Barkskins
Annie Proulx, 2016
Scribner
736 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743288781


Summary
Annie Proulx's new masterwork: an epic, dazzling, violent, magnificently dramatic novel about the taking down of the world’s forests.

In the late seventeenth century two penniless young Frenchmen, Rene Sel and Charles Duquet, arrive in New France. Bound to a feudal lord, a "seigneur," for three years in exchange for land, they become wood-cutters—barkskins.

Rene suffers extraordinary hardship, oppressed by the forest he is charged with clearing. He is forced to marry a Mi’kmaw woman and their descendants live trapped between two inimical cultures.

But Duquet, crafty and ruthless, runs away from the seigneur, becomes a fur trader, then sets up a timber business.

Proulx tells the stories of the descendants of Sel and Duquet over three hundred years—their travels across North America, to Europe, China, and New Zealand, under stunningly brutal conditions—the revenge of rivals, accidents, pestilence, Indian attacks, and cultural annihilation. Over and over again, they seize what they can of a presumed infinite resource, leaving the modern-day characters face to face with possible ecological collapse.

Proulx’s inimitable genius is her creation of characters who are so vivid—in their greed, lust, vengefulness, or their simple compassion and hope—that we follow them with fierce attention.

Annie Proulx is one of the most formidable and compelling American writers, and Barkskins is her greatest novel, a magnificent marriage of history and imagination. (From the publisher.)

Keep your eye out for the National Geographic channel's adaptation of Barkskins, currently under development (as of mid-2016).

Author Bio
• Birth—August 22, 1935
• Where—Norwich, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Vermont; M.A., Sir George Williams University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, 1994; PEN/Faulkner, 1993
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington

 
Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx did not set out to be a writer. She studied history in school, acquiring both her bachelor's and her master's degrees and abandoning her doctorate only in the face of a pessimistic job market. Something of a free spirit, she married and divorced three times and ended up raising three sons and a daughter single-handedly. She settled in rural Vermont, living in a succession of small towns where she worked as a freelance journalist and spent her free time in the great outdoors, hunting, fishing, and canoeing.

Although she wrote prolifically, most of Proulx's early work was nonfiction. She penned articles on weather, farming, and construction, and contracted for a series of rural "how tos" for magazines like Yankee and Organic Gardening. She also founded the Vershire Behind the Times, a monthly newspaper filled with colorful features and vignettes of small-town Vermont life. All this left little time for fiction, but she averaged a couple of stories a year, nearly all of which were accepted for publication.

Prominent credits in two editions of Best American Short Stories led to the publication in 1988 of Heart Songs and Other Stories, a first collection of Proulx's short fiction. Set in blue-collar New England, these "perfectly pitched stories of mysterious revenges and satisfactions" (the Guardian) received rapturous reviews.

With the encouragement of her publisher, Proulx released her first novel in 1992. The story of a fractured New England farm family, Postcards went on to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. She scored an even greater success the following year when her darkly comic Newfoundland set piece, The Shipping News, scooped both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. One year before her 60th birthday, Proulx had become an authentic literary celebrity.

Since then, the author has alternated between short and long fiction, garnering numerous accolades and honors along the way. Giving the lie to the literary adage "write what you know," her curiosity has led her into interesting, unfamiliar territory: Before writing The Shipping News, she made more than seven extended trips to Newfoundland, immersing herself in the culture and speech of its inhabitants; similarly, she weaved staggering amounts of musical arcana into her 1996 novel Accordion Crimes. She is known for her keen powers of observation—passed on, she says, from her mother, an artist and avid naturalist—and for her painstaking research, a holdover from her student days.

In 1994, Proulx left Vermont for the wide open spaces of Wyoming—a move that inspired several memorable short stories, including the O. Henry Award winner "Brokeback Mountain." First published in The New Yorker and included in the 1999 collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories, this tale of a doomed love affair between two Wyoming cowboys captured the public imagination when it was turned into an Oscar-winning 2005 film by director Ang Lee.

Lionized by most critics, Proulx is, nevertheless, not without her detractors. Indeed, her terse prose, eccentric characters, startling descriptions, and stylistic idiosyncrasies (run-on sentences followed by sentence fragments) are not the literary purist's cup of tea. But few writers can match her brilliance at manipulating language, evoking place and landscape, or weaving together an utterly mesmerizing story with style and grace.

Extras
• Proulx was the first woman to win the prestigious Pen/Faulkner Award. (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Annie Proulx is on the side of the angels. We need more writers like her to hammer home the message that we had better stop mistreating one another and our planet. Unfortunately, hammering is just what she does, as when she annotates a senator's remark that "the Constitution was made by whites for whites." ("After all," she inserts, "who else was there?" Ha, ha.) The whole novel suffers such two-dimensionality.... [Still,] Proulx is particularly effective in conveying the effect of one generation on the next.... The root cause of our self-impoverishment is thoughtfully teased out in Barkskins.
William T. Vollman - New York Times Book Review


Magnificent... Barkskins flies... One of the chief pleasures of Proulx’s prose is that it conveys you to so many vanished wildwoods, where you get to stand ‘tiny and amazed in the kingdom of pines.’ This is also the great sadness of Barkskins. The propulsive tension here is generated not by wondering what will happen to each character, but by knowing that the forests will be leveled one after another... If Barkskins doesn’t bear exquisite witness to our species’s insatiable appetite for consumption, nothing can.
Anthony Doerr - Outside Magazine


(Starred review.) Barkskins is remarkable...for its scope and ambition—it spans more than 300 years and includes a cast of dozens. It’s a monumental achievement, one that will perhaps be remembered as her finest work.... [T]he kind of immersive reading experience that only comes along every few years. —Gabe Habash
Publishers Weekly


Rene Sel and Charles Duquet arrive in New France in the 1600s, penniless woodcutters bound to a seigneur (feudal lord), longing for freedom.... Proulx's intricate, powerful meditation on colonialism is both enthralling and edifying, each chapter building to the moving finale. —Stephanie Sendaula
Library Journal


(Starred review.) [A] rigorously researched, intrepidly imagined, complexly plotted, and vigorously written multigenerational epic. [With an] extensive and compelling cast, Proulx’s commanding epic about the annihilation of our forests is nothing less than a sylvan Moby-Dick replete..
Booklist


(Starred review.) Proulx moves into Michener territory with a vast multigenerational story of the North Woods.... Proulx's story builds in depth and complication without becoming unduly tangled and is always told with the most beautiful language. Another tremendous book from Proulx.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Why does Barkskins begin with Charles Duquet and Rene Sel? Discuss their similarities and differences. How do these two characters influence not only their descendants but also the three-hundred-year course of the narrative?

2. Monsieur Trepagny says, "Men must change this land in order to live in it," and "To be a man is to clear the forest" (p. 17). Why does he believe this? What does Rene seem to believe about the forest and about being a man?

3. Wuqua’s garden, the Garden of Delightful Confusion, "pulled something inside Duquet as a child pulls a toy with a string" (p. 91) and stirs him "with an indefinable sensation" (p. 92). Why is Duquet, typically jaded and unimpressed, so moved by his experiences in China?

4. After Duquet wounds one of the trespassers, a boy, on his pine property, why do the boy’s cries of "Help. Me." and the gaze of the owl in the trees (p. 137) drive Duquet into a murderous fury? Why do the attempted theft and the boy enrage him so?

5. As Rene’s children Zoë, Noe, Achille, Theotiste and Elphege make their way to Mi’kma’ki, the "journey was rough underfoot and circuitous in their minds" (p. 168). Each hopes for different things and changes in different ways. How is each child affected? Why is Mi’kmaw country so powerful for them?

6. When Achille encounters a whale while fishing with his friends, the whale says to him, in Sosep’s voice, "You are not" (p. 185). After losing his family to the English, Achille claims, "I hunt no more. My life here is finished. I am not" (p. 195). Why does this phrase stay with Achille? What does it mean?

7. When Kuntaw meets Beatrix and she says, "I need you, Indian man. Follow," he feels that he stumbles "out of the knotted forest and onto a shining path" (p. 203). Yet when Beatrix’s health fails, "when she most needed him . . . he veered away from her" (p. 287). Why do they pull away from each other in the end, Beatrix falling in love with the doctor and Kuntaw fixating on the "One Who Would Come"?

8. Beatrix explains to Dr. Mukhtar that she can express affection only by teaching and offering books (p. 294). Where else is this connection between education and affection present in Barkskins? What other characters show their love this way?

9. The day after their wedding, Posey and James Duke discover they may be ill-suited, and James insists, " ‘We must talk all of this out.’ He believed in reason, though it was unreasonable to do so" (p. 372). How does this counterbalance of reason and unreason characterize their relationship?

10. Why, after all the tragedies Jinot endures, is it the women’s rejection of him in the kumara field that makes "the old, smiling, merry Jinot" evaporate, replaced by an "aging man who had known sorrow and difficulty and now, painful rejection" (p. 428)? Why these women and in this place?

11. Posey tells Lavinia that "if you know from experience what others must do to earn a living you will be a better person with a deeper knowledge of others. I have no use for the weak and helpless woman. You may need independence in your life, for women are too often taken advantage of—no one knows this better than I" (p. 491). Later, Lavinia is inspired by Angelique and her hammer and the image of an "army of young women advancing into the forests" (p. 507). How do these influences shape Lavinia and her actions throughout the rest of her life?

12. When Aaron Sel learns of his father Junot’s death in New Zealand, where Aaron refused to go, he feels "an interior ripping as though something was pulling at his lungs" and says, "I was a bad and stupid person before, maybe I still am that person but I think I am different." Peter Sel replies that "A man can get better" (p. 599). How does Aaron make himself better? What does he mean when he says, "I drink the shadow now. I find it good" (p. 601).

13. Throughout Barkskins we see the healing powers of the trees and the forests, from the Mi’kmaq and their medicines to Conrad Duke finding peace in trees after World War II (p. 664) to Afghanistan vet Tom who sees his fallen brothers in larches (p. 710). In what other ways do the forests heal people?

14. How does "runaway Egga, the direct descendant of Charles Duquet and Rene Sel" (p. 622) reflect his forbears? How is he different from them?

15. "In every life there are events that reshape one’s sense of existence. Afterward, all is different and the past is dimmed." (p. 49) Discuss moments like this for characters throughout the novel. What are your favorite moments? Which made you laugh? Which were unexpected?

16. Is it fitting that the novel closes with Sapatisia Sel and her forest restoration group? Where is Onehube driving? Why does Sapatisia groan, "Oh God, oh God! Put out the moon!" (p. 713)?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Barrowfields 
Phillip Lewis, 2017
Crown/Archetype
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451495648


Summary
A richly textured coming-of-age story about fathers and sons, home and family, recalling classics by Thomas Wolfe and William Styron, by a powerful new voice in fiction.

Just before Henry Aster’s birth, his father—outsized literary ambition and pregnant wife in tow—reluctantly returns to the small Appalachian town in which he was raised and installs his young family in an immense house of iron and glass perched high on the side of a mountain.

There, Henry grows up under the writing desk of this fiercely brilliant man. But when tragedy tips his father toward a fearsome unraveling, what was once a young son’s reverence is poisoned and Henry flees, not to return until years later when he, too, must go home again.
 
Mythic in its sweep and mesmeric in its prose, The Barrowfields is a breathtaking debut about the darker side of devotion, the limits of forgiveness, and the reparative power of shared pasts. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1971 (?)
• Where—the state of North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Carolina; J.D., Campbell School of Law
• Currently—lives in Charlotte, North Carolina


Phillip Lewis is an American attorney and author who was born and raised in the mountains of western North Carolina. His debut novel, The Barrowfields, was published in 2017. His law practice focuses primarily on real estate law in his home state.

In addition to writing literary fiction, Phillip plays several musical instruments, collects rare books, and studies language. Phillip also enjoys distance running, kayaking, and riding his mountain bike at the U.S. National Whitewater Center. He is a member of the Thomas Wolfe Society and the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Adapted from Hortak Talley.)

Book Reviews
The Barrowfields, with its almost Victorian title, offers in its own ways the pleasures of older novels, with their coziness and sweep, and their tacit belief that family is destiny. The prose has the beautiful attention to detail that embeds us in place.… At the core of this story is an alcoholic father stuck on notions of his own genius — a figure left over from the last century. My one quibble with the book was that I was waiting for Lewis to suggest a critique of this myth. Assumptions have changed. That said, The Barrowfields is a work of abundant talent.
Joan Silber - New York Times Book Review


In this charming, absorbing, and assured debut novel, a young man tries to make sense of his father’s life and the passions that unite them—namely, a devotion to literature.…  [Lewis's] prose is bracingly erudite. This debut has the ability to fully immerse its readers.
Publishers Weekly


[S]mall discrepancies…detract from the novel's credibility. Verdict: The devil is in the details in Lewis's first novel, which is wide in scope yet somewhat uneven in pacing and in the particulars. —Susanne Wells, Indianapolis P.L.
Library Journal


In his evocative debut about disenchantment and identity, Lewis captures the longing of a southerner separated from his home, his family, and his ambition.… Like fellow North Carolinian Thomas Wolfe, Lewis tackles the conflicting choice between accepting one’s roots and rejecting the past, and he does so with grace, wit, and an observant eye.
Booklist


Amid family tragedy, a young man flees the peculiar home of his youth only to return years later.… Promising but unfocused, this finely wrought debut novel would've benefited from more ruthless editing.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the nature of the town of Old Buckram in the mountains of North Carolina. Have you ever been to a town like this? Do you think it is based on a real place in North Carolina or elsewhere?

2. Talk about the decaying gothic mansion in Old Buckram where the Asters lived. Do you think the house served as another character in the story? Was the house haunted? Did Henry, as the narrator, try to dispel the notion that the house was haunted through his descriptions of it over time?

3. Discuss Henry’s relationship with his father, first as a 10-year-old child, and then later as a 16-year-old boy. Did Henry’s view of his father change during this time? What was most responsible for bringing about the change? Did Henry ever see his father as a hero, and if not, should he have?

4. Why did Henry’s father feel so compelled to complete his magnum opus (his novel) before the death of his mother, Maddy? What prevented him from doing so?

5. Why was it important for Henry that his father intercede to prevent Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying from being banned by the county and later burned on a pyre? Discuss the repercussions of this event for both Henry and his father.

6. Did you blame Henry for never returning to his mother or sister after he left for college? Why was he unable to return?

7. Discuss Henry’s relationship with his sister, Threnody. Why were they so close at an early age, and why did Henry allow them to grow apart?

8. Despite a physical attraction, what was it about Story that drew Henry’s attention to her so dramatically? Did he suspect that she had a traumatic event in her past that might link the two of them?

9. Are Henry’s efforts toward helping Story address her issues with her own father a way for him to repent for his abandonment of Threnody? What was it about Story and her relationship with her father that brought about Henry’s reconciliation with Threnody?

10. Does young Henry’s repression of painful memories as a psychological defense mechanism shape the way and order in which he tells his father’s story, as well as the story of his relationship with Threnody?

11. Discuss the role of the Barrowfields in the story. Were the Barrowfields intended to be representative of a larger theme in the book (for example, pertaining to Henry’s father)?

12. Discuss the role of “burning” in the story, and the irony of Henry’s father saving Faulkner’s book from destruction while not his own.

13. Given the numerous opportunities in the book for magical realism or surrealism (such as the macabre gothic mansion, the Barrowfields, and the witch horse), why do you think the author opted to resolve each such opportunity with stark realism?

14. Did you discover that many of the place names and character names have some extrinsic significance? For example, “Old Buckram” refers to “buckram,” which is a material that is used to make book covers (such that much of the story takes place within the covers of an old book). “Avernus,” the family cemetery, derives from a word used to refer to the entrance to the underworld. “Harold Specks,” the mountain priest who gave the sermon at Maddy’s funeral, is based on “haruspex.”

15. Did the ultimate fate of Henry’s father surprise you? What were the two events that were most salient in driving him to his eventual fate, and how were they related?

16. Why was Henry incapable of divulging his father’s fate until the end of the book? Had he been intellectually honest with himself about this father until his discussion with Threnody about their father, and would he have shared this information with the reader if not for the discussion he had with Threnody about the day of his father’s departure?

17. Whose fate in the story was ultimately more tragic: Henry’s father or Henry’s mother?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Bartleby and Benito Cereno 
Herman Melville, 1853 and 1856
Dover Publications
112 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780486264738


Summary
(This slender volume by Dover contains two of Melville's best-known stories. We have developed a set of discussion questions below for each story.)

When a New York lawyer needs to hire another copyist, it is Bartleby who responds to his advertisement, and arrives "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn." At first a diligent employee, he soon begins to refuse work, saying only "I would prefer not to." So begins the story of Bartleby—passive to the point of absurdity yet extremely disturbing—which rapidly turns from farce to inexplicable tragedy.

Accompanying "Bartleby" is a second short story, "Benito Cereno," a harrowing tale of slavery and revolt aboard a Spanish ship—and regarded by many as Melville's finest short story. (Adapted from the Penguin edition.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 1, 1819
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Death—September 28, 1891
• Where—New York, New York
• Education—Albany Academy until age 15


Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet, whose work is often classified as part of the genre of dark romanticism. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and novella Billy Budd, the latter of which was published posthumously.

Melville was born in New York City in 1819, as the third child of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill. (After her husband Allan died, Maria added an "e" to the family surname.) Allan Melvill sent his sons to the New York Male School (Columbia Preparatory School). Overextended financially and emotionally unstable, Allan eventually declared bankruptcy, dying soon afterward and leaving his family penniless when Herman was 12.

Melville attended the Albany Academy from October 1830 to October 1831, and again from October 1836 to March 1837, where he studied the classics. Melville's roving disposition and a desire to support himself led him to seek work as a surveyor on the Erie Canal. This effort failed, and his brother helped him get a job as a cabin boy on a New York ship bound for Liverpool. He made the voyage, and returned on the same ship. Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) is partly based on his experiences of this journey.

After teaching for a stint (1837-1840), Melville spent the next four years at sea, travelling in the South Pacific Ocean, stopping off for periods in Hawaii and the Marquesas Islands (where he lived mong the Typee natives). He returned to Boston in 1844. These experiences were described in Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), and White-Jacket (1850), which gave Melville overnight notoriety as a writer and adventurer.

In 1847, Melville married Elizabeth Shaw (daughter of chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Lemuel Shaw); the couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. In 1850 they purchased Arrowhead, a farm house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, now a museum. Here Melville lived for thirteen years, occupied with his writing and managing his farm. While living at Arrowhead, he befriended the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived in nearby Lenox. Melville, an intellectual loner for most of his life, was tremendously inspired and encouraged by his new relationship with Hawthorne during the period he was writing Moby-Dick (1851). Melville dedicated that work to Hawthorne, though their friendship was on the wane only a short time later, when Melville wrote Pierre (1852). Sadly, these works did not achieve the popular and critical success of his earlier books.

His The Confidence-Man (1857), winning general acclaim in modern times, received contemporary reviews ranging from the bewildered to the denunciatory.

By 1866 his professional writing career can be said to have come to an end. To repair his faltering finances, Melville's wife and her relatives used their influence to obtain a position for him as customs inspector for the City of New York (a humble but adequately paying appointment), and he held the post for 19 years. In a notoriously corrupt institution, Melville soon won the reputation of being the only honest employee of the customs house.

As his professional fortunes waned, Melville's marriage was unhappy, plagued by rumors of his alcoholism and insanity and allegations that he inflicted physical abuse on his wife. Her relatives repeatedly urged her to leave him, and offered to have him committed as insane, but she refused.

In 1867 his oldest son, Malcolm, shot himself, perhaps accidentally. While Melville worked, his wife managed to wean him off alcohol, and he no longer showed signs of agitation or insanity. But recurring depression was added-to by the death of his second son, Stanwix, in San Francisco early in 1886.

Melville retired in 1886, after several of his wife's relatives died and left the couple legacies that Mrs. Melville administered with skill and good fortune.

Upon his death in September 1891, he left an unfinished piece; not until the literary scholar Raymond Weaver published it in 1924 did the book—which we now know as Billy Budd, Sailor—come to light. Later it was turned into an opera by Benjamin Britten, a play, and a film by Peter Ustinov. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
(Sorry. For classic works there are few, if any, mainstream reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer 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 both "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "Benito Cereno":

Questions for "Bartleby the Scrivener"

1. How does the narrator describe himself at the onset of the story? It's important to establish his character early on so as to determine the accuracy of his self-portrayal and the degree to which it seems to change throughout the course of the story. He tells us, for instance, that "he does a snug business" in his "snug retreat"; he's safe and prudent. What else does he tell us?

2. How does the lawyer describe Bartleby as he first appears? What do you make of Bartleby...and how does your idea of him change during the story?

3. There are numerous mentions of the word "wall" in this story. What symbolic significance does it have to the story? Consider, for instance, that Bartleby is isolated from the other copyists, placed with his desk facing a wall. What effect might this have had on him?

4. What is the significance of the fact that the story occurs in the financial district of New York? How well does the narrator accommodate himself to his surroundings—and how well does Bartleby fit in?

5. Discuss the other workers in the office, Bartleby's colleagues. Can you sense Melville's humor as he writes about the office situation?

6. What is the significance of Bartleby's resistance? What does it mean? Don't feel the need to take Bartleby "literally"; consider what he might represent, metaphorically.

7. How does the narrator react when Bartleby makes his first utterance, "I would prefer not to"? How does he continue to react to Bartleby...and why?

8. When the narrator discovers that Bartleby is living in the office, he had been on his way to church. But he changes his mind and decides not to attend. Why? What does this say about his religious beliefs, particularly in light of the fact that he considers Bartleby " a lost soul"? Overall, how does the lawyer's discovery of Bartleby affect him? What does he come to feel? Do you think these are novel emotions for him?

9. Bartleby refuses to leave when dismissed. Discuss the irony of the lawyer and his decision to move his office. What happens during the confrontation with Bartelby...what does the lawyer offer him? Why does he still feel responsible for Bartleby?

10. When, at the end, the narrator says that Bartleby is sleeping "with kings and counselors." What does he mean? And why might Wall Street have had a role in Bartleby's demise? What is the significance of the story's final words, "Ah, humanity"?

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

_________________

Questions for "Benito Cereno"

1. Captain Delano is a curious figure. How would you describe him? Discuss his "blindness" to what's going on around him. What are the numerous—and obvious—signs that he continues to misinterpret? How does he explain away things that initially trouble him?

2. Why might Melville have chosen Delano to tell the story, in order that we see the story through his eyes? Do we fall prey to the same tunnel vision as he does?

3. How does Delano represent "benign racism"? What are his views of the slaves on the ship?

4. "Follow your leader" is an expression used throughout the story, and its meaning differs according to who utters it. Talk about the different meanings it has. What irony lies behind the phrase—does Delano, for instance, think that slaves are capable of leadership?

5. Melville wrote this story in 1856, five years before the Civil War broke out. It was a time frought with politics that pitted northern abolitionists against large land- and slave-owners in the South. What would Melville's position have been—can you guess from this story? Who was he warning...what morality is at stake? Consider the fact that both Cereno and Babo die by the end.

6. The story has been posited as cautionary tale of good vs. evil. But who in this story represents the good—and who repsents the evil? There is depravity on both sides...is one depravity worse or less than another?

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

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Be Frank with Me 
Julia Claiborne Johnson, 2016
HarperCollins
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062413710


Summary
Reclusive literary legend M. M. "Mimi" Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years. But after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff-style ponzi scheme, she’s flat broke.

Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. The prickly Mimi reluctantly complies—with a few stipulations: No Ivy-Leaguers or English majors.

Must drive, cook, tidy. Computer whiz. Good with kids. Quiet, discreet, sane.

When Alice Whitley arrives at the Banning mansion, she’s put to work right away—as a full-time companion to Frank, the writer’s eccentric nine-year-old, a boy with the wit of Noel Coward, the wardrobe of a 1930s movie star, and very little in common with his fellow fourth-graders.

As she slowly gets to know Frank, Alice becomes consumed with finding out who Frank’s father is, how his gorgeous "piano teacher and itinerant male role model" Xander fits into the Banning family equation—and whether Mimi will ever finish that book.

Full of heart and countless "only-in-Hollywood" moments, Be Frank with Me is a captivating and unconventional story of an unusual mother and son, and the intrepid young woman who finds herself irresistibly pulled into their unforgettable world. (From the pubisher.)

Author Bio
Julia Claiborne Johnson worked at Mademoiselle and Glamour magazines before marrying and moving to Los Angeles, where she lives with her comedy-writer husband and their two children. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Frank Banning may be the most endearing scene-stealer you’ll ever meet in the pages of a book.... Johnson proves it’s possible to write a comic novel that, at times, is heartbreaking.
Richmond Times-Dispatch


Readers will find themselves captivated.
People


Hilarious, poignant and full of unexpected gems, BE FRANK WITH ME illuminates the strange ways literature can parallel life, and introduces readers to one of the most charming, lovable and maddening children in fiction.
Huffington Post


Delightful. You will laugh out loud.
Slate


Witty dialogue, irresistible characters, and a touch of mystery make this sweet debut about a quirky Hollywood family an enjoyable page-turner.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Johnson's magnificently poignant, funny, and wholly original debut goes beyond page-turner status. Readers will race to the next sentence. And the next. Her charming, flawed, quietly courageous characters, each wonderfully different, demand a second reading while we impatiently await the author's second work. —Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal


Poor Alice has her hands full navigating these socially disabled characters through the disasters they bring upon themselves while also endeavoring to solve mysteries about their past and getting tangled up with their sexy family friend Xander. The curious incident of where'd you go, Salinger: clever, sweet, but a bit derivative.
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 start a discussion for Be Frank with Me...then take off on your own:

1. What's the matter with M.M. Banning—not just that she was swindled out of a fortune...but what's really wrong with her? Deeply wrong?

2. Frank never receives a "formal diagnosis" in the book. Does he need one? Would you consider him Asperger-ish? Describe some of his more unusual qualities, especially his sartorial habits. Do you find him endearing...or not?

3. What is Alice like? She appears naive, but is she? Would you say that's she's the ideal person for the job? In what way might you say she's a foil for Alice?

4. Follow up to Question 3: Why is Alice so interested in finding out who Frank's father is?

5. Why does Mimi never warm up to Alice?

6. Comparisons have been made with this book and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. If you've read Mark Haddon's novel, do you see similarities between the two books?

7. Mimi describes the other mothers in California this way:

If you ask me, I think every small town mean girl in America who's pretty but not much else comes out here to die. The ones who smile like lunatics and wear yoga pants all day are the worst. At PTA meetings they're like those chickens that have to wear tiny glasses in poultry barns so they won't peck each other's eyes out.

If you're from California, does this description offend you? Or does it fit? If you're not from California, do you know people (men or women) like this?

8. Zander—what about him? He seems reliable but not always, and he can't seem to commit to anyone. Why not? Once Zander enters the story, the focus of the novel shifts. What does his character bring to the plot?

9. Almost everyone in this book is affected by loss: how does each character cope with his/her sadness? Is it ever possible to fill the gap someone has left behind?

10. Did you find the book funny? Pinpoint and read aloud some of the more humorous passages.

11.Consider the ending: does it tie up all the loose strings...or feel somewhat unresolved? Some love the ending, others find it lacking. What do you think?

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

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Beach Music 
Pat Conroy, 1995
Random House
516 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553381535


Summary
Beach Music tells of Jack McCall, an American who moves to Rome to escape the trauma and painful memory of his young wife's suicide leap off a bridge in South Carolina. The story takes place in South Carolina and Rome, then reaches back in time to the Vietnam War era and the horrors of the Holocaust.

It is a novel that concerns itself with the loss of innocence. It is about the acquisition of self-knowledge and about learning to accept where we come from. It is about the eternal quest for forgiveness—seeking it in others, finding it in ourselves—so that we can begin to live again. Ultimately, it is about reclaiming the past in order to prepare a background on the canvas of the future from which hope can finally flourish.

Remembrance. Reconciliation. Redemption.

With resonant prose and unmatched insight, Conroy throws open all of the doors and windows on the human condition, revealing to us with crystal clarity the perils of the war without as well as the war within. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1945
• Where—Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• Education—B.A., The Citadel
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California, and Fripp
  Island, South, Carolina


Pat Conroy was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to a young career military officer from Chicago and a Southern beauty from Alabama, whom Pat often credits for his love of language. He was the first of seven children.

His father was a violent and abusive man, a man whose biggest mistake, Conroy once said, was allowing a novelist to grow up in his home, a novelist "who remembered every single violent act... my father's violence is the central fact of my art and my life." Since the family had to move many times to different military bases around the South, Pat changed schools frequently, finally attending the Citadel Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina, upon his father's insistence. While still a student, he wrote and then published his first book, The Boo, a tribute to a beloved teacher.

After graduation, Conroy taught English in Beaufort, where he met and married a young woman with two children, a widow of the Vietnam War. He then accepted a job teaching underprivileged children in a one-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island, a remote island off the South Carolina shore. After a year, Pat was fired for his unconventional teaching practices—such as his unwillingness to allow corporal punishment of his students—and for his general lack of respect for the school's administration. Conroy evened the score when he exposed the racism and appalling conditions his students endured with the publication of The Water is Wide in 1972. The book won Conroy a humanitarian award from the National Education Association and was made into the feature film Conrack, starring Jon Voight.

Writings
Following the birth of a daughter, the Conroys moved to Atlanta, where Pat wrote his novel, The Great Santini, published in 1976. This autobiographical work, later made into a powerful film starring Robert Duvall, explored the conflicts of his childhood, particularly his confusion over his love and loyalty to an abusive and often dangerous father.

The publication of a book that so painfully exposed his family's secret brought Conroy to a period of tremendous personal desolation. This crisis resulted not only in his divorce but the divorce of his parents; his mother presented a copy of The Great Santini to the judge as "evidence" in divorce proceedings against his father.

The Citadel became the subject of his next novel, The Lords of Discipline, published in 1980. The novel exposed the school's harsh military discipline, racism and sexism. This book, too, was made into a feature film.

Pat remarried and moved from Atlanta to Rome where he began The Prince of Tides which, when published in 1986, became his most successful book. Reviewers immediately acknowledged Conroy as a master storyteller and a poetic and gifted prose stylist. This novel has become one of the most beloved novels of modern time—with over five million copies in print, it has earned Conroy an international reputation. The Prince of Tides was made into a highly successful feature film directed by Barbra Streisand, who also starred in the film opposite Nick Nolte, whose brilliant performance won him an Oscar nomination.

Beach Music (1995), Conroy's sixth book, was the story of Jack McCall, an American who moves to Rome to escape the trauma and painful memory of his young wife's suicidal leap off a bridge in South Carolina. The story took place in South Carolina and Rome, and also reached back in time to the Holocaust and the Vietnam War. This book, too, was a tremendous international bestseller.

While on tour for Beach Music, members of Conroy's Citadel basketball team began appearing, one by one, at his book signings around the country. When his then-wife served him divorce papers while he was still on the road, Conroy realized that his team members had come back into his life just when he needed them most. And so he began reconstructing his senior year, his last year as an athlete, and the 21 basketball games that changed his life. The result of these recollections, along with flashbacks of his childhood and insights into his early aspirations as a writer, is My Losing Season, Conroy's seventh book and his first work of nonfiction since The Water is Wide.

South of Broad, published in 2009, 14 years after Beach Music, tells the story of friendships, first formed in high school, that span two decades.

In 2013, Conroy published his memoir, The Death of Santini, in which he revealed in greater detail his childhool and family life,  especially the brutality of his father. Eventually, however, before his father's death, Pat and his father achieved peace, and Pat learned to forgive.

He currently lives in Fripp Island, South Carolina with his wife, the novelist Cassandra King. (Adapted from the author's website and Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Mr. Conroy is verbosely eloquent, imaginatively violent and a superior yarn spinner, sometimes to a fault....What betrays Mr. Conroy too often are his flights of lyrical prose. True, now and then he catches the lightning instead of the lightning bug....Most damaging of all, Beach Music builds to a disappointing climax that is quite literally staged and rings as false as Eugene O'Neill at his most wooden....When all is said and overdone in Beach Music, Mr. Conroy leaves you begging for less.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New York Times


Conroy has not lost his touch. His storytelling powers have not failed; neither has his poetic skill with words, nor his vivid imagination. His long-awaited sixth book sings with the familiar elegiac Southern cadences, his prose is sweepingly lyrical (if sometimes melodramatic), unabashedly sentimental (if sometimes indigestibly schmaltzy). The hero, Jack McCall, describes himself as a man on the run from his past: the suicide of his beloved wife; the destructive influence of his icy, manipulative mother and mean, bullying, alcoholic father; the betrayal of his youthful ideals, his faith in the Catholic Church, his boyhood friends. There is, of course, the familiar theme of dysfunctional families; in addition to the McCalls, two other family units vie for the dubious title of most messed-up. But Conroy has added a new element here, by dramatizing his conviction that the "unbearable wound" of Vietnam was our country's spiritual Holocaust. Conroy takes on these emotionally laden issues in chapters so direct and powerful that readers will be moved by his intimacy with the material, and perhaps astonished by his authority over it. Conroy meshes complex plot lines with ease. Jack, a food and travel writer, fled with his toddler daughter, Leah, to Rome in 1982 in the wake of his wife Shyla's suicidal jump from a bridge in Charleston, S.C., and her parents' subsequent lawsuit to deny him custody of Leah. He returns home some years later because his mother is dying of leukemia. In addition to becoming embroiled in family tension, he begins a slow process of reconciliation with Shyla's parents, who eventually tell him the stories of their respective Holocaust experiences; with his first love, Ledare Ashley, now a scriptwriter employed by their youthful chum, Mike Hess, to write a screenplay of their growing-up years; and with his parents and siblings. He witnesses the return to Waterford of another friend, Jordan Elliot, who has been presumed dead for 18 years after he was accused of murder during a protest against the Vietnam War, and who was betrayed by the fourth member of their boyhood clan, Capers Middleton, who is now running for governor of South Carolina. Though the book suffers from some florid digressions (a fish story that makes Jonah's adventure seem tame, a totally inappropriate shaggy-dog tale), it is always passionately sincere. Conroy's dark humor has its usual sardonic edge, and his characters' rat-a-tat repartee is laden with casual obscenities and jocular insults. As expected, the characters are larger than life-impossibly beautiful, romantic, witty; in particular, Jack's precocious daughter may seem too mature, sweet, graceful, poised and smart to be true. In the end, of course, as Jack understands that everybody in his life carries a tragic secret equal to the anguish he bears, he achieves healing in the very community, and the very South, he had been determined to leave forever.
Publishers Weekly


Conroy's was the most talked-about book at the American Booksellers Association convention, even though it was reputedly only half-written. Hero Jack McCall, who has fled to Rome after his wife's suicide, is asked to locate a Sixties buddy whose antiwar activity drove him underground.
Library Journal


[W]e also must admit that Conroy plays the high-concept game as well as anyone. Like Mitchell, he builds narrative momentum that is impossible to resist, and he writes with a hammy eloquence that, while often infuriating, fits his subject matter perfectly. You won't stop reading, but you'll hate yourself in the morning.
Booklist

Discussion Questions
1. The book begins and ends with Shyla. What’s her importance to the narrative? How does her suicide set the story into motion?

2. Jack finds the South both alluring and repellent–to him it is simultaneously a place of great beauty and great danger. After hearing his story and those of his friends and relatives, do you agree with him? And do you think that Jack’s view of the South is informed by Pat Conroy’s own views?

3. For Jack, food is a comfort–almost a religion. What do the other characters hold dear, and what does it say about them?

4. In the novel, Jack and Ledare are writing a script for a television series about their families’ lives. Mike makes it clear that this series will tell the exact same stories that Jack narrates to us. Why do you think Pat Conroy decided to do this? Does it shape your reading of the book?

5. The ocean has such a palpable presence that it feels like it’s a character itself. What do you think it symbolizes? Does it have a different meaning for each of the characters?

6. If you’re familiar with Pat Conroy’s other novels, what parallels can you draw between the father-son relationships in his previous stories and Jack’s and Jordan’s relationships with their fathers?

7. Jack has so many brothers that, with the exception of John Hardin, they tend to blend together. Why do you think he has so many brothers? What’s their role in the novel?

8. Many of the novel’s characters are incredibly concerned by how they appear to others: Lucy creates a fake past for herself to hide her whitetrash roots; General Elliott is fixated on being the perfect military man—even unto the point of abandoning his son; and Capers is obsessed with his family’s legacy. Do you think these characters go too far? Is their preoccupation with appearances the result of their southern upbringing?

9.When Capers tries to catch the gigantic manta ray on his fishing trip with Jack, Jordan, and Mike, he almost kills all of them. What’s the significance of his failure? Does it make him a tragic figure?

10. Shyla is so deeply impacted by her father’s untold story that she tattoos her arm with his concentration camp number before jumping to her death. Do you think that hidden stories can end up being more powerful than shared ones? Why?

11. Betsy hates Jack. She says, “I’m trying to think where I met a bigger asshole.” What’s unlikable about Jack, and where do we see it besides in his treatment of Betsy? Do you think Jack’s flaws make him an unreliable narrator?

12. The two holiest men in the novel—Father Jude and Jordan–have both killed people. What does this say about the author’s vision of right and wrong? Can murder be justified? Can it be atoned for outside of a prison cell?

13. At the end of the novel, we find out that the Vietnam War was the event that ended up splicing Jack’s group of friends. Were the characters responsible for their actions, or were events beyond their control?

14. Did Jack make the right choice by forgiving Capers?

15.Why does Jack decide to return to Rome at the end of the novel?

16. What does the title Beach Music mean to you after finishing the book?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Bean Trees 
Barbara Kingsolver, 1988
HarperCollins
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061097317


Summary 
Marietta Greer spent her childhood in rural Kentucky determined to do two things: avoid getting pregnant and escape rural Kentucky. At the start of the novel, she has headed west in a beat-up '55 Volkswagon, changing her name to "Taylor" when her car runs out of gas in Taylorville, Illinois. By the time two tires give way in Tucson she has with her a stunned, silent three-year-old Cherokee girl who was, literally, dropped into her arms one night. She has named the child Turtle, for her strong, snapping-turtle-like grip.

In Tucson Taylor finds friendship and support in Lou Ann Ruiz, a fellow Kentuckian and single mother, with whom she and Turtle share a house. Her newfound community also includes Mattie, who runs a safe house for political refugees in the upstairs rooms above her auto repair shop.

The novel's theme of fear, flight, homelessness, and finding sanctuary within a community are present in Taylor's struggle to find a place where she belongs, and the more urgent plight of two Central American refugees, Estevan and Esperanza. These fellow travelers help one another create new lives and redefine the meanings of home and family. (From the publisher

Author Bio 
• Birth—April 8, 1955
• Where—Annapolis, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., DePauw University; M.S., University of
   Arizona
• Awards—Orange Prize
• Currently—lives on a farm in Virginia


Barbara Kingsolver was born on April 8, 1955. She grew up "in the middle of an alfalfa field," in the part of eastern Kentucky that lies between the opulent horse farms and the impoverished coal fields. While her family has deep roots in the region, she never imagined staying there herself. "The options were limited--grow up to be a farmer or a farmer's wife."

Kingsolver has always been a storyteller: "I used to beg my mother to let me tell her a bedtime story." As a child, she wrote stories and essays and, beginning at the age of eight, kept a journal religiously. Still, it never occurred to Kingsolver that she could become a professional writer. Growing up in a rural place, where work centered mainly on survival, writing didn't seem to be a practical career choice. Besides, the writers she read, she once explained, "were mostly old, dead men. It was inconceivable that I might grow up to be one of those myself..."

Kingsolver left Kentucky to attend DePauw University in Indiana, where she majored in biology. She also took one creative writing course, and became active in the last anti-Vietnam War protests. After graduating in 1977, Kingsolver lived and worked in widely scattered places. In the early eighties, she pursued graduate studies in biology and ecology at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where she received a Masters of Science degree. She also enrolled in a writing class taught by author Francine Prose, whose work Kingsolver admires.

Kingsolver's fiction is rich with the language and imagery of her native Kentucky. But when she first left home, she says, "I lost my accent.... [P]eople made terrible fun of me for the way I used to talk, so I gave it upslowly and became something else." During her years in school and two years spent living in Greece and France she supported herself in a variety of jobs: as an archaeologist, copy editor, X-ray technician, housecleaner, biological researcher and translator of medical documents.

After graduate school, a position as a science writer for the University of Arizona soon led her into feature writing for journals and newspapers. Her numerous articles have appeared in a variety of publications, including The Nation, the New York Times, and Smithsonian, and many of them are included in the collection, High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never. In 1986 she won an Arizona Press Club award for outstanding feature writing, and in 1995, after the publication of High Tide in Tucson, Kingsolver was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from her alma mater, DePauw University.

Kingsolver credits her careers in scientific writing and journalism with instilling in her a writer's discipline and broadening her "fictional possiblities." Describing herself as a shy person who would generally prefer to stay at home with her computer, she explains that "journalism forces me to meet and talk with people I would never run across otherwise."

From 1985 through 1987, Kingsolver was a freelance journalist by day, but she was writing fiction by night. Married to a chemist in 1985, she suffered from insomnia after becoming pregnant the following year. Instead of following her doctor's recommendation to scrub the bathroom tiles with a toothbrush, Kingsolver sat in a closet and began to write The Bean Trees, a novel about a young woman who leaves rural Kentucky (accent intact) and finds herself living in urban Tucson.

The Bean Trees, originally published in 1988 and reissued in a special ten-year anniversary edition in 1998, was enthusiastically received by critics. But, perhaps more important to Kingsolver, the novel was read with delight and, even, passion by ordinary readers. "A novel can educate to some extent," she told Publishers Weekly. "But first, a novel has to entertain—that's the contract with the reader: you give me ten hours and I'll give you a reason to turn every page. I have a commitment to accessiblity. I believe in plot. I want an English professor to understand the symbolism while at the same time I want the people I grew up with—who may not often read anything but the Sears catalogue—to read my books."

For Kingsolver, writing is a form of political activism. When she was in her twenties she discovered Doris Lessing. "I read the Children of Violence novels and began to understand how a person could write about the problems of the world in a compelling and beautiful way. And it seemed to me that was the most important thing I could ever do, if I could ever do that."

The Bean Trees was followed by the collection, Homeland and Other Stories (1989), the novels Animal Dreams (1990), and Pigs in Heaven (1993), and the bestselling High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now and Never (1995). Kingsolver has also published a collection of poetry, Another America: Otra America (Seal Press, 1992, 1998), and a nonfiction book, Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of l983 (ILR Press/Cornell University Press, 1989, 1996). The Poisonwood Bible (1998) earned accolades at home and abroad, and was an Oprah's Book Club selection.

Barbara's Prodigal Summer (2000), is a novel set in a rural farming community in southern Appalachia. Small Wonder, April 2002, presents 23 wonderfully articulate essays. Here Barbara raises her voice in praise of nature, family, literature, and the joys of everyday life while examining the genesis of war, violence, and poverty in our world.

Two additional books became best sellers. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle came in 2007, again to great acclaim. Non-fiction, the book recounts a year in the life of Kingsolver's family as they grew all their own food. The Lacuna, published two years later, is a fictional account of historical events in Mexico during the 1930, and moving into the U.S. during the McCarthy era of the 1950's.

Extras

• Barbara Kingsolver lives in Southern Applachia with her husband Steven Hopp, and her two daughters, Camille from a previous marriage, and Lily, who was born in 1996. When not writing or spending time with her family, Barbara gardens, cooks, hikes, and works as an environmental activist and human-rights advocate.

• Given that Barbara Kingsolver's work covers the psychic and geographical territories that she knows firsthand, readers often assume that her work is autobiographical. "There are little things that people who know me might recognize in my novels," she acknowledges. "But my work is not about me....

• If you want a slice of life, look out the window. An artist has to look out that window, isolate one or two suggestive things, and embroider them together with poetry and fabrication, to create a revelation. If we can't, as artists, improve on real life, we should put down our pencils and go bake bread. (Adapted from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews 
Barbara Kingsolver can write....it is one thing to create a vivid and realistic scene, and it is quite another to handle the harmonics of many such scenes, to cause all the images and implications to work together. And it is extremely rare to find the two gifts in one writer. How can I say it? Barbara Kingsolver doesn't waste a single overtone. From the title of her novel to its ending, every little scrap of event or observation is used, reused, revivified with sympathetic vibrations. The Bean Trees is as richly connected as a fine poem, but reads like realism. Its author is a poet, a Kentuckian who, like her main character, Taylor Greer, has transplanted herself to Tucson, and her book is a strange new combination: branchy and dense, each of its stories packed with microstories, and yet the whole as clear as air. It is the Southern novel taken west, its colors as translucent and polished as one of those slices of rose agate from a desert rock shop.
Jack Butler - New York Times Book Review


The Bean Trees is the work of a visionary.... It leaves you open-mouthed and smiling.
Los Angeles Times


So wry and wise we wish it would never end....The chatty, down-home audacity of Barbara Kingsolver's remarkable first novel hooks us on the first page.
San Francisco Chronicle

Discussion Questions 
Kingsolver on The Bean Trees

I always think of a first novel as something like this big old purse you've been carrying around your whole life, throwing in ideas, characters, and all the things that have ever struck you as terribly important. One day,for whatever reason, you just have to dump that big purse out and there lies this pile of junk. You start picking through it, and assembling it into what you hope will be a statement of your life's great themes. That's how it was for me. It probably wasn't until midway through the writing that I had a grasp of the central question: What are the many ways, sometimes hidden and under-ground ways, that people help themselves and each other survive hard times?

1. The Bean Trees deals with the theme of being an outsider. In what ways are various characters outsiders? What does this suggest about what it takes to be an insider? How does feeling like an outsider affect one's life?

2. How and why do the characters change, especially Lou Ann, Taylor, and Turtle?

3. In many ways, the novel is "the education of Taylor Greer." What does she learn about human suffering? about love?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Bear and the Nightingale  (Winternight Trilogy 1)
Katherine Arden, 2017
Del Ray
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101885932


Summary
A magical debut novel that spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice.
 
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses.

But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales.

Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
 
After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1987 (?)
• Where—Austin, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., Middlebury, Vermont, USA
• Currently—lives in Brandon, Vermont


Katherine Arden is a Texas-born author known for her Winternight Trilogy of fantasy novels—The Bear and the Nightingale, The Girl in the Tower, both published in 2017, and The Winter of the Witch, in 2019.

Born in Austin, Texas, Katherine Arden spent her junior year of high school in Rennes, France. Following her acceptance to Middlebury College in Vermont, she deferred enrollment for a year in order to live and study in Moscow. At Middlebury, she specialized in French and Russian literature.

After receiving her B.A. in French and Russian literature, she moved to Maui, Hawaii, working every kind of odd job imaginable, from grant writing and making crepes to serving as a personal tour guide. After a year on the island, she moved to Briancon, France, and spent nine months teaching. She then returned to Maui, stayed for nearly a year, then left again to wander. Currently she lives in Vermont, but really, you never know. (Adapted from the publisher.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Arden’s debut is an earthy, beautifully written love letter to Russian folklore, with an irresistible heroine.... The stunning prose...forms a fully immersive, unusual, and exciting fairy tale that will enchant readers.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) You don't have to know and love Russian folklore to appreciate Arden's fabulist—and fabulous—debut novel, which tells the story of how Vasilisa Petrovna...saves her corner of medieval Russia's wild north.... Fleet and gorgeous as the firebird. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Utterly bewitching.... [A] lush narrative... [and] an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family.
Booklist


(Starred review.) [S]umptuous first novel...where history and myth coexist.... Arden has shaped a world that neatly straddles the seen and the unseen, where readers will recogniz[e] the imagination that has transformed old material into something fresh.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Throughout the novel, Vasya meets many strange creatures from Dunya’s fairy tales—­from the domovoi to the rusalka to upyry. Which of the demons that Vasya encounters is your favorite? Which ones would you never want to meet?

2. Compare some of the fairy tales and creatures referenced here to your favorite Western fairy tales. What are some commonalties? How are they different?

3. What are some tropes or stock characters of the traditional Western fairy tale that you can spot in The Bear and the Nightingale? Were there any parts of the traditional Western fairy tale that were used in a way that surprised you?

4. Dunya is tasked by both Pyotr and the winter-­king to give the talisman to Vasya, yet Dunya is conflicted. She fears for Vasya’s safety if she were to possess the talisman, but the winter-­king insists that Vasya must have it in order to protect them all. Was Dunya right to keep the talisman from Vasya for so long?

5. Do you trust the winter-­king? What do you think he is still hiding from Vasya?

6. The various demons and spirits begin to prophesize Vasya’s fate to her in mysterious riddles, and we learn bit by bit that the winter-­king also seems to possess knowledge of what’s to come and the role Vasya is destined to play. What role do you think fate plays in the novel? How much of what happens is the result of choices made by the characters versus an inevitable destiny?

7. Who do you think is to blame for the suffering Vasya’s village of Lesnaya Zemlya faces: Konstantin? The villagers for neglecting their offerings to the demons? Anna for rejecting her second sight and punishing Vasya for hers? Metropolitan Aleksei for sending Anna and Konstantin to the village? Pyotr for allowing such misery to befall his village? Is the blame shared? Was the fate of the village inevitable?

8. To what degree is the character of Konstantin sympathetic? Does his passionate faith excuse his actions? Is he an unwitting dupe or a willing player in his own fall? Do his charisma and artistic talent conflict with or complement his vocation as a priest? Why?

9. What are some parallels between Vasya and her stepmother? What are some key differences between them? Why does Anna hate Vasya so much?

10. Vasya is faced with the choice of marriage, a convent, or a life in which she’s considered an outsider by her village and her family. What would you have done in her place?

11. Why do you think the villagers are so threatened by Vasya? What does she represent to them?

12. The Bear and the Nightingale is not a clear-­cut story of good vs. evil, though there are many other opposing forces, including the Bear vs. Morozko, order vs. chaos, the old traditions vs. Christianity, and, of course, the Bear vs. the Nightingale. What are some other examples? How do these opposing forces overlap, and where do you think Vasya fits in?

13. Over the course of the book, we see multiple instances of characters correlating someone’s goodness with physical appearance. For instance, Vasya’s almost-­husband, Kyril, is called handsome and is ­consequently revered despite his cruel personality. Vasya, meanwhile, is repeatedly called a “frog” and is quickly labeled a witch. What are some instances in your life where you have seen others being mis­labeled based on their appearance? Are there times when you have felt like you have been mislabeled?

14. The Bear and the Nightingale is bracketed by sacrifice—­first Vasya’s mother, then at the end her father. How is sacrifice an important theme in the book? How many characters are called upon to give up something important, even vital? Not just Vasya herself, but Anna and Konstantin, for example. How do the sacrifices of others shape the narrative?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Beartown 
Fredrik Backman, 2017
Atria Books
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501160769


Summary
A dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.

People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees.

But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today.

Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 2, 1981
• Raised—Helsingborg, Sweden
• Education—no degree
• Currently—Stockholm


Fredrik Backman, Swedish author, journalist, and blogger, was voted Sweden's most successful author in 2013.

Backman grew up in Helsingborg, studied comparative religion but dropped out and became a truck driver instead. When the free newspaper Xtra was launched in 2006, the owner reached out to Backman, then still a truck driver, to write for the paper. After a test article, he continued to write columns for Xtra

In spring 2007, he began writing for Moore Magazine in Stockholm, a year-and-a-half later he began freelancing, and in 2012 he became a writer for the Metro. About his move to writing, Backman said...

I write things. Before I did that I had a real job, but then I happened to come across some information saying there were people out there willing to pay people just to write things about other people, and I thought "surely this must be better than working." And it was, it really was. Not to mention the fact that I can sit down for a living now, which has been great for my major interest in cheese-eating. (From his literary agent's website.)

Backman married in 2009 and became a father the following year. He blogged about preparations for his wedding in "The Wedding Blog" and about becoming a father on "Someone's Dad" blog. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, he wrote the Olympic blog for the Magazine Cafe website and has continued as a permanent blogger for the site.

In 2012, Backman debuted as an author, publishing two books on the same day: a novel, A Man Called Ove (U.S. release in 2014), and a work of nonfiction, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World. His second novel, My Grandmother Sent Me to Tell You She's Sorry, came out in 2013 (U.S. release in 2015). (Adapted from Wikipedia and the publisher. Retrieved 7/23/2014.)

Book Reviews
[P]oignant.… [I]t’s Backman’s rich characters that steal the show, and his deft handling of tragedy and its effects on an insular town. While the story is dark at times, love, sacrifice, and the bonds of friendship and family shine through, ultimately offering hope and even redemption.
Publishers Weekly


Backman expands his quirky character base in his latest novel, which once again takes place in a remote Swedish town.… Another solid offering from best-selling Swedish author Backman, with many parallels for American readers and small towns everywhere. —Mary K. Bird-Guilliams, Chicago
Library Journal


There are scenes that bring tears, scenes of gut-wrenching despair, and moments of sly humor.… A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman's latest will resonate a long time.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What does hockey mean to the people of Beartown? What does winning the semifinal mean for the town’s future?

2. The town and the parents of the Beartown junior hockey team place great expectations on the shoulders of seventeen-year-old boys. How does this pressure affect the boys? Have the club’s leaders (David, Sune, Peter, and the others) prepared the boys to deal with this pressure? Have the boys’ parents?

3. How do issues related to social class affect the people of Beartown and the hockey club? Do those who live in the Hollow have a different world view from those who live in the Heights? Does hockey cut through class distinctions or reinforce them?

4. What does Kira’s role as a working mother, and her job as a lawyer, mean to her? How does her job affect the way others treat her? Consider this passage from the novel:

Not a second has passed since she had children without her feeling like a bad mother. For everything. For not understanding, for being impatient, for not knowing everything, not making better packed lunches, for still wanting more out of life than just being a mother. She hears other women in Beartown sigh behind her back: "Yes, but she has a full-time job, you know. Can you imagine?" (p. 63)

5. How do Peter and Kira complement each other in their relationship? How does he make up for her weaknesses, and vice versa? Do you think they have a solid marriage? A happy one?

6. Peter loves hockey because it demands his all, his everything. What does hockey demand from each of the characters in the book? What does it take from them?

7. There are many different parents and styles of parenting portrayed in the book. Which parents do you think are the most successful at preparing their children for the real world? Why?

8. Consider this sentiment echoed throughout the book: "What is a community? It is the sum total of our choices." (p. 312) By this definition, how do the townspeople of Beartown ultimately measure up? What kind of community have they built?

9. Several characters must find the courage to go against the grain of the tight-knit Beartown community. What is at stake for each character who does so, and is it worth it for them in the end?

10. Discuss the difference between male and female roles in the small village of Beartown. What is expected of the girls and women vs. the boys and men? Which characters break these expectations, and what are the consequences of doing so?

11. Consider the importance of names and nicknames throughout the novel. How does the lack of first names for "Kevin’s mother," "Kevin’s father," "David’s girlfriend," and Benji’s "bass player" change your impression of them? What effect does calling Maya "the young woman" have on Maya and her own narrative? How does she start to reclaim her own story?

12. In the course of the novel, we see that playing on a sports team teaches young people values like loyalty, responsibility, and commitment. But we also see instances of exclusion, aggression, and entitlement. Are their certain behaviors that are rewarded in a sports competition but considered inappropriate in daily life? Give examples. Which characters in the book have difficulty navigating this?

13. The events of the novel force the junior boys to grow up quickly as they are faced with very adult realities. What kind of man does Amat become over the course of the book? What do his actions reveal about him? What kind of man does Bobo become? Kevin? Benji?

14. Maya is surprised by how easily she can start to lie to her best friend, Ana, and keep secrets from her. How do each character’s secrets affect his or her relationship with loved ones? Consider the secrets between friends (Maya and Ana, Kevin and Benji, Amat and Zach), as well as those between parents and children, and husbands and wives.

15. How does Maya’s final act shape her future? How does it shape Kevin’s? Do you think a form of justice is achieved? Why or why not?

16. Why do you think Benji chooses to stay in Beartown and play for Sune’s A-Team instead of following the others to Hed? Was his choice affected by his relationship with the bass player?

17. At the end of the novel, do you think the tradition of the Beartown Hockey Club continues? Has its fundamental character changed? How do you think it will change going forward?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Beatrice and Virgil
Yann Martel, 2010
Random House
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400069262


Summary
Fate takes many forms.

When Henry receives a letter from an elderly taxidermist, it poses a puzzle that he cannot resist. As he is pulled further into the world of this strange and calculating man, Henry becomes increasingly involved with the lives of a donkey and a howler monkey—named Beatrice and Virgil—and the epic journey they undertake together.

With all the spirit and originality that made Life of Pi so beloved, this brilliant new novel takes the reader on a haunting odyssey. On the way Martel asks profound questions about life and art, truth and deception, responsibility and complicity. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 25, 1963
• Where—Salamanca, Spain
• Education—B.A., Trent University, Ontario
• Awards—Booker Prize, 2002; Hugh MacLennan Prize, 
   Quebec Writers’ Federation
• Currently—Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 of peripatetic Canadian parents. He grew up in Alaska, British Columbia, Costa Rica, France, Ontario and Mexico, and has continued travelling as an adult, spending time in Iran, Turkey and India. Martel refers to his travels as, “seeing the same play on a whole lot of different stages.”

After studying philosophy at Trent University and while doing various odd jobs—tree planting, dishwashing, working as a security guard—he began to write. In addition to Life of Pi, Martel is the prize-winning author of The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, a collection of short stories, and of Self, a novel, both published internationally. Yann has been living from his writing since the age of 27. He divides his time between yoga, writing and volunteering in a palliative care unit. Yann Martel lives in Montreal.

More
Sometime in the early 1990s, Yann Martel stumbled across a critique in the New York Times Review of Books by John Updike that captured his curiosity. Although Updike's response to Moacyr Scliar's Max and the Cats was fairly icy and indifferent, the premise immediately intrigued Martel. According to Martel, Max and the Cats was, "as far as I can remember...about a zoo in Berlin run by a Jewish family. The year is 1933 and, not surprisingly, business is bad. The family decides to emigrate to Brazil. Alas, the ship sinks and one lone Jew ends up in a lifeboat with a black panther." Whether or not the story was as uninspiring as Updike had indicated in his review, Martel was both fascinated by this premise and frustrated that he had not come up with it himself.

Ironically, Martel's account of the plot of Max and the Cats wasn't completely accurate. In fact, in Scliar's novel, Max Schmidt did not belong to a family of zookeepers—he was the son of furrier. Furthermore, he did not emigrate from Berlin to Brazil with his family as the result of a failing zoo, but was forced to flee Hamburg after his lover's husband sells him out to the Nazi secret police. So, this plot that so enthralled Martel—which he did not pursue for several years because he assumed Moacyr Scliar had already tackled it—was more his own than he had thought.

Meanwhile, Martel managed to write and publish two books: a collection of short stories titled The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios in 1993 and a novel about gender confusion called Self in 1996. Both books sold only moderately well, further frustrating the writer. In an effort to collect his thoughts and refresh his creativity, he took a trip to India, first spending time in bustling Bombay. However, the overcrowded city only furthered Martel's feelings of alienation and dissolution. He then decided to move on to Matheran, a section near Bombay but without that city's dense population. In this peaceful hill station overlooking the city, Martel began revisiting an idea he had not considered in some time, the premise he had unwittingly created when reading Updike's review in the New York Times Review of Books. He developed the idea even further away from Max and the Cats. While Scliar's novel was an extended holocaust allegory, Martel envisioned his story as a witty, whimsical, and mysterious meditation on zoology and theology. Unlike Max Schmidt, Pi Patel would, indeed, be the son of a zookeeper. Martel would, however, retain the shipwrecked-with-beasts theme from Max and the Cats. During an ocean exodus from India to Canada, the ship sinks and Pi finds himself stranded on a lifeboat with such unlikely shipmates as a zebra, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

The resulting novel, Life of Pi, became the smash-hit for which Martel had been longing. Selling well over a million copies and receiving the accolades of Book Magazine, Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, and, yes, the New York Times Review of Books, Life of Pi has been published in over 40 countries and territories, in over 30 languages. It is currently in production by Fox Studios with a script by master-of-whimsy Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children; Amélie) and directorial duties to be handled by Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).

Martel is now working on his third novel, a bizarrely allegorical adventure about a donkey and a monkey that travel through a fantastical world...on a shirt. Well, at least no one will ever accuse him of borrowing that premise from any other writer.

Extras
From a 2002 Barnes & Noble interview:

• Life of Pi is not Yann Martel's first work to be adapted for the screen. His short story "Manners of Dying" was made into a motion picture by fellow Canadian resident Jeremy Peter Allen in 2004.

• When he isn't penning modern masterpieces, Martel spends much of his time volunteering in a palliative care unit.

• When asked what book was most influential to his career as a writer, here's what he said: 

I would say Le Petit Chose, by the French writer Alphonse Daudet. It was the first book to make me cry. I was around ten years old. It made me see how powerful words could be, how much we could see and feel through mere black jottings on a page. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Mr. Martel ’s new book, Beatrice and Virgil, unfortunately, is every bit as misconceived and offensive as his earlier book was fetching. It, too, features animals as central characters. It, too, involves a figure who in some respects resembles the author. It, too, is written in deceptively light, casual prose.... [H]is borrowings from...[Samuel] Beckett...serve no persuasive end. Rather they are another awkward element in this disappointing and often perverse novel.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

Martel’s latest novel demonstrates the same gift for vivid description and wholehearted feeling, but it’s a lot more resistant to summary.... He appears to want to embrace difficulty while retaining all the readers who loved the easy narrative of Life of Pi. Although his ambition is admirable, the literary complexity and the simplicity of feeling Martel is aiming for don’t comfortably mesh. Beatrice and Virgil has its rewards, but the frustrations are what stick in the mind.
Robert Hanks - New York Times Book Review

Beatrice and Virgil is so dull, so misguided, so pretentious that only the prospect of those millions of "Pi" fans could secure the interest of major publishers and a multimillion-dollar advance. This short tale runs into trouble almost from its first precious page with an autobiographical portrait of the thinly disguised author.
Ron Charles - Washington Post

Dark but divine.... This novel might just be a masterpiece about the Holocaust.... Martel brilliantly guides the reader from the too-sunny beginning into the terrifying darkness of the old man's shop and Europe's past. Everything comes into focus by the end, leaving the reader startled, astonished, and moved.
USA Today

Brilliant...with this short, crisply written, many-layered book, Martel has once again demonstrated that nothing tells the truth like fiction.... Another philosophical winner.
Cleveland Plain Dealer

Those spell-bound by Man Booker prize-winning Life of Pi will find much to love in Yann Martel’s new work of fiction.... In Beatrice and Virgil, Martel again evokes the power of allegory, this time to address the legacy of the Holocaust—as well as the pleasure of fairy tales. At the heart of this novel are questions about truth and illusion, responsibility and innocence, and Martel is able to employ Beatrice and Virgil as sympathetic, nuanced vehicles for his vision. Beatrice and Virgil is a thought-provoking delight.
Marie Claire

If Beatrice and Virgil were a piece of music, it would be an extended fugue, beginning so quietly as to be almost inaudible, and culminating in a moment of overwhelming noise followed by silence....There is indeed no exit from Beatrice and Virgil, not even when the book culminates in its final moment of overwhelming crescendo, as Martel’s characters find themselves trapped in an eruption of hell-like flames. Like the echoing themes of a fugue, all the components of the Martel’s novel fit tightly together, leading up to one ultimate moment of terror.
Harvard Crimson

Megaselling Life of Pi author Martel addresses, in this clunky metanarrative, the violent legacy of the 20th century with an alter ego: Henry L'Hôte, an author with a very Martel-like CV who, after a massively successful first novel, gives up writing. Henry and his wife, Sarah, move to a big city (“Perhaps it was New York. Perhaps it was Paris. Perhaps it was Berlin”), where Henry finds satisfying work in a chocolatería and acting in an amateur theater troupe. All is well until he receives a package containing a short story by Flaubert and an excerpt from an unknown play. His curiosity about the sender leads him to a taxidermist named Henry who insists that Henry-the-author help him write a play about a monkey and a donkey. Henry-the-author is at first intrigued by sweet Beatrice, the donkey, and Virgil, her monkey companion, but the animals' increasing peril draws Henry into the taxidermist's brutally absurd world. Martel's aims are ambitious, but the prose is amateur and the characters thin, the coy self-referentiality grates, and the fable at the center of the novel is unbearably self-conscious. When Martel (rather energetically) tries to tug our heartstrings, we're likely to feel more manipulated than moved.
Publishers Weekly

(Starred review.) Martel’s mesmerizing Man Booker Prize–winning Life of Pi (2002) has become a cult classic, its richness of depth and meaning belying the startling basic story line of a young Indian man stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger for 227 days. So it is with Martel’s latest novel, also a fable-type story with iceberg-deep dimensions reaching far below the surface of its general premise. —Brad Hooper
Booklist

Whimsy takes a deadly serious turn in a novel that will enchant some readers and exasperate others. The Canadian author's previous novel (Life of Pi, 2001) won the Man Booker Prize, became a critically lauded bestseller and made legions of fans eager for a follow-up. Here it is, a meta-fictional shell game about a novelist who has experienced the same sort of success as Martel by writing a similar sort of animal-filled book, who attempts a follow-up (about the Holocaust) that mixes fact and fiction in a manner that advance readers find unsatisfying and who thus stops writing. His story reads something like a fable, since for the longest time the protagonist has only one name, Henry, and he and his wife move to a city that remains unidentified, though the narrative suggests it could be one of many. Instead of writing, Henry becomes involved with a chocolate shop and a theater troupe, and then he receives a package from a reader. The most accommodating bestselling author ever, Henry answers all his mail and goes to great lengths to track down the sender of this package, which contains a short story by Flaubert, a play with two characters-the title characters of this novel-and a plea for help. Henry's quest leads him to a mysterious taxidermist, also named Henry, whose shop seems to contain "all of creation stuffed into one large room," and who plies his trade in homage to Flaubert-"to bear witness." Uh-oh, allegory alert! Like a Russian doll, the novel contains parables within parables, as the play's Beatrice and Virgil (from Dante, of course) turn out to be a donkey and a monkey, and their dialogue sounds like Aesop filtered through Samuel Beckett ("This road must lead somewhere"/ "Is it somewhere we want to be?"). Henry agrees to help with the play that has been the taxidermist's life's work, thus breaking the novelist's writer's block, though at a great price. As Henry asks Henry, "Symbolic of what?"
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What is Beatrice & Virgil about?

2. Discuss the main characters. What are Henry and the taxidermist like? How are they different from one another, and in what ways are they similar? What are Beatrice and Virgil like?

3. What do you think of Henry’s original idea for his book? Do you agree with him that the Holocaust needs to be remembered in different ways, beyond the confines of “historical realism”? Why, or why not?

4. What is the importance of self-reflexivity in the novel? For example, does Henry remind you of Yann Martel? How does Beatrice & Virgil relate to the book that Henry wanted to publish originally? Who writes the story?

5. How would you compare Beatrice & Virgil to Life of Pi? How do Yann Martel’s aims in the two novels differ, and how does he go about achieving them?

6. Close to the start of the book, Henry (the writer) says, “A book is a part of speech. At the heart of mine is an incredibly upsetting event that can survive only in dialogue” (p. 12). Why would this be the case? How does it influence the form of the book we are reading?

7. Describe the role Flaubert’s story “The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator” plays in the novel.

8. Why doesn’t the waiter at the cafe address the taxidermist?

9. How do you explain Henry’s wife’s reaction to the taxidermist and his workshop?

10. How do you feel about the play A 20th-Century Shirt? Could it be performed? Does it remind you of anything? What role does it play in the book?

11. Who are Beatrice and Virgil in literature? Which other books and writers do you find influencing this one, and with what effects?

12. What moral challenges does Beatrice & Virgil present the reader with? What does it leave you thinking about?

13. What are the different kinds of theatre, acting and performance in Beatrice & Virgil and what do they add to the book?

14. What is the significance of names in the novel, especially Henry’s full name?

15. How is writing like or unlike taxidermy in the book?

16. What role do Erasmus and Mendelssohn play in the novel, and why does it matter?

17. What is your favourite part of Beatrice & Virgil?

18. How do the two parts of the book relate? How do they connect to Henry’s original plan for his book? Or, to put it another way: why “Games for Gustav”?

19. What do Henry’s non-literary activities—music lessons, waiting tables—tell us about him as a character? What else do they add to the book?

20. How is Henry changed by the events of the novel? How does this relate to Beatrice and Virgil having “no reason to change” (p. 151) over the course of their play?

21. Beatrice & Virgil stresses compound words, new words, overvalued words, words that are “cold, muddy toads trying to understand sprites dancing in a field” (p. 88)—what are some of the key words in the book, and how are words important as a theme in the novel?

22. How do Henry and Henry help each other write?

23. What is the significance of 68 Nowolipki Street?

24. Does Beatrice & Virgil itself aim to “make the Holocaust portable” for modern memory? Does it succeed in doing so? How does the book’s ending change things?

25. What is the significance of the word “Aukitz” in the novel, and in the book design?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Beautiful Bad
Annie Ward, 2019
Park Row
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780778369103 


Summary
In the tradition of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train comes the psychological thriller everyone is talking about, a twisted novel about a devoted wife, a loving husband, and a chilling crime that will stun even the cleverest readers.

There are two sides to every story… And every person.

Maddie and Ian’s love story began with a chance encounter at a party overseas, while she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now almost two decades later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America.

But when a camping accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian; her concerns for the safety of their young son; and the couple’s tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.

From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, sixteen years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of a shocking crime. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—state of Kansas, USA
• Education—B.A., Uiversity of California, Los Angeles; M.F.A., American Film Institute
• Awards—(see below: for a screenplay)
• Currently—lives in Kansas


Annie Ward is a novelist with two psychological thrillers under her belt: her debut, The Making of June (2002) and Beautiful Bad (2019). Born and raised in Kansas, Ward received a B.A. in English literature from University of California-Los Angeles and an M.F.A. in film writing from the American Film Institute (AFI).

While still a student at AFI, Ward sold her sold a short screenplay, "Strange Habit" to MTV/ BFCS. It starred Adam Scott and went on to become a Grand Jury Award Winner at the Aspen Film Festival and a Sundance Festival Official Selection.

After film school, Ward followed a man to Bulgaria, where she found work as a journalist and travel writer for Fodors, as well as a script doctor for an Israeli-American film company. During her five years there, she also won a Fulbright Scholarship, "left the man, found a best friend" (a CIA agent out of Skopje, unbeknownst to Ward), wrote her first novel, and met her husband, a private military contractor.

As Ward told Publishers Weekly, she writes about what she knows, and both of her books are based on her time in Bulgaria. Her latest, Beautiful Bad, in fact, started out as a memoir before becoming a novel.

Following a stint in New York, she and her husband now live in Kansas with their children. (Adapted from the publisher various online sources.)

Book Reviews
★ [H]arrowing…. Ward takes her time revealing what tragedy transpired in the present, heightening suspense and maximizing her devastating conclusion’s emotional impact.… [An] intricate, intelligent plot, which shocks and chills.
Publishers Weekly


[This] well-constructed thriller… brilliantly conceived and presented conclusion would do Patricia Highsmith proud.… [T]his debut novel is being advertised as 2019’s The Woman in the Window.
Booklist


In this post–Gone Girl and –Girl on the Train world, any savvy reader knows that no narrator is ever remotely trustworthy, and no narrative that moves around in time is ever offering the whole story. Instead, the truth will be slowly dropped…. Shamelessly manipulative.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our GENERIC MYSTERY QUESTIONS to start a discussion for BEAUTIFUL BAD … then take off on your own:

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

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

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The Beautiful Bureaucrat 
Helen Phillips, 2015
Henry Holt, Inc.
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781627793766


Summary
In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database.

After a long period of joblessness, she's not inclined to question her fortune, but as the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings—the office's scarred pinkish walls take on a living quality, the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls.

When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread.

As other strange events build to a crescendo, the haunting truth about Josephine's work begins to take shape in her mind, even as something powerful is gathering its own form within her. She realizes that in order to save those she holds most dear, she must penetrate an institution whose tentacles seem to extend to every corner of the city and beyond.

Both chilling and poignant, The Beautiful Bureaucrat is a novel of rare restraint and imagination. With it, Helen Phillips enters the company of Murakami, Bender, and Atwood as she twists the world we know and shows it back to us full of meaning and wonder—luminous and new. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1981
• Wjere—state of Colorado, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.F.A., Brooklyn College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York


Helen Phillips is the author of the novels, Beautiful Bureaucrat (2015) and The Need (2019). She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award and the Italo Calvino Prize, among others. Her collection, And Yet They Were Happy, was also a finalist for the McLaughlin-Esstman-Stearns Prize, and her work has been featured on NPR's Selected Shorts and appeared in Tin House, Electric Literature, Slice, BOMB, Mississippi Review, and PEN America.

Phillips has been an assistant professor of creative writing at Brooklyn College and lives in Brooklyn with her husband and children. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Unusual...deeply interesting.... It's an irresistible setup and if that's all there were, it would be enough... [But] Mrs. Phillips has a wickedly funny eye, a fine sense of pacing, a smooth, winning writing style and a great gift for a telling detail... [Joseph and Josephine's] love—playful, supportive, cozy—steels them for the existential and metaphysical storms raging around them, big questions about life, death, birth, marriage, the office, the ructions in nature, the vagaries of the imagination, the foibles of people, free will, fate, the confusion of the past, the promise of the future...breathtaking and wondrous.
Sarah Lyall - New York Times


Riveting...Phillips's thrillerlike pacing and selection of detail as the novel unfolds is highly skilled...What makes The Beautiful Bureaucrat a unique contribution to the body of existential literature is its trajectory, as the story telescopes in two directions, both outward to post macro questions about Gd and the universe, and inward to post intimate inquiries about marriage and fidelity. Ultimately, The Beautiful Bureaucrat succeeds because it isn't afraid to ask the deepest questions.
Jamie Quatro - New York Times Book Review


Equal parts mystery, thriller, and existential inquiry, Phillips's book evokes the menace of the mundane...The Beautiful Bureaucrat asks uneasy questions about work and life, love and power, and where the whole enterprise of one's own small life is swiftly headed.
Anna Wiener - New Republic


Kafka would love The Beautiful Bureaucrat...Bizarre and painfully human...There's not a wasted word, and it's nearly impossible to put down. Phillips is a master at evoking claustrophobic spaces...It's a deeply tense book, but never a manipulative one. It's also quite funny. Phillips' sense of humor is bizarre, dark but not oppressive...tempered by [her] exuberance, her humor, and her very real sense of joyful defiance. It's a surprising revelation of a book from an uncompromising author as unique as she is talented.
Michael Schaub - NPR


Part dystopian fantasy, part thriller, part giddy literary-nerd wordplay, Helen Phillips' The Beautiful Bureaucrat is both a page-turner and a novel rich in evocative, starkly philosophical language...eerie, stomach-dropping...this novel ultimately proves both clever and impossible to put down.
Los Angeles Times


[A] joyride...very weird, very beautiful, very honest book about the surreal business of working in a city, living in a fertile and dying body, and loving another mortal.... While it may have DNA in common with other urban work and life and love stories, with Kafka and Shirley Jackson and Haruki Murakami and the Coen brothers, it really is a new species of tale.... Readers follow Josephine on a tightrope walk over the abyss, where the stakes are total, and the prose is exuberant and taut, dire and playful.
Karen Russell - Slate


Propulsive...gorgeous...stark and spare genius.... A masterpiece of contrasts.... Phillips plays with language in a way that serves both characterization and plot, showcasing her inimitable wit.... Beckett and Nabokov would resoundingly applaud.... The humor and the seriousness in an absurdist story build a tension that carries the entire world within it. Phillips pulls this off seamlessly.... A joy, darkness and terror and all.
Seattle Review of Books


With some of the conspiratorial paranoia of Pynchon, some of the poignant comical darkness of Kafka and some of the interior tenderness of contemporary literary fiction...What Helen Phillips has created is, finally, an intriguing fictional world in which love and language meet their match in routine and necessity—and who, or which, triumphs may be a reader's choice
Minneapolis Star-Tribune


Uncanny and Kafkaesque.... By turns, the novel is goofily funny, creepy and unsettling, life-affirming and sweet, deeply thoughtful and pointedly critical of modern workplace culture.... A strange, yet unsettlingly resonant, fable that melds mystery, sci-fi, romance and satire to chillingly skewer the modern workplace yet somehow leave us reaffirmed in our humanity.
Claire Fallon - Huffington Post


Phillips's novel incisively depicts the corporate hell in which young drones toil in faceless buildings, sorting meaningless files according to inscrutable policies.... The novel has enough horror and mordant humor to carry the reader effortlessly through its punchy send-up of entry-level institutionalization.
Publishers Weekly


[A] seemingly meaningless clerical job in a faceless building in a big city that is gradually revealed to have consequences worthy of a Twilight Zone episode.... Suspenseful, creepy, and distinct, this work is sparse in style but elaborate in wordplay. For readers who like their literary fiction with a side of sf. —Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib., Malibu, CA
Library Journal


Phillips's first novel is peculiar, mysterious, and intriguing, bringing to mind the visceral symbolism of Margaret Atwood's dystopian works. Clever wordplay toys with readers while hinting at a deeper commentary on the meaning of life.
Booklist


(Starred review.) [P]art love story, part urban thriller.... [T]his novel offers no easy answers—its deeper meanings may mystify—but it grabs you up, propels you along, and leaves you gasping, grasping, and ready to read it again.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also, consider these talking points to help start a discussion for The Beautiful Bureaucrat:

1. Talk about the way Helen Phillips portrays Josephine's job and the atmosphere of the institution in which she works. What is the author sugesting about the contemporary workplace? Does her description resonate with your own experiences?

2. Reviewers have compared Phillips writing to surrealistis or existentialsts like Kafka, Camus, Orwell, and more recently Pynchon, Murakami and Atwood. Why might Phillips have chosen to write in this surrealist genre? How does it affect your experience reading the book? Do you find her style illuminating, overly symbolic and obscure, humorous, dead-on accurate?

3. What does the boss mean when he tells Josephine that "you need the Database as much as the Database needs you”?

4. How much in this book brings to mind the revelations by Edward Snowden about U.S. government surveillance...or perhaps the Thought Police in George Orwell's 1984? Are other there parallels, either to literature or real-life events?

5. Phillips seems to be posing some large philosophical issues:

• Are humans merely pawns in an institutional or cosmic game of power?
• Are we predestined for heaven or hell? Or are we endowed with free will?
• Do we have a purpose in life? Or is life meaningless?
• What compensatory power does love offer?

Talk about some of those questions—and how they are reflected in The Beautiful Bureaucrat. What other issues are raised? Does the book offer any concrete answers?

6. In what way might Trishiffany and the Person With Bad Breath (PWBB) stand in for a kind of deity?

7. What is the religious and mythical significance of Joseph's handing a pomegranate to Josephine and then telling her he's found them a "garden apartment"? (Note the book's cover.) In hindsight, how does that act portend what happens next? What other Judeo-Christian symbology do you see in the novel?

8. How would you describe the characters—Josephine and Joseph, Hillary, and Trishiffany. Do they come alive for you—are they convincing? Do you care about them, particularly Josephine? Or do you find them overly determined or drawn with a heavy-hand?

9. Do you find the book's conclusion satisfying? Do you find the book satisfying?

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

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Beautiful Day 
Elin Hilderbrand, 2013
Reagan Arthur Books
404 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316099769


Summary
The Carmichaels and the Grahams have gathered on Nantucket for a wedding. Plans are being made according to the wishes of the bride's late mother, who left behind The Notebook: specific instructions for every detail of her youngest daughter's future nuptials.

Everything should be falling into place for the beautiful event—but in reality, things are far from perfect.

While the couple-to-be are quite happy, their loved ones find their own lives crumbling. In the days leading up to the wedding, love will be questioned, scandals will arise, and hearts will be broken and healed.

Elin Hilderbrand takes readers on a touching journey in Beautiful Day—into the heart of marriage, what it means to be faithful, and how we choose to honor our commitments. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1969-70
• Raised—Collegeville, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Hopkins University; University of Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in Nantucket, Massachuestts

Elin Hilderbrand is an American writer of Summer beach read romance novels, some 20 in all. Her books have been set on and around Nantucket Island where she lives with her husband and three children.

Hilderbrand was born and raised in Collegeville, Pennsylvania. As a child, she spent summers on Cape Cod, "playing touch football at low tide, collecting sea glass, digging pools for hermit crabs, swimming out to the wooden raft off shore," until her father died in a plane crash when she was sixteen. She spent the next summer working—doing piecework in a factory that made Halloween costumes; she promised herself that the goal for the rest of her life would be that she would always have a real summer.

She graduated from Johns Hopkins University and became a teaching/writing fellow at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. In 1993 she moved to Nantucket, took a job as "the classified ads girl" at a local paper, and later started writing.

Her first novels were published by St. Martin's Press. With A Summer Affair, published in 2008, she moved to Little, Brown and Company. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/11/2013.)

Book Reviews
[P]erfect beach read—down to its Nantucket setting. The Carmichaels and Grahams arrive on the island for the wedding of golden girl Jenna Carmichael to ethical banker Stuart Graham. Jenna's mother Beth, before dying seven years ago, prepared a wedding notebook, a guide that approaches sanctity.... The narrative unfolds through [various] perspectives and is aided by entries from Beth's notebook.... The author's straightforward style pulls the reader into the minds of her characters, and all the secrets and sorrows that create the universal messi-ness of major family events.
Publishers Weekly


Ah, the wedding day. A romantic time that celebrates the union of two individuals and the joining of two families. What could be better, right? Wrong! The Jennifer Carmichael/Stuart Graham wedding is full of dysfunction, stress, and the reopening of old wounds.... [A] twist on what seems at first to be a predictable plot point gives this title broad appeal to both young and older women. Another summer delight for fans of women's fiction. —Amber McKee, Cumberland Univ. Lib., Lebanon, TN
Library Journal


Hilderbrand's surprisingly original take on the wedding disaster novel. A wedding weekend is a time-honored literary pretext for exploring family dysfunction, and Hilderbrand's version combines gentle irony with astute observation. .... The populous cast makes establishing a coherent throughline difficult, and the first 200 pages are mainly prologue. But Hilderbrand's casually tossed-off zingers, and her gift for eliciting sympathy for even the most insufferable of her characters, keep the pages turning until the disaster unfolds in earnest.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.

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Beautiful Disaster
Jamie McGuire, 2012
Simon & Schuster
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476712048


Summary
The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Jamie McGuire was born in Tulsa, OK. She was raised by her mother Brenda in Blackwell, OK, where she graduated high school in 1997. Jamie attended the Northern Oklahoma College, the University of Central Oklahoma, and Autry Technology Center where she graduated with a degree in Radiography.

Jamie now lives in Enid, OK with her three children and husband Jeff, who is a real, live cowboy. They share their 30 acres with four horses, four dogs, and Rooster the cat.

Books published by Jamie include the Providence trilogy, and The New York Times best seller Beautiful Disaster, a contemporary romance. When she’s not writing, Jamie spends her days letting her four dogs in and out. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
My new favorite romance with a twist of masochism.
Nightly Reading Review


I loved every single character in this book.
Daily Quirk


It just might be possible that this book should come with a warning label. Readers be prepared to be absorbed for the duration of this novel nothing else will get accomplished until you are done with this book. I promise! Officially BookWhisperer would recommend this as a MUST READ.
Bookwhisperer (online)


The author's unusual and talented use of natural "Conversational Style" story telling instantly and convincingly changes the reader's perception that this is simply a writer's imaginary tale of romance! The character portrayal in this story was so richly developed and the dialogue so realistic that it often felt like we were sneaking a peek into pages from some close friend's private diary!
Darkpleasure (NY)

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 Beautiful Disaster:

1. Readers and reviewers have talked about the addictive quality of Beautiful Disaster. Do you find the book addictive—was it hard to tear yourself away from its pages? Why or why not?

2. What do you think of Travis Maddox? One reviewer (Shiirelyy's Bookshelf) says, "he's hot. He's sweet. He's loyal." Do you agree? What other qualities in him are not so positive?

3. How has Travis earned the nickname "Mad Dog"? Is it an epithet his classmates consider "cool" and something Travis can be proud of? Or is "Mad Dog" used as a pejorative, a nickname reflecting Travis's troubled personality?

4. (Follow-up to Questions 2 & 3): Despite his flaws, do you find yourself liking Travis? If so, how does the author manage to make a character likable who has so many dysfunctionalities?

5. Would you ever—or have you ever—become involved with a "Travis"? Or if you have a daughter, how would you feel if she brought him home?

6. Talk about Abby Abernathy as a character. Is she, as the publisher's summary refers to her, a "good girl"? Has Travis met his match in Abby? If so, in what way? Or do you see Abby as soft and submissive when it comes to Travis?

7. Why does Abby become involved with Travis in the first place? What drew her to him? In what way does Abby's past influence her decision to become involved? What in her history is she trying to outrun? 

8. How would you describe Abby and Travis's relationship? Many readers describe it as abusive or unhealthy. Do you agree? Or do you view it as a passionate love story with characters destined to be together? What do you think makes Abby stay with Travis and, in the end, marry him?

9. (Follow-up to Question 8): Is Travis and Abby's relationship, as the title suggests, a "beautiful disaster"? In what way is it beautiful and in what way a disaster?

10. Both characters are young (between 19 and 22). Do their ages make the story less or more believable? Is their behavior as young adults credible?

11. Talk about Abby's friend, America. Do you consider her a true friend to Abby...or is she overly consumed with her relationship with Shepley? If you had a friend in a situation similar to Abby's, what would you advise her to do?

12. What about the gift of the diamond bracelet? Why is it given? Is it appropriate to give such an expensive gift...and is it right of Abby to accept it? Are there obligations that follow from accepting such a gift?

13. Do you find the ending to the novel satisfying? Is it believable? Would you have preferred a different ending?

14. Did you find any inconsistencies in the story?

15. Beautiful Disaster has been compared to Fifty Shades of Grey but, unlike Fifty Shades, this novel is categorized as a Young Adult novel. If you've read Fifty Shades, is there a similarity? How would you classify Beautiful Disaster—as Young Adult or Adult fiction?

16. Jamie McGuire announced that Walking Disaster, a follow-up based on Travis's perspective, will be released in 2013. Does Travis deserve a chance to tell his story? Will you be reading it?

(Questions by Katherine O'Conner at LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Beautiful Lies
Clare Clark, 2012
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544103801


Summary
London 1887. For Maribel Campbell Lowe, the beautiful bohemian wife of a maverick politician, it is the year to make something of herself. A self-proclaimed Chilean heiress educated in Paris, she is torn between poetry and the new art of photography. But it is soon plain that Maribel’s choices are not so simple. As her husband’s career hangs by a thread, her real past, and the family she abandoned, come back to haunt them both. When the notorious newspaper editor Alfred Webster begins to take an uncommon interest in Maribel, she fears he will not only destroy Edward’s career but both of their reputations.

Inspired by the true story of a politician’s wife who lived a double life for decades, Beautiful Lies is set in a time that, fraught with economic uncertainty and tabloid scandal-mongering, uncannily presages our own. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Clare Clark is the author of four novels, including The Great Stink, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize and was named a Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and Savage Lands, which was long-listed for the Orange Prize in 2010. Her work has been translated into five languages. She lives in London. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
As in her previous novels, Clark takes real events as her inspiration but allows herself the freedom to invent and embellish. Her historical research is immaculate without being overbearing…. As always, Clark doesn't rush through her plot. She develops the story gently, with revelations about Maribel's past folded carefully into scenes from the present, yielding a complex tapestry of tales. A captivating fable of truth and memory, Beautiful Lies speaks to us quietly yet with strength.
Andrea Wulf — New York Times Book Review


The charm of Beautiful Lies is that Clark breaks the usual Victorian moral code, exploring both the colorful world outside the drawing room and the depths of her characters' minds. A stirring and seductive novel.
Economist


An uplifting and ultimately optimistic tale, as well as being impressively narrated. The historical context is sound, and the plot thoroughly engages the reader. It is based on real figures and their circumstances, which are not widely known. This is a wonderful story; I have read Clare Clark’s previous three novels, all of which have been reviewed by the HNS, and this is by far the best.
Historical Novels Society


Clark’s fourth novel (after Savage Lands) offers an informative if disjointed portrait of the Victorian era, encompassing socialist politics, spiritualism, economic crisis, tabloid journalism, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, and family secrets. Maribel Campbell Lowe is the wife of an earnest MP, whose passion for the socialist cause puts his political career at risk. Maribel’s photography hobby brings her into contact both with the Indians of Buffalo Bill’s show and the growing spiritualist movement, whose members are fascinated by the possibility of spirits appearing in photographs, a sometimes accidental and often duplicitous practice. The core of the book is Maribel’s personal history, a secret life she has hidden at the cost of losing her family. When a devious newspaper editor comes close to revealing her past, and destroying her reputation and her husband’s career, bright, resourceful Maribel must take a stand. Individual vignettes—Maribel’s photo studio, the lively spirit of the Wild West Show, her husband’s involvement with socialism—will charm devotees of the Victorian era, but no meaningful connection between them is made, and the novel bursts at the seams as Clark struggles to wrap them up by the end.
Publishers Weekly


On the face of it, Edward and Maribel Campbell Lowe are a respectable Victorian couple with an estate in Scotland and a fashionable flat in Belgravia. He is a reform-minded member of Parliament whose associates include Oscar Wilde and William Morris. She is a beautiful, Chilean-born society matron who smokes too much and dabbles in photography. But Maribel is not who she appears to be, and unresolved ties to her past threaten to expose her family to scandal and ruin. At the dawn of tabloid journalism, with Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show arriving in London to massive crowds and unprecedented press coverage, the Campbell Lowes provide great fodder for the gossipmongers. Edward's firebrand politics on behalf of the homeless and unemployed lead to considerable notoriety, casting an unkind spotlight on the couple. Verdict: Inspired by a real-life politician of the era and his wife, Clark (The Great Stink) presents another engaging, compulsively readable window into Victorian society. This should be a popular choice in public libraries.— Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) An enthralling novel about an elaborate fiction, Beautiful Lies dazzles with its presentations of late Victorian London’s political and social occupations and a remarkable woman with something to hide.... An unpredictable, historically authentic take on how we all carry secrets.
Booklist


A well-rendered novel of extraordinary lives in Victorian London. Bodices are ripped, to be sure, but Clark (Savage Lands, 2010, etc.) offers much more than a genre romance with her tale of the darkly beautiful Maribel Campbell Lowe.... Enter newsman Alfred Webster, who...begins to warm up to a carefully hidden secret from Maribel's past.... Clark's characters play fine and psychologically dense games of cat and mouse.... It makes for a grand adventure, and Clark's novel is so richly textured and detailed that the reader might rightly wish that she return to her former profession as a historian.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the author chose to open the story with a misdirect—in particular, a charade? What effect did this have on your reading experience? How does it set the tone for the story to come?

2. Initially, for what reasons did you suspect Maribel never spoke of or contacted her family? What were you able to piece together as the novel progressed? Why do you think she sent her mother her address in London and told her about her marriage to Edward?

3. Maribel’s London is increasingly in turmoil, with political upset driving nearly every conversation. On page 11, the author writes that, as a politician’s wife, Maribel was able to keep pace with the rest of them and make a fine argument herself, “But for all that, she couldn’t help resenting it, just a little.” What does this insight tell you about Maribel? Does your opinion of her change throughout the novel? Why or why not?

4. Mrs. Bryant, we learn, used to tell Maribel that she was histrionic, while Maribel felt that if she didn’t leave home she would suffocate. Edith, the sister for whom Maribel never spared a thought, is thrilled to see her and seems crushed at the thought of never seeing her again. And yet Ida, the sister Maribel imagines will understand her journey and forgive her mistakes, the only family member she seems to care for, flat out rejects her and insists she stay out of her life forever. Discuss how truth can be shaped by perception and will and how the characters in this novel, Maribel in particular, experience this chimerical reality.

5. Why doesn’t Maribel believe in spirits or séances? What compels Charlotte to disagree and pursue the possibility? Given her skepticism, why do you think the so-called “spirit photograph” Maribel takes of Charlotte disturbs her so much? Why does she so steadfastly refuse to let Mr. Pigeon examine it? Discuss the role of spiritualism in the novel and the arguments made for and against its authenticity.

6. After several aborted attempts to contact Ida, Maribel decides to let go of her need to see her sister until she can present herself as “the best possible version of herself that she had left home for, the version of herself for which she had risked everything.” (p. 164) What do you think she means by this? What is it about her current status that she finds lacking? By the end of the story, do you think Maribel has achieved that “best possible version?” Why or why not?

7. At first, Maribel finds herself increasingly attracted to Mr. Webster. She admires his passion for truth and his willingness to use his position as newspaper editor to sway public opinion and influence political decisions. Edward, on the other hand, distrusts and dislikes Webster from the start. Identify the various turning points in the relationship between the Campbell Lowes and Mr. Webster. In what ways do their opinions change?

8. Early in the novel, it’s plain that Maribel doesn’t want her family to contact her in any way for fear of the scandal they might cause her and Edward. Discuss the irony of Ida’s reaction when she discovers Maribel waiting in her kitchen. Do you feel any sympathy for Maribel? Why or why not?

9. Several times in the novel, various characters express the sentiment that, “When there is nothing that can be done, and the knowledge that there is nothing that can be done is too much to bear, it is always better to do something.” How do the characters of Beautiful Lies prove this to be true? Who do you think would disagree with this concept and why?

10. Why won’t the nun at the convent in Meiriz tell Maribel anything about her son? Discuss the significance of the metaphor she offers instead: “If she lights this tinderbox she will see only the pretty flames. It will be her husband who must afterwards sift through the charred remains. He and the boy.” Discuss how this metaphor might apply to other situations in the novel.

11. Maribel and other Victorian photographers struggle to be recognized as artists in a world where general opinion holds that a camera captures only fact—that “art” is not part of the equation. It is this same belief, shared by the spiritualists Mr. Webster supports, that ultimately undoes him. How else is truth manipulated for personal ends in Beautiful Lies? Identify elements of the story that lend themselves as evidence one way or the other in the argument about the camera’s ability to capture only the reality before it.

12. When Edward suggests Maribel take another round of photographs of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Indians, she declines, calling them “players in a flagrantly fictionalized version of their lives,” to which Edward replies, “Aren’t we all?” (p.475) Explain what he means by this. Do you agree or disagree, and why? Is anyone in the novel just what they appear to be?

13. Mr. Webster protests against “the indefensible muzzling of the press by the Establishment.” Distasteful though he may be, what wrongs has Mr. Webster really committed? Do you think he deserved his fate? Why or why not?

14. It is often said that history repeats itself. In her Author’s Note, Clare Clark draws several parallels between England in 1887 and England in 2012. Similar comparisons might be made between the novel’s events and socio-political climate and the United States today. Discuss these similarities. How have things changed, and how have they remained the same?

15. Throughout the novel, the question of truth’s relationship to beauty pops up in quotations (including the novel’s epigraph) and in conversation between characters. What do you think: Are truth and beauty one and the same, in the end? Is there a kind of truth to be found in beautiful lies? What makes a lie beautiful or ugly? Discuss the meaning of the book’s title, “Beautiful Lies” and its relation to the work itself.
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Beautiful Lies (Ridley Jones series #1)
Lisa Unger, 2006
Crown Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307388995


Summary
If Ridley Jones had slept ten minutes later or had taken the subway instead of waiting for a cab, she would still be living the beautiful lie she used to call her life. She would still be the privileged daughter of a doting father and a loving mother. Her life would still be perfect—with only the tiny cracks of an angry junkie for a brother and a charming drunk with shady underworld connections for an uncle to mar the otherwise flawless whole.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, those inconsequential decisions lead her to perform a good deed that puts her in the right place at the right time to unleash a chain of events that brings a mysterious package to her door—a package which informs her that her entire world is a lie.

Suddenly forced to question everything she knows about herself and her family, Ridley wanders into dark territory she never knew existed, where everyone in her life seems like a stranger. She has no idea who’s on her side and who has something to hide—even, and maybe especially, her new lover, Jake, who appears to have secrets of his own.

Sexy and fast-paced, Beautiful Lies is a true literary thriller with one of the freshest voices and heroines to arrive in years. Lisa Unger takes us on a breathtaking ride in which every choice Ridley makes creates a whirlwind of consequences that are impossible to imagine. (From the publisher.)

Sliver of Truth (2007) is the second in Unger's Ridley Jones series.

Author Bio
• Birth—April 26, 1970
• Where—New Haven, Connecticut, USA
• Reared—The Netherlands, UK, and New Jersey, USA
• Education—New School for Social Research
• Currently—lives in Florida


Lisa Unger is an award winning New York Times, USA Today and international bestselling author. Her novels have been published in over 26 countries around the world.

She was born in New Haven, Connecticut (1970) but grew up in the Netherlands, England and New Jersey. A graduate of the New School for Social Research, Lisa spent many years living and working in New York City. She then left a career in publicity to pursue her dream of becoming a full-time author. She now lives in Florida with her husband and daughter.

Her writing has been hailed as "masterful" (St. Petersburg Times), "sensational" (Publishers Weekly) and "sophisticated" (New York Daily News) with "gripping narrative and evocative, muscular prose" (Associated Press).

More
Her own words:

I have always most naturally expressed myself through writing and I have always dwelled in the land of my imagination more comfortably than in reality. There’s a jolt I get from a good story that I’m not sure can be duplicated in the real world. Perhaps this condition came about because of all the traveling my family did when I was younger. I was born in Connecticut but we moved often. By the time my family settled for once and all in New Jersey, I had already lived in Holland and in England (not to mention Brooklyn and other brief New Jersey stays) for most of my childhood. I don’t recall ever minding moving about; even then I had a sense that it was cool and unusual. But I think it was one of many things that kept me feeling separate from the things and people around me, this sense of myself as transient and on the outside, looking in. I don’t recall ever exactly fitting in anywhere. Writers are first and foremost observers … and one can’t truly observe unless she stands apart.

For a long time, I didn’t really believe that it was possible to make a living as a writer … mainly because that’s what people always told me. So, I made it a hobby. All through high school, I won awards and eventually, a partial scholarship because of my writing. In college, I was advised by teachers to pursue my talent, to get an agent, to really go for it. But there was a little voice that told me (quietly but insistently) that it wasn’t possible. I didn’t see it as a viable career option as I graduated from the New School for Social Research (I transferred there from NYU for smaller, more dynamic classes). I needed a “real job.” A real job delivers a regular pay check, right? So I entered a profession that brought me as close to my dream as possible … and paid, if not well, then at least every two weeks. I went into publishing.

When I left for Florida, I think I was at a critical level of burnout. I think that as a New Yorker, especially after a number of years, one starts to lose sight of how truly special, how textured and unique it is. The day-to-day can be brutal: the odors, the noise, the homeless, the trains, the expense. Once I had some distance though, New York City started to leak into my work and I found myself rediscovering many of the things I had always treasured about it. It came very naturally as the setting for Beautiful Lies. It is the place I know best. I know it as one can only know a place she has loved desperately and hated passionately and then come to miss terribly once she has left it behind.

But it is true that we can’t go home again. I live in Florida now with my wonderful husband, and I’m a full-time writer. There’s a lot of beauty and texture and darkness to be mined in this strange place, as well. I’m sure I’d miss it as much in different ways if I returned to New York. I guess that’s my thing … no matter where I am I wonder if I belong somewhere else. I’m always outside, observing. It’s only when I’m writing that I know I’m truly home. (Author bio from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
A tightly written thriller.... The action is depicted with satisfying breathlessness.
San Francisco Chronicle


Perfect pitch, characters we can recognize as versions of ourselves.... Lip-smacking good.
Chicago Tribune


Unger's well-crafted, suspenseful debut fiction, in which a bright, resourceful young woman finds her everyday world turned upside down in true Harlan Coben-thriller fashion, is done no favors by this off-kilter audio rendition. The main problem is that reader Lamia sounds a decade younger than the novel's narrator, Ridley Jones. As the book's heroine drifts into and out of jeopardy, fearlessly searching for the truth about her birth and parentage while defying powerful adversaries determined to keep a particularly evil secret, the mood should be noir. Lamia's sound is strictly YA, more girly than gritty. Her performance isn't one note; she makes all the right emotional choices. But she is not vocally versatile enough to do justice to the novel's cast of characters. Asking her to convey the audio image of a rotund, sinister lawyer issuing dire threats, to take one example, is a little like hiring Paris Hilton to stand in for Orson Welles. Not her fault, exactly, if she falls short of the mark.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) Unger takes readers on a pulse-pounding ride through the Big Apple in this outstanding debut that will please both pace-obsessed thriller fans and those who want to savor the more subtle aspects of character development. —Jenny McLarin
Booklist


A cozy, personable debut about a young New York City journalist who inadvertently begins to unravel her own identity. Ridley Jones's 15 minutes of fame occur when she leaves her East Village apartment one morning to catch a cab and saves a toddler from being hit by a van. Ridley's face is plastered over the news for days, thrilling her New Jersey parents and former fiance Zack, whom she dumped in order to become her own person. Ridley's privacy is further compromised when she receives notes from someone claiming to be her long-lost daughter. Simultaneously, an attractive, rather nosy new neighbor in her building, Jake, turns out to be a PI with all kinds of scary baggage and a bullet scar on his shoulder. He helps connect Ridley's mysterious messages to the case of a missing girl, Jessie Stone, who disappeared in 1972 after the murder of her mother (probably by her boyfriend). Unger effectively builds suspicions around the men in Ridley's life: unknown, duplicitous Jake, who seems to follow her everywhere; obtuse and overprotective Zack, a pediatrician like her father; bitter, damaged older brother Ace, an itinerant drug user estranged from the family who drops hints of their parents' perfidy without evidence; and even Ridley's beloved, dead Uncle Max, who overcame an abusive childhood to make his fortune in real estate and establish a humanitarian agency that shelters mothers with children frightened for their safety. Ridley's parents also come under her scrutiny, since her father served as pediatrician to Jessie as well as to other missing children. The story is told from the perspective of Ridley, who is proud and occasionally spooked to live on her own in the big city. Cleverly handled suspense for chick-lit readers.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. One of the novel’s main themes is choice, and how both big choices and little ones can have a profound impact on a person’s life. Did Ridley have a choice in finding out the truth about her past? If she’d chosen to ignore the first picture and note, could she have avoided all the questions and secrets that arose?

2. Would it have been possible for Ridley to ignore the events of the past and still have developed a true sense of self? Would you be able to?

3. On page 17, Ridley says, “Freedom, I’d have to say is probably the most important thing to me, more important than youth, beauty, fame, money.” Does this freedom Ridley craves influence the lies that have been told to her her entire life? Or is this freedom what could have protected her from asking questions about her past?

4. Throughout the story, the author compares Jake to Zack. Are there any similarities between the two men? In the beginning, what does Ridley admire about each of them?

5. Why did Jake keep the truth from Ridley for so long? Would it have been easier to tell her who he was from the start? Would she have believed him? Would you?

6. The author brings up the idea of parental (and adult) control over children, even after these children have grown up. Is there a control parents will always have over their child? Or at some point is control relinquished to the child to live his/her own life? How could Ridley’s parents have handled the situation differently? Would it have worked?

7. On page 51, Ridley says, “When you love someone, it doesn’t really matter if they love you back or not. Having love in your heart for someone is its own reward. Or punishment, depending on the circumstances.” By the end of the novel, has Ridley’s view of her family and Jake altered this idea of love? How has it altered? If her family and Jake followed the same definition of love, would their views have been altered by the events of the story?

8. What do you think of the nature of Project Rescue before Teresa Stone’s murder? Was there another or better way to protect children from abuse or neglect? What do you think of the systems in place to protect children today in your own society?

9. Do you believe Ridley’s father and Max should both be penalized or blamed for what happened? What about Ridley’s mother and Ace? Did any of these people have a responsibility to tell Ridley what happened to her? Why or why not?

10. If you were Jake or Ridley, would you have looked into all the cases of missing children, as they did, or would you have focused solely on finding the truth of your own past? What was to gain by looking at all the cases? Could they have found the truth about their own life without looking at the others?

11. Do you think Ace’s drug addiction and problems with his parents were related to Ridley’s history, which he overheard their father and Max discussing one day? How do you think Ridley would have handled the truth had she been told by her parents instead of finding out the way she did?

12. On page 252, Ridley says, “I was operating under a faith that the universe conspires to reveal the truth, that lies are unstable elements that tend toward breaking down.” Do you think the truth would have revealed itself to Ridley without Jake’s involvement? Would it have been easier or more difficult to take without Jake?

13. On page 368, Ridley asks, “Isn’t that so often true with family, that we see them through the filters of our own fears, expectations, and desire to control?” How does this apply to each of her family members? How is it affected by the truth that’s come out, and how will it affect their relationships moving forward? Can Ridley, or anyone, project fear, expectation, or desire to control onto how she views anyone else now?

14. By the end of the story, what do you think of Zack’s and Esme’s role in Project Rescue? Was it right for Esme to help Max as she did because of her love for him?

15. On page 369, Ridley says, “We don’t have control, we have choices.” And on page 371, she says, “In life there are only good and bad choices. And sometimes even choices can only be judged by their consequences. And sometimes not even then.” Is it really as simple as a matter of choice? How would any of the characters agree or disagree with these ideas?

16. When Ridley confronts Jake on the Brooklyn Bridge, she wants to know how he found her to begin with. He tells her that he saw her picture in The Post, just like Christian Luna. Can this be the truth? Or is Jake hiding more than Ridley ever realizes even as the book ends?
(Questions issued by publishers.)

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The Beautiful Mystery (Inspector Gamache series, 8)
Louise Penny, 2012
St. Martin's Press
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312655464


Summary
No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer.

They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as “the beautiful mystery.”

But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery’s massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Surete du Quebec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. One of the brothers, in this life of  prayer and contemplation, has been contemplating murder.

As the peace of the monastery crumbles, Gamache is forced to confront some of his own demons, as well as those roaming the remote corridors. Before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1958
• Where—Toronto, Canada
• Education—B.A, Ryerson University
• Awards—Agatha Award (4 times) "New Blood" Dagger Award;
   Arthur Ellis Award; Barry Award, Anthony Award; Dilys Award.
• Currently—lives in Knowlton, Canada (outside of Montreal)


In her words
I live outside a small village south of Montreal, quite close to the American border. I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in Toronto in 1958 and became a journalist and radio host with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, specializing in hard news and current affairs. My first job was in Toronto and then moved to Thunder Bay at the far tip of Lake Superior, in Ontario. It was a great place to learn the art and craft of radio and interviewing, and listening. That was the key. A good interviewer rarely speaks, she listens. Closely and carefully. I think the same is true of writers.

From Thunder Bay I moved to Winnipeg to produce documentaries and host the CBC afternoon show. It was a hugely creative time with amazingly creative people. But I decided I needed to host a morning show, and so accepted a job in Quebec City. The advantage of a morning show is that it has the largest audience, the disadvantage is having to rise at 4am.

But Quebec City offered other advantages that far outweighed the ungodly hour. It's staggeringly beautiful and almost totally French and I wanted to learn. Within weeks I'd called Quebecers "good pumpkins", ordered flaming mice in a restaurant, for dessert naturally, and asked a taxi driver to "take me to the war, please." He turned around and asked "Which war exactly, Madame?" Fortunately elegant and venerable Quebec City has a very tolerant and gentle nature and simply smiled at me.

From there the job took me to Montreal, where I ended my career on CBC Radio's noon programme.

In my mid-thirties the most remarkable thing happened. I fell in love with Michael, the head of hematology at the Montreal Children's Hospital. He'd go on to hold the first named chair in pediatric hematology in Canada, something I take full credit for, out of his hearing.

It's an amazing and blessed thing to find love later in life. It was my first marriage and his second. He'd lost his first wife to cancer a few years earlier and that had just about killed him. Sad and grieving we met and began a gentle and tentative courtship, both of us slightly fearful, but overcome with the rightness of it. And overcome with gratitude that this should happen to us and deeply grateful to the family and friends who supported us.

Fifteen years later we live in an old United Empire Loyalist brick home in the country, surrounded by maple woods and mountains and smelly dogs.

Since I was a child I've dreamed of writing and now I am. Beyond my wildest dreams (and I can dream pretty wild) the Chief Inspector Gamache books have found a world-wide audience, won awards and ended up on bestseller lists including the New York Times. Even more satisfying, I have found a group of friends in the writing community. Other authors, booksellers, readers—who have become important parts of our lives. I thought writing might provide me with an income—I had no idea the real riches were more precious but less substantial. Friendships.

There are times when I'm in tears writing. Not because I'm so moved by my own writing, but out of gratitude that I get to do this. In my life as a journalist I covered deaths and accidents and horrible events, as well as the quieter disasters of despair and poverty. Now, every morning I go to my office, put the coffee on, fire up the computer and visit my imaginary friends, Gamache and Beauvoir and Clara and Peter. What a privilege it is to write. I hope you enjoy reading the books as much as I enjoy writing them.

Chief Inspector Gamache was inspired by a number of people, and one main inspiration was this man holding a copy of En plein coeur. Jean Gamache, a tailor in Granby. He looks slightly as I picture Gamache, but mostly it was his courtesy and dignity and kind eyes that really caught my imagination. What a pleasure to be able to give him a copy of En plein coeur!(From the author's website with permission.)

Book Reviews
[A]n original variation on the "no exit" whodunit…Penny writes with grace and intelligence about complex people struggling with complex emotions. But her great gift is her uncanny ability to describe what might seem indescribable—the play of light, the sound of celestial music, a quiet sense of peace.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times


With enormous empathy for the troubled human soul—and an ending that makes your blood race and your heart break—Penny continues to raise the bar of her splendid series.
People


(Starred review.) Religious music serves as the backdrop for bestseller Penny’s excellent eighth novel featuring Chief Insp. Armand Gamache of the Quebec Surete (after 2011’s A Trick of the Light). Gamache and his loyal number two, Insp. Jean-Guy Beauvoir, travel to the isolated monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, which produced a CD of Gregorian chants that became a surprise smash hit, to investigate the murder of its choirmaster, Frere Mathieu, found within an enclosed garden in a fetal position with his head bashed in. Gamache soon finds serious divisions among the outwardly unified and placid monks, and begins to encourage confidences among them as a first step to catching the killer. Traditional mystery fans can look forward to a captivating whodunit plot, a clever fair-play clue concealed in plain view, and the deft use of humor to lighten the story’s dark patches. On a deeper level, the crime provides a means for Penny’s unusually empathic, all-too-fallible lead to unearth truths about human passions and weaknesses while avoiding simple answers.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Penny's (A Trick of the Light) eighth elegant entry in her Agatha Award-winning series is a locked-room mystery set in a remote monastery deep in the wilderness of northern Québec. There are 24 cloistered monks. One is dead. There are only 23 suspects. The monks have taken a vow of silence, except that they made the most beautiful recording of Gregorian chant ever heard. And it caused a schism. And then a murder. Chief Inspector Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Surete du Quebec come to investigate the murder and the difficulties in this formerly peaceful order that caused it. It also brings the viper within the Surete to this remote place and exposes the rot inside Gamache's own house. Verdict: This heart-rending tale is a marvelous addition to Penny's acclaimed series. Fans won't be disappointed. —Marlene Harris, Reading Reality LLC, Atlanta
Library Journal


(Starred review.) An entire mystery novel centering on Gregorian chants (whose curiously hypnotic allure is called the “beautiful mystery”)? Yes, indeed, and in the hands of the masterful Penny, the topic proves every bit as able to transfix readers as the chants do their listeners.
Booklist


Elliptical and often oracular… also remarkably penetrating and humane. The most illuminating analogies are not to other contemporary detective fiction but to The Name of the Rose and Murder in the Cathedral.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What does "the beautiful mystery" of the title refer to? What are the powers and/or limitations of music throughout the novel?

2. As we get to know the inner workings of the monastery, how do you come to regard the community of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups and the individuals who choose to devote their lives to it?

3. To solve the crime Gamache needs "to think about the Divine, the human, and the cracks in between." How do all of these qualities manifest themselves in the story?

4. What do you see as Gamache's greatest strengths as a detective and as a man? Does he also have weaknesses?

5. How do you view Jean-Guy Beauvoir throughout the book? What do you think will become of him?

6. Because the monastery is so cut off from most methods of communication, text messages take on unusual importance for Gamache and Beauvoir. How does Louise Penny use them to convey the tone of real-world relationships?

7. What do you make of Francoeur's fierce hatred for Gamache? What does the novel tell us about good and evil, and is the distinction between them always clear? For example, see page 318, where Gamache sits through the service in the Blessed  Chapel amid "peace and rage,  ilence and singing. The Gilbertines and the Inquisition. The good men and the not-so-good."

8. The abbot tells Gamache, "That's the difference between us, Chief Inspector. You need proof in your line of work. I don't." What role does faith play for various characters in the novel?

9. At one point Gamache finds himself wondering if the abbot's private garden "existed on different planes. It was both a place of grass and earth and flowers. But also an allegory. For that most private place inside each one of them. For some it was a dark, locked room. For others, a garden." How might that allegory apply to particular characters in The Beautiful Mystery?

10. When Gamache quotes the line from Murder in the Cathedral, "Some malady is coming upon us," Frere Sebastien replies, "Modern times. That’s what came upon the Gilbertines." Do you feel that the monks could or should have remained in isolation from the outside world forever?

11. How is The Beautiful Mystery similar to/different from the books set in Three Pines?

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Beautiful Ruins
Jess Walter, 2012
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061928178


Summary
The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.

And the story begins again today, half a world away, when an elderly Italian man shows up on a movie studio's back lot—searching for the mysterious woman he last saw at his hotel decades earlier.

What unfolds is a dazzling, yet deeply human, roller coaster of a novel, spanning fifty years and nearly as many lives. From the lavish set of Cleopatra to the shabby revelry of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Walter introduces us to the tangled lives of a dozen unforgettable characters: the starstruck Italian innkeeper and his long-lost love; the heroically preserved producer who once brought them together and his idealistic young assistant; the army veteran turned fledgling novelist and the rakish Richard Burton himself, whose appetites set the whole story in motion—along with the husbands and wives, lovers and dreamers, superstars and losers, who populate their world in the decades that follow.

Gloriously inventive, constantly surprising, Beautiful Ruins is a story of flawed yet fascinating people, navigating the rocky shores of their lives while clinging to their improbable dreams. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—July 20, 1965
• Raised—Spokane, Washington, USA
• Education—Eastern Washington University
• Currently—Spokane Washington


Jess Walter is an American author of six novels—Over Tumbled Graves (2001), The Land of the Blind (2003), Citizen Vince (2005), The Zero (2006), The Financial Lives of the Poets (2009), and Beautiful Ruins (2012). His work has been published in fifteen countries and translated into thirteen languages.

Walter is also a career journalist, whose work has appeared in Newsweek, Washington Post and Boston Globe. As a reporter he covered the Randy Weaver/Ruby Ridge case for the Spokane Spokesman-Review newspaper and authored a book about the case, Every Knee Shall Bow (revised title, Ruby Ridge). He also writes short stories, essays and screenplays and was the co-author of Christopher Darden’s 1996 bestseller In Contempt. His 2006 novel The Zero was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Walter lives with his wife Anne and children, Brooklyn, Ava and Alec in his childhood home of Spokane, Washington. He is an alumnus of Eastern Washington University. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
As with any story that relies on scrambled chronology, it's worth wondering how Beautiful Ruins would work as a straightforward narrative. Not as well. Moments of confusion would vanish, but so would the magic. Mr. Walter…has always been more intuitive than linear, a believer in capricious destiny with a fine, freewheeling sense of humor. The deeply romantic heart of Beautiful Ruins is better expressed by constant circling than it would by any head-on approach.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


A high-wire feat of bravura storytelling.... You’re going to love this book…. The surprising and witty novel of social criticism that flows away from its lush, romantic opening offers so much more than just entertainment...stirs the heart and amuses as it also rescues us from the all too human pain that is the motor of this complex and ever-evolving novel … Walter is a talented and original writer.
Helen Schulman - New York Book Review


Weds the grand dramatic impulses of the cinematic blockbuster to the psychological interiority of high literary art. The result is a page-turner that doubles as an elegant meditation on fame, desire, duty, and fate.... Walter has planted himself firmly in the first rank of American authors. He has crafted a novel with pathos, piercing wit and, most important, the generous soul of a literary classic.... Beautiful Ruins will endure.
Steve Almond - Boston Globe


A literary miracle like Beautiful Ruins appears, and once again I'm a believer...a sweeping stunner of a narrative…the entire novel is a kaleidoscopic collection of 'beautiful ruins,' both architectural and human. This novel is a standout not just because of the inventiveness of its plot, but also because of its language.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR Fresh Air

A lyrical, heartbreaking and funny novel (that) ends with a 12-page bolt of brilliance, a perceptive, moving and altogether superb piece of writing. Walter closes the deal with such command that you begin to wonder why up till now he’s not often been mentioned as one of the best novelists around. Beautiful Ruins might just correct that oversight.
Kevin Canfield - Kansas City Star


Jess Walter has already proven that he’s one of our great comic writers (Financial Lives of the Poets), a cerebral postmodernist (The Zero) and a savvy plotter of thrillers (Citizen Vince). Now he has his masterpiece, Beautiful Ruins, an interlocking, continent-hopping, decade-spanning novel with heart and pathos to burn, all big dreams, lost loves, deep longings and damn near perfect.
David Daley - Salon


Hollywood operators and creative washouts collide across five decades and two continents in a brilliant, madcap meditation on fate.... A theme that bubbles under the story is the variety of ways real life energizes great art—Walter intersperses excerpts from his characters' plays, memoirs, film treatments and novels to show how their pasts inform their best work. Unlikely coincidences abound, but they feel less like plot contrivances than ways to serve a broader theme about how the unlikely, unplanned moments in our lives are the most meaningful ones. And simply put, Walter's prose is a joy—funny, brash, witty and rich with ironic twists. He's taken all of the tricks of the postmodern novel and scoured out the cynicism, making for a novel that's life-affirming but never saccharine. A superb romp.
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 Beautiful Ruins:

1. One of Jess Walter's concerns in Beautiful Ruins is how real life intersects and influences art. Talk about the numerous ways that idea plays out in the novel.

2. This is a work of social satire, skewering much in American culture. What are the many targets the author turns his satirical eye on? Is his aim accurate, fair, unfair?

3. Much has been made of the novel's humor? What do you find funny? Hotel Adequate View? Anything else?

4. The book's opening is reminiscent of a lush, epic romantic film—the beautiful dying Dee Moray steps off the boat and into Pasquale's heart. Although the book veers off new directions, is it still a love story? What kinds of love are presented in the novel? What, ultimately, does the novel have to say about love?

5. In what ways does Pat Bender resemble his biological father? Are genes destiny? Had you been Dee (or Debra), his mother, would you have told him who his father was?

6. The book's timeline, locales, different voices and unusual text treatments (Hollywood film pitch, biography, unfinished novel, how-to book) are jumbled. Did you find it confusing, hard to follow, irritating? Or was the variety intriguing? What might the author be hoping to achieve by scrambling everything up? How would the book be different if it were told in chronological order with a straightforward narrator?

7. Talk about contrast between the grand Hollywood projects of the past, like Cleopatra, and the reality show that Michael Deane and Claire are producing. What does it say about our current culture or collective imaginative life? Does Jess Walter suggest a solution to what he is criticizing?

8. What did you think, initially, of Shane's Donner Party pitch to Michael Deane? Did you agree with Michael...or laugh with Claire?

9. Michael Deane says his great epiphany was "People want what they want." What does he mean? Do you agree with him? How did that revelation shape his career?

10. In addition to Michael Deane (in Question 9), each character has a powerful revelation in which they see themselves as they truly are and see the nature of life. What are the revelations of the other characters...and how do they shape their lives?

11. What is the significance of the novel's title? (It was first used by a journalist to describe Richard Burton many years after his marriage to Taylor.) Who else, or what, are the "beautiful ruins"?

12. Of the seven main characters, which is your favorite? Least favorite (don't all say Michael Deane)?

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

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The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears 
Dinaw Mengestu, 2007
Penguin Group USA
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594482854


Summary
Seventeen years ago, Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution after witnessing soldiers beat his father to the point of certain death, selling off his parents' jewelry to pay for passage to the United States. Now he finds himself running a grocery store in a poor African-American neighborhood in Washington, D.C. His only companions are two fellow African immigrants who share his feelings of frustration with and bitter nostalgia for their home continent. He realizes that his life has turned out completely different and far more isolated from the one he had imagined for himself years ago.

Soon Sepha's neighborhood begins to change. Hope comes in the form of new neighbors—Judith and Naomi, a white woman and her biracial daughter—who become his friends and remind him of what having a family is like for the first time in years. But when the neighborhood's newfound calm is disturbed by a series of racial incidents, Sepha may lose everything all over again.

Told in a haunting and powerful first-person narration that casts the streets of Washington, D.C., and Addis Ababa through Sepha's eyes, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is a deeply affecting and unforgettable debut novel about what it means to lose a family and a country—and what it takes to create a new home. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1978
• Where—Addis Ababa, Ethiopa
• Raised—USA
• Education—B.A., Georgetown University; M.F.A., Columbia
   University
• Awards— (see below)
• Currently—lives in New York City


Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978. In 1980, he and his family came to the United States. A graduate of Georgetown University and Columbia University’s MFA program in fiction, he lives in New York City. (From the publisher.)

Awards
Guardian First Book Award: Winner 2007
National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" Award
New York Times Notable Book
Dylan Thomas Prize Shortlist
Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Lannan Literary Fellowship
Prix du Premier Roman
Young Lions Fiction Award Finalist
NAACP Image Award Finalist
(From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Again and again, Stephanos’s story makes us consider what it means to be displaced: from a local community, from a distant nation, from a love you had hoped to settle into. In Mengestu’s work, there’s no such thing as the nondescript life. He notices, and there are whole worlds in his noticing. He has written a novel for an age ravaged by the moral and military fallout of cross-cultural incuriosity. In a society slick with “truthiness” — and Washington may be the capital of that — there’s something hugely hopeful about this young writer’s watchful honesty and egalitarian tenderness. This is a great African novel, a great Washington novel and a great American novel.
Rob Nixon - New York Times


With its well-observed characters and brisk narrative pacing, greatly benefited by the characters' tension-laced wit, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is an assured literary debut by a writer worth watching.
Washington Post Book World


[W]renching and important...Seldom has a character emerged in a recent novel who is so compellingly dark but honest, hopeful but dismal, and able to turn his chronicle into a truly American tapestry...Mengestu has made, and made well, a novel that is a retelling of the immigrant experience.
Chris Albani - Los Angeles Times


That "friendship" between the United States and Ethiopia, which was solidified when Ethiopia became a founding member of the League of Nations and later the United Nations, has long since been betrayed by the Cold War and oil politics abroad. Yet, as Mengestu closely observes the human face of that betrayal, as it plays out amid the racism and class politics of Washington, D.C., he gives us another chance to understand the Ethiopian American experience, in a deeply felt novel that deserves to be read.
San Francisco Chronicle


This first novel, by an Ethiopian-American, sings of the immigrant experience, an old American story that people renew every generation, but it sings in an existential key.... His straightforward language and his low-key voice combine to make a compelling narrative, one that loops back in time yet seems to move forward with an even pace
Alan Cheuse - Dallas Morning News


Barely suppressed despair and black wit infuse this beautifully observed debut from Ethiopian migr Mengestu. Set over eight months in a gentrifying Washington, D.C., neighborhood in the 1970s, it captures an uptick in Ethiopian grocery store owner Sepha Stephanos's long-deferred hopes, as Judith, a white academic, fixes up the four-story house next to his apartment building, treats him to dinner and lets him steal a kiss. Just as unexpected is Sepha's friendship with Judith's biracial 11-year-old daughter, Naomi (one of the book's most vivid characters), over a copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Mengestu adds chiaroscuro with the story of Stephanos's 17-year exile from his family and country following his father's murder by revolutionary soldiers. After long days in the dusty, barely profitable shop, Sepha's two friends, Joseph from Congo and Kenneth from Kenya, joke with Sepha about African dictators and gently mock his romantic aspirations, while the neighborhood's loaded racial politics hang over Sepha and Judith's burgeoning relationship like a sword of Damocles. The novel's dirge-like tone may put off readers looking for the next Kite Runner, but Mengestu's assured prose and haunting set pieces (especially a series of letters from Stephanos's uncle to Jimmy Carter, pleading that he respects "the deep friendship between our two countries") are heart-rending and indelible.
Publishers Weekly


Sometimes the American Dream isn't all one imagines it to be. Sepha Stephanos fled the Ethiopian Revolution as a teenager, having seen his father beaten and removed from the family home. Now, nearly two decades later, he owns the local grocery in a changing Washington, DC, neighborhood. Evenings are spend with his first friends in America, also African immigrants, who quiz one another on African revolutionary trivia. His poor African American neighbors have always kept his store afloat, but now he sees a chance for riches as successful professionals begin buying up the decrepit buildings in the neighborhood and returning them to their earlier splendor. When he befriends his new neighbors, a white professor and her biracial daughter, Sepha begins to realize how much he has missed any connection with family. But the neighborhoods revitalization doesn't help its original inhabitants—rents are rising, old timers are being evicted so that their buildings can be rehabbed, and Sepha is now in danger of losing his store. It's a poignant story providing food for thought for those concerned with poverty and immigration. First novelist Mengestu moved to American with his family as a toddler, fleeing the Ethiopian Revolution. Recommended for public and academic libraries. —Debbie Bogenschutz, Cincinnati State Technical & Community Coll. Lib.
Library Journal


After 17 years, an Ethiopian immigrant wonders to what extent he has become an American. Every Tuesday evening, three friends meet in the back room of Sepha Stephanos's bedraggled Logan Circle convenience store to drink, give advice and wax philosophical about Africa, their mother continent. The trio-"Ken the Kenyan," "Joe from the Congo" and Sepha, who was so skinny he didn't need a nickname to remind them that he was Ethiopian-met as young hotel clerks when they first arrived in Washington, D.C., but since then, they have taken different paths. Joseph and Kenneth graduated from Georgetown and went on to get higher degrees and well-paying jobs, while Sepha attended community college and then opened his store. As an upscale clientele moves into the predominantly lower-class African-American neighborhood, Sepha's business dwindles. With the changes, though, comes Judith, a wealthy white woman, and Naomi, her enchanting biracial daughter. Naomi and Sepha strike up an unlikely friendship, and he spends evenings in the empty store with her, reading Dostoevsky. Judith begins to join them, and she and Sepha dance around the possibility of a romantic relationship. As racial tensions grow in the neighborhood, Sepha wonders if he will be able to woo Judith. But around the holidays, she suddenly leaves her house and sends Naomi to boarding school. Alone again, Sepha recalls his childhood in Addis Ababa, where, as a member of the upper class, he'd had high hopes for a different kind of life, before he witnessed his father's murder and fled the country. Mengestu skirts immigrant-literature cliches and paints a beautiful portrait of a complex, conflicted man struggling with questions of love and loyalty. A nuanced slice of immigrant life.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions 
1. Mengestu opens the novel with Sepha and his friends, Joseph and Kenneth, and the game that they play matching African coups with dictators and dates. The three come from different parts of Africa, and have left different places and people to be in the US. Why do they play this game? How does it affect their relationships with each other? With the country they now call home? With the continent they left behind? Though they are close friends with a long history, why do you think that Joseph reacts the way that he does when Sepha appears at the restaurant? What about Kenneth’s attempts to help Sepha figure out a way to keep from losing the store? How do their differences help or hinder the narrative?

2. In recalling his uncle’s questioning why he had “chosen to open a corner store in a poor black neighborhood,” Sepha says that he had “never said it was because all I wanted...was to read quietly, and alone, for as much of the day as possible.” Books play a huge role in Sepha’s life as well as in the action of the Mengestu’s story. Did you feel that a particular literary reference gave you a glimpse into Sepha’s character that was unexpected or surprising? Which one and why? Or if not, why not?

3. Gentrification, class struggle, and ideas of democracy reverberate as prevailing themes in the novel. How does Mengestu weave these themes into the Sepha’s interactions with Judith and Naomi? The race/class based polarization of Logan Circle? Judith’s career?

4. As we learn in the novel, its title comes from a passage in Dante’s Inferno that Joseph believes to be “the most perfect lines of poetry ever written.” Why do you think Mengestu chose the title The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears? What parallels do you see between Sepha’s story and Dante’s?

5. Speaking of books, reading The Brothers Karamazov together becomes a way for Naomi and Sepha to relate to each other, regardless of their age and implied class differences. Why do you think he highlighted his favorite passage (below) for Naomi, the one he memorized and “read out loud to the shelves and empty aisles,” writing “Remember This” in the margins of his copy of the book?

People talk to you a great deal about your education, but some good, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometimes be the means of saving us.

Do you think it is an attempt on Sepha’s part to tell her some of his own story through another’s words? Why or why not?

6. When he goes shopping for Christmas presents, Sepha strolls optimistically throughout the city, finally feeling he has “the beginnings of a life” in America. This optimism is shattered when he finds that Judith and Naomi have left the city for the holidays. Why do you think Sepha’s optimism depends on having Judith and Naomi close? Are they the source of his optimistic feeling? Why or why not? What about his thoughts that end the novel? Why, despite everything, does the store “look more perfect than ever”? How do you think his relationships with Judith and Naomi might have changed his outlook? How might they have changed his relationship to America?

7. How does death affect the Birdswell family? How does Herbert’s death affect them? Roger’s death? The deaths of their childhood? Why do they continue to be haunted by the ghosts of their past? In what ways does each of these deaths change them?

8. Although Sepha has been in the U.S. for seventeen years, he still seems stuck between America and Ethiopia. Though he mentions going back to visit his mother and brother—even at one point thinking of abandoning everything in America to return—he asks himself towards the end of the novel, “How long did it take for me to understand that I was never going to return?” In an interview, Mengestu theorizes that Sepha will never return to Ethiopia despite his yearnings because “nostalgia and memory are all he has.” Do you agree? Why do you think he has stayed? Why has he never gone back?

9. Letters appear frequently in the novel: His uncle Berhane’s letters to various politicians, Sepha’s letter to Judith, Naomi’s letter to him. How does Mengestu use letters to further our understanding of those characters in the novel who write and receive them? Though we never meet him except through his letters, what do Berhane’s letters reveal that might not have been portrayed through a conversation or letter correspondence between Sepha and his uncle? How does Berhane contrast with the other African immigrants in the novel, namely Kenneth and Joseph? Why do you think that Sepha never wrote back to Naomi?

10. What is the significance of Mengestu’s choice to set the story in the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.? Do you feel that the city is a character itself?

11. Were you surprised to find that the brick thrown through Judith’s windshield and at Sepha’s store, as well as the fire that destroyed her house, were the acts of one man as opposed to a group of angry citizens ignited by the evictions? How did you feel about the violence that was directed at Judith and Naomi? About her reaction? What do you think will happen to Logan Circle? To Sepha’s shop? To Sepha himself?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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A Beautifully Foolish Thing  (A Carls Book-2)
Hank Green, 2020 
Penguin Publishing
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524743475 


Summary
Who has the right to change the world forever?

How will we live online?

How do we find comfort in an increasingly isolated world?
 
The Carls disappeared the same way they appeared, in an instant. While the robots were on Earth, they caused confusion and destruction with only their presence.

Part of their maelstrom was the sudden viral fame and untimely death of April May: a young woman who stumbled into Carl’s path, giving them their name, becoming their advocate, and putting herself in the middle of an avalanche of conspiracy theories.
 
Months later, April’s friends are trying to find their footing in a post-Carl world.

Andy has picked up April’s mantle of fame, speaking at conferences and online; Maya, ravaged by grief, begins to follow a string of mysteries that she is convinced will lead her to April; and Miranda is contemplating defying her friends’ advice and pursuing a new scientific operation… one that might have repercussions beyond anyone’s comprehension.

Just as it is starting to seem like the gang may never learn the real story behind the events that changed their lives forever, a series of clues arrive—mysterious books that seem to predict the future and control the actions of their readers—all of which seems to suggest that April could be very much alive.
 
In the midst of the search for the truth and the search for April is a growing force, something that wants to capture our consciousness and even control our reality.

A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is the bold and brilliant follow-up to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing. It is a fast-paced adventure that is also a biting social commentary, asking hard, urgent questions about the way we live, our freedoms, our future, and how we handle the unknown. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—May 5, 1980
• Where—Birmingham, Alabama, USA
• Education—B.S., Eckerd College; M.S. University of Montana
• Currently—lives in Missoula, Montana


Hank Green is the CEO of Complexly, a production company that creates educational content, including Crash Course and SciShow, prompting The Washington Post to name him “one of America’s most popular science teachers.”

Complexly’s videos have been viewed more than two billion times on YouTube.

Green cofounded a number of other small businesses, including DFTBA.com, which helps online creators make money by selling cool stuff to their communities; and VidCon, the world’s largest conference for the online video community. In 2017, VidCon drew more than forty thousand attendees across three events in Anaheim, Amsterdam, and Australia.

Hank and his brother, John, also started the Project for Awesome, which last year raised more than two million dollars for charities, including Save the Children and Partners in Health. Hank lives in Montana with his wife, son, and cat. (From the publishers.)

Book Reviews
While there are many parallels to our current climate, A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor is a hopeful read that provides a "Black Mirror" like warning of new technology without the heavy feeling of dread. Green gives nuance to the privileges of escapism with humor and grace through main characters taking a chance on hope, even if it is beautifully foolish.
USA Today


If you’re looking for a novel that will offer escapism alongside stinging social commentary and just the right amount of cautious optimism for humanity’s future, this might be the perfect read.
BookRiot


Hank Green’s first novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing, had us furiously flipping pages to solve the mystery of the Carls. The much-anticipated sequel is finally here, and it’s just as adventurous and addicting. You’ll hang on every last word as you wonder what really happened to April May.
HelloGiggles


[S]low-moving and philosophically dense sequel to the comic sci-fi novel An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.… Readers will have to hang in until… the plot begins to come together, but once it does, it’s thrilling to watch the puzzle pieces fall into place.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) Throughout this adventurous, witty, and compelling novel, Green delivers sharp social commentary on the power of social media and both the benefits and horrendous consequences that follow when we give too much of ourselves to technology. —Carmen Clark, Elkhart P.L., IN
Library Journal


(Starred review) A raucous, boldly inventive tale of alien technology, social media and influencers, the limits of the human mind, and the lengths humans will go to get what they want. Even after a satisfying ending, readers will have much to think about.
Booklist


[C]ircuitous…. Green's debut was a better novel with a wildly intriguing setup, so it’s not surprising that getting things wrapped up is a bit of a twisty affair. A satisfying sequel with likable characters, playful humor, and a prescient sense of the foolishness of modern life.
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 A BEAUTIFULLY FOOLISH ENDEAVOR … and then take off on your own:

1. Presuming you've read the first Carls novel, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing (ART), is this book a worthy sequel? Why or why not?

2. In what way does A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (BFE) reflect our own era back to us? Consider its take on these topics: capitalism, globalism, race, income disparity, technology.

3. (Follow-up to Question 1) Like its predecessor, BFE jumps into some of life's big questions, asking some fairly philosophical questions. One is this: in the age of technology, what does it mean to be human? How does the book address the question, and how do you?

4. (Follow-up to Questions 2 and 3) Another question Green poses to readers is about power—how it's used, to what ends, and who gets to wield it.

5. What is the degree to which the digital world pervades our culture, and what effect does it have on our humanity—especially on how we perceive our humanity?

6. The First Carls book left readers with ambiguity. What more do readers learn about the Carls this time around? What do you learn about their identity and motivation?

7. April was the center of ART, controlling the narrative voice. BFE varies the point of view, using the perspective of five narrators, as well as Tweets, podcasts, news articles, YouTube, and chat forums. Do you prefer one narrative strategy over the other? If so why?

8. Pick out one of your favorite quotations from the book and talk about why you chose it, its significance, and the extent to which, if any, it relates to your own life?

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

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Becoming Mrs. Lewis: The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis
Patti Callahan, 2018
Thomas Nelson, Inc.
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780785224501


Summary
In a most improbable friendship, she found love. In a world where women were silenced, she found her voice: An exquisite novel of Joy Davidman, the woman C. S. Lewis called "my whole world."

When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis—known as Jack—she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn’t holding together her crumbling marriage.

Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters.

Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy traveled from America to England and back again, facing heartbreak and poverty, discovering friendship and faith, and against all odds, finding a love that even the threat of death couldn’t destroy.

In this masterful exploration of one of the greatest love stories of modern times, we meet a brilliant writer, a fiercely independent mother, and a passionate woman who changed the life of this respected author and inspired books that still enchant us and change us. Joy lived at a time when women weren’t meant to have a voice—and yet her love for Jack gave them both voices they didn’t know they had.

At once a fascinating historical novel and a glimpse into a writer’s life, Becoming Mrs. Lewis is above all a love story—a love of literature and ideas and a love between a husband and wife that, in the end, was not impossible at all. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—R.N., Auburn University; M.C.H., Georgia State
• Currently—lives in Mountain Brook, Alabama


New York Times bestselling author Patti Callahan Henry has published nine novels: Losing the Moon, Where the River Runs, When Light Breaks, Between the Tides, The Art of Keeping Secrets, Driftwood Summer, The Perfect Love Song, Coming up for Air, and And Then I Found You—her most recent. Hailed as a fresh new voice in southern fiction, Henry has been shortlisted for the Townsend Prize for Fiction, and nominated four different times for the Southeastern Independent Booksellers Novel of the Year. Her work is published in five languages and in audiobook by Brilliance Audio.

Henry has appeared in numerous magazines including Good Housekeeping, skirt!, South, and Southern Living. Two of her novels were Okra Picks and Coming up For Air was selected for the August 2011 Indie Next List. She is a frequent speaker at fundraisers, library events and book festivals. A full time writer, wife, and mother of three—Henry lives in Mountain Brook, Alabama.

Patti Callahan Henry grew up in Philadelphia, the daughter of an Irish minister, and moved south with her family when she was 12 years old. With the idea that being a novelist was “unrealistic,” she set her sights on becoming a pediatric nurse, graduating from Auburn University with a degree in nursing, and from Georgia State with a Master’s degree in Child Health.

She left nursing to raise her first child, Meagan, and not long after having her third child, Rusk, she began writing down the stories that had always been in her head. Henry wrote early in the mornings, before her children woke for the day, but it wasn’t until Meagan, then six, told her mother that she wanted “to be a writer of books” when she grew up, that Henry realized that writing was her own dream as well. She began taking writing classes at Emory University, attending weekend writers’ conferences, and educating herself about the publishing industry, rising at 4:30 AM to write. Her first book, Losing the Moon, was published in 2004. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Patti Callahan took a character on the periphery, one who has historically taken a back seat to her male counterpart, and given her a fierce, passionate voice. For those fans of Lewis curious about the woman who inspired A Grief Observed this book offers a convincing, fascinating glimpse into the private lives of two very remarkable individuals.
New York Journal of Books


Callahan vividly enters the life of a woman searching for both God and romantic love in this pleasing historical novel…. Making full use of historical documentation, Callahan has created an incredible portrait of a complex woman.
Publishers Weekly


[W]ill not disappoint.… Callahan's writing is riveting and her characters spring to life to create a magical and literary experience that won't be soon forgotten. —Christine Sharbrough, Industry, TX
Library Journal


Readers…of C.S. Lewis will relish learning about the woman who inspired some of his most famous books. Others will find the slow burn of the romance between the two mesmerizing [and] …will appreciate reading about this vibrant and intelligent woman.
Booklist


[H]ypnotic.… Spanning more than a decade, this slow-burning love story will be especially satisfying to writers and C.S. Lewis fans, as there are many references to his literary canon and his famous stories of Narnia. Callahan's prose is heartfelt and full of grace.
BookPage

Discussion Questions
1. Joy’s early life was fraught with sickness and rigid family expectations. How did these years shape her love life moving forward? How did these early years influence her newfound friendship with Jack? How did she overcome them to love?

2. When Joy’s cousin, Renee moved into the house with her two young children, things began to change. Have you sheltered family members in a time of need, and how did that change your family dynamics? What were your first reactions to Renee moving in?

3. Joy’s heartbreak at Bill’s announcement that he and Renee were in love was painful. Do you believe it was because she loved Bill? Felt betrayed? That Renee was the "comparison" used all of her life and now that memory surged forward from childhood? Have you ever been in a similar circumstance where old heartbreak was relived in a new form?

4. Joy expressed distress about how some of Jack’s friends didn’t approve of her or appear to like her. Why do you think this was true? How did this affect their friendship?

5. Many of Jack and Joy’s friends talk about their intellectual compatibility, of Joy’s ability to keep up with Jack and how they both had incredible photographic memories. Did this bring them together? Did this help love grow? How?

6. Joy made tough decisions about moving to England and taking her sons from their father. How did this affect Davy and Douglas? What do you believe she could she have done differently?

7. Bill fought to have his sons return to America as Joy appeared to be on her deathbed. Jack wrote a scathing letter and forbid it. How did this change the boys’ lives from that point on?

8. One of the most heartbreaking scenes in the novel is when Joy discovers she has terminal cancer at the same time that Jack admits his true love and desire to marry her. How does this affect her recovery? How does this eros change what happens next?

9. Joy wonders about Jack’s relationship with both Janie Moore and Ruth Pitter. How did his relationships with these women affect his heart and love for Joy? Was Joy jealous or curious? How did it affect her view of him and their relationship?

10. What part of this story touched you the most? What part of this story changed you the most?
(Questions issued by the publisher. See the Book Club Kit for more info on the novel.)

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Bee Season 
Myla Goldberg, 2000
Knopf Doubleday
275 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385498807


Summary
Eliza Naumann, a seemingly unremarkable nine-year-old, expects never to fit into her gifted family: her autodidact father, Saul, absorbed in his study of Jewish mysticism; her brother, Aaron, the vessel of his father's spiritual ambitions; and her brilliant but distant lawyer-mom, Miriam. But when Eliza sweeps her school and district spelling bees in quick succession, Saul takes it as a sign that she is destined for greatness.

In this altered reality, Saul inducts her into his hallowed study and lavishes upon her the attention previously reserved for Aaron, who in his displacement embarks upon a lone quest for spiritual fulfillment. When Miriam's secret life triggers a familial explosion, it is Eliza who must order the chaos.

Myla Goldberg's keen eye for detail brings Eliza's journey to three-dimensional life. As she rises from classroom obscurity to the blinding lights and outsized expectations of the National Bee, Eliza's small pains and large joys are finely wrought and deeply felt.

Not merely a coming-of-age story, Goldberg's first novel delicately examines the unraveling fabric of one family. The outcome of this tale is as startling and unconventional as her prose, which wields its metaphors sharply and rings with maturity. The work of a lyrical and gifted storyteller, Bee Season marks the arrival of an extraordinarily talented new writer. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 19, 1972
• Raised—Laurel, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College, 1993
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York

Myla Goldberg, an American novelist and musician, was raised in Laurel, Maryland. She majored in English at Oberlin College, graduating in 1993. She spent a year teaching and writing in Prague (providing the germ of her book of essays Time's Magpie, which explores her favorite places within the city), then moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she still lives with her husband (Jason Little) and two daughters.

While in Prague Goldberg completed her first novel, Kirkus, a story of an Eastern European circus troupe engulfed by the onset of World War II. She gave it to an agent who shopped it for 18 months, but it was not published by the time she had begun working on Bee Season, so it was shelved.

After returning to Brooklyn Goldberg took several jobs, including working on a production of a Stephen King horror movie. She was let go from that job, which brought an unforeseen benefit—the six months of unemployment benefits checks gave her sufficient time to finish Bee Season ("It was a grant, as far as I was concerned", she told an Oberlin student interviewer in 2005).

Bee Season (2000) portrays the breakdown of a family and the spiritual explorations of its two children amid a series of spelling bees. It was a popular and critical success, and was adapted into a film in 2005. Goldberg's second novel, Wickett's Remedy (2005), is set during the 1918 influenza epidemic.

False Friend (2010), her third novel, describes a woman whose memory is jogged, causing her to revisit a tragic event in her youth. "It's about memory, hometowns and the adults children turn into," Goldberg told an interviewer.

She has also published short stories in Virgin Fiction, Eclectic Literary Forum, New American Writing, McSweeney's and Harpers. She reviews books for The New York Times and Bookforum.

Goldberg is also an accomplished amateur musician. She plays the banjo and accordion in a Brooklyn-based indie rock quartet, The Walking Hellos. She has performed with The Galerkin Method and the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. She collaborates with the New York art collective Flux Factory. She has contributed song lyrics to the musical group One Ring Zero. "Song for Myla Goldberg" is track six on The Decemberists' album Her Majesty The Decemberists. It makes a handful of allusions to Bee Season. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
As mundane and unmystical as these longings of Eliza's may be, you never stop caring about whether she will fulfill them....sensitive and witty.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New York Times


A dispassionate, fervidly intelligent book that comes by its emotion honestly...has something else going for it, something you didn't realize you'd been missing in recent fiction: a bit of actual suspense.... Bee Season flickers past like a dream, and it is artful indeed.
Dwight Garner - New York Times Book Review


An eccentric family falls apart at the seams in an absorbing debut that finds congruencies between the elementary school spelling-bee circuit, Jewish mysticism, Eastern religious cults and compulsive behavior. Nine-year-old Eliza Naumann feels like the dullest resident of a house full of intellectuals—her older brother, Aaron, is an overachiever; her mother, Miriam, is a lawyer; and her father, Saul, is a self-taught scholar and a cantor at the community synagogue. She surprises herself and the rest of the Naumanns when she discovers a rare aptitude for spelling, winning her school and district bees with a surreal surge of mystical insight, in which letters seem to take on a life of their own. Saul shifts his focus from Aaron to Eliza, devoting his afternoons to their practice sessions, while neglected Aaron joins the Hare Krishnas. Seduced by his own inner longings, Saul sees in Eliza the potential to fulfill the teachings of the Kabbalah scholar Abulafia, who taught that enlightenment could be reached through strategic alignments of letters and words. Eliza takes to this new discipline with a desperate, single-minded focus. At the same time, her brilliant but removed mother succumbs to a longtime secret vice and begins a descent into madness. Goldberg's insights into religious devotion, guilt, love, obsessive personalities and family dynamics ring true, and her use of spelling-as-metaphor makes a clever trope in a novel populated by literate scholars and voracious readers. Her quiet wit, balanced by an empathetic understanding of human foibles, animates every page. Although she has a tendency to overexplain, Goldberg's attentive ear makes accounts of fast-paced spelling competitions or descriptions of Miriam's struggles to resist her own compulsions riveting, and her unerring knack for telling details (as when Eliza twitches through a spelling bee in itchy tights) captures a child's perceptions with touching acuity. While coming-of-age stories all bear a certain similarity, Goldberg strikes new ground here, and displays a fresh, distinctive and totally winning voice.
Publishers Weekly


An impressive debut about a young girl from a brilliant but eccentric family whose special talent earns her a place in the family and finally in the world. Eliza Naumann has never really excelled at anything. In fact, she's always been rather ordinary—to the point where she seems pretty much to disappear amid the other members of her highly accomplished family. Her father Saul is a brilliant scholar, entirely dedicated to the study of Jewish mysticism. He has, in turn, poured all his hopes and dreams for spiritual enlightenment into his sensitive and thoughtful son Aaron, while his wife Miriam, though a lawyer, drifts off into an emotional haze, trying to put meaning into her existence by entering other people's empty houses and stealing small, seemingly insignificant items. Eliza remains invisible and at sea in the midst of this hyper-odd family—until her unknown talent for spelling is surprisingly unearthed. After having been more or less ignored for all of her nine years, she wins the attention of her schoolmates, teachers, and, most important, of her father, who responds not so much because of the acclaim Eliza is beginning to garner, but because he suddenly sees in her a disciple, someone who, through the use of letters, words, language, can be used as a conduit to God. Her broth Aaron, meanwhile, having always been the golden child but now left to his own devices, begins searching for enlightenment through other religions, eventually settling on Hare Krishna. And so, just as Eliza is finding her way in life, her family starts to unravel, fall away, and drift farther and farther apart. Goldberg is a gifted writer, but her style—delivered in a detached, almost clinical prose that gives the feeling of fable or dream—holds the reader at a distance and keeps her characters from ever quite coming into the third dimension. —Kimberly G. Allen, American Inst. of Architects, Washington, DC 
Library Journal


Goldberg effectively mixes fascinating detail about spelling bees with metaphorical leaps of imagination, producing a novel that works on many levels. There is something of Holden Caulfield in Eliza, the same crazed determination to save her loved ones from themselves. An impressive debut from a remarkably talented writer. —Bill Ott
Booklist


An impressive debut about a young girl from a brilliant but eccentric family whose special talent earns her a place in the family and finally in the world.Eliza Naumann has never really excelled at anything. In fact, she's always been rather ordinary—to the point where she seems pretty much to disappear amid the other members of her highly accomplished family. Her father Saul is a brilliant scholar, entirely dedicated to the study of Jewish mysticism. He has, in turn, poured all his hopes and dreams for spiritual enlightenment into his sensitive and thoughtful son Aaron, while his wife Miriam, though a lawyer, drifts off into an emotional haze, trying to put meaning into her existence by entering other people's empty houses and stealing small, seemingly insignificant items. Eliza remains invisible and at sea in the midst of this hyper-odd family—until her unknown talent for spelling is surprisingly unearthed. After having been more or less ignored for all of her nine years, she wins the attention of her schoolmates, teachers, and, most important, of her father, who responds not so much because of the acclaim Eliza is beginning to garner, but because he suddenly sees in her a disciple, someone who, through the use of letters, words, language, can be used as a conduit to God. Her broth Aaron, meanwhile, having always been the golden child but now left to his own devices, begins searching for enlightenment through other religions, eventually settling on Hare Krishna. And so, just as Eliza is finding her way in life, her family starts to unravel, fall away, and drift farther and farther apart. Goldberg is a gifted writer, but her style—delivered in a detached, almost clinical prose that gives the feeling of fable or dream—holds the reader at a distance and keeps her characters from ever quite coming into the third dimension.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Eliza Naumann has "been designated...as a student from whom great things should not be expected" [p. 1]. How does Myla Goldberg use both humor and poignancy to bring home the impact of this judgment on a child? Does Eliza accept her "mediocrity" without question? What evidence is there that she resents (or is frustrated by) the way the teachers and other students, as well as her own family, perceive her?

2. Why does Eliza slip the information about the district spelling bee under Saul's door, rather than telling him about it in person? Is her behavior unusual for an eleven-year-old? How do Aaron's and Saul's reactions to Eliza's winning the district bee and moving on to the regional finals [p. 43] shed light on Eliza's own feelings about the significance of her newly discovered talent?

3. Initially, Saul is portrayed as an involved and caring father. What hints are there that his interest in his children's lives masks a need to satisfy his own ego? How does his relationship with Miriam enhance the image he has created for himself? Is Miriam in some ways a victim of Saul's determination to take the primary role in the family or is she equally responsible for the pattern they have established? In what ways do the dynamics of the Naumanns' marriage reflect the times in which they live?

4. Before the depth of Miriam's problem is revealed, how do you respond to her as a character? Do her ostensible involvement with work and her treatment of her children make her a "bad" mother? What incidents, if any, demonstrate that at some level she wants to express her love for Eliza and Aaron?

5. Are the interactions between Aaron and Eliza typical of sibling relationships, or are they closer than most brothers and sisters? If so, what contributes to their closeness? At what point does the pattern they have established begin to change?

6. "Saul Naumann spends the first portion of his life as Sal Newman, son of Henry and Lisa Newman, decorator of Christmas trees and Easter eggs" [p. 10]. When he embraces Judaism as a teenager under his mother's guidance, Saul becomes estranged from his father. What effect does Saul's childhood have on how he approaches parenting and the goals he sets for Aaron? As the only child of a wealthy couple who wanted a large family, Miriam is raised to fulfill all her parents' expectations. What does Saul offer her that her own parents were unable to provide? Goldberg writes, "The two bond over their mutual lack of family ties" [p. 22]. How do their assumptions about marriage and, later, their behavior with Eliza and Aaron belie the notion that they are free of the legacies of their own parents?

7. In addition to his desire to achieve a higher level of spirituality, why does Saul devote so much time to his studies of Jewish mysticism? Do his retreats into his study serve another purpose, either conscious or subconscious, in his life? Is the time he spends with Aaron early in the book and later with Eliza compensation for--or relief from—his self-imposed isolation?

8. Discuss the development of Eliza's enchantment with spelling. Is she driven by more than just the desire to please her father? How does the author use metaphors and other literary devices to extend the meaning of what is happening to Eliza at each stage? For example, what does Goldberg mean by the sentence, "When Eliza studies, it is like discovering her own anatomy" [p. 44] and her descriptions of Eliza's delightful characterizations of each letter [p. 49]?

9. When Eliza triumphs at the Greater Philadelphia Metro Area Spelling Bee, Miriam is struck with a sense of pain as she "realizes too late that she has made her daughter more like her than she ever intended" [p. 59]. Saul, in contrast, feels gratitude and humility; he "would like to think he has kept his distance in order to protect his daughter from his unfulfilled hopes" [p. 61]. Is this self-deception on Saul's part? How do you think Eliza would respond to her parents' feelings?

10. Why is Eliza's failure to appreciate Miriam's gift of the kaleidoscope so devastating to Miriam [p. 67]? Would the situation have been different if Miriam had explained its importance to her? Why doesn't she?

11. Eliza's transformation from ordinary student into nationally recognized spelling prodigy undermines the roles Aaron and Miriam have always assumed in the family and sets in motion events that destroy the Naumanns' fa?ade of contentment and normalcy. Is there a common thread that links Aaron's experiments with different religions, Miriam's secret excursions, and Eliza's plunge into Jewish mysticism? In what ways do each of their quests embody the Jewish principle of Tikkun Olam, "the fixing of the world" [p. 87]? What parallels are there between the rituals they perform, the risks they take—and the revelations they receive?

12. What does Miriam's sudden sexual aggressiveness symbolize? What does it represent in terms of her feelings about Saul and their marriage? How is it related to the other signs of her increasing recklessness? Despite his discomfort and shock, why is Saul reluctant to discuss it, choosing instead to sleep in his study? Why does he convince himself "that he is there for Eliza's sake" [p. 186]? What are other examples of his unwillingness to face the profound changes occurring in the family?

13. Eliza masters arcane skills and grasps mysteries that few people in history have even dared to examine, yet she remains a typical little girl in many ways. How does Goldberg bring this to life in her descriptions of Eliza's thoughts and actions? She writes, "Abulafia's words speak to Eliza like a promise" [p. 195]. How do Eliza's studies, of both spelling and mysticism, relate to the concrete facts of her life and the promises she hopes will be fulfilled?

14. Describing Saul's reaction to the room Miriam has constructed, Goldberg writes, "Saul starts finding it difficult to breathe. . . . When Saul starts to cry, it is out of this sense of supersaturation as well as having arrived at a new level of understanding" [p. 225]. Does Saul live up to this "new level of understanding" when he sees Miriam at the hospital [pp. 235- 236]? When he discusses the situation with Eliza and Aaron?

15. How does Eliza's final act shed light on her character and the changes she has undergone in the course of the novel? Is it an act of defiance or of resolution?

16. Bee Season presents the narrative viewpoints of all the family members. How does this technique add depth and nuance to our understanding of each character? How do the self-portraits differ from the portraits, implicit or explicit, sketched by the other members of the family? Which characters become more sympathetic or appealing through this juxtaposition of perspectives and which ones become less so?

17. The book opens with quotations from the mystic Abulafia and spelling champion Rebecca Sealfon. It is clear how they relate to Eliza's life; in what ways are they relevant to the other characters in the novel and the themes Goldberg explores?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Beekeeper of Aleppo 
Christy Lefteri, 2019
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781984821218


Summary
This unforgettable novel puts human faces on the Syrian war with the immigrant story of a beekeeper, his wife, and the triumph of spirit when the world becomes unrecognizable.

Nuri is a beekeeper and Afra, his wife, is an artist. Mornings, Nuri rises early to hear the call to prayer before driving to his hives in the countryside.

On weekends, Afra sells her colorful landscape paintings at the open-air market. They live a simple life, rich in family and friends, in the hills of the beautiful Syrian city of Aleppo—until the unthinkable happens.

When all they love is destroyed by war, Nuri knows they have no choice except to leave their home. But escaping Syria will be no easy task: Afra has lost her sight, leaving Nuri to navigate her grief as well as a perilous journey through Turkey and Greece toward an uncertain future in Britain.

Nuri is sustained only by the knowledge that waiting for them is his cousin Mustafa, who has started an apiary in Yorkshire and is teaching fellow refugees beekeeping. As Nuri and Afra travel through a broken world, they must confront not only the pain of their own unspeakable loss but dangers that would overwhelm even the bravest souls. Above all, they must make the difficult journey back to each other, a path once so familiar yet rendered foreign by the heartache of displacement.

Moving, intimate, and beautifully written, The Beekeeper of Aleppo is a book for our times: a novel that at once reminds us that the most peaceful and ordinary lives can be utterly upended in unimaginable ways and brings a journey in faraway lands close to home, never to be forgotten. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1980
• Raised—London, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Brunel University
• Currently—lives in London


Brought up in London, Christy Lefteri is the child of Cypriot refugees. She is a lecturer in creative writing at Brunel University. The Beekeeper of Aleppo was born out of her time working as a volunteer at a UNICEF-supported refugee center in Athens. She is the author of the novel The Beekeeper of Aleppo (2019). (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
In recounting the daily brutality as well as the glimmers of beauty, this novel humanizes the terrifying refugee stories we read about in the news. Lefteri explores questions of trust and portrays what trauma and loss can do to individuals and their relationships.… A beautiful rumination on seeing what is right in front of us—both the negative and the positive.
Boston Globe


Beekeeper Nuri and his wife, Afra, are devastated by the Syrian civil war. After violence claims their child and Afra’s eyesight, the couple is forced to flee Aleppo and make the fraught journey to Britain—and an uncertain future ("5 Books Not to Miss").
USA Today


[Christy] Lefteri sensitively charts what it’s like when war comes home, alert to the subtle effects of trauma and grief. Nuri and Afra are not broadly sketched as victims, but rather suffer in different and complex ways from PTSD.… By creating characters with such rich, complex inner lives, Lefteri shows that in order to stretch compassion to millions of people, it helps to begin with one.
Time


[H]aunting and resonant story of Syrian war refugees undertaking a treacherous journey…. Lefteri perceptively and powerfully documents the horrors of the Syrian civil war…. Readers will find this deeply affecting for both its psychological intensity and emotional acuity.
Publishers Weekly


In fluid, forthright language, Lefteri brings us closer to the refugee experience as beekeeper Nuri and his wife… escape Aleppo and travel dangerously to Great Britain.… There’s no overloading the deck with drama; this story tells itself, absorbingly and heartrendingly.
Library Journal


Nuri’s fluid narration merges past and present into a patchwork of memory, pain, loss, and hope…. With determination laden in sorrow, Nuri and Afra strive to find their way to a new life and back to each other.
Booklist


(Starred review) [T]ouching and terrifying.… Nuri's story rings with authenticity, from the vast, impersonal cruelties of war to the tiny kindnesses that help people survive it..… A well-crafted structure and a troubled but engaging narrator power this moving story of Syrian refugees.
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 BEEKEEPER OF ALEPPO … then take off on your own:

1. What kind of life did Nuri and Afra have as a family in Aleppo. Can you imagine having your life destroyed in front of your eyes and being forced to leave it all behind as Nuri and Afra did?

2. Talk about the hardships of the couple's journey across Europe, on their way to Great Britain. Discuss the hatred and prejudice they endured, as well as physical dangers. What horrified you most in that journey?

3. The trauma of their journey has left both Nuri and Afra deeply scarred. Talk about the way it has opened a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between the couple. Nuri is our narrator and thinks of Afra as "locked in." What in Afra's behavior leads to Nuri's assessment?

4. (Follow-up to Question XX) How is Nuri affected? He believes he no longer worthy of her or her forgiveness. Why does believe that?

5. Can you imagine what life would be like for this couple and the millions of others, who are waiting in limbo, neither able to move forward with their lives nor return the life behind them. Talk about what the limbo and dislocation would feel like. How well do you think Christy Lefteri has captured those feelings and experiences? Has reading the Beekeeper of Aleppo, led you to a different understanding, a deeper empathy perhaps, regarding refugees? Or is the problem so vast, so painful, that it remains almost impossible, as a single individual, to grasp?

6. Does this book offer hope?

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

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The Beekeeper's Apprentice: (Mary Russell Series 1)
Laurie R. King, 1994
Picacodor
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312427368


Summary
In 1915, Sherlock Holmes is retired and quietly engaged in the study of honeybees when a young woman literally stumbles into him on the Sussex Downs. Fifteen years old, gawky, egotistical, and recently orphaned, the young Mary Russell displays an intellect to impress even Sherlock Holmes—and match him wit for wit. Under his reluctant tutelage, this very modern twentieth-century woman proves a deft protegee and a fitting partner for the Victorian detective.

In their first case together, they must track down a kidnapped American senator's daughter and confront a truly cunning adversary—a bomber who has set trip wires for the sleuths and who will stop at nothing to end their partnership. Full of brilliant deductions, disguises, and dangers, this first book of the Mary Russell. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Aka—Leigh Richards
• Birth—1952
• Where—San Francisco, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California;
   M.A. Theological Union
• Awards—Edgar Award; John Creasy
   Memorial Award; Nero Award; Macavity
   Award
• Currently—lives in northern California


Laurie R. King is an award-winning American author best known for her detective fiction. Among her books are the Mary Russell series of historical mysteries, featuring Sherlock Holmes as her mentor and later partner, and a series featuring Kate Martinelli, a fictional lesbian San Francisco, California, police officer.

King's first book, A Grave Talent (1993), received the 1994 Edgar Award for Best First Novel and a 1995 John Creasey Memorial Award. This was followed by the 1996 Nero Award, for A Monstrous Regiment of Women, and the 2002 Macavity Award for Best Novel, for Folly. She has also been nominated for an Agatha Award, an Orange Prize, and two more Edgars. Using the pseudonym "Leigh Richards", she has published a futuristic novel, Califia's Daughters (2004).

King earned a BA degree in comparative religion from the University of California, and then completed an MA in Old Testament Theology at Graduate Theological Union where her thesis was on "Feminine Aspects of Yahweh". She later received an honorary doctorate from the Church Divinity School of the Pacific. She has lived for many years in the hills above Monterey Bay near Santa Cruz, California. From 1977 until his death in early 2009, she was married to the historian, Noel Quinton King. They became the parents of two children, Zoe and Nathan. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Sherlock Holmes takes on a young, female apprentice in this delightful and well-wrought addition to the master detective's casework. In the early years of WW I, 15-year-old American Mary Russell encounters Holmes, retired in Sussex Downs where Conan Doyle left him raising bees. Mary, an orphan rebelling against her guardian aunt's strictures, impresses the sleuth with her intelligence and acumen. Holmes initiates her into the mysteries of detection, allowing her to participate in a few cases when she comes home from her studies at Oxford. The collaboration is ignited by the kidnapping in Wales of Jessica Simpson, daughter of an American senator. The sleuthing duo find signs of the hand of a master criminal, and after Russell rescues the child, attempts are made on their lives (and on Watson's), with evidence piling up that the master criminal is out to get Holmes and all he holds dear. King (A Grave Talent ) has created a fitting partner for the Great Detective: a quirky, intelligent woman who can hold her own with a man renowned for his contempt for other people's thought processes.
Publishers Weekly


At 15, Mary Russell is tall and gangling, bespectacled and bookish. In 1915, the orphaned heiress is living in her ancestral home with an embittered aunt she has plucked from genteel poverty to act as a guardian until she reaches her majority. In order to escape the woman's generally malevolent disposition, she wanders the Downs. On one such outing, she trips over a gaunt, elderly man sitting on the ground, "watching bees." This gentleman turns out to be Sherlock Holmes, and the resulting acquaintance evolves into a mentoring experience for the young woman. The story is well written in a style slightly reminiscent of Conan Doyle's, but is also very much King's own. The plot is somewhat predictable, but the characterizations are excellent and the times and places are skillfully evoked. Readers come to understand much of Holmes that was unexplained by Dr. Watson. These additions are entirely plausible, and the relationship between the great detective and his apprentice is delightful. Readers see much of Sussex, London, and even of student life at Oxford and the conditions of Romanies (Gypsies) in Wales. Wartime Britain is accurately evoked, and the whole is a lot of fun to read. While a fitting addition to the Holmes oeuvre, the narrative is delightfully feminist. It is likely to please YAs already entranced by Sherlock Holmes and will surely attract a few new fans. — Susan H. Woodcock, King's Park Library, Burke, VA.
Library Journal


Imagine Sherlock Holmes retiring to a Sussex farm but keeping his hand in by occasionally investigating cases for the British government. Imagine further that Watson was not so much Holmes' helpmate and confidant as a kindly bumbler who proved more a hindrance than a help.
Booklist


Nothing in King's brooding debut A Grave Talent (1993) could have prepared you for this uncommonly rich Sherlockian pastiche, in which the great detective is brought out of retirement among the bees of Sussex by a new amanuensis, budding theologian Mary Russell.... A surpassingly ingenious companion to Sena Jeter Naslund's Sherlock in Love.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In an Editor’s Preface, King playfully discloses the “true” origin of the story at hand—that what follows will be the actual memoirs of Mary Russell, which were mysteriously sent to her out of the blue, along with a trunk full of odds and ends.Why does King begin with this anecdote, essentially including herself in the story? Does it bring the world of the novel closer to our own? Have you read any other books (Lolita, for example) which begin with a false-preface, and what effect does this device have on the rest of the novel? Were you fooled?

2. It is 1915, the Great War is raging through Europe and the men of England are in the trenches. How does this particular period in history allow a character like Mary Russell to take the stage in areas of post-Victorian society usually reserved for men? In what significant ways does she seize these opportunities? Would she have thrived if born into a different, more oppressive social climate, say, one hundred years earlier?

3. How would you characterize Mary Russell based on her first opinion of bees? Does her disdain for their mindless busy-work and adherence to hive social structure reflect a particular attitude toward the social landscape of England at the time? Do you agree with Mary?

4. Holmes uses the game of chess to sharpen Mary Russell’s strategic thinking and intuition. How does chess—and, in particular, the Queen—serve as a metaphor throughout the story? In what ways does King herself use the game to comment upon the masterapprentice relationship?

5. Russell and Holmes don disguises throughout The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, and their work sometimes requires them to cross dress. Discuss each point in the novel where either Russell or Holmes takes cover in the opposite sex; what special access does this method of disguise give them to the other characters? Is gender reversal necessary in order to win the confidence of certain people? How does Mary Russell’s world changewhen she dresses as a man?

6. Watson is eternally known as the great detective’s sidekick. Who, in your opinion, is a more effective foil for Holmes, Watson or Russell? What different aspects of Holmes’s personality emerge in the presence of each? What would happen if Holmes were paired with a different partner, one more timid or less tenacious?

7. At Oxford, Mary Russell concludes that theology and detective work are one and the same. In your opinion, how are the two subjects related?

8. The art of deduction is constantly at play in The Beekeeper’s Apprentice. Even when Mary notices that Watson has shaven off his mustache, she cares to look closer at the skin and imagine that it was done “very recently”. Is Laurie King training the reader’s perceptions to be more acute throughout the novel? Does every detail of our lives hold a mystery and a story?

9. What are some crucial differences between the training Patricia Donleavy received from Moriarty and the training Mary Russell received from Holmes? What mental and emotional strengths do both women have in common, and what separates them? Holmes comments: “A quick mind is worthless unless you can control the emotions with it as well.” How does this maxim apply?

10. At what point in the novel did you suspect that Russell’s adversary was a woman? When you read a mystery, what assumptions do you typically make about the gender of the villain? In what ways does King toy with the reader’s assumptions about gender throughout the novel?
(Questions courtesy of the author's website.)

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The Beekeeper's Daughter 
Santa Montefiore, 2014
Simon & Schuster
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781471101014


Summary
A family rocked by tragedy, a love that lives through time, a story that will stay in your heart.

Dorset, 1933: Grace Hamblin is growing up on a beautiful rural estate. The only child of the beekeeper, she knows her place and her future—until her father dies unexpectedly and leaves her bereft and alone.

Alone, that is, except for the man she loves, whom she knows she can never have.

Massachusetts, 1973: Grace's beautiful, impetuous daughter Trixie Valentine is in love. Jasper is wild and romantic, a singer in a band on the brink of stardom. Then tragedy strikes and he must return to his home in England, promising to come back to Trixie one day, if only she will wait for him.

Weighed down by memories, unaware of the secrets that bind them, both mother and daughter are searching for lost love. To find what they are longing for they must confront the past, and unravel the lies told long ago. (From the publisher.)

Many thanks to Dorothy Huges of The Dirty Dogs Book Club who submitted this book—and the Reading Guide—to LitLovers.

Author Bio
• Birth—February 2, 1970
• Where—Winchester, England, UK
• Education—Exeter University
• Currently—lives in London and Dummer Hampshire, Englad


Santa Montefiore is a British author, born in Winchester, England. Her parents are Charles Palmer-Tomkinson, formerly High Sheriff of Hampshire, and Patricia Palmer-Tomkinson (nee Dawson), of Anglo-Argentine background.

The family is a substantial land-owner in Leicestershire. Santa Montefiore said that growing up on the family farm gave her an "idyllic Swallows and Amazons childhood." She also describes her upbringing as "sheltered Sloaney."

Her father and other members of her family represented Great Britain in skiing at Olympic level. Her sister, Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, is well known as an "It girl" and charity patron.

Education
She was educated at the Hanford School from the age of eight to twelve and then at the Sherborne School for Girls in Dorset where, in the sixth form, she became Head of her house (a role of responsibility similar to a prefect). She attended Exeter University where she read Spanish and Italian.

Career
Prior to publishing any novels, she worked in London, first in public relations for the outfitters Swaine Adeney and later for the jeweller Theo Fennell. She also worked as a shop assistant in Farmacia Santa Maria Novella, the perfumery, and in events for Ralph Lauren.

She sent her first manuscript to several literary agents, using a nom de plume in order to distance herself from her sister. Only one agent expressed an interest, but this led to a bidding war between several publishers, ending with a six-figure advance.

Since 2002, Montefiore has published at least one novel a year. Four of her books are set in Argentina, where she spent 1989 as a gap year teaching English. Her books have been characterised as "beach-read blockbusters," selling over two million copies in 20 translations.

She counts as her literary influences The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, and the authors Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Mary Wesley, Eckhart Tolle, and Daphne du Maurier. Isabel Allende is important to her as well.

Personal life
Montefiore is married to writer and historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. They were brought together by the historian Andrew Roberts, who thought "they would be absolutely perfect for each other because they were the only two people he knew who could remember the words to "Evita" by heart." She says of their marriage:

Sebag and I do bring out the best in each other. I wouldn’t have written if not for him and he might not have written books either, as he was a ladies’ man, always chasing girls, but now his home life is stable and sorted. We write in the same house, in separate offices and he helps me with plots. I think you have to be a team. Laughter is everything. Mr Darcy would have been so boring to live with—you don’t want to live with someone who is smouldering all the time.

Santa converted to Judaism before the marriage. The wedding was held at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, with which her husband's family have been associated for generations. Their long-time friends, Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, attended the wedding.

The Montefiores have two children, Lily and Sasha. They spend the week in London and the weekends at a house on her parents' estate at Dummer, Hampshire. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/7/2016 .)

Book Reviews
Heartwarming and believable.... [T]he perfect book to remind the reader of how love in the moment is all consuming, yet provides a wonderful memory and lessons later in life.
Portland Book Review


An epic romance...exquisite...the fictional island of Tekanasset and its colorful residents come to life with each turn of the page.
Associated Press


Lyrical...achingly beautiful...keep the tissue box handy.... Escapism on the highest order.
Booklist

Discussion Questions
1. The Beekeeper’s Daughter opens with Rudyard Kipling’s “The Bee-Boy’s Song.” Why do you think Santa Montefiore chose to begin the book with this poem? How does it relate to the story? Discuss how bees play a major role throughout the book.

2. In the beginning of The Beekeeper’s Daughter, Belle Barlett, Evelyn Durlacher, Sally Pearson and Blythe Westrup are playing bridge at the golf course and gossiping about Trixie Valentine and Suzie Redford going off with a band for the weekend. Why do you think the women found this so scandalous?

3. What do you make of Big and her friendship with Grace? Does Big give Grace good advice? Discuss Big’s role in the lives of the Valentines.

4. Are her Trixie’s parents right to be concerned about her relationship with Jasper? Do you think their affair is true love or a summer fling? Why is Grace so protective of her daughter’s heart?

5. Grace has a close relationship with her father, Arthur. How has he influenced her? Do you think she would have married Freddie without his influence?

6. When Grace is fourteen, she meets Rufus Duncliffe, son and heir of the Marquess of Penselwood. Grace places a bee on Rufus and later Freddie. Describe how Rufus and Freddie react. Who do you think is better suited for Grace? Who does Grace truly love?

7. The Beekeeper’s Daughter follows two story lines—Grace’s and Trixie’s. Were you drawn to one more than the other? How are Grace and Trixie similar? How are they different?

8. When Jasper’s brother dies in a car accident, he must return to England. Jasper asks Trixie to wait for him. Grace cries when Trixie tells her the news, but for a different reason than Trixie thinks. Discuss why Grace reacts the ways she does?

9. Trixie never loved another man after Jasper. What qualities do you think Jasper possesses that Trixie never found in another man? Do you think it was typical in that time for a woman to entirely focused on her career and not marry?

10. Is there a theme to each part of the book? Was this an effective way to tell the story? Why or why not?

12. Duty comes up in several ways during the course of the novel. Big tells Grace, “It’s your duty as a wife to stand by his side on all matters.” To which Grace replies, “I do hate that word.” Discuss what duty to means to Grace, Rufus, Freddie, and Jasper. Has a sense of duty positively or negatively affected their lives?

14. When Grace is tending to her bees she often feels a presence. On her wedding day, Grace thinks she sees her mother. Where else do ghosts or spirits make an appearance in the novel? Discuss the importance of spirits in the novel.

15. We learn that Grace is dying from an inoperable brain tumor. Is the author drawing a connection between one’s health and avoiding the past?

16. Grace and Freddie are both holding on to the past and harboring secrets. Why do you think they keep their secrets for so long? Are there other characters with hidden pasts?

17. Grace’s and Trixie’s pasts collide in a surprising twist. What drives Trixie to uncover her mother’s past? How does Trixie confront her own past in the process?

18. Love is a major theme in the novel: romantic love, familial love, first love, lost love. Is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time? Do you think the characters in the book find the love they want?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Before I Burn:  A Novel
Gaute Heivoll, 2010, (trans.,  2013)
Greywolf Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781555976613


Summary
An international literary sensation about an arsonist on the loose in rural Norway and the young man haunted by the story.

In 1970s Norway, an arsonist targets a small town for one long, terrifying month. One by one, buildings go up in flames. Suspicion spreads among the neighbors as they wonder if one of their own is responsible.

But as the heat and panic rise, new life finds a way to emerge. Amid the chaos, only a day before the last house is set afire, the community comes together for the christening of a young boy named Gaute Heivoll. As he grows up, stories about the time of fear and fire become deeply engrained in his young mind until, as an adult, he begins to retell the story. At the novel’s apex the lives of Heivoll’s friends and neighbors mix with his own life, and the identity of the arsonist and his motivations are slowly revealed.

Based on the true account of Norway’s most dramatic arson case, Before I Burn is a powerful, gripping breakout novel from an exceptionally talented author. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—March 13, 1978
• Where—Finsland, Norway
• Education—Telemark College; University of Bergen;
   University of Oslo
• Awards—Brage Prize; Tiden-prisen Prize
• Currently—lives in


Gaute Heivoll studied creative writing at Telemark College 2001/02, law at the University of Oslo and psychology at the University of Bergen. He has also worked as a teacher.

Heivoll has written poems, short stories and essays for newspapers and literary magazines and has been included in many anthologies. He has also conducted courses in creative writing in Norway and France and has worked as a literary critic in Norwegian newspapers.

He made his literary debut in 2002 with the short-story collection Liten dansende gutt. He recently published another story collection, Gordeau and other short-stories.

Books include Omar's Last Days (2003), Song of Youth (2005), Love poems at the river bottom (2006), and Before I Burn (2010), for which Heivoll received the Brage Prize.

Heivoll was also the recipient of the 2003 Tiden-prisen Prize. In 2006 he was the Norwegian representative to the Literary Festival Project Scritture Giovanni, and his short-story "Dr. Gordeau" was translated into English, German and italian. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Heivoll has written in this novel about identifiable people, though sometimes changing their names—and this high-risk strategy has been enormously worth the risk. It is existence itself—its mental and physical pains, its blood-lust offset by the many beauties of natural forms and natural affections—that is the writer's subject, not the nailing of particularities to persons.
Independent (UK)


(Starred review.) Reads like a top-tier crime story... The deadpan irony of the dialogue and fetishistic, but sympathetic, descriptions of the crimes are chilly and resonant, playing out provocatively against the first-person narrative.... A compulsively readable novel about identity and the increasingly blurred line between art and reality.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) A thrilling and poetic novel. In this dark and powerful examination of two mens obsessions, Hevioll's introspection and attention to detail are unparalleled. Fans of In Cold Blood and The Devil in the White City will appreciate the chilling true-crime angle, while Heivoll's dazzling prose will quickly enchant those unfamiliar with this Scandinavian writer. An absorbing story of compulsion, obsession, and the power of desire.
Booklist


(Starred review.) One of Norway's most famous writers investigates a strange series of fires not by examining the ashes, but by looking in the mirror. This is not a crime novel. Except for being labeled a novel, it's not even clear that this ambitious experiment by European best-seller Heivoll qualifies as anything less than the purest metafiction.... It's revealed early on that the narrator is well-acquainted with the real identity of the madman; he's just more interested in the question "why?" than whodunit.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

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Before I Go 
Colleen Oakley, 2015
Gallery Books
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476761664


Summary
Twenty-seven-year-old Daisy already beat breast cancer three years ago. How can this be happening to her again?

On the eve of what was supposed to be a triumphant "Cancerversary" with her husband Jack to celebrate three years of being cancer-free, Daisy suffers a devastating blow: her doctor tells her that the cancer is back, but this time it’s an aggressive stage four diagnosis.

She may have as few as four months left to live. Death is a frightening prospect—but not because she’s afraid for herself. She’s terrified of what will happen to her brilliant but otherwise charmingly helpless husband when she’s no longer there to take care of him. It’s this fear that keeps her up at night, until she stumbles on the solution: she has to find him another wife.

With a singular determination, Daisy scouts local parks and coffee shops and online dating sites looking for Jack’s perfect match. But the further she gets on her quest, the more she questions the sanity of her plan. As the thought of her husband with another woman becomes all too real, Daisy’s forced to decide what’s more important in the short amount of time she has left: her husband’s happiness—or her own? (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Colleen Oakley is the author of three novels, You Were There Too (2020), Close Enough to Touch (2017), and Before I Go (2015).

Oakley is also the former senior editor of Marie Claire and editor in chief of Women's Health & Fitness. Her articles, essays and interviews have been featured in the New York Times, Ladies' Home Journal, Marie Claire, Women's Health, Redbook, Parade and Martha Stewart Weddings. She lives in Georgia with her husband, four kids and the world's biggest lapdog. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
An impressive feat…an immensely entertaining, moving and believable read.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution


Oakley knocks it out of the park in her treatment of a very sensitive subject…pleasurable, thought-provoking reading.
Athens Banner-Herald


Author Oakley has set herself a tricky balancing act here, blending a comic sensibility with the depth and poignancy her subject requires. She pulls it off.
People


Emotional, insightful novel.
In Touch Magazine


Colleen Oakley’s debut deftly balances sorrow with laughs and compassion.
US Weekly


[T]ouching.... The story moves forward in the expected direction—even the twist at the end is not a shocker—but Oakley expertly tugs at the heartstrings with well-rounded characters and a liberal dose of gallows humor.
Publishers Weekly


The specifics of Daisy's disease are suggested here rather than described in detail, but cancer is palpable on every page. Readers will want simultaneously to hug Daisy and give her a good shake when she goes off the rails.... Daisy bravely endures and discovers the healing power of love. —Bette-Lee Fox
Library Journal


Oakley has produced an affecting work that, while avoiding maudlin sentimentality, makes the reader care about Daisy and her determination to live while dying.
Booklist


[A] sobfest from debut novelist Oakley.... [T]he novel's central conflict is wrapped up a little too neatly, but the emotion always rings true.... Oakley also adds in some much-needed humor to lighten up the necessarily depressing subject matter. This emotional novel will make readers laugh through their tears.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. At the beginning of the story, Daisy describes herself as stubborn, independent, organized, and definitely not indecisive. What words would you use to describe her at the beginning of the story?

2. After receiving the news from Dr. Saunders about the probable recurrence of her cancer, Daisy waits twenty-four hours before telling Jack. Why do you think she waited? What do you learn about Daisy and Jack’s relationship from the way they navigate the conversation when she tells him the news?

3. Daisy describes her observation about people from her work at a credit card call center by saying, "...most people just want to talk. To be heard. Even if it is by a stranger. Or maybe, especially if it’s a stranger." Do you think she wants this for herself? Is this observation true for you? Why or why not?

4. On page 78, Daisy says: "...there’s only one thing that’s worse than actually having cancer, and that’s having to tell people you have cancer." What do you think makes talking about cancer (or any other serious illness) so awkward for most people? How would you want people to respond if you were in Daisy’s situation?

5. How is Daisy’s response to the question "If you knew you were going to die in one month, what would you do?" different at age twenty-seven than it was at age twenty-one? How did she use the first month following the news about her cancer’s recurrence? What did you feel toward her as you read the story of how she was spending her days? How would you answer the question?

6. How would you describe Jack’s response to Daisy as she pushes him away? Do you think he represents a typical partner’s response? Why or why not? How would you respond to someone you knew had a serious illness and seemed to be pushing you away?

7. What do you think Daisy is trying to avoid by focusing on planning Jack’s future before she dies?

8. Describe Daisy’s friendship with Kayleigh. In what ways are they similar? How are they opposite? Do you relate to the kind of friendship they share? Describe.

9. What do you think were some of the factors that precipitated Daisy’s panic attacks? Have you ever experienced a panic attack or known someone who has?

10. Describe the bargain Jack and Daisy made about each others’ schooling when they learned about the extent of her cancer recurrence. Why do you think Daisy was so intent on Jack continuing school in the midst of her cancer treatments? Would you have made the same decision? Why or why not?

11. What role does Pamela play in the story? How does she serve a similar function for both Daisy and Jack?

12. Based on what you learn about Daisy’s life as a young girl, what are some of the ways she has learned to cope with pain and disappointment in her life? How do those strategies serve or hinder her when she’s diagnosed with Lots of Cancer?

13. On page 219, Daisy quotes a therapist she saw once who said, "anger is grief wearing a disguise." Do you agree? Why or why not? Do you think Daisy would agree at the end of the story?

14. How do you feel about the way the story ended?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Before I Go to Sleep
S.J. Watson, 2011
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062060556


Summary
As I sleep, my mind will erase everything I did today. I will wake up tomorrow as I did this morning. Thinking I’m still a child. Thinking I have a whole lifetime of choice ahead of me. . . .

Before She Knew Him 
Peter Swanson, 2019
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062838155


Summary
From the hugely talented author of The Kind Worth Killing comes an exquisitely chilling tale of a young suburban wife with a history of psychological instability whose fears about her new neighbor could lead them both to murder.

Catching a killer is dangerous—especially if he lives next door.

Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new house outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator and works out of a studio nearby, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder.

Finally, she’s found some stability and peace.

But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago.

Hen knows because she’s long had a fascination with this unsolved murder—an obsession she doesn’t talk about anymore, but can’t fully shake either.

Could her neighbor, Matthew, be a killer? Or is this the beginning of another psychotic episode like the one she suffered back in college, when she became so consumed with proving a fellow student guilty that she ended up hurting a classmate?

The more Hen observes Matthew, the more she suspects he’s planning something truly terrifying. Yet no one will believe her.

Then one night, when she comes face to face with Matthew in a dark parking lot, she realizes that he knows she’s been watching him, that she’s really on to him. And that this is the beginning of a horrifying nightmare she may not live to escape. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—January 11, 1964
• Where—Carlisle, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Trinity College; M.A., University of Massachusetts-Amherst; M.F.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Somerville, Massachusetts


Peter Swanson is the author of several novels: The Girl with a Clock for a Heart (2014) The Kind Worth Killing (2015), Her Every Fear (2016), and Before She Knew Him (2019). Eight Perfect Murders (2020) is his most recent.

Swanson's poems, stories and reviews have appeared in such journals as The Atlantic, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epoch, Measure, Notre Dame Review, Soundings East, and The Vocabula Review. He has won awards in poetry from The Lyric and Yankee Magazine, and is currently completing a sonnet sequence on all 53 of Alfred Hitchcock’s films.

Swanson has degrees in creative writing, education, and literature from Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College. He lives with his wife and cat in Somerville, Massachusetts. (From the publisher and the author's website.)

Book Reviews
[A] neatly knotted suspense story.
New York Times Book Review


Swanson unfolds this creepy story with the assurance and economy of a master. Surprises follow one another with inevitability, until the final electrifying jolt.
Wall Street Journal


In trademark style, Swanson’s ingenious plotting throws up tantalising clues and then slowly unravels them through a series of shocking revelations, leaving readers confused, bemused and racing to the last page. Compelling, creepy, and psychologically astute, this is stylish thriller writing at its very best.
Guardian (UK)


This acutely perceptive writer has become a master of psychological chills and thrills, transforming what appears to be "cosy domestic" into something infinitely more dangerous and deadly.… A sizzling slice of his unique brand of domestic noir.… Tingling with tension [and] brimming with menace.
Guardian (UK)


Swanson] knows how to ration his twists and where in the narrative to place them, devoting just the right amount of time to exploring the ramifications of each new development before spinning the story off in an ominous new direction… De Palma, or Hitchcock… would kill for the film rights.
National (UK)


★ [An] exceptional psychological thriller…. Surprising twists help keep the suspense high to the end.
Publishers Weekly


What would happen if a serial killer met the perfect confidant, someone who would never be believed if they revealed his secrets? Nothing good…. Swanson has crafted another bar-raising psychological thriller with this tense, unexpected spin on serial killers and those obsessed with them.
Booklist


[T]wisty, fast-paced…. Swanson is at his best in exploring the kinship… between artist and killer, one of the themes of Swanson's great model and forebear, Patricia Highsmith. Swanson isn't quite up to Highsmith's lofty mark, …but for the most part, this novel delivers.
Kirkus Reviews


There’s a neat twist at the end, but the real surprise is the way characters are allowed to grieve their losses, a luxury not always allowed in stories of this type. For a fast-paced thriller, Before She Knew Him achieves an impressive significance in its pauses.
BookPage

Discussion Questions
(We'll add questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions to help start a discussion for BEFORE SHE KNEW HIM … then take off on your own:

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

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

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Before the Fall
Noah Hawley, 2016
Grand Central Publishing
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781455561780


Summary
Winner, 2017 Edgar Award

On a foggy summer night, eleven people—ten privileged, one down-on-his-luck painter—depart Martha's Vineyard on a private jet headed for New York. Sixteen minutes later, the unthinkable happens: the plane plunges into the ocean.

The only survivors are Scott Burroughs—the painter—and a four-year-old boy, who is now the last remaining member of an immensely wealthy and powerful media mogul's family.

With chapters weaving between the aftermath of the crash and the backstories of the passengers and crew members—including a Wall Street titan and his wife, a Texan-born party boy just in from London, a young woman questioning her path in life, and a career pilot—the mystery surrounding the tragedy heightens.

As the passengers' intrigues unravel, odd coincidences point to a conspiracy. Was it merely by dumb chance that so many influential people perished? Or was something far more sinister at work?

Events soon threaten to spiral out of control in an escalating storm of media outrage and accusations. And while Scott struggles to cope with fame that borders on notoriety, the authorities scramble to salvage the truth from the wreckage.

Amid pulse-quickening suspense, the fragile relationship between Scott and the young boy glows at the heart of this stunning novel, raising questions of fate, human nature, and the inextricable ties that bind us together. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1967
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Sarah Lawence College
• Awards—Edgar Award
• Currently—lives in Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, California


Noah Hawley is an American film and television producer, screenwriter, composer, and novelist, known for creating and writing the FX anthology television series Fargo.

Early life
Hawley was born and raised in New York City, New York. His mother, Louise Armstrong, was a non-fiction writer and activist, and his maternal grandmother was a playwright. His father, Tom Hawley, was a businessman. He has a twin brother, Alexi, who is a writer for the television show The Following and the creator of State of Affairs.

Hawley graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a degree in political science in 1989. He worked for Legal Aid Society in New York City, dealing with cases involving child abuse and neglect. He later moved to San Francisco and did computer programming work at law firms and worked as a paralegal.

Books, TV and film
His novels include Before the Fall (2016), The Good Father (2012) The Punch (2008), Other People's Weddings (2004), and A Conspiracy of Tall Men (1998). Sony Pictures has acquired the rights to  Before the Fall, and Hawly has been tapped to write the screenplay.

Hawley is the creator and showrunner for the television series Fargo (2014), based on the Coen brothers' 1996 film of the same name. Fargo won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries in 2014, along with 17 additional nominations. In total, the series has been nominated for 113 awards since its premiere, winning 32 of them.

Hawley resides in Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, California, with his wife Kyle Hawley and their two children. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/9/2016.)

Book Reviews
Very often, we see what we want to see. As a young boy, painter Scott Burroughs was inspired to swim when he watched celebrity athlete Jack LaLanne stroke from Alcatraz Island to the shore, his wrists chained to a 1,000-pound boat. Sadly, Scott’s youth of championship swimming eventually gave way to an adulthood of alcoholism, failed relationships, and an art career that never quite got off of the ground.  READ MORE.
John Michael De Marco, author Book Club Widowerers - LitLovers

[I]ngeniously nerve-racking…If you didn't already know that Mr. Hawley is a celebrated storyteller, you'll know it before you finish the first page of [Before the Fall]…This is one of the year's best suspense novels, a mesmerizing, surprise-jammed mystery that works purely on its own, character-driven terms…Mr. Hawley does a beautiful job of turning his book into an extended tease, with separate chapters about each passenger and revelations about why each could have been a target…Mr. Hawley has made it very, very easy to race through his book in a state of breathless suspense.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


Hype and advertising and celebrity can certainly get a reader to pick up a novel and read the first few pages. After that, it's all about the words and the characters, the heart and soul of the story. I had no doubt that Hawley could write, that he could create amazing characters, that he had an ear for dialogue and a unique point of view—but could he write a successful novel? The answer, as readers of his four earlier books probably know already, is a resounding yes…Noah Hawley really knows how to keep a reader turning the pages, but there's more to the novel than suspense. On one hand, Before the Fall is a complex, compulsively readable thrill ride of a novel. On the other, it is an exploration of the human condition, a meditation on the vagaries of human nature, the dark side of celebrity, the nature of art, the power of hope and the danger of an unchecked media. The combination is a potent, gritty thriller that exposes the high cost of news as entertainment and the randomness of fate.
Kristin Hannah - New York Times Book Review


[A] terrific thriller...an irresistible mystery...a tale that's both an intriguing puzzle and a painful story of human loss.
Patrick Anderson - Washington Post


At first blush, Before the Fall appears to be on track to be a typical action-packed thriller.... But author Noah Hawley soon veers his highly entertaining novel into an insightful look at families, revenge and media intrusion by delving deeply into each character’s story. Hawley invests the same care with a soupcon of dark humor into Before the Fall as he does on the TV series Fargo, of which he is executive producer, writer and showrunner.
Associated Press - Oline H. Cogdill


(Starred review.) [T]elevision producer and screenwriter Hawley’s fifth novel is a masterly blend of mystery, suspense, tragedy, and shameful media hype.... This is a gritty tale of a man overwhelmed by unwelcome notoriety, with a stunning, thoroughly satisfying conclusion.
Publishers Weekly


[A] struggling artist becomes a hero twice—first by saving a young boy's life, then by outsmarting the anchor of a Fox-like conservative TV network.... Hawley piles on enough intrigues and plot complications to keep you hooked even if you can spot most of them a sea mile away.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
The questions below have been graciously submitted to LitLovers by Linda at Anaheim Hills Page Turners. Many thanks, Linda.

1. "Everyone has their path. The choices they’ve made. How any 2 people end up in the same place at the same time is a mystery." Or "everyone is from someplace. We all have stories, our lives unfolding along crooked lines, colliding in unexpected ways." Do you believe it is circumstance or fate or small decisions and chance encounters which have brought these people together ?

2. Jack LaLanne figures incidentally in this novel. Do you remember him from your youth? How do his philosophy and actions figure into the plot of this story?

3. The beginning of Chapter 3 begins with the plane in the Atlantic, after the crash. Were you surprised to have missed the crash? Why would the author handle this incident in such a sudden and unexplained way?

4. Scott Burroughs, our reluctant protagonist, saves himself and 4 year old. What motivated him to such a heroic act? Do you agree, "Once you become a hero, you lose your privacy"?

5. The first indication for Scott that his heroism was going to be a "messy situation" was his meeting with Gus Franklin of the NTSB, who asked him, "Were you sleeping with Mrs. Bateman?" What would have been your reaction if you were Scott? And how did his artwork figure into this story?

6. David Bateman’s philosophy of a news network was, "All other networks react to the news. We’re going to Make the News." He meant their network would "shape the events of the day to fit the message of their network." Do you think this is true of news stations today? What effect has it had on our culture?

7. Why did the Batemans have 24/7 security guards? Who was Gil Baruch and what was his story?

8. Bill Cunningham is a reporter-commentator on ALC. How does he impact the news and the story line? Was he "the raging voice of common sense, the sane man in an insane world?" Do you believe it is possible to be an impartial newsperson? And what did Cunningham do to collect news that was illegal? Does this remind you of any real news story?

9. What kind of business was Ben Kipling involved in? How might this have affected the future of the flight?

10. What theories were developed about the cause of the crash?

11. Finally we learn about Charlie Busch. What motivated him in his murderous actions? Is there any way to protect ourselves from people like this?

12. What tips the NTSB and the FBI that the plane had suffered neither mechanical nor pilot error?

13. How has experiencing the crash and subsequent investigations changed or altered Scott? What do you imagine or hope for Scott’s future?

14. What different meanings could the title BEFORE THE FALL signify?

15. Noah Hawley is well-known for his work in film and television. (Bones, Fargo, Legion, etc.) Did his style of writing help you, confuse you, or add to the tension of the mystery? Why did he use the flashback style of writing?

16. Did you enjoy reading this book? Did it keep you involved in the mystery? Did it challenge any of your ideas?

(Questions submitted to LitLovers by Linda of Anaheim Hills Page Turners. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Before We Met 
Lucie Whitehouse, 2014
Bloomsbury USA
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781620402757


Summary
Hannah, independent, headstrong, and determined not to follow in the footsteps of her bitterly divorced mother, has always avoided commitment. But one hot New York summer she meets Mark Reilly, a fellow Brit, and is swept up in a love affair that changes all her ideas about what marriage might mean.

Now, living in their elegant, expensive London townhouse and adored by her fantastically successful husband, she knows she was right to let down her guard.

But when Mark does not return from a business trip to the U.S. and when the hours of waiting for him stretch into days, the foundations of Hannah’s certainty begin to crack. Why do Mark’s colleagues believe he has gone to Paris not America? Why is there no record of him at his hotel? And who is the mysterious woman who has been telephoning him over the last few weeks?

Hannah begins to dig into her husband’s life, uncovering revelations that throw into doubt everything she has ever believed about him. As her investigation leads her away from their fairytale romance into a place of violence and fear she must decide whether the secrets Mark has been keeping are designed to protect him or protect her. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1975
• Raised—Warwickshire, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Oxford University
• Currently—Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA


Lucie Whitehouse was born in the Cotswolds in England 1975 and grew up in Warwickshire. She studied Classics at Oxford University and then began a career in publishing while spending evenings, weekends and holidays working on the book that would eventually become The House at Midnight (2008). Next came her novel The Bed I Made (2010), followed by Before We Met (2014).

Having married in 2011, she now divides her time between the UK and Brooklyn, where she lives with her husband. She writes full time and has contributed features to the London Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Elle and Red Magazine. (From publisher.)

Book Reviews
Lucie Whitehouse's third novel is slow to get going, but a growing sense of dread makes this "marriage thriller" a nail-biter.... Characters, particularly the more minor ones, are not fleshed out.... But despite its flaws, once Before We Met hits its stride, it turns into a creepily effective thriller, Whitehouse ramping up the chills with her dark wintry weather and her glimpses into the creation of a disturbed mind.
Guardian (UK)

The tension builds revelation by revelation and barely loosens its grip throughout—the kind of thriller to keep you turning pages into the small hours and then miss your stop on your morning commute.... the quiet tension of the first half dissipates into a more action-packed and rather predictable run of events. Whitehouse has a feel for a compelling plot but she has a tendency to over-write around the edges.
Alice Jones - Independent (UK)


This type of domestic thriller...is clearly having a moment, and there are some terrific and terrifying versions out there. Some aspects of what Whitehouse is doing here have been done before, and better. That said, there’s no doubt that Whitehouse’s writing keeps you glued to the page—I read this in one sitting, and it was an enjoyable one at that..
Daneet Steffens - Boston Globe


Newly married Hannah thinks she knows her husband, Mark, until the night he doesn’t arrive home and she realizes nothing it what it seemed. Even when you think you’ve figured it out, this one is hard to put down.
Good Housekeeping


Whitehouse takes a familiar premise—a woman with doubts about her new husband—and spins it into an intriguing thriller that avoids romantic-suspense clichés.... As [Hannah] struggles with her trust issues, she must consider whether Mark is trying to protect her.... [The novel] soon picks up speed and builds to a tense, unexpected climax.
Publishers Weekly


Will hook readers from the first page...a gripping cat-and-mouse read.
Booklist


[T]he relationship between two newlyweds following the husband's disappearance.... Whitehouse cleverly builds the suspense bit by bit, taking the reader deftly from the couple's initial newlywed bliss to Hannah's growing realization that things may not be what they seem.... [A] well-drawn, taught thriller all the way to the end.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

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Before We Were Yours 
Lisa Wingate, 2017
Random House
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425284681


Summary
— Memphis, 1939.
Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force.

Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth.

At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

— Aiken, South Carolina, present day.
Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiance, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family's long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. (From the publisher.)

Read New York Post article.

Author Bio
• Birth—1964-65
• Where—Germany
• Raised—Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.A./B.S., Oklahoma State University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Menro, Arkansas

Lisa Wingate is an American inspirational speaker and the author of more than 20 novels, many of them bestsellers. Wingate was born in Germany but raised in the U.S. state of Oklahoma where she attended Oklahoma State University, earning her Bachelor's degree in English and communications.

She married her husband, Sam, a science teacher and rancher from Texas, in 1988. They lived with their two sons in various towns in central Texas, eventually settling in Menro, Arkansas—in the Ouachita Mountains of southwest Arkansas, not far from the Texas border.

Wingate said she has always been writing, even as a child. As a first-grader, while her classmates played their way through recess, Wingate stayed at her desk creating stories. Her teacher Mrs. Krackhardt noticed her writing and ended up reading the stories to Wingate's classmates. On Wingate's final report card, her teacher wrote, "Keep that pencil working with that wonderful imagination, Lisa!

As Wingate told the Community Advocate, the hometown paper in Massachusetts where that elementary school is still located:

I went from being a shy transfer kid with no friends to a wonderful writer. I felt that writing was something special, and I was something special.… Even though we moved again and left that school behind, I always thought of myself as a writer because Mrs. Krackhardt told me I was.

Years later, in 2001, after publishing her first book, Tending Roses, Wingate tried to locate her teacher…but without success. It wasn't until 2012, when she published The Language of Sycamores Tree—and wanted to dedicate the book to her—that a local bookstore owner recognized Mrs. Krackhardt and told her about Wingate.

Wingate is one of the few authors who has been able to make the cross over between the Christian and mainstream markets. She publishes works with Bethany House and Penguin Random House. Not only do her works generate large sales, they have also won or been nominated for awards—the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, the Utah Library Award, the Carol Award, the Christy Award, and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. (Adapted from various online sources. Retrieved 7/18/2017.)

Book Reviews
Historical fiction has the capacity to entertain, educate, or horrify. In BEFORE WE WERE YOURS Lisa Wingate manages all three. Through one family’s nightmare, Wingate explores the atrocities that took place at the Tennessee Children’s Home Society between 1920 and1950 under the cruel hand of Georgia Tann.… There is much to dissect in this book. It kept me up past one in the morning and kept my mind lingering long after.  READ MORE…
Abby Fabiaschi, AUTHOR - LitLovers


Lisa Wingate brings…shocking crimes and their long-term emotional impact to light in her affecting new novel, Before We Were Yours. The book tells the story of two families — the wealthy, connected Staffords and the dirt-poor “river gypsy” Fosses. Though her tale is fictional, it stems from the true, terrible events of the Tennessee tragedy. Tann and her associates would tear apart one family to benefit another, creating wounds not easily healed. The loss would linger, like a phantom limb, for generations.
Nick Poppy - New York Post

“Every now and then a novel comes along that sweeps me off my reading feet. Before We Were Yours, by Lisa Wingate, is such a book.… It’s a great book-club read, one of those books that teaches you something, gives you lots to discuss and even more to think about.… Take note: This may be the best book of the year.
Shreveport Times


A [story] of a family lost and found.… A poignant, engrossing tale about sibling love and the toll of secrets.
People


Before We Were Yours is sure to be one of the most compelling books you pick up this year.… Wingate is a master-storyteller, and you’ll find yourself pulled along as she reveals the wake of terror and heartache that is Georgia Tann’s legacy.
Parade


One of the year’s best books.… It is almost a cliche to say a book is "lovingly written" but that phrase applies clearly to Lisa Wingate’s latest novel, Before We Were Yours. This story about children taken from their parents through kidnapping or subterfuge and then placed for adoption, for a price, clearly pours out of Wingate’s heart.… It is impossible not to get swept up in this near-perfect novel. It invades your heart from the very first pages and stays there long after the book is finished. Few novelists could strike the balance this story requires but Wingate does it with assurance. There are a lot of books that will catch your eye this summer, some from our best storytellers. Make sure this one is on your radar. It should not be missed.
Huffington Post


Wingate is a compelling storyteller, steeping her narrative with a forward momentum that keeps the reader as engaged and curious as Avery in her quest. The feel-good ending can be seen from miles away, but does nothing to detract from this fantastic novel.
Publishers Weekly


Christy and Carol Award-winning Wingate (The Story Keeper; The Sea Glass Sisters) weaves a complex tale about two families, two generations apart, linked by an injustice, based on a notorious true-life scandal.… The thought-provoking subject matter makes this at times a difficult read —Shondra Brown, Wakarusa P.L., IN
Library Journal


This story is heartfelt and genuine, especially as Wingate explores the idea of home and family from a youngster’s point of view.
Historical Novels Review


Wingate's fans and readers who enjoy family dramas will find enough to entertain them, and book clubs may enjoy dissecting the relationship and historical issues in the book.… [A]shameful true story of child exploitation but…less successful in engaging readers in her fictional characters' lives.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Before We Were Yours alternates between the historical story of the Foss Children and the modern-day story of Avery Stafford. Did you have a favorite between these story lines? Which one and why?

2. Many families have been touched in some way by adoption and foster care. Is adoption or foster care in your family history? If so, how did that affect your thoughts about the journey of the Foss children an about Avery’s excavation of her family history?

3. When the sisters were originally reunited, they decided to keep their history to themselves rather than telling their families. Do you agree or disagree with this decision? What do you think the implications would have been if they had gone public? Do you think family secrets should remain secret, particularly after the people who kept those secrets have passed away? Or do family secrets belong to the next generation, as well? Have you ever discovered a secret in your family history? If so, what was it (if you care to share it, that is)?

4. “There was a little girl who had a little curl” is a touchstone between Avery and her Grandma Judy. Is there a song or saying that reminds you of someone special in your childhood? Where does your mind travel when you hear it or repeat it?

5. Avery laments that the busy schedule expected of a Stafford has prevented her from spending time on Edisto Island with her sisters or Elliot. “Who chooses the schedules we keep? We do, I guess,” she tells herself but excuses this with, “the good life demands a lot of maintenance.” In our modern age are we too busy? Too preoccupied with accumulating things to actually enjoy what we have? Too dialed into media and social media? What are your thoughts on this? What would you like to change about your own schedule? Anything? What might you gain if you did?

6. While Rill sees her life on the Arcadia through the idyllic eyes of childhood, May in her old age seems to acknowledge that she wouldn’t have traded the life she lived for a different one. Do you think she wonders whether Queenie and Briny’s unconventional existence on the Arcadia could would have been sustainable as times changed or more children were added to the family? Were Queenie and Briny responsible or careless in their choices?

7. May says, “A woman’s past need not predict her future. She can dance to her own music if she chooses.” How has your past made you who you are? What do you want to leave behind? Anything? What is the true “music” of your own soul? Are you in step with it or out of step? What helps you hear your own music and find balance in your life?

8. When fear of being caught threatens to prevent her from escaping Miss Murphy’s house, Rill tells herself, “I shush my mind because your mind can ruin you if you let it.” Does your mind ever ruin you? In what way? On what issues? May comments, “We’re always trying to persuade ourselves of things.” Are women particularly guilty of this? What do we tell ourselves that we shouldn’t?

9. Child trafficking, abuse, and economic disadvantage still imperil the lives and futures of children today. What can we as ordinary citizens do to prevent children from being robbed of safe, happy childhoods? What can society do to prevent people like Georgia Tann from taking advantage of the most helpless and vulnerable among us?

10. Did you search for more information about Georgia Tann and the Tennessee Children’s Home Society after reading Before We Were Yours? What did you learn? Based on what you learned, what do you think motivated Georgia Tann? Why were so many people willing to be complicit in her schemes when they knew children were suffering? Was Georgia’s network a creature of the political corruption and societal attitudes of its time or could something like this happen today?

11. Avery feels the pressure of being in a high-profile political family. Do you famous families are held to a higher standard than others? Should they be? Has this changed in recent years or is it just harder to keep secrets in today’s media-crazed world?

12. How did Avery grow as a result of her discoveries about the family’s past? How did it change her view of herself and her family’s expectations for her? Did your family have expectations for you that you didn’t agree  with? Who in Avery’s family might struggle most to accept her decision to change her life plans?

13. Do you think there will be a happily-ever-after ending for Avery and Trent? In your view, what might that look like?

14. How would you describe Rill as she struggles through the abduction, the orphanage, and her decision to return to her adoptive family? Did you admire her? What changes did you see in her as a result of the experience? How is she different when she gets to the Sevier’s house?

15. Avery struggles to come to terms with Grandma Judy’s dementia. Her family wrestles with difficult choices about Grandma Judy’s care. Has memory loss and elder care affected your family? In what way? What issues did it cause and how did you deal with them? Have you imagined what it would be like to be a victim of memory loss?

16. The Seviers seem to have adopted the Foss girls with good intentions. Do you think they were aware of or at all suspicious of Georgia Tann’s methods? Should they have been?

17. What symbolism do you see in the picture of the sisters on the wall? How do you think the sisters felt during their Sisters Days? Do you have sisters you are close to or sister-friends you spend time with? What does that bond mean to you?

18. Did you wish all seven of the Foss siblings could have found one another in the end? In your opinion, would that have been realistic or unrealistic? Why do you think the author chose not to bring all of the siblings back together?

19. This novel has garnered worldwide interest in the publishing industry and is being translated for publication in at least fourteen  countries. Why do you think the story drew international attention? What themes in it are universal?

20. Was the cover a factor in your book club’s decision to read Before We Were Yours? What reaction did you have to the cover and title?

21. Will you be passing the book on to someone else? Will it remain on your bookshelf? Will you give a copy to someone you know?

(Questions issued by publishers. Be sure to see the full Book Club Kit.)

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Before You Know Kindness 
Chris Bohjalian, 2004
Random House
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400031658


Summary
Chris Bohjalian presents his most ambitious and multi-layered novel to date—examining wildly divisive issues in today’s America with his trademark emotional heft and spellbinding storytelling skill.

On a balmy July night in New Hampshire a shot rings out in a garden, and a man falls to the ground, terribly wounded. The wounded man is Spencer McCullough, the shot that hit him was fired—accidentally?—by his adolescent daughter Charlotte. With this shattering moment of violence, Chris Bohjalian launches the best kind of literate page-turner: suspenseful, wryly funny, and humane.

More
Every summer the extended Setons family gathers at the family homestead in New Hampshire, where Nan Seton, age seventy, presides over what her children and grandchildren jokingly call "The Seton New England Boot Camp." The hectic schedule of golf and tennis and swimming at the club, nature hikes before dinner, and badminton on the lawn in the waning hours of daylight is disrupted one Memorial Day weekend when Nan's son-in-law, Spencer, corrals the family into planting a garden.

An avid animal-rights activist, Spencer envisions tables laden with fresh fruits and vegetables and a new appreciation on the part of his skeptical extended family of the virtues of vegetari-anism. But a horrible accident in the garden exposes deeper divides within the family and forces them all to reexamine their loyalties to one another. (Both synopses 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 
An irresistible read. Moving from quiet domestic drama to legal thriller.
Washington Post


A dark psychological dance of family estrangements, lies and self-righteousness...plenty of finely wrought characters and thought-provoking personal and political drama.
Seattle Times


May very well be his best.... Masterly... timely [and] well-wrought.
Boston Globe


Bohjalian's new novel begins with a literal bang: a bullet from a hunting rifle accidentally strikes Spencer McCullough, an extreme advocate for animal rights, leaving him seriously wounded. The weapon-owned by his brother-in-law, John, and shot by his 12-year-old daughter, Charlotte-becomes the center of a lawsuit and media circus led by Spencer's employer, FERAL (Federation for Animal Liberation), a dead ringer for PETA. The many-faceted satire Bohjalian (Midwives, etc.) crafts out of these events revolves around Spencer and Jon's families, but also involves a host of secondary figures. Bohjalian excels at getting inside each character's head with shifts of diction and perspective, though he makes it difficult for readers to connect with any one in particular. This is in part because his portraits are often unsympathetic; the characters are allowed to hoist themselves on their own petards. While some are credibly flawed-Spencer is both a loving father and an obnoxious activist-others are cartoonishly mocked with their own thoughts, like high-powered attorney Paige, who mourns the loss of her leather chairs and briefcases, hidden away for as long as FERAL is a lucrative client. If there is a grounded center to this work, it is 1o-year-old Willow, Spencer's niece, who distinguishes herself from this baggy ensemble by always trying to do the right thing. She alone is spared the narrator's irony, and it is Willow, years after the accident, who has the last word. Bohjalian's skewering of the animal rights movement gets the better of his domestic drama, but his skillful storytelling will engage readers. More like Midwives and Trans-Sister Radio than the recent, more intimate The Buffalo Soldier, this patented blend of social commentary and soul-searching moral drama for the public radio crowd should do well for Bohjalian.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review) Bohjalian's elegant, refined writing makes even the most ordinary details of family life fascinating, and his characters leap off the pages as very real, flawed, but completely sympathetic human beings. Bohjalian manages to examine some very weighty issues without ever coming off as preachy or pedantic. A triumph. —Kristine Huntley.
Booklist

The privileged summer of a prosperous family is shortened by a bullet in the night. Courteously observing dramatic unities, Oprah-blessed Bohjalian (Midwives, 1997; The Buffalo Soldier, 2002, etc.), America's answer to Joanna Trollope, sees to it that the jammed rifle in the back of Vermont lawyer John Seton's borrowed Volvo goes off to critical effect when it's fired by 12-year-old-going-on-16 Charlotte McCollough into her father's right shoulder. The great irony in this suavely perceptive story is that novice hunter Seton's bullet had been intended for a deer, a deep dark secret hitherto kept from the brutally winged Spencer McCollough, Seton's brother-in-law and the public face of FERAL, an animal activist organization. Spencer has been vegan since repenting of the murder of countless lobsters as a kitchen laborer during his college years, and his dedication to the well being of animals is deep and long-standing. That dedication, Bohjalian politely points out, has not always extended to the animals in his own herd-wife Catherine, a meat-sneaking Brearley instructor, and daughter Charlotte. In fact, his vegetarian rigidities and professional absences have so distressed Catherine that she was ready to discuss separation just before the pot- and beer-befuddled Charlotte fired the rifle at what she thought might be the deer that had ruined that summer's ambitious vegetable garden. Nan Seton, Catherine and John's immensely energetic, capable, and prosperous mother, manages the immediate effects of the crisis, which occurred at her New Hampshire cottage, but she is helpless to patch the rift that develops between the families of her two children when Spencer refuses to forgive his deeplyrepentant brother-in-law and allows FERAL to push for publicity and a lawsuit. The balance of power rests with Charlotte's younger cousin Willow, a real sweetheart who'd shared that spliff with Charlotte hours before the disaster. The finely drawn scenes and characters here will suck in all but the hardest-hearted. Pretty much irresistible.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions 
1. Before You Know Kindness opens with a blunt, clinical description of Spencer's injuries. Is the preface a purely objective report or does it begin to develop some of the general themes of the novel? What does it convey about the Setons and their way of life?

2. Spencer's speech pp.16-19 and Nan's descriptions of his behavior pp. 27-29 offer varying insights into his personality. Does the tone of the writing influence your impressions of him? What specific details bring out the differences between Spencer's self-perceptions and the way others might view him?

3. How does Bohjalian portray FERAL and the people who work there? Do you think this is an accurate portrait of the animal-rights movement? What reasons might Bohjalian have for distorting their attitudes and activities?

4. Sara thinks, "The problem with Nan-and with John and Catherine, and yes, Spencer when they were all together-was that they could never just . . . be." [p. 38] In what ways is this attributable to Nan and Richard Seton's marriage and the atmosphere in which John and Catherine grew up? Why does Spencer, whose background is so different, demonstrate the same quality?

5. How persuasive are John's explanations of why he took up hunting? What does the argument that hunting "is the most merciful way humans had to manage the herd" [p. 73] imply about the relationship between humans and the natural world? Does John's anguish after the accident alter his view of hunting in general? Do you think that it should?

6. In talking to Willow about Catherine and Spencer, Charlotte says, "Sometimes I get pissed at both of them. I don't think Mom would be the way she is if Dad wasn't this public wacko." [p. 117] Are Charlotte's complaints typical of a teen-ager or does Spencer's profession put an unusual burden on her? Is her criticism of her mother's flirting well-founded?

7. Bohjalian suggests several times that Charlotte may have subconsciously wanted to injure her father. She herself says, "There were lots of reasons for pointing Uncle John's weapon at what was moving at the edge of the garden. . . . " [p. 133] and acknowledges that others might think, "She was just doing it to get your attention. . . . "[p. 135] Is this speculation supported by the way Bohjalian describes the accident? By Charlotte's subsequent behavior and her conversations with Willow?

8. The accident and Spencer's permanent disability provide FERAL with an irresistible opportunity to make their case against hunting. Is their decision to bring a lawsuit totally reprehensible? Do the depictions of Dominique, Paige, and Keenan undermine the validity of their case?

9. Self-interest plays a part not only in FERAL's reaction to the tragedy. Are you sympathetic to John's concerns that the lawsuit will effect his professional reputation, as well as his fear that "for as long as he lived he would be an imbecile in the eyes of his daughter" [p. 142]? How did you feel as Catherine vacillates in the second half of the novel between wanting to help her husband and wanting to leave him?

10. "Nan was a particular mystery to [Sara]. Exactly what was it that she didn't want to think about?"[p. 176] Were you puzzled by Nan as well? By the end of the novel, did you feel you had a better understanding of her?

11. What would have happened if Charlotte and Willow had not confessed to drinking and smoking pot on the night of the shooting? Were you relieved that Spencer decided not to pursue the lawsuit?

12. Although the plot revolves around Spencer, at various point in the novel each character moves to center stage to comment on the events and their repercussions. Which members of the family most appealed to you and why? How successful is Bohjalian at capturing their individual points of view and personalities? Did your opinions of them change as the novel progressed?

13. Does Bohjalian present both sides of the controversy in an evenhanded way? Which characters appear to embody his own point of view? What is the ultimate message of Before You Know Kindness?

14. Do you think that the issues Bohjalian examines in Before You Know Kindness are more important (or more relevant) than the topics he explored in (for example) Midwives or The Law of Similars or Trans-Sister Radio?

15. Why did Bohjalian use a passage from The Secret Garden as one of the epigraphs? In what ways is the children's classic relevant to Before You Know Kindness?

16. Why did Bohjalian take his title from the poem, "Kindness," by Naomi Shihab Nye, a portion of which serves as the other epigraph?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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The Beginner's Goodbye
Ann Tyler, 2012
Knopf Doubleday
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307957276


Summary
Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances—in their house, on the roadway, in the market.
 
Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, self-dependent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy’s unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace.

Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family’s vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.
 
A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler’s humor, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles. (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
In Tyler’s elegant 19th novel, Aaron is an editor at a vanity press with a crippled right arm and leg who thinks of himself as “unluckier but no unhappier” than anyone else. He meets Dorothy, a brisk, no nonsense doctor, while editing a medical tome, and they fall in love, marry, and muddle along until Dorothy dies in an accident that nearly destroys their home. Aaron moves in with his overprotective sister and begins seeing Dorothy’s ghost, spectral appearances that make him realize just how many fissures there were in their marriage. Tyler’s gentle style focuses on the details of daily life, and how the little things, both beautiful and ugly, contribute to the bigger picture. Tyler (Breathing Lessons, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1988) portrays complex, difficult, loving individuals struggling to co-exist and find happiness together. This is no gothic ghost story nor chronicle of a man unraveling in his grief, but rather an uplifting tale of love and forgiveness. By the end of this wonderful book, you’ve lived the lives and loves of these characters in the best possible way.
Publishers Weekly


Although crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent much of his life fending off his family's attempts to protect him from the world. A successful editor of a vanity press in Baltimore that publishes a series of beginner's guides to various subjects, Aaron one day finds himself falling in love with Dr. Dorothy Rosales, whom he has approached about helping to write The Beginner's Cancer. They soon end up married, but catastrophe strikes when a tree falls on their house and kills Dorothy. Unable to live in his house any longer because of memories and roof damage, Aaron goes to live with his sister. He moves through loss, despair, helplessness, and emotional paralysis until one day Dorothy appears to him in the street. Struggling with the meaning of her appearances, Aaron eventually comes to accept them as her way of both saying good-bye and helping him get over her death. Verdict: As always, Pulitzer Prize winner Tyler brilliantly explores a stunning range of human emotion, poignantly considering the challenges of death while creating lovable characters whose foibles capture our hearts. Essential reading. —Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Evanston, IL
Library Journal


Though the plot finds a man in early middle age coming to terms with the death of his wife, the tone of this whimsical fable is so light that it practically floats off the page. Some might consider the latest from Tyler (Noah's Compass, 2010, etc.) typically wise and charming, while others will dismiss it as cloying. She employs a first-person narrator, a 36-year-old man named Aaron, who....receives visits from his dead wife, whom no one else can see, and whom he admits might well be a projection or an apparition. If he is an unreliable narrator, he is also a flawed one, often sounding more like a much older woman than like a man his age (very few of whom use terms like "busy-busy"). Mourning is both a rite of passage and a process of discovery for Aaron, who early worries that, "I can't do this…I don't know how. They don't offer any courses in this; I haven't had any practice," but who is ultimately not a tragic but comic figure, one who will (more or less) live happily ever after. An uncharacteristically slight work by a major novelist.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Aaron is handicapped on his right side as a result of a childhood illness. Why do you think the author chose to give her main character such a handicap? Is it significant—a symbol or metaphor—or entirely coincidental?

2. Does the way that Aaron’s mother and sister treated him when he was growing up impact his character as an adult? Or explain why he might have married Dorothy?

3. In Aaron’s recollections of initially meeting Dorothy and falling in love with her, he portrays himself as having been immediately besotted, though Dorothy herself seems less than scintillating. Is Aaron aware of this discrepancy?

4. After Dorothy’s death, does Aaron fully grieve for her, or is he reluctant to accept what has happened?

5. Why does Dorothy reappear so many months after her death?

6. Aaron states early in the book (pages 11–12) that he is an atheist. Does this (lack of) belief shed any light on Dorothy’s appearances?

7. How does Dorothy act when she reappears? Why? Does her behavior indicate something about her character? About Aaron’s?

8. Beginning on page 175, Aaron reveals that his marriage to Dorothy was not, after all, ideal. Does this come as a surprise? Do you think this has something to do with Dorothy’s reappearances?

9. Toward the end of the book (pages 194–5), Aaron reflects on Gil’s thoughts about his father’s reappearances (“I know Gil felt it was his father’s unfinished business that brought him, but what’s occurred to me lately is, couldn’t it have been Gil’s unfinished business?”). Do Aaron’s reflections suggest why Dorothy has reappeared?

10. If so, what should the reader make of Aaron’s almost defensive remarks on the following page (“Do you imagine it hasn’t occurred to me that I might have just made Dorothy’s visits up?”)? What should we think of Nate’s comments on the page after that (“I think if you knew them well enough...you might be able to imagine what they would tell you even now”)? Do these comments indicate how Aaron has come to view Dorothy’s appearances?

11. What are the possible ways to interpret the final paragraph of the book? Are the apparitions of Dorothy real, after all? Is Aaron deluded? Does the final paragraph suggest a “moral” to the story? Was a moral hinted at earlier?

12. What is the significance of the book’s title?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Beheld 
TaraShea Nesbit, 2020
Bloomsbury
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781635573220


Summary
From the bestselling author of The Wives of Los Alamos comes the riveting story of a stranger's arrival in the fledgling colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts-and a crime that shakes the divided community to its core.

Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined.

Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading, and worshipping as they choose.

By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough.

With gripping, immersive details and exquisite prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means. She evokes a vivid, ominous Plymouth, populated by famous and unknown characters alike, each with conflicting desires and questionable behavior.

Suspenseful and beautifully wrought, Beheld is about a murder and a trial, and the motivations—personal and political—that cause people to act in unsavory ways.

It is also an intimate portrait of love, motherhood, and friendship that asks: Whose stories get told over time, who gets believed-and subsequently, who gets punished?
Show Morea (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1981
• Born—Dayton, Ohio, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Washington University in St. Louis; Ph.D., University of Colorado
• Currently—lives in Boulder, Colorado


TaraShea Nesbit’s writing has been featured in the Iowa Review, Quarterly West, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and other literary journals. She teaches creative writing and literature courses at the University of Denver and the University of Washington in Tacoma and is the nonfiction editor of Better: Culture & Lit.

A graduate of the M.F.A. program at Washington University in St. Louis, TaraShea is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Denver. She lives in Oxford, Ohio, with her family. (Adapted from the publisher and USA Today.)

Book Reviews
There is a contradiction underpinning the whole project of English imperialism, and Nesbit flags it perfectly. On the one hand, the English pilgrims regard themselves as epitomizing civility, manners and thus superiority. On the other hand, they deploy barbaric cruelty in order to defend that superiority.… [Beheld] is most successful where it allows itself to stray from historical fact and plot—to invent and to play with language, to give itself imaginative time and space. Nesbit is brilliant in those moments.
Samantha Harvey - New York Times Book Review


[C]ompelling… successfully evokes what happens in this society strained by inequality…. Nesbit so persuasively creates her two main female characters… that the sections focused on one man can seem extraneous…. Nesbit clearly describes… how she used the historical record to inspire her fictional account,… [and] it can be fun… to observe how a skilled novelist such as Nesbit in Beheld disrupts expectation [of historical figures] to render the messy lives of those too often calcified in myth.
USA Today


A richly complex and sorrowful work…. The prominence of female characters provides a refreshing filter through which to see a familiar history…. In this powerful work, Nesbit renders the past without muting its gravity.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


(Starred review) [D]eeply enjoyable…. Capturing the alternating voices of the haves and the have-nots, Nesbit’s lush prose adds texture to stories of the colony’s women, and her deep immersion in primary sources adds complexity to the historical record.
Publishers Weekly


[W]e hear much of all the common squabbles of people living in close proximity during very hard times, but most intriguingly an increasing foreshadowing of a murder to come.… Readers who enjoy historical fiction, told with fine literary style, will be delighted. —Vicki Gregory, Sch. of Information, Univ. of South Florida, Tampa
Library Journal


Restoring women’s voices, primarily through Alice and Eleanor, adds a new and welcome dimension to our history, made more vivid by solid research and clear, concise prose. In Nesbit’s hands, history once again comes alive.
Booklist


 Nesbit's novel has all the juicy sex, lies, and violence of a prestige Netflix drama and shines surprising light on the earliest years of America, massive warts and all. A dramatic look at the Pilgrims as seen through women's eyes.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. In the first pages of the novel, Alice Bradford is anticipating the arrival of a ship. The passage is also full of foreshadowing. "Everything," says Alice, "could have been a sign of what was to come" (6). How does foreshadowing work in the book? What expectations did you have as you read? What aspects of the story were still unexpected?

2. Both John and Eleanor Billington regularly refer to the puritans of Plymouth as "hypocrites." What behaviors do the Billingtons see as hypocritical? Do you agree with their assessment?

3. The novel is written in sections from the perspectives of different characters—primarily Alice Bradford, John Billington, Eleanor Billington, and John Newcomen. (The exceptions are discussed in Question 6.) The men’s sections are narrated in the third person; the women speak themselves. What is the effect of having these different perspectives and different voices? Were there voices you trusted more than others? Do the characters ever differ on the facts, or is it only their interpretations that differ?

4. There are a few sections from other perspectives as well—the sections headed "Meanwhile" (139), "Nature" (173), "The Diary of John Winthrop" (230), and "Dorothy"(221 and 234). What purpose do these other sections serve?

5. Alice and Dorothy are very close as girls—"sisters," Dorothy says after they share the blood from their scraped knees (111). But over time, Alice feels them growing apart. To what do you attribute the changes in their friendship? Do you feel either woman is to blame? Or is the distance brought on by certain cultural expectations at the time for how women and girls should behave?

6. Throughout the book, much goes unspoken about Dorothy’s death. How is our understanding of her death complicated through the course of the novel? How do you make sense of it in the end?

7. The conflict that leads to disaster in the novel is over a parcel of land. What is the significance of land for the colonists? What does it represent specifically for John Billington?

8. Although the murder in the colony is a first, death is very common in these characters’ lives, especially the death of infants and children. Religion—Anglican or puritan—is also important to their lives, and there is much discussion of God’s tests, signs, and punishments. How do grief and faith shape these people? Do you see differences in the characters’ personal relationships to God and religion?

9. Part Three expands the novel’s time frame considerably. What is the effect of these leaps in time? How do you feel about Alice and Eleanor’s fates?

10. "If ever I beheld love, John, there was thee." These are the last words we hear from Dorothy (236). What do you make of this statement? And how do you interpret the title of the book? Who or what in the story is beheld—or beholden?

11. The arrival of the Mayflower and founding of Plymouth Colony are familiar events in American history. Are there things you had learned—or assumed—about Plymouth and the puritans that the novel made you reconsider?

12. Prior to reading the book, what did you know about the interactions between the puritans and the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, particularly the members of the Wampanoag Nation? Was there anything that surprised you upon reading the novel?

13. The Author’s Note in the back tells us about the research the author did to write this novel, as well as that several aspects of the novel were fabricated. What do you think the relationship should be in a historical novel between what can be verified and what an author imagines, particularly when much of the history of women, children, and people of color has been suppressed, ignored, or cannot—due to a lack of written records, for instance—be verified?

14. How might the themes and stories of the book be relevant to our present moment?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Behind Closed Doors 
B.A. Paris, 2016
St. Martin's Press
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250121004


Summary
The perfect marriage? Or the perfect lie? The debut psychological thriller you can’t miss!

Everyone knows a couple like Jack and Grace. He has looks and wealth, she has charm and elegance. You might not want to like them, but you do.

You’d like to get to know Grace better. But it’s difficult, because you realise Jack and Grace are never apart.

Some might call this true love. Others might ask why Grace never answers the phone. Or how she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work.

How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. And why there are bars on one of the bedroom windows. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
B. A. Paris grew up in England but has spent most of her adult life in France. She has worked both in finance and as a teacher and has five daughters. Behind Closed Doors is her first novel. Like her first, her second, The Breakdown, is also a thriller and came out in 2017.


In an online interview, Paris said her life-long love of books began when she was bedridden as a child with chicken pox. She was given The Mountain of Adventure by Enid Blyton and, after finishing it, "got [her] hands on every book that [Blyton] had written and then went on to C.S. Lewis, Agatha Christie, Jane Austen...and Leon Uris."

When asked about how she developed her characters from Behind Closed Doors, Paris admitted that she was "proud of having created Grace and Millie" but was "a little appalled" that she could create "someone as horrible as Jack." She didn't set out to make him such a villain, but "he just seemed to take over." (Adapted from the publisher and from Books, Chocolate and Wine.)

Book Reviews
The title says it all: BEHIND CLOSED DOORS—the perfect marriage or the perfect lie? Author B.A. Paris does her readers a favor. Her cover design and title assuredly relay, "You’ll be reading a psychological thriller."” Thank you. It’s information most readers want at the onset—the need to know what we’re getting into.… By the time we figure out what we’re dealing with, we are hooked.  READ MORE …
Kathy Aspden, AUTHOR - LitLovers


A gripping domestic thriller…the sense of believably and terror that engulfs Behind Closed Doors doesn't waver.
Associated Press


Behind Closed Doors takes a classic tale to a whole new level….This was one of the best and [most] terrifying psychological thrillers I have ever read…. [E]ach chapter brings you further in, to the point where you feel how Grace must feel. The desperation, the feeling that no one will believe you and yet still wanting to fight because someone you care deeply about will get hurt.
San Francisco Book Review


A frighteningly cool portrait of a serious sadist, Behind Closed Doors is a gripping, claustrophobia-inducing thriller... Read at the risk of running from every handsome British lawyer who crosses your path.
Romantic Times


This book proves that looks are most definitely deceiving.... Disturbing, to say the least, readers will definitely be shaken as the story commences and they become immediately absorbed. The writing was incredible, and the pace is quick, offering up too many chills to count.... Behind Closed Doors screams: "Stay single!"
Suspense Magazine


Jack’s mustache-twirling monologues occasionally sap the story of tension and believability, but Grace’s terror is contagious, and Millie’s impending peril creates a ticking clock that propels this claustrophobic cat-and-mouse tale toward its grisly, gratifying conclusion.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Debut-novelist Paris adroitly toggles between the recent past and the present in building the suspense of Grace’s increasingly unbearable situation, as time becomes critical and her possible solutions narrow. This is one readers won’t be able to put down.
Booklist


Paris undercuts her own suspense by allowing Jack to...recount his coming-to-villainy back story. Grace schemes a way to escape Jack's clutches and save Millie from the same fate, but the tension sags. An at times tense debut with a clever heroine caught in an overladen plot.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

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

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Behind Her Eyes 
Sarah Pinborough, 2017
Flatiron Books
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250111173


Summary
Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly. Though he leaves after they kiss, she’s thrilled she finally connected with someone.

When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake, but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.

And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend. But she also just happens to be married to David. And if you think you know where this story is going, think again, because Behind Her Eyes is like no other book you’ve read before.

David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife. But then why is David so controlling? And why is Adele so scared of him?

As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong. But Louise can’t guess how wrong—and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.

In Behind Her Eyes, Sarah Pinborough has written a novel that takes the modern day love triangle and not only turns it on its head, but completely reinvents it in a way that will leave readers reeling. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• AKA—Sarah Silverwood
• Birth—1972
• Where—Buckinghamshire, England, UK
• Education—West London Institute
• Awards—British Fantasy Award
• Currently—lives in London, England


Sarah Pinborough is a British novelist of "grip-lit." She is know for her Young Adult fiction (occasionally using the pseudonym, Sarah Silverwood). Her recent adult offering, Behind Her Eyes, was released in 2017 with considerable fanfare in the UK and the US. 

Background
Pinborough was born in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Her father was a diplomat, and the family lived in Syria until she was eight, when she was sent to board at Bedford High School. She describes herself as "the naughtiest girl in the school" and was thrown out at 16, after which she went to Edinburgh Academy for Boys. She attended the West London Institute (now Brunel), where she studied history and English.

In her early twenties she managed a strip club in Soho and later became head of English at Lea Manor High School in Luton.

Writing
Pinborough has been a full-time writer since 2008, publishing more than 20 novels and several novellas; she has also written for the BBC. Her recent novels include the dystopian love story, The Death House (2015), and a YA horror story, 13 Minutes (2016), which as of this writing is in production with Michael "Fifty Shades" De Luca for Netflix. (Adapted from the Evening Standard and the author's website.)

Book Reviews
You won’t see it coming, the finale of Behind Her Eyes. Sarah Pinborough’s new thriller—this season’s big-buzz book—is a taut, creepy love triangle, on ground so slippery you find yourself careening from character to character never sure who to trust. And the twist at the end? It’s a zinger.  READ MORE.
Molly Lundquist - LitLovers


By injecting a spritz of supernatural fizz into Behind Her Eyes, Pinborough shrewdly transforms a romantic suspense novel into an eerie thriller calculated to creep you out.… Pinborough keeps us guessing about just who’s manipulating whom—until the ending reveals that we’ve been wholly complicit in this terrifying mind game.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review


The second twist turns the creepy factor up to 11 and is a total wrong-footer. #WTF ending indeed— the sort that makes you go back to the beginning to check if it all pans out. And it does.
Guardian (UK)


[A] twisty psychological thriller.… Pinborough will keep even veteran genre readers guessing about which members of the trio, if any, are providing trustworthy accounts of their pasts and presents.
Publishers Weekly


Deserves its own warning label.… Avoid any contact with the growing buzz concerning the novel’s ingenious, to-die-for twist.
BookPage


(Starred review.) A masterpiece of suspense…and dread that is highly satisfying. But it is with the plot, so tight and yet also intricate, that Pinborough shines…as the story moves to the disturbing conclusion that everyone is talking about.… Readers will likely never see it coming
Booklist


One of them is hiding a secret, revealed near the end of the book, which will leave you (and another of the characters) gasping.… [Y]our patience and indulgence will be rewarded in spades.
BookReporter

Discussion Questions
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)

GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers

1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?

2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?

3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?

4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?

5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.

1. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
2. Are they plausible or implausible?
3. Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?

6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?

7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?

1. Is the conclusion probable or believable?
2. Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
3. Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
4. Perhaps it's too predictable.
5. Can you envision a different or better ending?

8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?

9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?

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

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ummary)

Behold the Dreamers 
Imbolo Mbue, 2016
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812998481


Summary
A debut novel about an immigrant couple striving to get ahead as the Great Recession hits home. With profound empathy, keen insight, and sly wit, Imbolo Mbue has written a compulsively readable story about marriage, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream.
 
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son.

In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at their summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future.
 
However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers’ facades.
 
Then the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Desperate to keep Jende’s job, which grows more tenuous by the day, the Jongas try to protect the Edwardses from certain truths, even as their own marriage threatens to fall apart.

As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Limbe, Cameroon
• Education—B.S.,Rutgers University; M.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York, USA


Imbolo Mbue is a native of Limbe, Cameroon, who came to U.S. to attend college. She attained her B.S. from Rutgers University, and later her M.A. from Columbia University.

After losing her job during the 2008 Wall Street financial crisis, Mbue had to start over from scratch—and that led to her sitting down to write her debut novel. A resident of the United States for over a decade, she lives in New York City with her husband and children. (Adapted from the publisher.)

Book Reviews
In the near decade since the onset of the Great Recession, few works of fiction have examined what those years felt like for everyday people, how so many continued to hope and plan and love amid pervasive uncertainty. Enter Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue, a Cameroonian American who situates her characters of US shores just as prosperity is beginning to seem like a thing of the past.... Behold the Dreamers challenges us all to consider what it takes to make us genuinely content, and how long is too long to live with our dreams deferred.
O Magazine
 

A revelation.... Mbue has written a clever morality tale that never preaches but instead teaches us the power of integrity.
Essence
 

Gripping and beautifully told.
Good Housekeeping


Imbolo Mbue’s masterful debut about an immigrant family struggling to obtain the elusive American Dream in Harlem will have you feeling for each character from the moment you crack it open.
In Style
 

This story is one that needs to be told.
Bust


[T]he book’s unexpected ending—and its sharp-eyed focus on issues of immigration, race, and class—speak to a sad truth in today’s cutthroat world: the American dream isn’t what it seems.
Publishers Weekly


Impeccably written, socially informed, in development by Sony Pictures, and an exemplar of the tremendous new writing emerging from Africa, Cameroon-born Mbue's big debut opens in 2007 New York.
Library Journal


At once a sad indictment of the American dream and a gorgeous testament to the enduring bonds of family, Mbue’s powerful first novel will grip and move you right up to its heartfelt ending.
Shelf Awareness


(Starred review.) The American dream is put to the test by the economic disaster of 2007....  [T]he magnitude of the catastrophe makes itself clear only slowly.... Realistic, tragic, and still remarkably kind to all its characters, this is a special book.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Behold the Dreamers...then take off on your own:

1. Describe Jende and Neni Jonga as we first meet them. Talk about their naivete, as well as their perseverance—the lengths, for instance, the couple goes to prepare Jende for his interview. Trace how they change during the course of the novel.

2. As Jende drives Clark and Cindy Edwards about New York, what do we learn about them and their way of life? Is it as glamorous as one would expect? What does Neni learn when she stands in as nanny for their son in Southampton? Are the Edwards good people?

3. At one point, Jende and Neni wonder how people who are as wealthy as the Edwards are could "have so much happiness and unhappiness skillfully wrapped up together." What is the answer to that?

4. What do Jende and Neni love about the U.S? Has reading their story enabled you to see American life with a fresh perspective?

5. Talk about the immigration and legal bureaucracy that is designed to discourage, if not outright prohibit, immigrants from fully achieving the American Dream.

6. And speaking of the American Dream, is the title of Mbue's book ironic...or not? Are the Jongas the only ones in the book who seek the dream?

7. Mbue writes about Jende: "He was an honest man, a very honest man." How does his attempts to live in American change him? Is it worth securing a life in the United States if doing so destroys who he is?

8. How does Mbue portray the 2008 economic collapse and its effect on both the top and the bottom socio-economic levels of society?

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

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Bel Canto 
Ann Patchett, 2001
HarperCollins
318 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061565311


In Brief 
Winner, 2002 Orange Prize
PEN/Faulkner Award

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of Mr. Hosokawa, a powerful Japanese businessman. Roxanne Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists breaks in through the air-conditioning vents and takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different countries and continents become compatriots.

Without the demands of the world to shape their days, life on the inside becomes more beautiful than anything they had ever known before. At once riveting and impassioned, the narrative becomes a moving exploration of how people communicate when music is the only common language. Friendship, compassion, and the chance for great love lead the characters to forget the real danger that has been set in motion and cannot be stopped. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 2, 1963
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Raised—Nashville, Tennessee
• Education—B.A., Sarah Lawrence College; M.F.A., University of Iowa
• Awards—Guggenheim Fellowship; PEN/Faulkner Award; Orange Prize
• Currently—lives in Nashville, Tennessee


Ann Patchett is an American author of both fiction and nonfiction. She is perhaps best known for her 2001 novel, Bel Canto, which won her the Orange Prize and PEN/Faulkner Award and brought her nationwide fame.

Patchett was born in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray. Her father, Frank Patchett, who died in 2012 and had been long divorced from her mother, served as a Los Angeles police officer for 33 years, and participated in the arrests of both Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan. The story of Patchett's own family is the basis for her 2016 novel, Commonwealth, about the individual lives of a blended family spanning five decades.

Education and career
Patchett attended St. Bernard Academy, a private Catholic school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy. Following graduation, she attended Sarah Lawrence College and took fiction writing classes with Allan Gurganus, Russell Banks, and Grace Paley. She managed to publish her first story in The Paris Review before she graduated. After college, she went on to the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa

For nine years, Patchett worked at Seventeen magazine, writing primarily non-fiction; the magazine published one of every five articles she wrote. She said that the magazine's editors could be cruel, but she eventually stopped taking criticism personally. She ended her relationship with the magazine following a dispute with one editor, exclaiming, "I’ll never darken your door again!"

In 1990-91, Patchett attended the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It was there she wrote The Patron Saint of Liars, which was published in 1992 (becoming a 1998 TV movie). It was where she also met longtime friend Elizabeth McCracken—whom Patchett refers to as her editor and the only person to read her manuscripts as she is writing.

Although Patchett's second novel Taft won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize in fiction in 1994, her fourth book, Bel Canto, was her breakthrough novel. Published in 2001, it was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist and won the PEN/Faulkner Award and Britain's Orange Prize.

In addition to her other novels and memoirs, Patchett has written for publications such as The New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Oprah Magazine, ELLE, GQ, Gourmet, and Vogue. She is the editor of the 2006 volume of the anthology series The Best American Short Stories.

Personal
Patchett was only six when she moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and she lives there still. She is particularly enamored of her beautiful pink brick home on Whitland Avenue where she has lived since 2004 with her husband and dog. When asked by the New York Times where would she go if she could travel anywhere, Patchett responded...

I've done a lot of travel writing, and people like to ask me where I would go if I could go anyplace. My answer is always the same: I would go home. I am away more than I would like, giving talks, selling books, and I never walk through my own front door without thinking: thank-you-thank-you-thank-you.... [Home is] the stable window that opens out into the imagination.

In 2010, when she found that her hometown of Nashville no longer had a good book store, she co-founded Parnassus Books with Karen Hayes; the store opened in November 2011. In 2012, Patchett was on Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people in the world. She is a vegan for "both moral and health reasons."

In an interview, she once told Barnes and Noble that the book that influenced her writing more than any other was Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow.

I think I read it in the tenth grade. My mother was reading it. It was the first truly adult literary novel I had read outside of school, and I read it probably half a dozen times. I found Bellow's directness very moving. The book seemed so intelligent and unpretentious. I wanted to write like that book.

Books
1992 - The Patron Saint of Liars
1994 - Taft
1997 - The Magician's Assistant
2004 - Truth and Beauty: A Friendship
2001 - Bel Canto
2007 - Run
2008 - What Now?
2011 - State of Wonder; The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life
2013 - This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage
2016 - Commonwealth
2019 - The Dutch House
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/5/2016.)

Book Reviews 
This is one of my favorite contemporary novels. Bel Canto uses a fairly conventional plot device, a group of strangers trapped in an isolated environment, but does so with elegance and considerable humor. The novel is filled delicious ironies and very some funny writing.
A LitLovers LitPick (Feb. '07)


As her readers now eagerly anticipate, Patchett (The Magician's Assistant) can be counted on to deliver novels rich in imaginative bravado and psychological nuance. This fluid and assured narrative, inspired by a real incident, demonstrates her growing maturity and mastery of form as she artfully integrates a musical theme within a dramatic story. Celebrated American soprano Roxane Coss has just finished a recital in the home of the vice-president of a poor South American country when terrorists burst in, intent on taking the country's president hostage. The president, however, has not attended the concert, which is a birthday tribute in honor of a Japanese business tycoon and opera aficionado. Determined to fulfill their demands, the rough, desperate guerrillas settle in for a long siege. The hostages, winnowed of all women except Roxane, whose voice beguiles her captors, are from many countries; their only common language is a love of opera. As the days drag on, their initial anguish and fear give way to a kind of complex domesticity, as intricately involved as the melodies Roxane sings during their captivity. While at first Patchett's tone seems oddly flippant and detached, it soon becomes apparent that this light note is an introduction to her main theme, which is each character's cathartic experience. The drawn-out hostage situation comes to seem normal, even halcyon, until the inevitable rescue attempt occurs, with astonishing consequences. Patchett proves equal to her themes; the characters' relationships mirror the passion and pain of grand opera, and readers are swept up in a crescendo of emotional fervor.
Publishers Weekly


Lucky Mr. Hosokawa. The well-connected Japanese business-man, now in an unnamed South American country on yet another job, is having a very special birthday party. At the home of the country's vice president, opera singer Roxane Cos will be performing for him and his guests. But what's this? Armed men invading the premises? These ragtag revolution-aries are looking for the president and disappointed that he is not there, but that doesn't stop them from holding the party goers hostage. What happens after that was, for this reviewer, a story that failed to ignite. Patchett (The Patron Saint of Liars) generates little tension as she moves her players around the board, and one is disappointed that there is little reflection about the head-on clash of art and life. —Barbara Hoffert.
Library Journal


Combining an unerring instinct for telling detail with the broader brushstrokes you need to tackle issues of culture and politics, Patchett (The Magician's Assistant, 1997, etc.) creates a remarkably compelling chronicle of a multinational group of the rich and powerful held hostage for months. An unnamed impoverished South American country hopes to woo business from a rich Japanese industrialist, Mr. Hosokawa, by hosting a birthday party at which his favorite opera singer, Roxane Coss, entertains. Because the president refuses to miss his soap opera, the vice-president hosts the party. An invading band of terrorists, who planned to kidnap the president, find themselves instead with dozens of hostages on their hands. They free the less important men and all the women except Roxane. As the remaining hostages and their captors settle in, Gen, Mr. Hosokawa's multilingual translator, becomes the group's communication link, Roxane and her music its unifying heart. Patchett weaves individual histories of the hostages and the not-so-terrifying terrorists within a tapestry of their present life together. The most minor character breathes with life. Each page is dense with incident, the smallest details magnified by the drama of the situation and by the intensity confinement always creates. The outside world recedes as time seems to stop; the boundaries between captive and captor blur. In pellucid prose, Patchett grapples with issues of complexity and moral ambiguity that arise as confinement becomes not only a way of life but also for some, both hostage and hostage-taker, a life preferable to their previous existence. Readers may intellectually reject the author's willingness to embrace the terrorists' humanity, but only the hardest heart will not succumb. Conventional romantic love also flowers, between Gen and Carmen, a beguilingly innocent terrorist, between Mr. Hosokawa and Roxane. Even more compelling are the protective, almost familial affections that arise, the small acts of kindness in what is, inevitably, a tragedy. Brilliant.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Describe Roxane Coss. What is it about her that makes such an impression on the other hostages and the terrorists? Is it merely that she is famous? How does her singing and the music relate to the story?

2. Even though he is given the opportunity to leave the mansion, Father Arguedas elects to stay with the hostages. Why does he decide to stay when he risks the possibility of being killed? As the narrative states, why did he feel, "in the midst of all this fear and confusion, in the mortal danger of so many lives, the wild giddiness of good luck?" (pg. 74). Isn't this an odd reaction to have given the situation? What role does religion play in the story?

3. are numerous instances in the story where Mr. Hosokawa blames himself for the hostages' situation. He says to Roxane, "But I was the one who set this whole thing in motion." Roxane replies with the following: "Or did I?" she said. "I thought about declining…. Don't get me wrong. I am very capable of blame. This is an event ripe for blame if I ever saw one. I just don't blame you." Is either one to blame for the situation? If not, who do you think is ultimately responsible?

4. Roxane and Mr. Hosokawa speak different languages and require Gen to translate their conversations. Do you think it's possible to fall in love with someone to whom you cannot speak directly?

5. "Roxane Coss and Mr. Hosokawa, however improbable to those around them, were members of the same tribe, the tribe of the hostages.... But Gen and Carmen were another matter" (pg. 294). Compare the love affairs of Gen and Carmen and Roxane and Mr. Hosokawa. What are the elements that define each relationship?

6. We find out in the Epilogue that Roxane and Gen have been married. How would you describe their relationship throughout the story? Thibault believes that "Gen and Roxane had married for love, the love of each other and the love of all the people they remembered" (pg. 318). What do you think of the novel's ending? Did it surprise you? Do you agree with Thibault's assessment of Gen and Roxane's motivations for marrying?

7. The garua, the fog and mist, lifts after the hostages are in captivity for a number of weeks. "One would have thought that with so much rain and so little light the forward march of growth would have been suspended, when in fact everything had thrived" (pg. 197). How does this observation about the weather mirror what is happening inside the Vice President's mansion?

8. At one point Carmen says to Gen, "'Ask yourself, would it be so awful if we all stayed here in this beautiful house?'" (pg. 206). And towards the end of the story it is stated: "Gen knew that everything was getting better and not just for him. People were happier." Messner then says to him, "'You were the brightest one here once, and now you're as crazy as the rest of them'" (pg. 302). What do you think of these statements? Do you really believe they would rather stay captive in this house than return to the "real" world?

9. When the hostages are finally rescued, Mr. Hosokawa steps in front of Carmen to save her from a bullet. Do you think Mr. Hosokawa wanted to die? Once they all return to their lives, it would be nearly impossible for him to be with Roxane. Do you think he would rather have died than live life without her?

10. The story is told by a narrator who is looking back and recounting the events that took place. What do you think of this technique? Did it enhance the story, or would you have preferred the use of a straight narrative?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Bela's Story:  A Brave Journey Through Unforgiving Times
Rita Schinnar and William A. Meis Jr., 2016
Fallen Bros Press
177 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780997672817


Summary
Born into a family of modest means in a small village in eastern Hungary, Adalbert Izsak—or Bela as everyone called him—might have expected to encounter some hurdles in life, but he hardly expected any great adventures.

As things turned out, the deck was stacked against him from the start and Bela’s life became a dramatic journey constantly endangered by forces beyond his control. The political struggles in Europe that brought on wars, persecution, perils, and dislocation affected Bela directly, and being Jewish created experiences that were doubly challenging.

There were occasions when Bela miraculously escaped certain death and other occasions when hopelessness caused him to lose faith in life and almost end it by his own doing. There was a desperate time following the loss of his beloved mother and his first wife, then a fortuitous time when Bela found a new love.

Each time when Bela’s dream to be in charge of his own life was realized, circumstances intervened to prevent this. Bela was forced into a cycle of building a new life and then having it taken away from him. He was forced to move to new places, from Europe to the Middle East to the US. He was forced to adjust to new cultures. He was forced to be resilient and brave, and accept with amusement, but never with complete resignation, that, “Man proposes and God disposes.”

Bela’s life took many wild turns, some comical and some sad. In the end, despite the challenges and hardships, despite the disappointments and heartaches, Bela overcame these with grit and the force of his personality. He lived to enjoy a comfortable and loving old age by retaining a joyful spirit that sought out and embraced new friendships.

Bela’s story is also a sad reflection on the senseless arbitrariness with which political regimes treat their populations and the capacity of humans to cause unbearable suffering. But ultimately, Bela’s story is a testament to the human spirit than can overcome adversity. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Rucharest, Romania
• Raised—Israel
• Education—B.A., State University of New York-Buffalo; M.P.A., University of Pittsburgh
• Currently—lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA


Rita Schinnar moved from Romania to Israel when she was a toddler. After completing her high school education and two years of studies at Levinsky College of Education in Tel Aviv, she moved to the U.S. to pursue further university studies. She started at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas, majoring in psychology, with a minor in European History, and transferred to the State University of New York at Buffalo where she earned her BA degree in psychology. She also earned a MPA degree in public administration from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and completed her doctoral studies except for a dissertation, also from GSPIA.

After graduating from college, Rita Schinnar began a long career working at the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Perlman School of medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. She learned epidemiology and research methods on the job and worked on numerous epidemiologic and pharmacoepidemiologic studies, co-authoring papers in scientific journals, contributing chapters to a book and textbook in pharmacoepidemiology, teaching research methods to fellows and medical students, and serving as managing editor for a journal in the field.

In retirement since 2014, Rita Schinnar is a writer of travelogues, short stories, and this first memoir. Her hobbies include photography and films.

William A. Meis Jr., co-author, is an editor, novelist, poet and publisher of Fallen Bros Press catalogue of fiction, essays and memoirs. He was the co-founder of the journal, New Perspectives Quarterly and a long-time Director of Publications for the Witers Guild of America (west). He holds an MFA degree from Goddard College, and lives in Southern California. (Author bios from the authors.)

Follow BelaStory2016 on Facebook.

Discussion Questions
1. How do the principal characters change over time?

2. How would you have handled the shocking discovery that a spouse thought to be long-deceased reappears into your life and complicates your current life?

3. Why is it easier to open-up one’s inner thoughts and feelings in a correspondence compared to talking about these things face-to-face?

4. How have you been helped by one or more friendships over your life time

5. What might explain the transformation in the principal character, from a mostly angry man in his mid-life (because of guilt? struggles?) into a funnier, easy-going person in his later years?

6. How to understand a dominant trait in the principal character, described as “generously offering to help and share with virtual strangers what limited resources he had”? Is it more likely to be an innate trait or pay-back for feeling guilty or feeling lucky?

7. What challenges confront new immigrants in a country that is vastly different from the country they escaped from?

8. Why can’t societies change? Why can’t humanity advance beyond base impulses and behaviors such as bigotry, wars, harsh ruling by governments? Why does history have to repeat itself? What must change in humans to hope to transcend the conditions of human misery?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)

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The Bell Jar 
Sylvia Plath, 1963
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060837020


Summary 
The Bell Jar is a classic of American literature, with over two million copies sold in this country. This extraordinary work chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful—but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time. Step by careful step, Sylvia Plath takes us with Esther through a painful month in New York as a contest-winning junior editor on a magazine, her increasingly strained relationships with her mother and the boy she dated in college, and eventually, devastatingly, into the madness itself.

The reader is drawn into her breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is rare in any novel.

It points to the fact that The Bell Jar is a largely autobiographical work about Plath's own summer of 1953, when she was a guest editor at Mademoiselle and went through a breakdown. It reveals so much about the sources of Sylvia Plath's own tragedy that its publication was considered a landmark in literature. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio 
• Aka—Victoria Lucas
• Birth—October 27, 1932
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Death—February 11, 1963
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Smith College; Fulbright Scholar,
  Cambridge University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems


"I was supposed to be having the time of my life," Sylvia Plath writes as her alter ego Esther Greenwood in The Bell Jar. Like Esther, Plath was a bright young woman who had earned scholarships and awards, and had all the talent to back them up, and saw this—but could never enjoy it. Her struggles with depression were in fact what often motivated her to write, until she committed suicide at age 30 in 1963.

Plath is among the best-known confessional poets, coming from a school (at its peak in the ‘50s and ‘60s) that left few stones unturned when it came to self-examination and revelation. Though not always bald or literal in her expression, Plath chronicled her flirtation with death—and with life—in her poems. She writes in "Lady Lazarus," a verse about a woman rising from the dead yet again, "Dying/Is an art, like everything else./I do it exceptionally well./I do it so it feels like hell./I do it so it feels real./I guess you could say I've a call." She has an ability to convey deep, almost frightening emotion, but do it in a deceptively lilting, almost-but-not-quite humorous language.

"Lady Lazarus" was published in Ariel (1965), a collection that appeared posthumously, as did other well-known collections such as Crossing the Water (1971), Winter Trees (1972) and Collected Poems (1981), for which Plath was awarded the Pulitzer. Though not all death and despair, Ariel stands out among Plath's works because it represented a departure from the first collection that was published while she was still alive, The Colossus and Other Poems, but primarily because it was such an intimate record of the end of her life.

As poet Bob Hass remarked in a PBS interview, "Readers in general discovered this book [Ariel] of a young woman with two babies, whose husband had left her, living in a cold house, trying to be a mom, trying to be a writer, trying to put her life together, who didn't make it—who killed herself—and wrote poems full of rage, bravery, and it electrified people."

Plath's father died when she was eight years old, an event from which the poet never quite seemed to recover. She writes in Ariel's "Daddy": "At twenty I tried to die/And get back, back, back to you./I thought even the bones would do."

Oddly (or perhaps appropriately) for a woman so devastatingly able to feel and react to people, Plath often writes about humans as objects, things that make noise, can be broken or repaired, marked in a continuum from birth to expiration. A child on the floor is like "an unstrung puppet"; cats howl "like women, or damaged instruments"; people are compared to statues. The technique provides a twisted understatement to the emotional effects Plath writes about, in a world where even the states of love and motherhood are accompanied by darkness.

Whereas Plath's poems often seem strange and dreamlike, The Bell Jar is direct and accessible. It ranks with Catcher in the Rye in both literary achievement and status. Plath gets across not only what it feels like to struggle with the most deadly and devastating emotions, but also how hapless and impotent the people around her are in coping with her. She portrays a woman at odds with the world, but does so without affect or pretension. It's no wonder the book has become a classic, particularly among young female readers. At times of despair, readers find comfort and empathy in Plath's words. All of her painfully wrought "confessions" are of us, for us.

More
• Plath married fellow poet Ted Hughes, whom she met while studying in Cambridge. At the time Plath killed herself, Hughes had left her for another woman (who also eventually killed herself). He wrote about his relationship with Sylvia in Birthday Letters, an autobiographical collection of poems published just before he died in 1998.

• Plath is portrayed by Gwyneth Paltrow in Sylvia, a 2003 film produced by the BBC and Focus Features. The Bell Jar was adapted to the screen by director Larry Peerce in 1979.

• The Colossus was Plath's literary debut in 1960, but she also published A Winter Ship that same year, anonymously. The Bell Jar was initially published under a pseudonym, Victoria Lucas. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews 
Esther Greenwood's account of her years in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing - [this] is not a potboiler, nor a series of ungrateful caricatures; it is literature.
New York Times Book Review


A special poignance...a special force, a humbling power, because it shows the vulnerability of people of hope and good will.
Newsweek


By turns funny, harrowing, crude, ardent and artless. Its most notable quality is an astonishing immediacy, like a series of snapshots taken at high noon.
Time


An enchanting book. The author wears her scholarship with grace, and the amazing story she has to tell is recounted with humor and understanding.
Atlantic Monthly


The narrator simply describes herself as feeling very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel. The in-between moment is just what Miss Plath's poetry does catch brilliantly—the moment poised on the edge of chaos.
Christian Science Monitor


The first-person narrative fixes us there, in the doctor's office, in the asylum, in the madness, with no reassuring vacations when we can keep company with the sane and listen to their lectures.
Book World

Discussion Questions 
1. What factors, components, and stages of Esther Greenwood's descent into depression and madness are specified? How inevitable is that descent?

2. In a letter while at college, Plath wrote that "I've gone around for most of my life as in the rarefied atmosphere under a bell jar." Is this the primary meaning of the novel's titular bell jar? What other meanings does "the bell jar" have?

3. What terms does Esther use to describe herself? How does she compare or contrast herself with Doreen and others in New York City, or with Joan and other patients in the hospital?

4. What instances and images of distortion occur in the novel? What are their contexts and significance? Does Esther achieve a clear, undistorted view of herself?

5. Are Esther's attitudes toward men, sex, and marriage peculiar to herself? What role do her attitudes play in her breakdown? What are we told about her society's expectations regarding men and women, sexuality, and relationships? Have those expectations changed since that time?

6. Esther more than once admits to feelings of inadequacy. Is Esther's sense of her own inadequacies consistent with reality? Against what standards does she judge herself?

7. With what specific setting, event, and person is Esther's first thought of suicide associated? Why? In what circumstances do subsequent thoughts and plans concerning suicide occur?

8. In addition to Deer Island Prison, what other images and conditions of physical and emotional imprisonment, enclosure, confinement, and punishment are presented?9. What are the primary relationships in Esther's life? Is she consistent in her behavior and attitudes within these relationships?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Belle Cora
Phillip Margulies, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
592 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385532761


Summary
I had crossed all the lines they you say you can never cross without being destroyed, and here I was, alive and strong.

In the grand tradition of Moll Flanders and Vanity Fair, this is the story of a good girl who became a bad woman. At the old homestead her name is never spoken and her picture is turned to the wall, but in the vast world beyond everyone remembers her as the celebrated madam of the finest parlor house in San Francisco.

Now, at the end of her life, after half a century of successfully hiding the details of her scarlet past, Belle has decided to reveal all her secrets.

In 1838, Arabella Godwin and her beloved younger brother, Lewis, are orphaned and shipped away from their home in New York City to live on their aunt's desolate farm upstate. The comforts she has always known are replaced with grueling work and a pair of cunning enemies in her cousins Agnes and Matthew.

Amid this bleak existence, there emerges light in the form of a local boy, Jeptha Talbot. He is everything good that Arabella craves. His love saves her and becomes an obsession that will last her whole life.

Time and again she will be broken and remade. She will bear a gambler’s child, build a fortune, commit murder, leave a trail of aliases in her wake and sacrifice almost everything—though perhaps not enough—for the man whose love she cannot bear to lose. At last her destiny will take her to Gold Rush California, to riches and power.

Until the day she mysteriously disappears.

Told with unflagging wit and verve, Belle Cora brings to life a turbulent era and an untamed America on the cusp of greatness. Its heroine is a woman in conflict with her time, who nevertheless epitomizes it with her fighting spirit, her gift for self-invention, and her determination to chart her own fate. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1952
• Raised—on Long Island, New York, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York


Phillip Margulies is the author and editor of many books on science, politics and history for young adults. He has won two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships. He lives in New York City with his wife and two children. (Adapted from the publisher.)

Book Reviews
A rollicking first novel that tracks an American Moll Flanders on her roller-coaster ride from respectability into quite profitable sin and back again…an enjoyable allegory for the settling of the American West, with plenty of sex and violence along the way… With vivid detail, Margulies depicts a society in which a "ruined" girl has few options… Contemporary readers will, of course, applaud Belle's spunk…We're in the hands of a professional, and a good time of a certain sort is guaranteed."
San Francisco Chronicle


Phillip Margulies has taken the scant known facts about Belle and created a magnificent heroine. Although not always a sympathetic figure, her frankness about her failings and her justification for the artful actions she is often forced to take to guarantee self-preservation make her utterly compelling. But this is far more than just one woman’s story. It is also an epic detailed exploration of the underbelly of 19th-century America, with all its vice, bigotry, political corruption and religious hypocrisy. The descriptions are rich, the characters well-fleshed, and the novel’s crowning achievement is that it doesn’t try to appease modern sensibilities and presents an honest reflection of this era. A memorable and outstanding work on many levels."
Historical Novel Society.org


Belle Cora is historical fiction with a nugget of truth at its core; the heroine is based on a real 19th century madam, and the story is sprinkled with bits of genuine primary sources. The writing is clear and precise, the characters enthralling. It has a bit of a good-girl-gone-bad narrative at the center, but it’s always more about the heroine’s determination to survive by any means than a novel that’s looking for an excuse for its characters to misbehave in a titillating fashion. Above all else, it tells a great story."
Bookriot


(Starred review.) Margulies, the author of numerous science and history books for young adults, strikes gold in his first novel. Depicted as the deathbed autobiography of Arabella Godwin, aka Belle Cora,... Margulies' writing never falters, and the reader will easily get lost in the world he’s built. Belle’s remarkable story mirrors that of her young country, on the verge of civil war, and her sharp, engaging voice brings her tale to vivid life.
Publishers Weekly


The legendary Belle Cora...begins her memoir after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, revealing secrets and deception in her own life and broader society.... The charm and self-invention that served Arabella throughout her life give voice to a story that will captivate historical fiction fans as they follow her exploits during a turbulent era. —Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State Univ. Lib., Mankato
Library Journal


[R]eaders will find author Phillip Margulies’ rollicking debut novel Belle Cora as exquisitely seductive as its enigmatic heroine.... Weaving an evocative tale in a nonlinear, flashback-style narrative, Belle Cora will captivate readers from start to finish, evoking a bittersweet blend of compassion and contempt for a heroine who defies tradition, and often pays a heavy price.
BookPage


The fictional memoir of an actual madam who ruled Gold Rush–era San Francisco.... Margulies' recreation of Arabella's milieu and astute observations of the hypocritical sexual mores of a bygone time lend resonance to this episodic epic. A convincing melodrama in which the victim takes charge.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. What role do the forward and the introduction play in Belle Cora?

2. Why do you think the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 prompted Belle to tell her life’s story?

3. Belle mentions that the book’s purpose is not to instruct others on how to live, and insists that her sole purpose is "to tell what happened." Based on the rest of the novel, is she as indifferent to morality as she pretends?

4. In Belle's introduction Belle calls Harriet Atherton, mother of the feeble-minded Jennifer "my old enemy, the good Christian woman." Yet Belle's mother was also a good Christian woman who would never have approved of the way Belle has lived her life. What led Belle away from the faith of her forebears?

5. Why does Lewis become so attached to Horace during the children’s journey from New York to Livy? How does this foreshadow Lewis’s later attachments to Matthew, to Tom Cross/Jack Cutter, and to David Broderick?

6. Lewis and Belle are uprooted from their home and family. How do their different ages and personalities at the time make this trauma unique for each of them? Which is the more severely damaged? Is the criminal path they both take in life the result of this early trauma?

7. Belle loses her mother and father at the age of nine. Later she encounters a series of (mostly unsatisfactory) surrogate parents; beginning with her grandmother and grandfather, then her aunt and uncle. Who are some of the others and how do they succeed or fail in their role?

8. Belle’s aliases are a big part of the book. How does shedding her name help Belle move past disappointments and forge a new identity? What are the limitations to self-reinvention here?

9. Lewis is obviously Belle’s favorite brother. But between the other two, Edward and Robert, who do you think she cares for more, and why?

10. Belle’s love for Jeptha is rooted in her feeling that he understands and approves of her: yet from about the middle of Book Two she begins to lie to him, putting herself beyond the reach of his understanding. Does Belle turn Jeptha into a fool, loving someone whom he doesn’t really know? Or are we allowed to keep a secret or two even from those closest to us?

11. The last chapters of Book Two turn on an historical episode; thousands of people across the United States believed that the world would end by October 1844. How does this event compare with recent end-of-the-world predictions associated with the prophecies of Nostradamus and the Mayan calendar, and the frequent end-time prophecies of evangelists like Billy Graham? Why do people continue to predictions despite their perfect record of 100% inaccuracy?

12. In her discussion of Aunt Agatha's beliefs near the end of Book 2, Belle calls into question the very logic of eternal reward and punishment in the afterlife. She asks how a good person can be happy in heaven knowing that a loved one suffers forever. What do you think of her reasoning?

13. The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance really did take over the city in 1851 and 1856, with the excuse that the city was lawless and its government hopelessly corrupt. For over a century, mainstream historians sided with the vigilantes. More recently, revisionist historians agree with Belle that the vigilantes were unjustified Why do you think historians changed their views? What does this say about the role played in American politics by the legend of the taming of the West?

14. In Books Two through Four, Agnes, Belle’s nemesis, outwardly resembles the Victorian ideal of passive femininity though in fact she is a cunning schemer. But when Belle meets her near the end of Book Five, Agnes has turned into a proponent of free love and feminism. Is Agnes’s transformation convincing? Are we meant to believe it?

15. Where does Belle stand with respect to women’s rights?Belle has a great deal of freedom, and she earns her own money. But she gets these things by running a brothel, where wealthy men pay for sex with beautiful women. In the end, which sort of woman did more to advance the cause of women's dignity and freedom? The madams like Belle, or the respectable women who wanted to close the brothels and the gambling halls?

16. As a narrator Belle is at pains to wise us up about the seamy side of life. Yet in the end she has a word to say in favor of self-deception: “They protect us, these vast lies the whole community embraces…. If they believe in an absurdity, it is because they know deep down that it is more useful to them than the truth.” Does she mean it? Is it true?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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Bellman & Black 
Diane Setterfield, 2013
Simon & Schuster
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476711959


Summary
One moment in time can haunt you forever.

Caught up in a moment of boyhood competition, William Bellman recklessly aims his slingshot at a rook resting on a branch, killing the bird instantly. It is a small but cruel act, and is soon forgotten.

By the time he is grown, with a wife and children of his own, William seems to have put the whole incident behind him. It was as if he never killed the thing at all. But rooks don’t forget...

Years later, when a stranger mysteriously enters William’s life, his fortunes begin to turn—and the terrible and unforeseen consequences of his past indiscretion take root. In a desperate bid to save the only precious thing he has left, he enters into a rather strange bargain, with an even stranger partner. Together, they found a decidedly macabre business.

And Bellman & Black is born. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio 
• Birth—August 22, 1964
• Where—Berkshire, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Ph.D., University of Bristol
• Currently—lives in Yorkshire, England

Diane Setterfield is in her early forties. Having spent time in France, she now lives in Harrogate. Her background is an academic one. Her previous publications have been in the field of 19th and 20th century French literature, especially the works of André Gide.

More
Diane Setterfield is one of the most talked-about authors in the world, and as of this writing, her debut novel hasn't even been released yet! The reason this British academic is causing such a stir is because her haunting gothic mystery, The Thirteenth Tale, was the subject of a high-stakes bidding war on both sides of the pond. After she was discovered by novelist Jim Crace (Genesis; Being Dead) at a writing course on how to get published (!), Setterfield's book caught the attention of multiple publishers. As the oft-told story goes, the ten-day bidding war the book inspired resulted in it being sold for a staggering 800,000 pounds in the U.K. and $1 million in the U.S. (to Simon & Schuster). Eight translation deals have also been signed, and the book is also expected to be a hot target for filmmakers.

All of this has been quite a kick for Setterfield, who had been a teacher of French literature and the French language and had only previously published articles on literary theory. "If you ask anybody who has ever thought of writing a book how they feel about getting their work published, they will tell you that nothing could be more thrilling," Setterfield told the Yorkshire Post. "Any serious writer would view it as an enormous privilege to be able to devote the best of their time to what they love, and that's what I'll now be able to do."

As for the book that has attracted all of this rabid attention, Setterfield delivers one of the most intriguing novels to hit book stores in a long time with the story of Margaret Lea. The reclusive, plain Margaret spends her days working in her father's bookshop, where she fuels her fascination for famous writers. When she receives a letter from the legendary Vida Winter—a novelist notorious for toying with journalists and constantly reinventing her own life story—Margaret is given a most intriguing offer. As Vida is aging and ailing, she finally wants to come clean about her past and tell her true story to Margaret. What follows is a labyrinthine descent into the strange and chilling story of Vida's past and her bizarre family history. Critics have lauded The Thirteenth Tale as a credible successor to the greatest works by literary luminaries like Charlotte Brontë and Daphne du Maurier. Publishers Weekly has already applauded its "graceful storytelling that has its own pleasures," and Library Journal notes how the book "grabs the reader with its damp, icy fingers and doesn't let go until the last shocking secret has been revealed."

As for Setterfield, who is currently working on her second novel, she believes that the true gauge of her novel's success is still yet to come. "Of course I'm very happy with how it all seems to be going... but nobody has bought a copy yet," she said. "All the success so far is lovely, but the real acid test will be September when it gets into the shops."

Extras
Excerpts from a 2006 Barnes & Noble interview:

• Jobs I had before I began writing, in chronological order: Chambermaid, Shop Assistant (lightbulbs and batteries), Shop Assistant (newspapers and greetings cards), Bakery Assistant (I put the jam into doughnuts. I hate doughnuts.), Assistant in an old people's home, Library Assistant, English Language Tutor, Translator, French Language Tutor, University Lecturer, French Language Tutor again. Writing suits me better than any other job I have had.

• My best vacation: The most recent holiday was the best. My husband and I have just come back from Athens. It was my first visit, the first of many I am sure. My favorite things were: the view of the city from the top of Lycabettus Hill. The mysterious and moving figures in the Museum of Cycladic Art. The glass windows in the pavements where they meant to dig ventilation shafts for the new metro but found such fabulous antiquities that they had to excavate instead. The artichoke/courgette/dill salad at To Kafenio. The birdsong at 6:00 on a May evening at the Kerameikos.

• I have kept a reading diary since I was 18. I am jealous of my friend who has kept hers since she was ten.

• I love to read, obviously. Cooking and eating are joys (as I write this the sun is shining, and I am wondering whether the time is right to buy an ice-cream maker). I am always happy up a ladder with a paintbrush in my hand. And I wish I had more time to spend in the garden -- not least because I get good ideas for writing when I'm out there. I like spending time with my friends. (I did warn you. Writers are not special people. When they're not writing they do exactly the same as everyone else.)

• There is no single book that stands out in my mind as having influenced me in this way. Rather, it is the experience of reading itself that has been central in my life. The addictive pleasure of abandoning yourself to a book, of losing consciousness of your worries, your body, and your surroundings, to become a ghost haunting other worlds has influenced me in many ways....

• My mother says that after I first visited the home of the man I later married, she knew it was serious when I told her, "Mum, he has more books than me!" So, books are at the very heart of my life.

• My favorite book: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. It is the most perfect book I can remember reading. (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
As a child, William Bellman nastily kills a bird with a slingshot but doesn't suffer the consequences until decades later... [when] a black-garbed stranger arrives, and William finds that he can save what little he has left if he agrees to enter into the spooky business concern that becomes Bellman & Black.
Library Journal


[P]poetic and mysterious.... William Bellman...as a boy....impresses his companions by killing a rook with his slingshot.... As the years fly by, William becomes a kind of Ebenezer Scrooge, obsessed with work and haunted by the appearance of crows, and Setterfield is our Dickensian conscience, reminding us of what coins can and cannot buy. —Lynn Weber
Booklist


A boy hits the wrong bird with a slingshot, with lifelong consequences, in this second venture into gothic territory from Setterfield.... Although this novel succeeds in creating an atmosphere of creeping dread, the effect is attenuated by too much detail about the running of mills and department stores and also by a growing puzzlement over why an impulsive childhood transgression, never repeated, should exact such a terrible penalty. A gothic tale in which moments of tedium are relieved by morbidity.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The opening incident, when William kills a rook with his catapult, is recalled later in the narrative. What impression does the event leave with William’s companions (Charles, Luke, and Fred)? How do their memories of the event compare with William’s?

2. Look back to the intervening chapters about rooks that are scattered throughout the book. How does their placement relate to and have significance with the rest of the story? Discuss any legends and stories you may know about rooks, crows, and ravens. Perhaps you have personal experiences to share. Did the author draw on any literary references? If so, which ones?

3. How do Victorian mourning traditions compare to our modern-day experience? Were the Victorians wrong to mourn for so long and with so much expense? Is the way we do things better? What is the right place for commerce in death rituals?

4. William almost immediately succeeds at whatever he tries, and is both a dedicated worker and father. Why do you think the author makes William such a perfect ‘golden boy’? How does this affect your impression of him? Did you find William unsympathetic because of his easy success? Why or why not? Why weren’t the townspeople at all jealous of his model family and thriving business?

5. While Paul held William in high esteem, his father was not at all fond of William. What in particular appealed to Paul about his nephew? Also, discuss the reason why “the old Mr. Bellman” (p. 34) did not want William to manage his mill.

6. In a way, William plays the role of Paul’s son, as the successive family member at the mill. Imagine and discuss what Paul’s early relationship with his own son, Charles, was like. Why does Charles so willingly hand over the mill and house to William?

7. Despite the successful business in their family, William and his mother were not wealthy and struggled to make ends meet. Why did Dora not turn to her in-laws for assistance in raising William and providing for him?

8. Only Dora, William’s eldest daughter, survives the fever that devastates both their family and the town. Why do you think Dora seems to have a special understanding of her father? How does she know to avoid any discussion of birds or rooks with William?

9. William proves himself an extremely diligent and thorough man, whether he is managing the mill, nursing his family to health, or creating and maintaining a business with a stranger he has barely met. When do his work habits and diligence begin to get out of hand? Why and how does he work for so long without need for rest or company?

10. Much has changed since Victorian times but is William Bellman’s relationship with his work relevant to twenty-first-century readers?

11. Despite his appearance of friendliness to his employees and clients, William builds a thicker and thicker wall between himself and the world. Why does he fail to maintain his relationships with friends and family? For example, William hastily returns to London instead of staying in town for his friend Fred’s funeral.

12. Look back to the graveyard scene where William enters into the bargain with Black. Did you have any thoughts about who Mr. Black may be at this point in the story?

13. When William finally finds and speaks with Mr. Black at the end of the book, he learns that Bellman & Black was his own creation alone. Mr. Black tells him: “I offered you an opportunity, I’m not talking about Bellman & Black. That was your idea. What I was offering you in your bereavement was an opportunity of another kind. I offer it to you again now. Before it is too late” (p. 313). What was the opportunity that Mr. Black really offered that night in the graveyard, and that he offers again at this moment in the story?

14. How far is it possible to describe Bellman & Black as a ghost story? Which elements recall other ghost stories you have read and which ones seem unlike the classic ghost story? The author doesn’t believe in ghosts as such but she does believe that human beings are or can be haunted. Is this a helpful distinction?

15. Openings to books can carry special weight and readers and critics are inclined to pay special attention to first lines. What is important about the first word of Bellman & Black?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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The Bells
Richard Harvell, 2010
Crown Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307590534


Summary
The celebrated opera singer Lo Svizzero was born in a belfry high in the Swiss Alps where his mother served as the keeper of the loudest and most beautiful bells in the land. Shaped by the bells’ glorious music, as a boy he possessed an extraordinary gift for sound. But when his preternatural hearing was discovered—along with its power to expose the sins of the church—young Moses Froben was cast out of his village with only his ears to guide him in a world fraught with danger.
 
Rescued from certain death by two traveling monks, he finds refuge at the vast and powerful Abbey of St. Gall. There, his ears lead him through the ancient stone hallways and past the monks’ cells into the choir, where he aches to join the singers in their strange and enchanting song. Suddenly Moses knows his true gift, his purpose. Like his mother’s bells, he rings with sound and soon, he becomes the protégé of the Abbey’s brilliant yet repulsive choirmaster, Ulrich.

But it is this gift that will cause Moses’ greatest misfortune: determined to preserve his brilliant pupil’s voice, Ulrich has Moses castrated. Now a young man, he will forever sing with the exquisite voice of an angel—a musico—yet castration is an abomination in the Swiss Confederation, and so he must hide his shameful condition from his friends and even from the girl he has come to love. When his saviors are exiled and his beloved leaves St. Gall for an arranged marriage in Vienna, he decides he can deny the truth no longer and he follows her—to sumptuous Vienna, to the former monks who saved his life, to an apprenticeship at one of Europe’s greatest theaters, and to the premiere of one of history’s most beloved operas.

In this confessional letter to his son, Moses recounts how his gift for sound led him on an astonishing journey to Europe’s celebrated opera houses and reveals the secret that has long shadowed his fame: How did Moses Froben, world renowned musico, come to raise a son who by all rights he never could have sired?

Like the voice of Lo Svizzero, The Bells is a sublime debut novel that rings with passion, courage, and beauty. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 6, 1978
• Where—New Hampshire, USA
• Education—Dartmouth College
• Currently—lives in Basel, Switzerland

Richrd Harvell was born in the state of New Hampshire, USA, studied English literature at Dartmouth College. He now lives in Basel, Switzerland, with his wife and children. The Bells is his first novel. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
Chronicling the journey of 18th-century singer Moses Froben from his Swiss village to Vienna, this debut novel strikes many melodramatic notes in an overwrought plot; squalor, beauty, horror, forbidden love, tragedy, and triumph splash broadly, sometimes artfully, but often with operatic excess. Moses, born to a deaf-mute in a belfry, possesses a unique bond to music. Cast from his home, he joins a choir, discovering that he can mold "that ocean of sound... into something beautiful." Harvell, however, shows his own limitations when he seeks to describe the resonance of music. When Moses says, "I wished I could dissolve into sound," the reader shares his frustration. A tormented choirmaster castrates Moses to preserve his beautiful voice, transforming him into a "musico," a soprano whose voice never deepens, and who will never be a man. His ability to sound like an angel brings him into contact with a wealthy family, sparking an impossible love affair with a beautiful but crippled woman. Moses's ardor impels him to Vienna and its vibrant opera scene, where his brief appearance on stage allows love to triumph before, unsurprisingly, tragedy brings down the curtain.
Publishers Weekly


Born in a belfry in the Uri Valley of the Swiss Alps, where his deaf-mute mother rang the Loudest Bells on Earth, Moses Froben...overcome[s] his humble origins to become Lo Suizzero, the musical toast of Europe in the eighteenth century.... Taking few liberties with history, Harvell has fashioned an engrossing first novel ringing with sounds; a musical and literary treat. —Michele Leber
Booklist

Discussion Questions
1. Harvell begins his novel with a letter from the narrator’s son Nicolai, in which we learn a great deal, including that Nicolai never knew his mother and that in 1806 Moses is a famous singer. How does this affect our experience of the novel? How would the novel be different with these two pages torn out?

2. Moses’ years at the Abbey of St. Gall are tumultuous and fraught with pain. But would you say he wishes Nicolai had never brought him there? What does he gain from the abbot and abbey? Aside from the obvious in his castration, what does he lose?

3. Moses calls Ulrich “the architect of my tragedy” (208). And yet, his life would have been so different had he never been castrated—we certainly would not be reading the story of this famous singer. Is his regret complete? Does he blame Ulrich? How would his life have been different had he not been castrated?

4. In an interview, Richard Harvell says, “I first planned Nicolai and Remus, as two cruel monks, and then, as I wrote, they just wouldn’t be mean, no matter what I tried. I had to make them good. I am very thankful for that.” Why are Remus and Nicolai so important to Moses’ story? Why do you think Harvell is so thankful that they are not ‘mean’?

5. “This is not magic,” Harvell writes (14). “He cannot hear through mountains or to the other side of the earth. This is merely selection. The selection of sounds, the dissection of sounds, is something he can do like no other. This his mother and her bells have gifted him.” How would you describe Moses extraordinary hearing ability? Is this magic? How does Moses’ hearing influence his destiny?

6. While Harvell uses many visual images in the book, there are many descriptive passages relying on sound. “The one-eyed idiot’s howling, the rattle of the coppers in the leper’s wooden bowl, the creak of the warped wagon wheel, the hissing of a black cat plucked of half its fur by some disease” (217). How does description through sound add to the novel?

7. Gaetano Guadagni is one of the many historical figures in the novel. Is he a villain, or is he, as he always claims to be, Moses’ “fratello” (brother)?

8. One reviewer claimed that The Bells “earns its operatic tone” (Kirkus Reviews). What might be meant by ‘operatic tone’? In what other ways is the novel like an opera?

9. The narration is told in the first person, by the mature Moses, but told through the eyes of a child and, later, a young castrato. How is the novel influenced by the two perspectives? When does it swerve toward one or the other?

10. “I promise you as your faithful witness,” Moses swears (page 14). But does Moses always tell the complete, unbiased truth? Here is one example when his bias leaks through: “In this village I was born (may it burn to the ground and be covered by an avalanche)” (page 6). Where else does this happen?

11. The novel is clearly inspired by the Orpheus myth. How is Moses’ and Amalia’s love story like the Orpheus myth and how is it different?

12. The child Nicolai was destined for great fortune as a Riecher. So why does Moses kidnap his “son”? Should we blame him for this decision?

13. In his nocturnal wanderings in St. Gall, Moses understands that he has traded the ability to love, and to be loved, for the ability to sing like an angel. “All at once, the musico’s exchange made sense. We had given up this song of union for a song that we must sing alone” (page 163). How does singing replace love? And how does it not?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Bellweather Rhapsody
Kate Racculia, 2014
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544129917


Summary
A high school music festival goes awry when a young prodigy disappears from a hotel room that was the site of a famous crime, in a whip-smart novel sparkling with the dark and giddy pop culture pleasures of The Shining, Agatha Christie, and Glee.

Fifteen years ago, a murder/suicide in room 712 rocked the grand old Bellweather Hotel and the young bridesmaid who witnessed it. Now hundreds of high school musicians, including quiet bassoonist Rabbit Hatmaker and his brassy diva twin, Alice, have gathered in its cavernous, crumbling halls for the annual Statewide festival; the grown-up bridesmaid has returned to face her demons; and a snowstorm is forecast that will trap everyone on the grounds. Then one of the orchestra’s stars disappears—from room 712. Is it a prank, or has murder struck the Bellweather once again?

The search for answers entwines a hilariously eccentric cast of characters—conductors and caretakers, failures and stars, teenagers on the verge and adults trapped in memories. For everyone has come to the Bellweather with a secret, and everyone is haunted. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Where—Syracuse, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Universityof Buffalo; M.F.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts


Kate Racculia is a writer and researcher living in Boston, Massachusetts. Her first novel, This Must Be the Place, was published in 2010. Bellweather Rhapsody, her second novel, came out in 2014.

She was a teenage bassoonist. In her hometown of Syracuse, New York, she played in her high school band, the Lyncourt Summer Concert Band, the Syracuse Symphony Youth Orchestra, and various NYSSMA festivals. Her bassoon was named Nigel.

Kate studied illustration, design, Jane Austen, and Canada at the University of Buffalo. She has her MFA from Emerson College, and teaches novel and genre fiction workshops at Grub Street, Boston’s non-profit creative writing community. She has been a bookseller, a planetarium operator, a coffee jerk, a designer, and a proposal writer.

She posts many pictures of her cat on the Internet, is a total sucker for a saxophone solo, and has every intention of growing up to be Jessica Fletcher. (From the author's website.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [A] rich brew of a novel.... In 1982, in Clinton’s Kill, N.Y., a new bride murdered her husband, then killed herself [at] the Bellweather Hotel. In 1997, high school drama queen Alice Hatmaker checks into the same room to perform at the statewide music festival.... Racculia thus sets the stage for a novel of dueling wills, marked by textured characterization and an ebullient storytelling style.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Part ghost story, part mystery, part coming-of-age tale, and part love sonnet to music, Racculia's second nove is dark and delightful, with memorable characters inspired by both literature and pop culture. It will grab readers and keep them with multilayered plotting and writing that ranges from humorous to poetic. —Nancy H. Fontaine, Norwich P.L., VT
Library Journal


Before you can say “plot point,” Viola’s daughter, Jill, has vanished—after apparently committing suicide (it’s complicated). Whodunit? ... That most of the characters have secrets adds a layer of intrigue to a musical mystery that strikes nary a false note. Encore, encore
Booklist


(Starred review.) Racculia delivers an experience worth rhapsodizing about as a group of teenagers and their adult chaperones descend upon a hotel in the Catskills for a statewide music festival.... [A]ngst-ridden teens and adults, all with hidden secrets, are swept up in a crescendo of memories and emotions. Racculia's droll wit and keen understanding of human nature propel a story that's rich in distinctive characters and wholly engaging. A gem.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

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Belong to Me 
Marisa de los Santos, 2008
HarperCollins
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061240287


Summary
Everyone has secrets. Some we keep to protect ourselves, others to protect those we love.

A devoted city dweller, Cornelia Brown surprised herself when she was gripped by the sudden desire to head for an idyllic suburb. Though she knows she's made the right move, she approaches her new life with trepidation and struggles to forge friendships. Cornelia's mettle is quickly tested by judgmental neighbor Piper Truitt, the embodiment of everything Cornelia feared she would find in suburbia. A saving grace soon appears in the form of Lake, and Cornelia develops an instant bond with this warm yet elusive woman.

As their individual stories unfold, the women become entangled in a web of trust, betrayal, love and loss that challenges them in ways they never imagined, and that ultimately teaches them what it means for one human being to belong to another. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 12, 1966
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Virginia; M.F.A., Sarah Lawrence College; Ph.D., University
   of Houston
• Currently—lives in Wilmington, Delaware


Marisa de los Santos achieved her earliest success as an award-winning poet, and her work has been published in several literary journals. In 2000, her debut collection, From the Bones Out, appeared as part of the James Dickey Contemporary Poetry Series.

De los Santos made her first foray into fiction in 2005 with the surprise bestseller Love Walked In. Optioned almost immediately for the movies, this elegant "literary romance" introduced Cornelia Brown, a diminutive, 30-something Philadelphian with a passion for classic film and an unshakable belief in the triumph of true love.

In her 2008 sequel, Belong to Me, de los Santos revisited Cornelia, now a married woman, newly relocated to the suburbs, and struggling to forge friendships with the women in her new hometown.

Her third novel, Falling Together, released in 2011, recounts the reunion of three college friends, whose friendships dissolve as everything they believed about themselves and each other is brought into question.

The Precious One, published in 2015, follows the two half-sisters who meet for the first time as they struggle to please their narcissistic, domineering father.

Extras
From a 2008 Barnes & Noble interview:

• De los Santos' love affair with books began at a young age. She claims to have risked life and limb as a child by insisting on combining reading with such incompatible activities as skating, turning cartwheels, and descending stairs.

• I'm addicted to ballet, completely head-over-heels for it. I did it as a little kid, but took about a thirty year hiatus before starting adult classes. I do it as many times a week as I can, but if I could, I'd do it every day! In my next life, I'm definitely going to be a ballerina.

• I'm terrible with plants, outdoor plants, indoor plants, annuals, perennials. I kill them off in record time. I adore fresh flowers and keep them all over my house all year round because they're beautiful and already dead, but you won't find a single potted plant in my house. So many nice people in the world and in books are growers and gardeners, but the sad truth is that I'll never be one of them.

• I'm an awful sleeper, and the thing that helps me fall asleep or fall back to sleep is reading books from my childhood. Elizabeth Enright's Melendy series and her two Gone Away Lake books, all of the Anne of Green Gables books, Little Women, The Secret Garden, the Narnia books, and a bunch of others. I have probably read some of these books twenty, maybe thirty times. I read them to pieces, literally, and then have to buy new ones.

• I am crazy-scared of sharks and almost never swim in the ocean. Yes, I know it's silly, I know my chances of getting bitten by a shark are about the same as my chances of becoming president of the United States, but I can't help it.

• My favorite way to spend an evening is eating a meal with good friends. The cheese plate, the red wine, the clink of forks, a passel of kids dancing to The Jonas Brothers and laughing their heads off in the next room, food that either I or someone else has cooked with care and love, and warm, lively conversation-give me all this and I'm happy as a clam.

• I adore black and white movies, particularly romantic comedies from the thirties and forties. I love them for the dialogue and for the whip smart, fascinating, fast-talking, funny women.

• When asked what book that most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:

I read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was ten, I can't count how many times I've read it since, and every single time, I am utterly pulled in. I don't read it; I live it. I'm with Scout on Boo Radley's porch and in the colored courtroom balcony, and my heart breaks with hers at Tom Robinson's fate. Over and over, the book lifts me up and sets me down into her shoes. I remember the wonder I felt the first time it happened, the sudden, jarring illumination: every person is the center of his or her life the way I am the center of mine. It changed everything. I know that sounds dramatic, but it's true. That empathy is the greatest gift fiction gives us, and it's the biggest reason I write. (Author bio and interview adapted from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
Cornelia Brown, heroine of de los Santos's bestselling Love Walked In, returns in a gracefully written if formulaic sophomore effort. Cornelia and her husband, Teo, move to suburban Philadelphia, where she finds it difficult to fit into the sorority-like atmosphere. Despite a bevy of domestic dramas (planning a family among them), Cornelia's first-person chapters are the quietest of the three points of view. Seemingly shallow and vicious, neighbor Piper shows her kinder side as she struggles through her best friend's fight against cancer. Though the extreme of Piper's two-facedness isn't convincing, her moments of sincerity invite genuine empathy. Cornelia also yields narrative time to Dev, a precocious teenager whose father is missing and whose mother develops a friendship with Cornelia. Dev's connection to the story is initially unclear, though he does grow close to Clare, a troubled teenager with an unconventional connection to Cornelia, and a late-breaking development grounds his role more firmly. Though each story line is a good read on its own, they don't always braid nicely, and while the predictable plot wanders into sappiness, the prose is polished and the suburban travails are familiar enough that fans of the women's fiction and higher-brow mommy lit will relate.
Publishers Weekly


Having met Cornelia Brown in de los Santos's well-reviewed debut, Love Walked In, we now follow her and her oncologist husband, Teo Sandoval, to suburban Philadelphia. Piper Truitt lives across the street with her husband and two young children. She considers herself the arbiter of style and local propriety. Add to the mix waitress Lake and her son, Dev, who is enrolled in a private academy far superior to his previous California public school. From the outset, Cornelia and Piper are traveling down different paths, while Cornelia and Lake seem to hit it off. Go figure? But there is more beneath the surface of these women and their motivations than the lovely locale can mask. Dev thinks he and his mother moved to the area because his long-lost (and unknown to him) father is there. But how do you go about locating someone who's been gone for 13 years? Then Piper becomes caregiver to her longtime friend Elizabeth, diagnosed with cancer, a role that seems more appealing to Piper than wife to Kyle. These family dynamics collide and reconfigure in a variety of ways that readers will find fascinating. De los Santos keeps us totally engaged with these fragile creatures, who get under our skin and, ultimately, into our hearts. Highly recommended. —Bette-Lee Fox.
School Library Journal


In de los Santos's second novel, Cornelia Brown returns the as heroine, now married to handsome oncologist Teo and trying to make a new home in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Having moved out of New York City after the double whammy of a miscarriage and 9/11, Cornelia finds herself a shunned outsider among the community's perfect blond matrons. Particularly unwelcoming is her tightly wound neighbor Piper, who is as sharp-tongued as she is judgmental about fashion, flowers and childrearing. Cornelia does begin a fledgling friendship with another newcomer, Lake, a waitress who has moved from California to enroll her genius 13-year-old son Dev in a special school after his previous school punished him for being too smart. Dev suspects there might be more to the move, that Lake may be moving them closer to the mystery father he's never met. As much as Cornelia likes Lake, she senses Lake holding back at crucial moments and responds in kind. Meanwhile, Piper turns out to be a far more complicated woman than she seems on the surface. She drops everything (but her children) to care for her best friend Elizabeth, who's in the last stages of cancer. By the time Cornelia succeeds in becoming pregnant, she and Piper have grown surprisingly close, each opening her heart a little to the other. Days after Elizabeth dies, Piper's husband leaves her and she finds herself an outcast for continuing her (platonic) involvement with Elizabeth's mourning husband and children. In another development, Dev stumbles on the truth Lake has been hiding and learns the identity of his father. The father is stunned; Cornelia is devastated; and oh-so-sensitive, intelligent Dev is furious. Needless tosay, a happy ending awaits Cornelia, but readers will be far more interested in Piper, a complex, genuinely intriguing character. Pages on which she appears glow; the rest merely flicker. Witty and intelligent but too often pat.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Each character faces a different challenge: what are these challenges and how do they handle them? Who has changed the most by the end of the novel?

2. When we meet Cornelia's neighbor, Piper, she is commenting on Cornelia's lawn and home, suggesting changes. Does she have a right to criticize Piper's lawn and home? How did this make you feel? What does it mean to be a good neighbor?

3. Piper confesses that she finds security through organizing, but when her best friend, Elizabeth becomes ill, this surprise rattles her carefully organized world. What does safety mean? What rituals, if any, do you have to create a feeling of safety?

4. What is Dev's relationship with his mother like? Do you think mothers and sons have a different relationship than mothers and daughters or fathers and sons? Why or why not? What do Dev and Lake learn from each other?

5. Part of the way into the story Dev embarks on a quest to find his father? What issues does he face? If you were Dev would you look for your father? Why or why not?

6. Near the end of the novel Lake says that everything she's done has been for Dev. Is this acceptable? Is it ok to lie to protect the people you love?

7. Do you think Clare's and Dev's relationship is an accurate depiction of first love? How does their relationship differ from the other romantic relationships in the novel? What do you think will happen between them in the future?

8. How would you describe Cornelia's childbirth experience? How does it lead her to make a decision that would change the lives of the people in her life?

9. What does "family" mean and how is this explored in the novel? Is it possible for one person to belong to another?

10. Cornelia compares life to the movies. What if any movie does the novel remind you of? What movie(s) would you compare your life to?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Beloved 
Toni Morrison, 1987
Knopf Doubleday
316 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400033416


Summary
Winner, 1987 Pulitizer Prize

Set in rural Ohio several years after the Civil War, this profoundly affecting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath is Toni Morrison's greatest novel, a dazzling achievement, and the most spellbinding reading experience of the decade.

Staring unflinchingly into the abyss of slavery, this novel transforms history into a story as powerful as Exodus and as intimate as a lullaby. Sethe, its protagonist, was born a slave and escaped to Ohio, but eighteen years later she is still not free.

She has too many memories of Sweet Home, the beautiful farm where so many hideous things happened. And Sethe's new home is haunted by the ghost of her baby, who died nameless and whose tombstone is engraved with a single word: Beloved. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio 
• Aka—Chloe Anthony Wofford
• Birth—February 18, 1931
• Where—Lorain, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Howard University; M.A.,  Cornell,
• Awards—Nobel Prize, 1993, National Book Critics' Circle
  Award, 1977; Pulitzer Prize, 1988.
• Currently—lives in Princeton, NJ and New York, NY


With her incredible string of lyrical, imaginative, and adventurous modern classics Toni Morrison lays claim to being one of America's best novelists. Race issues are at the heart of many of Morrison's most enduring novels, from the ways that white concepts of beauty affect a girl's self image in The Bluest Eye to themes of segregation in Sulu and slavery in her signature work Beloved. Through it all, Morrison relates her tales with lyrical eloquence and spellbinding mystery.

Born Chloe Anthony Wofford, Morrison's unique approach to writing stems from a childhood spent steeped in folklore and mythology. Her family reveled in sharing these often tales, and their commingling of the fantastic and the natural would become a key element in her work when she began penning original tales of her own.

The other majorly influential factor in her writing was the racism she experienced firsthand in, as Jet magazine described it, the "mixed and sometimes hostile neighborhood" of Lorain, Ohio. When Morrison was only a toddler, her home was set afire by racists while her family was still inside of it. During times such as these, she found strength in her father, who instilled in her a great sense of dignity. This pride in her cultural background would heavily influence her debut novel.

In The Bluest Eye, an eleven-year old black girl named Pecola prays every night for blue eyes, seeing them as the epitome of feminine beauty. She believes these eyes, symbolizing commonly held white concepts of attractiveness, would put an end to her familial woes, an end to her father's excessive drinking and her brother's meandering. They would give her self-esteem and purpose. The Bluest Eye is the first of Toni Morrison's cries for racial pride and it is an auspicious debut told with an eerie poeticism.

Morrison next tackled segregation in Sulu, which chronicles the friendship between two women who, much like the author, grew up in a small, segregated village in Ohio. Song of Solomon followed. Arguably her first bona fide classic and certainly her most lyrical work, Song of Solomon breathed with the mythology of Morrison's youth, a veritable modern folktale pivoting on an eccentric whimsically named Milkman Dead who spends his life trying to fly. This is one of Morrison's most breathtaking, most accomplished and fully dimensional novels, a story of powerful convictions told in an unmistakably original manner.

In Song of Solomon, Morrison created a distinct world where the supernatural commingles comfortably with the mundane, a setting that would reappear in her masterpiece, Beloved. Beloved is a ghost story quite unlike any other, a tale of guilt and love and the horrendous legacy of slavery. Taking place not long after the end of the Civil War, Beloved finds Sethe, a former slave, being haunted by the daughter she murdered to save the child from being sold into slavery. It is a gut wrenching story that is buoyed by its fantastical plot device and the sheer beauty of Morrison's prose.

Beloved so moved Morrison's literary peers that forty-eight of them signed an open letter published in the New York Times demanding she be recognizing for this major effort. Subsequently, the book won her a Pulitzer Prize. A year after publishing her next novel Jazz in 1992, she would become the very first African American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Towards the end of the century, Morrison's work became increasingly eclectic. She not only published another finely crafted, incendiary novel in Paradise, which systematically tracks the genesis of an act of mob violence, but she also published her first children's book The Big Box. In 2003, she published Love, her first novel in five years, a complex meditation on family and the way one man fuels the obsessions of several women. The following year she assembled a collection of photographs of school children taken during the era of segregation. What makes Remember: The Journey to School Integration so particularly haunting is that Morrison chose to compose dialogue imagining what the subjects of each photo may have been thinking. In 2008, Morrison published A Mercy.

That imagination, that willingness to take chances, to examine history through a fresh perspective, is such an integral part of Morrison's craft. She is as vital as any contemporary artist, and her stories may focus on the black American experience, but the eloquence, imaginativeness, and meaningfulness of her writing leaps high over any racial boundaries.

Extras
• Chloe Anthony Wofford chose to publish her first novel under the name Toni Morrison because she believed that Toni was easier to pronounce than Chloe. Morrison later regretted assuming the nom de plume.

• In 1986, the first production of Morrison's sole play Dreaming Emmett was staged. The play was based on the story of Emmett Till, a black teen murdered by racists in 1955.

• Morrison's prestigious status is not limited to her revered novels or her multitude of awards. She also holds a chair at Princeton University. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews 
This work well deserves its place in the pantheon of enduring Literature. Possibly the most powerful and imaginative rendering of slavery that exists, Beloved confronts the horror of both its practice and its legacy. While sometimes raw, we are always returned to the redemptive presence of family and community.
A LitLovers LitPick (March '08)


A work that brings to the darkest corners of American experience the wisdom, and the courage, to know them as they are.
New York Review of Books


When Toni Morrison was an editor at Random House, she edited The Black Book, an anthology/scrapbook of African American history. While working on the book, she ran across a newspaper article about a woman named Margaret Garner, a runaway slave who killed her children, slitting the throat of one and bashing in the skull of the other, to prevent them from being recaptured by the slave hunters hot on their trail.

This upside down story of motherly love expressed through child murder haunted Morrison for many years and finally manifest itself in fictional form in her Pulitzer Prize-winning fifth novel, Beloved. A poetic chronicle of slavery and its aftermath, it describes how that inhuman ordeal forced cruel choices and emotional pain on its victims and gave them memories that would possess them long after they were released from their physical bondage. Morrison uses the story to address a key question for black people then and now: How can we let go of the pain of the past and redeem the sacrifices made in the struggle for freedom?

Beloved is both beautiful and elusive: beautiful for its powerful and captivating language, and elusive not just because of its reliance on visions of haints and apparitions, but in its narrative interweaving of the past and present, the physical and the spiritual. For all of its supernatural elements, however, Beloved is most notable as a powerful tribute to the real-life struggles of a generation of black men and women to reconcile the horrors of the past and move on. The spirit of Beloved and the recurring memories of the tribulations Sethe endured on the plantations she lived on and escaped from were both testaments to the tangibly powerful hold that slavery had on her. In the end, she is able to recover her life only by finding within herself and her community the spiritual tools strong enough to exorcise her of this haunting. In this, Sethe's struggle is the struggle of all African Americans: the struggle to redeem ourselves, our families, and our communities from the wreckage of the past even as we honor the sacrifices made for survival.
Sacred Fire


Mixed with the lyric beauty of the writing, the fury in Morrison's...book is almost palpable...a haunting chronicle of slavery and its aftermath set in rural Ohio in the wake of the Civil War. The brilliantly conceived story...should not be missed..
Publishers Weekly


Powerful is too tame a word to describe Toni Morrison's searing new novel of post-Civil War Ohio. Morrison, whose myth-laden storytelling shone in Song of Solomon and other novels, has created an unforgettable world in this novel about ex-slaves haunted by violent memories. Before the war, Sethe, pregnant, sent her children away to their grandmother in Ohio, whose freedom had been paid for by their father. Sethe runs too, but when her "owners'' come to recapture her, she attempts to murder the children, succeeding with one, named Beloved. This murder will (literally) haunt Sethe for the rest of her life and affect everyone around her. A fascinating, grim, relentless story, this important book by a major writer belongs in most libraries. —Ann H. Fisher, Radford Public Library, Va.
Library Journal

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 start a discussion for Beloved:

1. Consider the extent to which slavery dehumanizes individuals by stripping them of their identity, destroying their ability to conceive of the self. Consider, especially, Paul and how he can't determine whether screams he hears are his or someone else's. How do the other characters reflect self-alienation?

2. Discuss the different roles of the community in betraying and protecting the house at 124. What larger issue might Morrison be suggesting here about community.

3. What does Beloved's appearance represent? What about her behavior? Why does she finally disappear—what drives her departure? And why is the book's title named for her?

4. Talk about the choice Sethe made regarding her children when schoolteacher arrives to take them all back to Sweet Home. Can her actions be justified—are her actions rational or irrational?

5. What does the narrator mean by the warning at the end: this is not a story to pass on." Is he right...or not.

(Questions from LitLovers. Please use, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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Beneath a Scarlet Sky 
Mark Sullivan, 2017
Lake Union (Amazon)
524 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781503943377


Summary
Based on the true story of a forgotten hero, Beneath a Scarlet Sky is the triumphant, epic tale of one young man’s incredible courage and resilience during one of history’s darkest hours.

Pino Lella wants nothing to do with the war or the Nazis. He’s a normal Italian teenager—obsessed with music, food, and girls—but his days of innocence are numbered. When his family home in Milan is destroyed by Allied bombs, Pino joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps, and falls for Anna, a beautiful widow six years his senior.

In an attempt to protect him, Pino’s parents force him to enlist as a German soldier—a move they think will keep him out of combat. But after Pino is injured, he is recruited at the tender age of eighteen to become the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy, General Hans Leyers, one of the Third Reich’s most mysterious and powerful commanders.

Now, with the opportunity to spy for the Allies inside the German High Command, Pino endures the horrors of the war and the Nazi occupation by fighting in secret, his courage bolstered by his love for Anna and for the life he dreams they will one day share.

Fans of All the Light We Cannot See, The Nightingale, and Unbroken will enjoy this riveting saga of history, suspense, and love. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 28, 1958
• Where—Medfield, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Hamilton College; M.S., Northwestern University
• Currently—lives in Bozeman, Montana


Mark Sullivan is an American author best known for his mystery and suspense novels, including five co-written with James Patterson.

Sullivan was born and raised in Medford, Massacusetts, a suburb of Boston. According to his website, his favorite job of all time was as a teen selling souvenirs at Fenway Park. He left the baseball park for Hamilton College where he received his B.A., after which he joined the Peach Corp. He spent two years in Africa, living among the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara Desert and teaching English to their children.

On returning to the States, Sullivan earned an M.S. in Journalism at the Medill School at Northwestern University. For the next decade or so, he worked as a financial, political, and investigative journalist. Most of that time was spent at The San Diego Tribune, where he won awards for a series on the children of addicts and another for his inside view of funeral home conglomerates.

But by the age of 30, Sullivan decided he needed to follow his childhood dream — to become a novelist. Writing in his spare time, he published stories in literary journals.

In 1990, he took a big risk — a leave of absence from the newsroom — and headed to Utah and Wyoming where he immersed himself in the culture of extreme skiers. Out of that experience came his first novel, The Fall Line. Published in 1994, his debut garnered a "Notable Book of the Year" listing from the New York Times.

With the publication of The Purification Ceremony in 1996, Sullivan's fiction career took off. The novel received widespread praise and was a finalist for the Edgar Allen Poe Award. Since then, he has written over a dozen novels, including those with Patterson.

An avid skier and athlete, Sullivan lives in Montana with his wife. (Adapted from the author's website.)

Book Reviews
Exciting…taut thriller…. Beneath a Scarlet Sky tells the true story of one young Italian's efforts to thwart the Nazis.
Shelf Awareness

Meticulous research highlights this World War II novel of a youth growing into manhood…a captivating read
RT Book Reviews

Edgar-finalist Sullivan (Triple Cross) lays on history with a trowel in this overstuffed tale of derring-do set in Italy during WWII.… Facing few obstacles he can’t overcome, the heroic Pino easily outfoxes the Nazis.
Publishers Weekly

Discussion Questions
1. Beneath a Scarlet Sky is a work of historical fiction. As you were reading did you feel that the story was authentic? Given that the truth about what actually happened to each character is included at the end, talk about how Mark Sullivan crafted an interesting story while also sticking to the facts.
   
2. Throughout the book, Sullivan describes horrific scenes filled with human sacrifice, violence, bombings and ruthless executions. How well do you think he captures the fear in the air? Does he strike the right balance between page-turner and paying homage to the brutal truth?
   
3. At the beginning of Beneath a Scarlet Sky, bombs are dropped on Milan, destroying sections of the city. At this point, Mr. Beltramini’s grocery is saved. In talking to Pino Lella, Beltramini says, “If a bomb’s coming at you, it’s coming at you. You can’t just go around worrying about it. Just go on doing what you love, and go on enjoying your life.” What are your thoughts about his advice? Given what’s going on in the world today, do you live in fear of terrorism or war? How do you balance “enjoying your life” in spite of your fear?
   
4. If you or members of your book discussion group lived through World War II, here or abroad, how do your recollections match the emotions that you are reading here?
   
5. Father Re enlists Pino’s help to usher Italian Jews through the mountains to Switzerland and to safety. Catholics and Jews clearly have different belief systems. In today’s world, what do you think it would take for a Christian to help, say, a Muslim in a similar manner in a place of war? Do you think it’s possible for such an underground network to exist today?
   
6. Mrs. Napolitano is a pregnant Italian Jew who successfully escapes over the mountain pass in the dead of winter, in one of the most dramatic passages om the book. She almost dies along the way. If you were in her shoes, do you think you’d be brave enough to attempt the trek? What does it mean to be brave in the face of death?
   
7. There is a moment when Colonel Rauff, the head of the Gestapo in Milan, helps Father Re’s boys corral oxen into a pen. He enjoys himself and almost seems…human. What do you think the author intended by choosing to portray such an evil man in this light? Was it effective?
   
8. Just a few months shy of Pino’s 18th birthday, his father calls him back to Milan and demands that he enlist instead of waiting to be drafted. The catch? Enlisting with the Germans is safer. He is given a choice and chooses to enlist. Knowing you’d have to work for the enemy, what would you have done if you were in Pino’s shoes?
   
9. Almost by chance, Pino becomes the driver for one of the highest-ranking German officers in Italy. It’s a chance for Pino to become a spy, once again risking his life. If you were Pino, would you take advantage of the opportunity, knowing it could put your family in significant danger?
   
10. Pino’s best friend from childhood finds out that he’s a Nazi and accuses him of being a traitor. Pino can’t, of course, tell him the truth because it would put the mission in danger. What would it take for you to make a similar sacrifice? Is there a cause for a “greater good” that you’d risk anything for?
   
11. Anna catches Pino in the act of rifling through the Major General Hans Leyers’ things. When he tells her the truth, she softens and they kiss. What was your initial reaction during that scene? Did you trust Anna? Why or why not? How did your gut feeling change as the novel progressed? Do you think she deserved her fate?
   
12. After Pino and Major General Leyers are nearly killed by a British fighter plane, Leyers opens up to Pino and shares a bit about his life. Did this scene change the way you thought about him? Are people 100% evil, or is it possible to find humanity or goodness in everyone?
   
13. Major General Leyers gives Pino advice: “Doing favors…they help wondrously over the course of a lifetime. When you have done men favors, when you look out for others so they can prosper, they owe you. With each favor, you become stronger, more supported. It is a law of nature.” How does this statement inform Leyers’ character? Do you agree with this statement? Is doing and receiving favors about “owing,” or is it about something else?
   
14. Major General Leyers saves four sick children from Platform 21…and from death. Why do you think he does this? Out of the goodness of his heart, or is it one of his favors?
   
15. When the Germans surrender, the Italians turn on each other and many butcher each other to death, either for doing nothing or for being friendly with the Germans. Are their actions justified? Or is this violence just as condemnable?
   
16. Toward the end, Pino is given the chance to execute Major General Leyers. He doesn’t take it. Why do you think that is? What would you have done?
   
17. The ending is quite a shocker. Did you see it coming? Why or why not?
   
18. In certain sections, particularly in conversations between characters, Sullivan writes in a modern style. What effect, if any, does this have on the story or your perception of events? Does he capture the mood of the 1940s?
   
19. Sullivan provides information about what actually happened to the characters in the novel. After completing the book and finding out their destinies, did you feel each character got what they deserved?
   
20. In the preface, author Mark Sullivan admits to being suicidal the night he came up with the idea for Beneath a Scarlet Sky. Did that information have any impact on how you perceived the book?
(Questions from the author's website.)

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Benediction
Kent Haruf, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307959881


Summary
From the beloved and best-selling author of Plainsong and Eventide comes a story of life and death, and the ties that bind, once again set out on the High Plains in Holt, Colorado.

When Dad Lewis is diagnosed with terminal cancer, he and his wife, Mary, must work together to make his final days as comfortable as possible. Their daughter, Lorraine, hastens back from Denver to help look after him; her devotion softens the bitter absence of their estranged son, Frank, but this cannot be willed away and remains a palpable presence for all three of them.

Next door, a young girl named Alice moves in with her grandmother and contends with the painful memories that Dad's condition stirs up of her own mother's death. Meanwhile, the town’s newly arrived preacher attempts to mend his strained relationships with his wife and teenaged son, a task that proves all the more challenging when he faces the disdain of his congregation after offering more than they are accustomed to getting on a Sunday morning. And throughout, an elderly widow and her middle-aged daughter do everything they can to ease the pain of their friends and neighbors.

Despite the travails that each of these families faces, together they form bonds strong enough to carry them through the most difficult of times.  Bracing, sad and deeply illuminating, Benediction captures the fullness of life by representing every stage of it, including its extinction, as well as the hopes and dreams that sustain us along the way. Here Kent Haruf gives us his most indelible portrait yet of this small town and reveals, with grace and insight, the compassion, the suffering and, above all, the humanity of its inhabitants. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 24, 1943
• Where—Pueblo, Colorado, USA
• Died—November 30, 2014
• Where—Salida, Colorado
• Education—B.A., Nebraska Wesleyan University; M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Awards—(see below)


Alan Kent Haruf was an American novelist and author of six novels, all set in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado.

Life
Haruf was born in Pueblo, Colorado, the son of a Methodist minister. He graduated with a BA from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965, where he would later teach, and earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973.

Before becoming a writer, Haruf worked in a variety of places, including a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Denver, a hospital in Phoenix, a presidential library in Iowa, an alternative high school in Wisconsin, as an English teacher with the Peace Corps in Turkey, and colleges in Nebraska and Illinois.

He lived with his wife, Cathy, in Salida, Colorado until his death in 2014. He had three daughters from his first marriage.

Works
All of Haruf's novels take place in the fictional town of Holt, in eastern Colorado, a town based on Yuma, Colorado, one of Haruf's residences in the early 1980s. His first novel, The Tie That Binds (1984), received a Whiting Award and a special Hemingway Foundation/PEN citation. Where You Once Belonged followed in 1990. A number of his short stories have appeared in literary magazines.

Plainsong was published in 1999 and became a U.S. bestseller. The New York Times' Verlyn Klinkenborg called it "a novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader." Plainsong won the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award and the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

Eventide, a sequel to Plainsong, was published in 2004. Library Journal described the writing as "honest storytelling that is compelling and rings true." Jonathan Miles saw it as a "repeat performance" and "too goodhearted."

On November 30, 2014, at the age of 71, Kent Haruf died at his home in Salida, Colorado, of interstitial lung disease.

Our Souls at Night, his final work, was published posthumously in 2015 and received wide praise. Ron Charles of the Washington Post called it "a tender, carefully polished work that it seems like a blessing we had no right to expect."

Recognition
1986 - Whiting Award for fiction
1999 - Finalist for the 1999 National Book Award for Plainsong
2005 - Colorado Book Award for Eventide
2005 - Finalist for the Book Sense Award for Eventide
2009 - Dos Passos Prize for Literature
2012 - Wallace Stegner Award
2014 - Folio Prize shortlist for Benediction
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/26/2015.)

Book Reviews
Kent Haruf’s novels...defy our expectation that literature rooted in a particular place should show how the place is changing. [Holt's] artfully stylized...stories [are about ]dramatic changes in the lives of the people of Holt....  [A] benediction (an epigraph informs us) is “the utterance of a blessing, an invocation of blessedness.” It’s a lovely effect, but here it calls attention to how little we come to know about Reverend Lyle: what led him to speak up for gay people back in Denver and against war here in Holt, what led him to quit the ministry so abruptly.... Haruf hints at Reverend Lyle’s motives but leaves things there, as if withholding the full story for some later installment.
Paul Elie - New York Times Book Review


We’ve waited a long time for an invitation back to Holt, home to Kent Haruf’s novels.... He may be the most muted master in American fiction: our anti-Franzen. Haruf's...novels are as plain and fortifying as steel-cut oatmeal: certified 100-percent irony-free, guaranteed to wither magic realism, stylistic flourishes and postmodern gimmicks.... At its best, Benediction offers deceptively simple "little dramas, the routine moments" of small-town life, stripped to their elemental details. Haruf's minimalism achieves more emotional impact than seems possible with such distilled material and so few words…He produces the kind of scenes that Hemingway might have written had he survived the ravages of depression.
Ron Charles - Washington Post


His finest-tuned tale yet.... There is a deep, satisfying music to this book, as Haruf weaves between such a large cast of characters in so small a space.... Strangely, wonderfully, the moment of a man's passing can be a blessing in the way it brings people together. Benediction recreates this powerful moment so gracefully it is easy to forget that, like [the town of] Holt, it is a world created by one man.
John Freeman - Boston Globe


Grace and restraint are abiding virtues in Haruf's fiction, and they resume their place of privilege in his new work.... For readers looking for the rewards of an intimate, meditative story, it is indeed a blessing.
Karen R. Long - Cleveland Plain Dealer


Haruf is maguslike in his gifts...to illuminate the inevitable ways in which tributary lives meander toward confluence.... Perhaps not since Hemingway has an American author triggered such reader empathy with so little reliance on the subjectivity of his characters.... [This] is a modestly wrought wonder from one of our finest living writers.
Bruce Machart - Houston Chronicle


As Haruf's precise details accrue, a reader gains perspective: This is the story of a man's life, and the town where he spent it, and the people who try to ease its end.... His sentences have the elegance of Hemingway's early work [and his] determined realism, which admits that not all of our past actions or the reasons behind them are knowable, even to ourselves, is one of the book's satisfactions.
John Reimringer - Minneapolis Star-Tribune


Haruf is the master of what one of his characters calls "the precious ordinary."... With understated language and startling emotional insight, he makes you feel awe at even the most basic of human gestures.
Ben Goldstein - Esquire


In Holt, the fictional Colorado town where all of Haruf’s novels are set, longtime resident Dad Lewis is dying of cancer. Happily married (he calls his wife “his luck”), Dad spends his last weeks thinking over his life, particularly an incident that ended badly with a clerk in his store, and his relationship with his estranged son. As his wife and daughter care for him, life goes on: one of the Lewises’ neighbors takes in her young granddaughter; an elderly woman and her middle-aged daughter visit with the Lewises, with each other, and with the new minister, whose wife and son are unhappy about his transfer to Holt from Denver. Haruf isn’t interested in the trendy or urban; as he once said, he writes about “regular, ordinary, sort of elemental” characters, who speak simply and often don’t speak much at all. “Regular and ordinary” can equate with dull. However, though this is a quiet book, it’s not a boring one. Dad and his family and neighbors try, in small, believable ways, to make peace with those they live among, to understand a world that isn’t the one in which they came of age. Separately and together, all the characters are trying to live—and in Dad’s case, to die—with dignity, a struggle Haruf (Eventide) renders with delicacy and skill.
Publishers Weekly


Haruf made his name with the heartfelt Plainsong, a best seller and a finalist for the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. The subsequent Eventide, also a best seller, revisited Plainsong's setting, high-plains Holt, CO. Haruf again returns to Holt but with a new cast, among them Dad Lewis, dying of cancer and comforted by his wife and daughter though still estranged from his son. Then there's the little girl mourning her mother and a new preacher struggling with both his family and his congregation. Bittersweet charm.
Library Journal


Reverberant… From the terroir and populace of his native American West, the author of Plainsong and Eventide again draws a story elegant in its simple telling and remarkable in its authentic capture of universal human emotions. —Brad Hooper
Booklist


A meditation on morality returns the author to the High Plains of Colorado, with diminishing returns for the reader.... With his third novel with a one-word title set in Holt, the narrative succumbs to melodrama and folksy wisdom as it details the death of the owner of the local hardware store, a crusty feller who has seen his own moral rigidity soften over the years, though not enough to accomplish a reconciliation with his estranged son.... The death of Dad has dignity and gravitas, but too much leading up to it seems like contrived plotline filler. Between one character's insistence that "[e]verything gets better" and another's belief that "[a]ll life is moving through some kind of unhappiness," the novel runs the gamut of homespun philosophizing. Even the epiphanies seem like reheated leftovers.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. Two of Haruf’s previous novels set in Holt, Plainsong and Eventide, followed the same groups of characters, but Benediction mentions them only in passing. Have you read those two novels? Do you think reading them would increase your enjoyment of Benediction?

2. The book’s epigraph is a definition of the word “benediction”: “the utterance of a blessing, an invocation of blessedness.” Why is it an appropriate title for this novel?

3. Discuss the character called Dad. Why do you think Haruf gave him that name? What does it signify?

4. What do we learn about Dad from the episode with Clayton? Why does Dad hallucinate a visit from Clayton’s wife?

5. There are many parental relationships in the novel: Dad and Mary and Lorraine, Willa and Alene, Lyle and John Wesley, for example. What makes some stronger than others? 

6. Alice has many substitute mothers. Why do so many of the women want to take care of her? Who does she seem to respond to best?

7. One parental relationship in particular haunts the story: Dad and Frank. How does Dad feel about Frank at the end?

8. On page 43, Lyle counsels a couple who want to get married: “Love is the most important part of life, isn’t it. If you have love you can live in this world in a true way and if you love each other you can see past everything and accept what you don’t understand and forgive what you don’t know or don’t like.” How does this relate to his own life?

9. Why is Lyle’s sermon so inflammatory? What point is Haruf making about religion?

10. When Lyle goes out walking at night, he says he’s in search of “the precious ordinary.” (Page 162) What does he mean by that?

11. After Mary goes to Denver in search of Frank, she’s treated kindly by several strangers. What does this tell us about Mary, or about city life?

12. Lorraine has lost a child and is in an unfulfilling relationship. Do you think she’ll be happy to move back to Holt and take over Dad’s store? How do you imagine that will go?

13. Change is a theme that runs through the novel—fast change, slow change, changes in small-town living, changes in religion, changes in characters’ relationships. What larger point is Haruf making?

14. Why does John Wesley attempt suicide? Why doesn’t he go through with it?

15. What does Dad learn from the “visits” by his parents and Frank? Does Dad have regrets about his life?

16. Reread the closing paragraphs of the book. Why does Haruf end the novel this way?

17. Haruf’s language and punctuation are so plain, the writing is nearly austere. How does its simplicity contribute to the mood of the story?

18. In an interview in Publishers Weekly about Benediction, Haruf said: “In some ways, what happens in Holt happens in Denver, in Minneapolis, everywhere. Death is a fact of life, no matter where you live. Taking care of the dying is a necessity everywhere. Those are not conditions exclusive to small towns.” Did he succeed in making his story feel universal?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Bartleby and Benito Cereno 
Herman Melville, 1853 and 1856
Dover Publications
112 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780486264738


Summary
(This slender volume by Dover contains two of Melville's best-known stories. We have developed a set of discussion questions below for each story.)

Benito Cereno is a harrowing tale of slavery and revolt aboard a Spanish ship—and regarded by many as Melville's finest short story.

"Bartleby the Scrivener" accompanies Benito. When a New York lawyer needs to hire another copyist, it is Bartleby who responds to his advertisement, and arrives "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn." At first a diligent employee, he soon begins to refuse work, saying only "I would prefer not to." So begins the story of Bartleby—passive to the point of absurdity yet extremely disturbing—which rapidly turns from farce to inexplicable tragedy.

(Adapted from the Penguin edition.)

Author Bio
• Birth—August 1, 1819
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Death—September 28, 1891
• Where—New York, New York
• Education—Albany Academy until age 15


Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet, whose work is often classified as part of the genre of dark romanticism. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and novella Billy Budd, the latter of which was published posthumously.

Melville was born in New York City in 1819, as the third child of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill. (After her husband Allan died, Maria added an "e" to the family surname.) Allan Melvill sent his sons to the New York Male School (Columbia Preparatory School). Overextended financially and emotionally unstable, Allan eventually declared bankruptcy, dying soon afterward and leaving his family penniless when Herman was 12.

Melville attended the Albany Academy from October 1830 to October 1831, and again from October 1836 to March 1837, where he studied the classics. Melville's roving disposition and a desire to support himself led him to seek work as a surveyor on the Erie Canal. This effort failed, and his brother helped him get a job as a cabin boy on a New York ship bound for Liverpool. He made the voyage, and returned on the same ship. Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) is partly based on his experiences of this journey.

After teaching for a stint (1837-1840), Melville spent the next four years at sea, travelling in the South Pacific Ocean, stopping off for periods in Hawaii and the Marquesas Islands (where he lived mong the Typee natives). He returned to Boston in 1844. These experiences were described in Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), and White-Jacket (1850), which gave Melville overnight notoriety as a writer and adventurer.

In 1847, Melville married Elizabeth Shaw (daughter of chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Lemuel Shaw); the couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. In 1850 they purchased Arrowhead, a farm house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, now a museum. Here Melville lived for thirteen years, occupied with his writing and managing his farm. While living at Arrowhead, he befriended the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived in nearby Lenox. Melville, an intellectual loner for most of his life, was tremendously inspired and encouraged by his new relationship with Hawthorne during the period he was writing Moby-Dick (1851). Melville dedicated that work to Hawthorne, though their friendship was on the wane only a short time later, when Melville wrote Pierre (1852). Sadly, these works did not achieve the popular and critical success of his earlier books.

His The Confidence-Man (1857), winning general acclaim in modern times, received contemporary reviews ranging from the bewildered to the denunciatory.

By 1866 his professional writing career can be said to have come to an end. To repair his faltering finances, Melville's wife and her relatives used their influence to obtain a position for him as customs inspector for the City of New York (a humble but adequately paying appointment), and he held the post for 19 years. In a notoriously corrupt institution, Melville soon won the reputation of being the only honest employee of the customs house.

As his professional fortunes waned, Melville's marriage was unhappy, plagued by rumors of his alcoholism and insanity and allegations that he inflicted physical abuse on his wife. Her relatives repeatedly urged her to leave him, and offered to have him committed as insane, but she refused.

In 1867 his oldest son, Malcolm, shot himself, perhaps accidentally. While Melville worked, his wife managed to wean him off alcohol, and he no longer showed signs of agitation or insanity. But recurring depression was added-to by the death of his second son, Stanwix, in San Francisco early in 1886.

Melville retired in 1886, after several of his wife's relatives died and left the couple legacies that Mrs. Melville administered with skill and good fortune.

Upon his death in September 1891, he left an unfinished piece; not until the literary scholar Raymond Weaver published it in 1924 did the book—which we now know as Billy Budd, Sailor—come to light. Later it was turned into an opera by Benjamin Britten, a play, and a film by Peter Ustinov. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
(Sorry. Classic works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer 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 both "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "Benito Cereno":

Questions for "Benito Cereno"

1. Captain Delano is a curious figure. How would you describe him? Discuss his "blindness" to what's going on around him. What are the numerous—and obvious—signs that he continues to misinterpret? How does he explain away things that initially trouble him?

2. Why might Melville have chosen Delano to tell the story, in order that we see the story through his eyes? Do we fall prey to the same tunnel vision as he does?

3. How does Delano represent "benign racism"? What are his views of the slaves on the ship?

4. "Follow your leader" is an expression used throughout the story, and its meaning differs according to who utters it. Talk about the different meanings it has. What irony lies behind the phrase—does Delano, for instance, think that slaves are capable of leadership?

5. Melville wrote this story in 1856, five years before the Civil War broke out. It was a time frought with politics that pitted northern abolitionists against large land- and slave-owners in the South. What would Melville's position have been—can you guess from this story? Who was he warning...what morality is at stake? Consider the fact that both Cereno and Babo die by the end.

6. The story has been posited as cautionary tale of good vs. evil. But who in this story represents the good—and who repsents the evil? There is depravity on both sides...is one depravity worse or less than another?

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

_________________

Questions for "Bartleby the Scrivener"

1. How does the narrator describe himself at the onset of the story? It's important to establish his character early on so as to determine the accuracy of his self-portrayal and the degree to which it seems to change throughout the course of the story. He tells us, for instance, that "he does a snug business" in his "snug retreat"; he's safe and prudent. What else does he tell us?

2. How does the lawyer describe Bartleby as he first appears? What do you make of Bartleby...and how does your idea of him change during the story?

3. There are numerous mentions of the word "wall" in this story. What symbolic significance does it have to the story? Consider, for instance, that Bartleby is isolated from the other copyists, placed with his desk facing a wall. What effect might this have had on him?

4. What is the significance of the fact that the story occurs in the financial district of New York? How well does the narrator accommodate himself to his surroundings—and how well does Bartleby fit in?

5. Discuss the other workers in the office, Bartleby's colleagues. Can you sense Melville's humor as he writes about the office situation?

6. What is the significance of Bartleby's resistance? What does it mean? Don't feel the need to take Bartleby "literally"; consider what he might represent, metaphorically.

7. How does the narrator react when Bartleby makes his first utterance, "I would prefer not to"? How does he continue to react to Bartleby...and why?

8. When the narrator discovers that Bartleby is living in the office, he had been on his way to church. But he changes his mind and decides not to attend. Why? What does this say about his religious beliefs, particularly in light of the fact that he considers Bartleby " a lost soul"? Overall, how does the lawyer's discovery of Bartleby affect him? What does he come to feel? Do you think these are novel emotions for him?

9. Bartleby refuses to leave when dismissed. Discuss the irony of the lawyer and his decision to move his office. What happens during the confrontation with Bartelby...what does the lawyer offer him? Why does he still feel responsible for Bartleby?

10. When, at the end, the narrator says that Bartleby is sleeping "with kings and counselors." What does he mean? And why might Wall Street have had a role in Bartleby's demise? What is the significance of the story's final words, "Ah, humanity"?

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

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Best Boy 
Eli Gottlieb, 2015
Liveright Publishing
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781631490477


Summary
A landmark novel about autism, memory, and, ultimately, redemption.

Sent to a "therapeutic community" for autism at the age of eleven, Todd Aaron, now in his fifties, is the "Old Fox" of Payton LivingCenter. A joyous man who rereads the encyclopedia compulsively, he is unnerved by the sudden arrivals of a menacing new staffer and a disruptive, brain-injured roommate.

His equilibrium is further worsened by Martine, a one-eyed new resident who has romantic intentions and convinces him to go off his meds to feel "normal" again. Undone by these pressures, Todd attempts an escape to return "home" to his younger brother and to a childhood that now inhabits only his dreams.

Written astonishingly in the first-person voice of an autistic, adult man, Best Boy—with its unforgettable portraits of Todd’s beloved mother, whose sweet voice still sings from the grave, and a staffer named Raykene, who says that Todd "reflects the beauty of His creation"—is a piercing, achingly funny, finally shattering novel no reader can ever forget. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—New Jersey, USA
• Education—Hampshire College
• Awards—Rome Prize; McKitterick Prize (Britain)
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York


Eli Gottlieb, an American author, was born in New York City and raised in New Jeresy. He graduated from Hampshire College.

Novels
His first novel, The Boy Who Went Away, was published in 1997 to widespread critical acclaim. It earned Gottlieb the Rome Prize and the McKitterick Prize from the British Society of Authors in 1998.

His second novel, Now You Seem Him, came out in 2008. Translated into eleven languages, the novel was named "Book of the Year" by The Independent (UK) and Bookmarks magazine.

His third novel, The Face Thief, came out in 2012, and his fourth, Best Boy in 2015.

Career
Gottlieb has taught American literature at the University of Padua Italy, written documentary films and worked as a senior editor at Elle magazine, and as a staff writer for The Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He lives in New York City, New York. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/6/2015.)

Book Reviews
Affecting…. Todd’s is an engaging and nuanced consciousness, so vital that the reader feels profound tenderness―and distinct fear―as this sweet man ventures out into the world…. As ill-advised as his flight might be, we stand on the ground below…enchanted by the simplicity of his soaring.
Bret Anthony Johnston - New York Times Book Review


Raw and beautiful…. With a mesmerizingly rhythmic narration…. What rises and shines from the page is Todd Aaron, a hero of such singular character and clear spirit that you will follow him anywhere. You won’t just root for him, you will fight and push and pray for him to wrest control of his future. You will read this book in one sitting or maybe two, and, I promise, you will miss this man deeply when you are done.
Ann Bauer - Washington Post


Fascinating…. Gottlieb's imaginings of what's going on in the mind of an adult living somewhere on the autism spectrum feel credible and real…. Lyrical.
Carol Memmott - Chicago Tribune


Engrossing…. Taking us into Todd's consciousness where emotions are visceral sensations, Gottlieb beautifully illuminates a little-understood world.
People


(Starred review.) [Todd's] voice is spectacular, oscillating between casual and obsessive and frequently challenging the stereotypes that haunt those with autism.... [A] fast read, and the plot is never less than captivating.... Gottlieb’s attention to crafting Todd’s internal monologue is something to behold.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) Gottlieb has created something quite exceptional in [Tpdd's] character. His interior life and psychology are convincingly drawn. He is beset with fears, confusions, and misunderstandings—along with disturbing memories and violent emotions—and these are described with great sympathy and insight.... A deeply moving portrait of a kind and gentle soul. —Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
Library Journal


(Starred review.) [E]loquent, sensitive rendering of a marginalized life.... Gottlieb merits praise for both the endearing eloquence of Todd's voice and a deeply sympathetic parable that speaks to a time when rising autism rates and long-lived elders force many to weigh tough options.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)

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