 40 years as they struggle with faith, desire, and disappointment. Richie’s dreams prove elusive, and the Palumbos are ill-prepared for their new community: “The furniture they’d brought was full of the angles of an imagined future that, he realized now, had already dipped into the past.” Stella resists the town from the beginning, while Jack rebels against the weight of his father’s expectations by channeling his teenage energy and looks into seducing as many girls at Norumbega Regional High as he can. Joannie slips from her father’s grasp and becomes a cloistered nun. There are moments of grace and beauty—a late-night swim on an empty lake, an illicit glide across an iced-over pond—and Giardina (White Guys) effectively portrays the cloistered world of contemporary nuns. However, the characters’ malaise and dissatisfaction becomes claustrophobic.
Publishers Weekly
On an excursion beyond suburban Boston, Richie Palumbo stumbles across the town of Norumbega Park. While there, he has a vision of moving to the town and providing a perfect WASP environment for his children. He imagines himself as a pillar of the community, his wife as a society lady, his son as a popular athlete/scholar, and his daughter as a desirable, smart cheerleader type. Despite protests from his family, he settles them in Norumbega to live his dream. As with most dreams, reality doesn't quite match up. His son excels neither as a scholar nor as an athlete. His daughter joins a convent immediately after high school. His wife dies of cancer. Each character is left wondering how Richie's dream created the life they eventually led. Verdict: Giardina (White Guys) writes clearly and sympathetically about life's journey as he examines the turbulent waters where parental dreams and the aspirations of their children meet. This book will appeal to thoughtful fiction readers. Recommended. —Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
Genuine and deeply felt...Giardina places clauses side-by-side like blocks, no mortar visible, the lines of the structure straight and strong to create solid fiction that can contain and support all of our human longings.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A graceful novel of an American family struggling to find identity and spiritual meaning in an age resistant—and even hostile—to their fumbling attempts... [Norumbega Park] is a superb novel on every level, for Giardina fully fleshes out his characters as he scrutinizes their personal, family and social lives.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss Richie’s obsession with the Greeley house. What did it represent to him, the son of a Sicilian mason who had not wanted him to go to college? How do the novel’s epigraphs (about the land once called Norumbega) echo Richie’s dream? Is there a similar home or locale in your family history?
2. After leaving ComVac, Richie successfully runs a pizza parlor. Is it a step down for him to leave the white-collar world? How does Stella’s vision of success compare to her husband’s? How are Jack and Joan affected by their parents’ expectations?
3. In the closing scene of Part One, “Mr. Want” (pages 28–29), Jack tries to educate his sister about sex. She responds by writing “Jack is the devil” in her notebook. What does she learn from him that night?
4. What is the role of sexuality in the characters’ lives? How do gender and age affect their longing
and their joy, as well as their sense of guilt?
5. Does Joan’s immersion in the contemplative life appeal to you? What does the church seem to
offer her, from the time she was a little girl?
6. Is Elspeth’s father powerful only because he is wealthy? Why is he interested in financing Jack’s future, and in relying on Jack more than on his own children?
7. How does Jack’s attraction to Christina Thayer compare to his desire for Ellen Foley? As a wife and mother, what does Christina discover about herself when she tries to counsel Adam Goldstein (Chapter Two of Part Four, “The Heart’s Desire to Break”)? How does her marriage look from her point of view?
8. What are Angel and his children able to awaken in Joan that no one else could? How does she respond to the fact that his ancestry is different from hers? Why does race matter to Richie?
9. In Chapter Four of Part Five, “The Book of Joan” (page 280), Joan struggles to help Richie as they linger outside the house. Anthony Giardina writes, “This was the hardest, had always been the hardest, the way love was offered when you felt you least deserved it, despised yourself the most, how you had to rise to it. Love, that egomaniacal force, insisted on its rights. He wanted to push her away.” Do the characters in this novel believe they deserve to be loved? Do they overestimate their sins?
10. What relationship patterns are repeated across the generations in Norumbega Park? Are Zoe, Joe, and Julian poised to find more satisfaction than their parents had?
11. As Stella confronts mortality, why is Jack determined to find aggressive treatment for her? Is it as simple as wanting his mother to stay in his life? What drew her back to the pediatric unit at the chemotherapy center?
12. How does the setting of Norumbega and its lakes affect the characters? How does it set a different tone compared to the scenes in New York or Boston? What keeps the Palumbos from abandoning the house in Norumbega?
13. What does the novel say about the consequences of the American Dream? Should Richie feel guilty about the tactics he used to buy his dream house? In the end, how does he measure the value of his life?
14. Compare Norumbega Park to Anthony Giardina’s previous fiction that you have read. What themes of estrangement and belonging recur in his story lines? What aspects of love and power does his fiction help us understand?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
top of page (summary)
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less
Jeffrey Archer, 1976
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312997137
Summary
The conned: an Oxford don, a revered society physician, a chic French art dealer, and a charming English lord. They have one thing in common. Overnight, each novice investor lost his life's fortune to one man. The con: Harvey Metcalfe. A brilliant, self-made guru of deceit. A very dangerous individual. And now, a hunted man.
With nothing left to lose four strangers are about to come together—each expert in their own field. Their plan: find Harvey, shadow him, trap him, and penny-for-penny, destroy him. From the luxurious casinos of Monte Carlo to the high-stakes windows at Ascot to the bustling streets of Wall Street to fashionable London galleries, their own ingenious game has begun. It's called revenge—and they were taught by a master. (From the author's website.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 15, 1940
• Where—London; raised in Somerset, England, UK
• Education—Oxford University; Oxford Institute
• Currently—lives in London and the Old Vicarage,
Grantchester
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare is a best-selling English author and former politician whose political career ended with his conviction and subsequent imprisonment (2001–03) for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Alongside his literary work, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–74), deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–86) and was made a life peer in 1992.
Early years
Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in the City of London Maternity Hospital. He was two weeks old when his family moved to the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where he spent most of his early life. He has an older brother born out of wedlock, also originally called Jeffrey, who was put up for adoption at an early age. The brother assumed the name David Brown and only discovered his relationship to Archer in 1980.
In 1951 Archer won a scholarship to Wellington School, in Somerset (not to be confused with the public school Wellington College). At this time his mother, Lola, contributed a column "Over the Teacups" to the local press in Weston-super-Mare and wrote about the adventures of her son 'Tuppence'; this caused Archer to be the victim of bullying while at Wellington School.
After Archer left school passing O-levels in English Literature, Art, and History, he worked in a number of jobs, including training with the army and for the police. This lasted only for a few months, but he fared better as a Physical Education teacher; first at Vicar's Hill, a Prep School in Hampshire where he taught fencing amongst other sports, later at the more prestigious independent school Dover College in Kent. As a teacher he was popular with pupils and was reported by some to have had good motivational skills, helping to instil personal confidence in the less confident.
Archer studied for three years, gaining an academic qualification in teaching awarded by the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. The course was based at Brasenose College, Oxford, although Archer was never registered as an undergraduate student of the College.
He raised money for the charity Oxfam, obtaining the support of The Beatles in a charity fundraising drive. The band accepted his invitation to visit the senior common room of Brasenose College, where they were photographed with Archer and dons of the college, although they did not play there.
It was during this period that Archer met his wife, Mary Weeden, at that time studying chemistry at St Anne's College, Oxford. They married in July 1966. Mary went on to specialise in solar power.
Early career
After leaving Oxford, he continued as a charity fundraiser, working for the National Birthday Trust, a medical charity. He also began a career in politics, serving as a Conservative councillor on the Greater London Council during 1967–70.
One organization Archer worked for, the United Nations Association, alleged discrepancies in his claims for expenses, and details appeared in the press in a scrambled form. Archer brought a defamation action against the former Conservative member of parliament Humphry Berkeley, chairman of the UNA, as the source of the allegations. The case was settled out of court after three years. Berkeley tried to persuade Conservative Central Office that Archer was unsuitable as a parliamentary candidate, but a selection meeting at Louth disregarded any doubts.
Archer set up his own fund-raising company, Arrow Enterprises, in 1969. That same year he opened an art gallery, the Archer Gallery, in Mayfair. The gallery specialised in modern art, including pieces by the acclaimed sculptor and painter Leon Underwood. The gallery ultimately lost money, however, and Archer sold it two years later.
Writing career
His first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was published in 1976. The book was an instant success, with BBC Television adapting the book in 1990, following a BBC radio adaptation in the early 1980s.
Kane and Abel proved to be his best-selling works, reaching number one on the New York Times bestsellers list. It was made into a television mini-series by CBS in 1985, starring Peter Strauss and Sam Neill. The following year, Granada TV screened a ten-part adaptation of another Archer bestseller, First Among Equals, which told the story of four men and their quest to become Prime Minister.
In 2011, Archer published Only Time Will Tell, the first of what will be five books in The Clifton Chronicles, which follow the life of Harry Clifton from his birth in 1920, through to the finale in 2020.
Political career
At 29, Archer was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lincolnshire constituency of Louth, holding the seat for the Conservative Party in a by-election on 4 December 1969. Archer won over a substantial proportion of younger members at the selection meeting.
In Parliament, Archer was on the left of the Conservative Party, rebelling against some of his party's policies. He urged free TV licences for the elderly and was against museum charges. Archer voted against restoring capital punishment, saying it was barbaric and obscene.
In 1974, he was a casualty of a fraudulent investment scheme involving Aquablast, a Canadian company, a debacle which lost Archer his first fortune. Fearing imminent bankruptcy, he stood down as an MP at the October 1974 general election. By this time the Archers were living in a large five-bedroom house in The Boltons, an exclusive street in South Kensington. As a result of the Aquablast affair, they were forced to sell the house and move into more modest accommodation for a while.
Archer's political career revived once he became known for his novels and as a popular speaker among the Conservative grassroots. He was made deputy chairman of the Conservative Party by Margaret Thatcher in September 1985.
During his tenure as deputy chairman, Archer was responsible for a number of embarrassing moments, including his statement, made during a live radio interview, that many young, unemployed people were simply unwilling to find work. At the time of Archer's comment, unemployment in the UK stood at a record 3.4 million. Archer was later forced to apologise for the remark, suggesting that his words had been "taken out of context."
Scandals and trials
In 1986 Archer was the subject of an article in The News of the World, "Tory boss Archer pays vice-girl." The story claimed Archer had paid Monica Coghlan, a prostitute, £2,000 through an intermediary at Victoria Station to go abroad.
When the Daily Star also alleged Archer had paid for sex with Coghlan, he responded by suing that paper. The case came to court in July 1987. Explaining the payment to Coghlan as the action of a philanthropist rather than that of a guilty man, Archer won the case and was awarded £500,000 damages. Archer stated he would donate the money to charity. This case would ultimately result in Archer's final exit from front-line politics some years later.
Archer lost a libel case after accusations in his book Twist in the Tale, portraying Major General James Oluleye to be a thief. (Oluleye is the author of Architecturing a Destiny and Military Leadership in Nigeria.)
In 1994, Mary Archer, then a director of Anglia Television, attended a directors' meeting at which an impending takeover of Anglia Television by MAI, which owned Meridian Broadcasting, was discussed. The following day, Jeffrey Archer bought 50,000 shares in Anglia Television, acting on behalf of a friend, Broosk Saib. Shortly after this, it was announced publicly that Anglia Television would be taken over by MAI. As a result the shares jumped in value, whereupon Archer sold them on behalf of his friend for a profit of £77,219. The arrangements he made with the stockbrokers meant he did not have to pay at the time of buying the shares.
An inquiry was launched by the Stock Exchange into possible insider trading. The Department of Trade and Industry, however, announced that Archer would not be prosecuted due to lack of sufficient evidence.
In 1999, Archer had been selected by the Conservative Party as candidate for the 2000 London mayoral election. But when the News of the World published allegations that he had committed perjury in his 1987 libel case (see above), Archer withdrew his candidacy.
After the allegations, Archer was disowned by his party. Conservative leader William Hague explained: "This is the end of politics for Jeffrey Archer. I will not tolerate such behaviour in my party." In 2000 Archer was expelled from the party for five years. In July, 2001, Archer was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice at the 1987 trial. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, though released after two.
Peerage
When Saddam Hussein suppressed Kurdish uprisings in 1991, Archer, with the Red Cross, set up the charity Simple Truth, a fundraising campaign on behalf of the Kurds. In 1992 Archer was made a life peer, as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, of Mark in the County of Somerset. Prime minister John Major recommended him largely because of his role in aid to the Kurds.
Novels
Kane and Abel series
–Shall We Tell the President? (1977)
–Kane and Abel (1980)
–The Prodigal Daughter (1982)
Not A Penny More, Not A Penny Less (1976)
First Among Equals (1984)
A Matter of Honour (1986)
As the Crow Flies (1991)
Honour Among Thieves (1993)
The Fourth Estate (1996)
The Eleventh Commandment (1998)
Sons of Fortune (2002)
False Impression (2005)
A Prisoner of Birth (2008)
Paths of Glory (2009)
Only Time Will Tell (2011)
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Cunning plots, silken style.... Archer plays a cat-and-mouse game with the reader.
New York Times
One of the top ten storytellers in the world.
Los Angeles Times
Archer...has an extraordinary talent for turning notoriety into gold, and telling fast-moving stories.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Archer is one of the most captivating storytellers writing today. His novels are dramatic, fast moving, totally entertaining—and almost impossible to put down.
Pittsburgh Press
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 Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less:
1. Which of the victims' scams did you find the funniest? The most clever? Were any of them believable...or is that beside the point?
2. In what way do the four men use Metcalf's own personal idiosyncrasies against him?
2. Was the ending satisfying? Were you surprised by the plot twist at the end, oo did you find it predictable? In hindsight were there any clues to prepare you for the end? Or is the ending sprung on you from left-field.
3. This is obviously a plot-driven novel, which means little concern about character development. Nonetheless, do you find any of the characters convincing or particularly memorable? Any favorites?
4. Ocassionally, authors make their villains likable. Do feel that way about Metcalf? If so, what makes him likable. If not, why?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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