The Trial
Franz Kafka, 1925 (posthumous)
Schocken Books - Random House
304 pp.
ISBN: 9780805209990
Summary
Written in 1914, The Trial is one of the most important novels of the twentieth century: the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information.
Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, Kafka's nightmare has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers. This new edition is based upon the work of an international team of experts who have restored the text, the sequence of chapters, and their division to create a version that is as close as possible to the way the author left it.
In his brilliant translation, Breon Mitchell masterfully reproduces the distinctive poetics of Kafka's prose, revealing a novel that is as full of energy and power as it was when it was first written. (From the Schocken-Random House edition.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 3, 1888
• Where—Prague, Austria-Hungary
• Death—3 June, 1924
• Where—Kierling (near Vienna), Austria
• Education—Doctorate of Law, Charles-
Ferdinand University of Prague
Franz Kafka was an influential German-language author of novels and short stories. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century. The term "Kafkaesque" has become part of the English language.
Most of Kafka's writing, including the large body of his unfinished work, was published posthumously.
Background
Franz Kafka was born into a middle-class Ashkenazi Jewish family in Prague (now the Czech Republic). His father, Hermann Kafka (1852–1931), was described as a "huge, selfish, overbearing businessman" and by Kafka himself as "a true Kafka in strength, health, appetite, loudness of voice, eloquence, self-satisfaction, worldly dominance, endurance, presence of mind, [and] knowledge of human nature." Hermann was the fourth child of Jacob Kafka, a shochet or ritual slaughterer, and came to Prague from Osek, a Czech-speaking Jewish village near Písek in southern Bohemia. After working as a traveling sales representative, he established himself as an independent retailer of men's and women's fancy goods and accessories, employing up to 15 people and using a jackdaw (kavka in Czech) as his business logo. Kafka's mother, Julie (1856–1934), was the daughter of Jakob Lowy, a prosperous brewer in Podebrady, and was better educated than her husband.
Franz was the eldest of six children. He had two younger brothers: Georg and Heinrich, who died at the ages of fifteen months and seven months, respectively, before Franz was seven; and three younger sisters, Gabriele ("Ellie") (1889–1944), Valerie ("Valli") (1890–1944) and Ottilie ("Ottla") (1892–1943). On business days, both parents were absent from the home. Franz's mother helped to manage her husband's business and worked in it as many as 12 hours a day. The children were largely reared by a series of governesses and servants. Kafka's relationship with his father was troubled, as described in the "Letter to His Father" in which he complained of being profoundly affected by his father's authoritarian and demanding character.
Education
Admitted to the Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague, Kafka first studied chemistry, but switched after two weeks to law. This offered a range of career possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the university, he joined a student club, which organized literary events, readings and other activities. In the end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, who would become a close friend of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on 18 June 1906 and performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the Civil and criminal courts.
Employment
On 1 November 1907, he was hired at the Assicurazioni Generali, an Italian insurance company, where he worked for nearly a year. His correspondence during that period witnesses that he was unhappy with his working time schedule—from 8 a.m. (8:00) until 6 p.m. (18:00)—as it made it extremely difficult for him to concentrate on his writing.
On 15 July 1908, he resigned, and two weeks later found more congenial employment with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. The job involved investigating personal injury to industrial workers, such as lost fingers or limbs, and assessing compensation. Industrial accidents of this kind were commonplace at this time. Management professor Peter Drucker credits Kafka with developing the first civilian hard hat while he was employed at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute, but this is not supported by any document from his employer.
His father often referred to his son's job as insurance officer as a "Brotberuf," literally "bread job", a job done only to pay the bills. While Kafka often claimed that he despised the job, he was a diligent and capable employee. He was also given the task of compiling and composing the annual report and was reportedly quite proud of the results, sending copies to friends and family.
During this time, Kafka was also committed to his literary work. Together with his close friends Max Brod and Felix Weltsch, these three were called "Der enge Prager Kreis", the close-knit Prague circle, which was part of a broader Prague Circle, a loosely knit group of German-Jewish writers who contributed to the culturally fertile soil of Prague from the 1880s till after World War I.
Later years
In 1912, at Max Brod's home, Kafka met Felice Bauer, who lived in Berlin and worked as a representative for a dictaphone company. Over the next five years they corresponded a great deal, met occasionally, and were engaged twice. Their relationship finally ended in 1917.
That same year, Kafka began to suffer from tuberculosis, which required frequent convalescence during which he was supported by his family, most notably his sister Ottla. Despite his fear of being perceived as both physically and mentally repulsive, he impressed others with his boyish, neat and austere good looks, a quiet and cool demeanor, obvious intelligence and dry sense of humor.
From 1920 Kafka developed an intense relationship with Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenska. In July 1923, throughout a vacation to Graal-Muritz on the Baltic Sea, he met Dora Diamant and briefly moved to Berlin in the hope of distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing. In Berlin, he lived with Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher from an orthodox Jewish family, who was independent enough to have escaped her past in the ghetto. She became his lover, and influenced Kafka's interest in the Talmud.
Kafka's tuberculosis worsened and he returned to Prague. He went to Dr. Hoffmann's sanatorium in Kierling near Vienna for treatment, where he died on 3 June 1924, apparently from starvation. The condition of Kafka's throat made eating too painful for him, and since parenteral nutrition had not yet been developed, there was no way to feed him. He was one month shy of his 41st birthday.
(Kafka's sisters perished during During World War II. The Nazi Germans deported them with their families to the Lodz Ghetto where they died. Ottla, the oldest, was sent to the concentration camp at Theresienstadt. On 7 October 1943 she was transferred to the death camp at Auschwitz.)
Literary career
Kafka's writing attracted little attention until after his death. During his lifetime, he published only a few short stories. He finished the novella "The Metamorphosis," but never finished any of his full length novels. Kafka left his published and unpublished work to his friend and literary executor Max Brod with explicit instructions that it should be destroyed on his (Kafka's) death; Kafka wrote: "Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me ... in the way of diaries, manuscripts, letters (my own and others'), sketches, and so on, [is] to be burned unread."
Brod decided to ignore this request and went on to publish the novels and collected works between 1925 and 1935. The remaining papers were consigned to suitcases which he carried with him when he fled to Palestine in 1939. (Kafka's lover, Dora Diamant, also ignored his wishes, secretly keeping up to 20 notebooks and 35 letters until they were confiscated by the Gestapo in 1933. An ongoing international search is being conducted for these missing Kafka papers.) Brod, in fact, would oversee the publication of most of Kafka's work in his possession, which soon began to attract attention and high critical regard.
Max Brod encountered significant difficulty in compiling Kafka's notebooks into any chronological order as Kafka was known to start writing in the middle of notebooks, from the last page towards the first, etc.
All of Kafka's published works, except several letters he wrote in Czech to Milena Jesenska, were written in German. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
The story of The Trial's publication is almost as fascinating as the novel itself. Kafka intended his parable of alienation in a mysterious bureaucracy to be burned, along with the rest of his diaries and manuscripts, after his death in 1924. Yet his friend Max Brod pressed forward to prepare The Trial and the rest of his papers for publication. When the Nazis came to power, publication of Jewish writers such as Kafka was forbidden; Kafka's writings, many of which have distinctively Jewish themes, did not find a broad audience until after World War II. (Hannah Arendt once observed that although "during his lifetime he could not make a decent living, [Kafka] will now keep generations of intellectuals both gainfully employed and well-fed.") Among the current crop of Kafka heirs is Breon Mitchell, the translator of this edition of The Trial. Rather than tidying up Kafka's unconventional grammar and punctuation (as previous translators have done), Mitchell captures the loose, uneasy, even uncomfortable constructions of Kafka's original story. His translation technique is the only way to convey the comedy and confusion of this narrative, in which Josef K., "without having done anything truly wrong," is arrested, tried, convicted and executed—on a charge that is never disclosed to him.
Michael Joseph Gross - Amazon Reviews
Kafka's final work was left unfinished at the time of his 1924 death, and the original 1925 and subsequent editions were edited according to the standards of the day. This edition endeavors to restore the text as closely as possible to the original manuscript. According to the publisher, "This translation makes slight changes in the chapter divisions and sequence of chapter fragments." In addition to the text, this volume includes a bibliography and a chronology of the author's life.b
Library Journal
Breon Mitchell's translation is an accomplishment of the highest order that will honor Kafka far into the twenty-first century.
Walter Abish - Author, How German Is It
Discussion Questions
The following questions are taken from a Random House Teachers Guide. Do take time to read the guide's Note to Teachers found on the Random House website.
1. “Arrest”
Analyze the novel’s first sentence, paying particular attention to the use of the passive voice (“ he was arrested”) and the lack of clear information about the origin of this slander (“someone”) or the nature of his guilt (“anything truly wrong”). In what ways does this sentence establish a pattern for Josef K.’s passivity and for what happens to him in the novel as a whole?
Discuss the significance of Josef K.’s name. Why doesn’t he have a full family name? Is “K.” a symbol for Kafka? But then why isn’t K.’s first name “Franz” (which is actually the name of one of the men who arrest him)? Discuss the other characters’ names, noting the use of family names for some characters (“Titorelli,” “Huld,” “Fraulein Burstner”) and first names for others (“Leni” or “Elsa”). Where does this place Josef K.?
Describe the men who arrest and interrogate Josef K. Are they policemen? What authority do they represent? When K. questions his arrest, he is told: “There’s been no mistake. [Our department] doesn’t seek out guilt among the general population, but, as the Law states, is attracted by guilt and has to send us guards out. That’s the Law” (pp. 8-9). In other words, “guilt” seems to precede an actual criminal act. You may want to discuss the biblical symbolism of Josef K.’s eating an apple for breakfast (p. 10), keeping in mind that the German term in the novel’s opening sentence (translated as “wrong”) can also mean “bad” or “evil.”
Why does Josef K. decide to “play along” with his arrest, even though the men who arrest him never show him any proof of their authority and he thinks it might be a “farce”? Does he behave as if he had a guilty conscience? What do we know about his past life and his family?
One of the unsettling aspects of K.’s arrest is its public nature. Strange men enter his bedroom, neighbors watch through the window while he is arrested, even his colleagues from the bank turn out to be present. Have students comment on this situation of constant surveillance. How does it influence the way K. reacts? Does he become “paranoid”?
2. Conversation with Frau Grubach / Then Fraulein Burstner
K.’s landlady, Frau Grubach, seems to know quite a bit about his arrest. Whose side do you think she’s on? What does K. think? What do we learn about K.’s private life in this chapter? about his neighbors in the boarding house? When Frau Grubach calls into question Frauelein Burstner’s morality, K. exclaims “if you want to run a clean house, you’ll have to start by giving me notice.” Why? And why does he “assault” Fraulein Burstner, a woman he hardly knows, lapping at her face like a “thirsty animal” and planting a long “vampire” kiss on her throat?
3. Initial Inquiry
How is K. summoned to his first inquiry? By whom? Describe the part of the city and the strange building in which it takes place. What are the social conditions of the people living here? Describe the meeting that takes place in the large hall and what K. gradually learns about the Court. K. accuses the examining magistrate of giving secret signals to someone in the audience; is this true? What happens to the washerwoman? How would you characterize K.’s frame of mind when he leaves the assembly?
4. In the Empty Courtroom/ The Student / The Offices
Why does K. decide to return to the courtroom the following Sunday even though he hasn’t been summoned? Contrary to his expectations, the assembly room is empty. Describe the strange, uncanny impression made by an empty room that was full of people in the preceding chapter. Discuss the significance of the room’s physical dirtiness and the lascivious books he finds there. What conclusions does K. draw concerning the nature of the Court? What does he learn from the washerwoman? K. almost passes out from the hot, stuffy air in the narrow corridors of the court? Discuss.
5. The Flogger
Describe the strange clothing worn by the flogger and the two guards that K. finds in the “junk room” of his bank. Why are they being punished? Does K. want to help the guards? How does the flogger describe their actions? Is this a sado-masochistic scene of punishment and humiliation? Does it reflect on the cruelty and submissiveness of other characters in the novel?
The day after this encounter, K. returns to the junk room and opens the door “as if by habit”; but instead of the expected darkness, he finds everything as before, with the flogger ready to beat the guards. Bring out the strangeness of this fact. How can we account for it realistically? Is it a dream?
6. The Uncle / Leni
What do we learn about K.’s family based on his discussions with his uncle? Why is his uncle worried about K.’s trial? K. and his uncle visit the lawyer Huld in the evening; the maid Leni greets them with a candle and takes them into Huld’s dark bedroom, where he is sick in bed. How do these physical details set the scene for K.’s legal defense? Why is K. disturbed to learn that Huld seems to be informed about his trial? Comment on the swiftness with which K. and Leni develop an intimate relationship. What do you make of her webbed hand and of K.’s description of it as “a pretty claw”? What does the uncle think of K.’s liaison with Leni and its effect on his trial?
7. Lawyer/ Manufacturer / Painter
The second paragraph of this chapter describing K.’s conversations with his lawyer lasts for ten full pages (pp. 110-122) and is summed up by the words “In such and similar speeches the lawyer was inexhaustible.” What is the effect on K. and the reader of this interminable paragraph? Does K.’s trial seem endless? How do K.’s worries about his trial affect his work at the bank?
What relations does Titorelli the painter have to the Court and K.’s trial? Is this his real name? Describe the section of town where Titorelli resides, his neighbors, and the building he lives in. What role do the girls play in their meeting? Does their physical deformity say anything about their moral character?
Titorelli is working on a portrait of a Court judge that has a dark figure in the background; he explains that the figure has been commissioned to represent “Justice and the goddess of Victory in one” (p. 145). What does this combination say about the nature of K.’s trial? What does Titorelli explain to K. about the possibility of winning a case?
8. Block, the Merchant / Dismissal of the Lawyer
At the beginning of this chapter K. seems ready to dismiss his lawyer. What does he discover in Huld’s house that makes him doubt his decision? How does K. behave toward the merchant Block? How do Leni and Huld treat him? What distinguishes K. from Block? Will he look and act like Block at a later stage in his trial? Can K. count on Leni’s support?
9. In the Cathedral
Discuss the importance of the cathedral setting for this chapter. What elements suggest a relationship between Josef K.’s trial and the crucifixion of Christ? The priest identifies himself as the “prison chaplain”; comment on this combination of the Church and the Court. Why does the priest describe K.’s tourist guidebook as full of “irrelevancies” and tell him to put it aside? What does he think about K.’s relations with women?
Discuss the parable “Before the Law” (pp. 215-17). Who is the “man from the country”? Describe the doorkeeper and his relationship to the Law. Why doesn’t the man from the country go in? Has he made a mistake? What does Josef K. learn about his own trial from this story? Note the complexity of the discussion between K. and the priest following the parable, which some critics have compared to rabbinical commentary of the Bible. Comment on K.’s final statement that “Lies are made into a universal system” (p. 223), and on the priest’s parting words to K. that “The court wants nothing from you. It receives you when you come and dismisses you when you go.” (p. 224) Does this mean that K.’s “trial” is self-inflicted?
10. The End
Describe K.’s clothing in the opening of the chapter; how does it relate to the clothing he put on at the beginning of his trial? Describe the men who take K. away, noting K.’s description of them as “supporting actors” and its relation to his initial decision to “play along” with the “farce” or “comedy.” Do you find it odd that he seems to expect them and know what they will do to him? Describe the fleeting appearance of the woman that K. takes to be Fraulein Burstner. Discuss K.’s final questions upon noticing a human figure in the distance: “Who was it? A friend? A good person? Someone who cared? Someone who wanted to help? [...] Where was the judge he’d never seen? Where was the high court he’d never reached?” (pp. 230-31).
What makes K.’s execution so horrific? K. thinks he dies “like a dog!” Why? Discuss the importance of shame, reputation, and one’s “good name” in the novel in light of this scene. Does the execution reflect badly on K. or on the Court? Whose side are you on? Does Kafka make it clear which side we should be on?
(Questions issued by Random House.)
A Trick of the Light (Inspector Gamache series, 7)
Louise Penney, 2011
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312655457
Summary
Hearts are broken,” Lillian Dyson carefully underlined in a book. “Sweet relationships are dead.” But now Lillian herself is dead.
Found among the bleeding hearts and lilacs of Clara Morrow's garden in Three Pines, shattering the celebrations of Clara's solo show at the famed Musée in Montreal. Chief Inspector Gamache, the head of homicide at the Surete du Quebec, is called to the tiny Quebec village and there he finds the art world gathered, and with it a world of shading and nuance, a world of shadow and light. Where nothing is as it seems.
Behind every smile there lurks a sneer. Inside every sweet relationship there hides a broken heart. And even when facts are slowly exposed, it is no longer clear to Gamache and his team if what they've found is the truth, or simply a trick of the light. (From the publisher.)
See all our Reading Guides for Chief Inspector Gamache novels by Louise Penny.
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
(Starred review.) Outstanding.... With her usual subtle touch and timely injections of humor, Penny effectively employs the recurring motif of the chiaroscuro, the interplay of light and dark, which distinguishes Morrow's artwork and which resonates symbolically in the souls of the author's characters.
Publishers Weekly
Like P. D. James, Penny shows how the tight structure of the classical mystery story can accommodate a wealth of deeply felt emotions and interpersonal drama.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Penny, elevating herself to the pantheon that houses P.D. James, Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters, demonstrates an exquisite touch with characterization, plotting and artistic sensitivity. And there could be no better explanation of A.A. than you will find here.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Clara is simultaneously elated and terrified by the long-awaited celebration of her art, while other artists throughout the novel struggle with varying degrees of success and recognition. How do you see both the rewards and the hardships of life as an artist?
2. “I was much too far out all my life/And not waving but drowning.” How do Stevie Smith’s lines apply to various characters in the story? Who seems to be drowning? Do you think they can be saved?
3. There are many old friendships in this book—from Lillian and Clara, to Gamache and Beauvoir, to the relationships among people in Three Pines. How do these friendships help—or in some cases hurt—the people involved? What do you make of Clara’s trip to see Lillian’s parents?
4. Old grievances also play an important role in the story. When do you think that forgiveness is, or is not, possible? How much can people change?
5. Who could possibly be happy sitting in a disgusting church basement on a Sunday night? Beauvoir wonders at the AA meeting. What do you think of that meeting, and the subsequent glimpses of what Suzanne calls “one drunk helping another”?
6. Lillian particularly highlighted these lines in the AA book: “Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead.” How does this idea recur throughout the novel, both for characters who are in AA and for others?
7. How do you regard Olivier Brule and the villagers’ differing responses to his return to Three Pines? If you have read previous books in the series, how have your impressions of the village evolved?
8. What do you think will ultimately happen to Peter and Clara’s marriage? What would you like to see happen?
9. Gamache “believed if you sift through evil, at the very bottom you’ll find good. He believed that evil has its limits. Beauvoir didn’t. He believed that if you sift through good, you’ll find evil.” What do you believe?
10. Chiaroscuro, as Beauvoir discovers, “means a bold contrast. The play of light and dark.” How do both darkness and light manifest themselves in the novel? How is it possible to tell the difference between genuine hope and “a trick of the light”?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Neil Gaiman, 2015
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062330260
Summary
In this new anthology, Neil Gaiman pierces the veil of reality to reveal the enigmatic, shadowy world that lies beneath.
Trigger Warning includes previously published pieces of short fiction—stories, verse, and a very special Doctor Who story that was written for the fiftieth anniversary of the beloved series in 2013—as well "Black Dog," a new tale that revisits the world of American Gods, exclusive to this collection.
Trigger Warning explores the masks we all wear and the people we are beneath them to reveal our vulnerabilities and our truest selves. Here is a rich cornucopia of horror and ghosts stories, science fiction and fairy tales, fabulism and poetry that explore the realm of experience and emotion.
In "Adventure Story"—a thematic companion to The Ocean at the End of the Lane—Gaiman ponders death and the way people take their stories with them when they die. His social media experience "A Calendar of Tales" are short takes inspired by replies to fan tweets about the months of the year—stories of pirates and the March winds, an igloo made of books, and a Mother’s Day card that portends disturbances in the universe.
Gaiman offers his own ingenious spin on Sherlock Holmes in his award-nominated mystery tale "The Case of Death and Honey." And "Click-Clack the Rattlebag" explains the creaks and clatter we hear when we’re all alone in the darkness.
A sophisticated writer whose creative genius is unparalleled, Gaiman entrances with his literary alchemy, transporting us deep into the realm of imagination, where the fantastical becomes real and the everyday incandescent. Full of wonder and terror, surprises and amusements, Trigger Warning is a treasury of delights that engage the mind, stir the heart, and shake the soul from one of the most unique and popular literary artists of our day. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Portchester, Hampshire, England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Awards—See below
• Currently—Lives near Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Early life
Gaiman's family is of Polish and other Eastern European Jewish origins; his great-grandfather emigrated from Antwerp before 1914 and his grandfather eventually settled in the Hampshire city of Portsmouth and established a chain of grocery stores. His father, David Bernard Gaiman, worked in the same chain of stores; his mother, Sheila Gaiman (nee Goldman), was a pharmacist. He has two younger sisters, Claire and Lizzy.
After living for a period in the nearby town of Portchester, Hampshire, where Neil was born in 1960, the Gaimans moved in 1965 to the West Sussex town of East Grinstead where his parents studied Dianetics at the Scientology centre in the town; one of Gaiman's sisters works for the Church of Scientology in Los Angeles. His other sister, Lizzy Calcioli, has said, "Most of our social activities were involved with Scientology or our Jewish family. It would get very confusing when people would ask my religion as a kid. I’d say, 'I’m a Jewish Scientologist.'" Gaiman says that he is not a Scientologist, and that like Judaism, Scientology is his family's religion.
Gaiman was able to read at the age of four. He said...
I was a reader. I loved reading. Reading things gave me pleasure. I was very good at most subjects in school, not because I had any particular aptitude in them, but because normally on the first day of school they'd hand out schoolbooks, and I'd read them-which would mean that I'd know what was coming up, because I'd read it.
One work that made a particular impression on him was J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings from his school library, although it only had the first two books in the trilogy. He consistently took them out and read them. He would later win the school English prize and the school reading prize, enabling him to finally acquire the third book in the trilogy.
For his seventh birthday, Gaiman received C. S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series. Years later, he said...
I admired his use of parenthetical statements to the reader, where he would just talk to you.... I'd think, 'Oh, my gosh, that is so cool! I want to do that! When I become an author, I want to be able to do things in parentheses.' I liked the power of putting things in brackets.
Narnia also introduced him to literary awards, specifically the 1956 Carnegie Medal won by the concluding volume. When he won 2010 Medal himself, the press reported him recalling, "....It had to be the most important literary award there ever was" and observing, "if you can make yourself aged seven happy, you're really doing well – it's like writing a letter to yourself aged seven."
Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was another childhood favourite, and "a favourite forever. Alice was default reading to the point where I knew it by heart." He also enjoyed "Batman" comics as a child.
Gaiman was educated at several Church of England schools, includging Fonthill School in East Grinstead, Ardingly College (1970–74), and Whitgift School in Croydon (1974–77). His father's position as a public relations official of the Church of Scientology was the cause of the seven-year-old Gaiman being blocked from entering a boys' school, forcing him to remain at the school that he had previously been attending. He lived in East Grinstead for many years, from 1965–1980 and again from 1984–1987. He met his first wife, Mary McGrath, while she was studying Scientology and living in a house in East Grinstead that was owned by his father. The couple were married in 1985 after having their first child, Michael.
Early Writings
As a child and a teenager, Gaiman read the works of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll, James Branch Cabell, Edgar Allan Poe, Michael Moorcock, Ursula K. Le Guin, Harlan Ellison, Rudyard Kipling, Lord Dunsany and G. K. Chesterton. He later became a fan of science fiction, reading the works of authors as diverse as Alan Moore, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, Robert A. Heinlein, H. P. Lovecraft, Thorne Smith, and Gene Wolfe.
In the early 1980s, Gaiman pursued journalism, conducting interviews and writing book reviews, as a means to learn about the world and to make connections that he hoped would later assist him in getting published. He wrote and reviewed extensively for the British Fantasy Society. His first professional short story publication was "Featherquest", a fantasy story, in Imagine Magazine in May 1984, when he was 24.
When waiting for a train at Victoria Station in 1984, Gaiman noticed a copy of Swamp Thing written by Alan Moore, and carefully read it. Moore's fresh and vigorous approach to comics had such an impact on Gaiman that he would later write; "that was the final straw, what was left of my resistance crumbled. I proceeded to make regular and frequent visits to London's Forbidden Planet shop to buy comics".
In 1984, he wrote his first book, a biography of the band Duran Duran, as well as Ghastly Beyond Belief, a book of quotations, with Kim Newman. Even though Gaiman thought he did a terrible job, the book's first edition sold out very quickly. When he went to relinquish his rights to the book, he discovered the publisher had gone bankrupt. After this, he was offered a job by Penthouse. He refused the offer.
He also wrote interviews and articles for many British magazines, including Knave. As he was writing for different magazines, some of them competing, and "wrote too many articles", he sometimes went by a number of pseudonyms: Gerry Musgrave, Richard Grey, "along with a couple of house names". Gaiman ended his journalism career in 1987 because British newspapers can "make up anything they want and publish it as fact."
In the late 1980s, he wrote Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion in what he calls a "classic English humour" style. Following on from that he wrote the opening of what would become his collaboration with Terry Pratchett on the comic novel Good Omens, about the impending apocalypse.
Comics and Graphic Novels
After forming a friendship with comic book writer Alan Moore, Gaiman started writing comic books, picking up "Marvelman" after Moore finished his run on the series. Gaiman and artist Mark Buckingham collaborated on several issues of the series before its publisher, Eclipse Comics, collapsed, leaving the series unfinished. His first published comic strips were four short "Future Shocks for 2000 AD" in 1986–7. He wrote three graphic novels with his favorite collaborator and long-time friend Dave McKean: "Violent Cases", "Signal to Noise", and "The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch". Impressed with his work, DC Comics hired him, and he wrote the limited series "Black Orchid". Karen Berger, who later became head of DC Comics's Vertigo, read "Black Orchid" and offered Gaiman a job: to re-write an old character, The Sandman, but to put his own spin on him.
"The Sandman" tells the tale of the ageless, anthropomorphic personification of Dream that is known by many names, including Morpheus. The series began in December 1988 and concluded in March 1996: the 75 issues of the regular series, along with an illustrated prose text and a special containing seven short stories, have been collected into 12 volumes that remain in print.
In 1989, Gaiman published "The Books of Magic" (collected in 1991), a four-part mini-series that provided a tour of the mythological and magical parts of the DC Universe through a frame story about an English teenager who discovers that he is destined to be the world's greatest wizard. The miniseries was popular, and sired an ongoing series written by John Ney Rieber.
In the mid-90s, he also created a number of new characters and a setting that was to be featured in a title published by Tekno Comix. The concepts were then altered and split between three titles set in the same continuity: "Lady Justice, Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man, and Teknophage".They were later featured in Phage: Shadow Death and Wheel of Worlds. Although Gaiman's name appeared prominently on all titles, he was not involved in writing of any of the above-mentioned books (though he helped plot the zero issue of Wheel of Worlds).
Gaiman wrote a semi-autobiographical story about a boy's fascination with Michael Moorcock's anti-hero Elric of Melniboné for Ed Kramer's anthology Tales of the White Wolf. In 1996, Gaiman and Ed Kramer co-edited The Sandman: Book of Dreams. Nominated for the British Fantasy Award, the original fiction anthology featured stories and contributions by Tori Amos, Clive Barker, Gene Wolfe, Tad Williams, and others.
Asked why he likes comics more than other forms of storytelling Gaiman said “One of the joys of comics has always been the knowledge that it was, in many ways, untouched ground. It was virgin territory. When I was working on Sandman, I felt a lot of the time that I was actually picking up a machete and heading out into the jungle. I got to write in places and do things that nobody had ever done before. When I’m writing novels I’m painfully aware that I’m working in a medium that people have been writing absolutely jaw-droppingly brilliant things for, you know, three-four thousand years now. And you go, well, I don’t know that I’m as good as that and that’s two and a half thousand years old. But with comics I felt like I can do stuff nobody has ever done. I can do stuff nobody has ever thought of. And I could and it was enormously fun.”
In 2009, Gaiman wrote a two-part "Batman" story for DC Comics to follow "Batman R.I.P." It is titled "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" a play off of the classic Superman story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore. He also contributed a twelve-page "Metamorpho" story drawn by Mike Allred for Wednesday Comics, a weekly newspaper-style series.
Novels
In a collaboration with author Terry Pratchett (best known for his series of Discworld novels), Gaiman's first novel Good Omens was published in 1990. In recent years Pratchett has said that while the entire novel was a collaborative effort and most of the ideas could be credited to both of them, Pratchett did a larger portion of writing and editing if for no other reason than Gaiman's scheduled involvement with "Sandman".
The 1996 novelization of Gaiman's teleplay for the BBC mini-series Neverwhere was his first solo novel. The novel was released in tandem with the television series though it presents some notable differences from the television series. In 1999 first printings of his fantasy novel Stardust were released. The novel has been released both as a standard novel and in an illustrated text edition.
American Gods became one of Gaiman's best-selling and multi-award winning novels upon its release in 2001. A special 10th Anniversary edition was released, with the "author's preferred text" 12,000 words longer than the original mass-market editions. This is identical to the signed and numbered limited edition that was released by Hill House Publishers in 2003. This is also the version released by Headline, Gaiman's publisher in the UK, even before the 10th Anniversary edition. He did an extensive sold-out book tour celebrating the 10th Anniversary and promoting this edition in 2011.
In 2005, his novel Anansi Boys was released worldwide. The book deals with Anansi ('Mr. Nancy'), a supporting character in American Gods. Specifically it traces the relationship of his two sons, one semi-divine and the other an unaware Englishman of American origin, as they explore their common heritage. It debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.
In late 2008, Gaiman released a new children's book, The Graveyard Book. It follows the adventures of a boy named Bod after his family is murdered and he is left to be brought up by a graveyard. It is heavily influenced by Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. As of late January 2009, it had been on the New York Times Bestseller children's list for fifteen weeks.
As of 2008, Gaiman has several books planned. After a tour of China, he decided to write a non-fiction book about his travels and the general mythos of China. Following that, will be a new 'adult' novel (his first since 2005's Anansi Boys). After that, another 'all-ages' book (in the same vein as Coraline and The Graveyard Book). Following that, Gaiman says that he will release another non-fiction book called The Dream Catchers. In December 2011, Gaiman announced that in January 2012 he would begin work on what is essentially, American Gods 2.
Literary Allusions
Gaiman's work is known for a high degree of allusiveness. Meredith Collins, for instance, has commented upon the degree to which his novel Stardust depends on allusions to Victorian fairy tales and culture. Particularly in The Sandman, literary figures and characters appear often; the character of Fiddler's Green is modelled visually on G. K. Chesterton, both William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer appear as characters, as do several characters from within A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Tempest. The comic also draws from numerous mythologies and historical periods. Such allusions are not unique to Sandman; Stardust, for example, also has a character called Shakespeare.
Clay Smith has argued that this sort of allusiveness serves to situate Gaiman as a strong authorial presence in his own works, often to the exclusion of his collaborators. However, Smith's viewpoint is in the minority: to many, if there is a problem with Gaiman scholarship and intertextuality it is that "...His literary merit and vast popularity have propelled him into the nascent comics canon so quickly that there is not yet a basis of critical scholarship about his work."
David Rudd takes a more generous view in his study of the novel Coraline, where he argues that the work plays and riffs productively on Sigmund Freud's notion of the Uncanny, or the Unheimlich.
Though Gaiman's work is frequently seen as exemplifying the monomyth structure laid out in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Gaiman says that he started reading The Hero with a Thousand Faces but refused to finish it: "I think I got about half way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true – I don’t want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it’s true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is."
Awards
British Fantasy Award
British Sci-Fi Awards (2)
Bram Stoker Awards (4)
Carnegie Medal
Eisner Awards (19)
Geffen Awards (3)
Hugo Awards (4)
International Horror Guild Award
Locus Awards (5)
Nebula Awards (2)
Newberry Medal
Mythopoeic Awards (2)
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/27/2013.)
Book Reviews
A prodigiously imaginative collection.... The best of these clever fantasy metafictions explore the mysteries of artistic inspiration.
New York Times Book Review
[Gaiman]’s prolific, like Stephen King, and apparently inexhaustible: He dreams up stories as naturally as he breathes.
Slate
There’s much to revel in here, especially for those who’ve never read anything by Gaiman.
Huffington Post
Each short piece serves as an exciting foray into some macabre microcosm of his mind.... It’s a testament to Gaiman’s versatility that he exhibits so many different styles of writing in this single anthology.
Harvard Crimson
There is something for every type of Gaiman fan here, and those new to his work will find this to be a solid introduction to the type of stories he crafts: lyrical, literary, sometimes quite chilling, and always strange and provocative.... This is a book to savor and enjoy.
Bookreporter.com
Those who want to greet and shake hands, or settle in for a conversational catch-up with Gaiman’s delightfully dramatic minstrel’s tale-by-the-campfire style will love everything in Trigger Warning, naturally.
Booklist
Everything that endears Gaiman to his legions of fans is on display in this collection of short stories (and the occasional poem): his gift for reimagining ancient tales, his willingness to get down into the dark places, his humor.... [T]his collection will thoroughly satisfy faithful fans.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Neil Gaiman begins the introduction to Trigger Warning with two seemingly dissimilar ideas: taking a journey and wearing a mask. In what way is beginning a book like beginning a journey?
2. He writes, "We are all wearing masks. That is what makes us interesting. These are stories about those masks, and the people underneath them." Does this idea illuminate anything about the characters in the book for you? What does the idea of mask-wearing mean for you as a reader?
3. Also in the introduction, Gaiman refers to short stories as "small adventures" he can take as a writer. Are short stories also small adventures for readers? What are some of the pleasures and surprises one can find in a short story that aren’t found in a novel?
4. Gaiman shares some background or inspiration about each story at the beginning of the book. Did you read this section before or after you read the stories themselves? How did reading these introductions before the stories color your reading of them? Or, how did the introductions enhance your understanding or appreciation of the stories after having read them? Did the introduction section and "Making a Chair" help you understand Gaiman’s writing process and storytelling intentions?
5. What is a "trigger warning"? Why is it an apt reference and title for this collection? Gaiman explains that the book is "filled with stories in which things happen, and many of those stories end badly for at least one of the people in them. They are not safe, even if they are friendly." What triggers might the stories pull for readers? In this instance, can the emotional challenge of the tales be a positive thing?
6. In "The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains…" the narrator states "everything has its cost." What does that mean for the characters in this story in particular and for characters in other stories in the collection? Which characters lost the most or paid the highest costs? What do they gain in exchange, and does the high cost ever seem worth what they gain?
7. Secret, prophetic or mystical knowledge seems to be a trait shared by many of the characters in Trigger Warning. How trustworthy are characters like the guide in "A Lunar Labyrinth," the mother in "Adventure Story" or the wife in "Jerusalem"? Do you take their perspective at face value or look for a deeper cause or origin of their beliefs and actions? Do fantasy and horror stories need to be read with a suspension of disbelief, or can they be read from a purely psychological perspective as well?
8. In reading "And Weep Like Alexander," did anything come to mind that you think should be uninvented? What would be the consequences of uninventing it? Do you imagine uninvention, as Polkinghorn does, as "for the good of all" or as a more selfish or self-motivated act? Are we always stuck with the mistakes we’ve made or the disasters we’ve created? How would the world be different if we could change the mistakes or erase the disasters?
9. "Nothing O’Clock" and "Diamonds and Pearls" which appear back to back in this collection, are very different types of stories. The first is a science fiction story starring Doctor Who and the second a fairy tale, but both take the bones of their respective genres and add new elements. In what ways do these stories seem familiar and referential, and in what ways are they surprising and inventive?
10. How do "Observing the Formalities" and "The Sleeper and the Spindle" play with the Sleeping Beauty and Snow White fables? Did you readily see this connection?
11. There are many and diverse dangers described in Trigger Warning. Some are physical and others metaphysical, some are emotional and some involve a threat to reason or logic. Which kind of danger do you find the most frightening and why? Which story was the scariest, the most chilling or the most disturbing?
12. The Queen in "The Thin White Duke" tells the Duke, "We are the end of everything, where nothing exists but what we create, by act of will or by desperation… You do not have to die. You can stay with me. You will be happy to have finally found happiness, a heart, and the value of existence. And I will love you." Do you think her promise is of the kind that most of the characters in the collection are searching for? If so, why does the Duke reject her offer? What motivates the characters in Trigger Warning the most, and what are they seeking or hoping for?
13. Think about the love letter that is "Feminine Endings" and compare the deceptively simple desires of that narrator with both the Queen and the Duke in "The Thin White Duke."
14. In what ways do the poetic pieces in this collection tell stories as full as the short stories? In what ways are the short stories as evocative and lyrical as the poems?
15. In the introduction, Gaiman writes that short story collections "should not, hodge-podge and willy-nilly assemble stories that were obviously not intended to sit between the same covers." He goes on to say that this particular collection "fails this test." Do you agree or disagree? What did you enjoy about the variety of styles and genres found in Trigger Warning?
16. What is your favorite story in the collection and why? Did you respond to it emotionally, intellectually or aesthetically?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Troubles
J.G. Farrell, 1970
New York Review of Books
459 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781590170182
Summary
Winner, 2010 Lost Booker Prize
1919: After surviving the Great War, Major Brendan Archer makes his way to Ireland, hoping to discover whether he is indeed betrothed to Angela Spencer, whose Anglo-Irish family owns the once-aptly-named Majestic Hotel in Kilnalough. But his fiancee is strangely altered and her family's fortunes have suffered a spectacular decline.
The hotel's hundreds of rooms are disintegrating on a grand scale; its few remaining guests thrive on rumors and games of whist; herds of cats have taken over the Imperial Bar and the upper stories; bamboo shoots threaten the foundations; and piglets frolic in the squash court. Meanwhile, the Major is captivated by the beautiful and bitter Sarah Devlin.
As housekeeping disasters force him from room to room, outside the order of the British Empire also totters: there is unrest in the East, and in Ireland itself the mounting violence of "the troubles." (From the publisher.)
This is the first book in Farrell's Empire Trilogy; the second is The Siege of Krishnapur (1970) and the third is The Singapore Grip (1978).
Author Bio
• Birth—January 25, 1935
• Where—Liverpool, England, UK
• Death—August 11, 1979
• Where—Bantry Bay, County Cork, Ireland
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Booker Prize; Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; Lost Man Booker Prize
James Gordon Farrell was a Liverpool-born novelist of Irish descent. He gained prominence for a series of novels known as the Empire Trilogy (Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip), which deal with the political and human consequences of British colonial rule.
Farrell's career abruptly ended when he drowned in Ireland at the age of 44, swept to his death in a storm. "Had he not sadly died so young,” Salman Rushdie said in 2008, "there is no question that he would today be one of the really major novelists of the English language. The three novels that he did leave are all in their different way extraordinary."
Troubles received the 1971 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and The Siege of Krishnapur received the 1973 Booker Prize. In 2010 Troubles was retrospectively awarded the Lost Man Booker Prize, created to recognise works published in 1970. Troubles and its fellow shortlisted works had not been open for consideration that year due to a change in the eligibility rules.
Early life and education
Farrell, born in Liverpool into a family of Anglo-Irish background, was the second of three sons. His father, William Farrell, had worked as an accountant in Bengal, and in 1929 he married Prudence Josephine Russell, a former receptionist and secretary to a doctor. From the age of 12 he attended Rossall public school in Lancashire.
After World War II, the Farrells moved to Dublin, and from this point on Farrell spent much time in Ireland: this, perhaps combined with the popularity of Troubles, leads many to treat him as an Irish writer. After leaving Rossall, he taught in Dublin and also worked for some time on Distant Early Warning Line in the Canadian Arctic.
In 1956, he went to study at Brasenose College, Oxford; while there he contracted polio. This would leave him partially crippled, and the disease would be prominent in his works. In 1960 he left Oxford with Third-class honours in French and Spanish and went to live in France, where he taught at a lycee.
Early works
Farrell published his first novel, A Man From Elsewhere, in 1963. Set in France, it shows the clear influence of French existentialism. The story follows Sayer, who is a journalist for a communist paper, as he tries to find skeletons in Regan's closet. Regan is a dying novelist who is about to be awarded an important Catholic literary prize. The book mimics the fight between the two leaders of French existentialism: Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. The two argue about existentialism: the position that murder can be vindicated as an expedient in overthrowing tyranny (Sartre) versus the stance that there are no ends that justify unjust means (Camus). Bernard Bergonzi reviewed it in the New Statesman in the 20 September 1963 issue and said, "Many first novels are excessively autobiographical, but A Man from Elsewhere suffers from the opposite fault of being a cerebral construct, dreamed up out of literature and the contemporary French cinema." Farrell himself came to dislike the book.
Two years after this came The Lung, in which Farrell returned to his real-life trauma of less than a decade earlier: the main character Martin Sands contracts polio and has to spend a long period in hospital. It has been noted that it is somewhat modelled after Farrell, but it is modelled more after Geoffrey Firmin from Malcolm Lowry 1947 novel, Under the Volcano. The anonymous reviewer for The Observer wrote that "Mr. Farrell gives the pleasantly solid impression of really having something to write about" and one for The Times Literary Supplement that "Mr. Farrell's is an effective, potent brew, compounded of desperation and a certain wild hilarity."
In 1967, he published A Girl in the Head. The protagonist, the impoverished Polish count Boris Slattery, lives in the fictional English seaside town of Maidenhair Bay, in the house of the Dongeon family (which is believed to be modeled after V. S. Naipaul's A House for Mr Biswas). His marriage to Flower Dongeon is decaying. His companion is Dr. Cohen, who is a dying alcoholic. Boris also has sex with an underaged teenager, June Furlough. He also fantasizes about Ines, a Swedish summer guest, who is the "girl in the head." Boris is believed to be modeled after Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. Like its two predecessors, the book met only middling critical and public reaction.
Empire Trilogy
Troubles (1970) tells the comic yet melancholy tale of an English Major, Brendan Archer, who in 1919 goes to County Wexford in Ireland to meet the woman he believes he may be engaged to marry. From the crumbling Majestic Hotel at Kilnalough, he watches Ireland's fight for independence from Britain. Farrell started writing this book while on a Harkness Fellowship in the United States and finished it in a tiny flat in Knightsbridge, London. He won a Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for the novel, and with the prize money travelled to India to research his next novel.
Farrell's next book The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) and his last completed work The Singapore Grip (1978) both continue his story of the collapse of British colonial power. The former deals with the Indian Rebellion of 1857. Inspired by historical events such as the sieges of Cawnpore and Lucknow, the novel is set in the fictional town of Krishnapur, where a besieged British garrison succeeds in holding out for four months against an army of native sepoys, in the face of enormous suffering, before being relieved.
The third of the novels, The Singapore Grip, centres upon the Japanese capture of the British colonial city of Singapore in 1942, while also exploring at some length the economics and ethics of colonialism at the time, as well as the economic relationship between developed and Third World countries at the time that Farrell was writing.
The three novels are in general linked only thematically, although Archer, a character in Troubles, reappears in The Singapore Grip. The protagonist of Farrell's unfinished novel, The Hill Station, is Dr McNab, introduced in The Siege of Krishnapur; this novel and its accompanying notes make the series a quartet.
When The Siege of Krishnapur won the Booker Prize in 1973, Farrell used his acceptance speech to attack the sponsors, the Booker Group, for their business involvement in the agricultural sector in the Third World. In this vein, some readers have found Farrell's critique of colonialism and capitalism in his subsequent novel The Singapore Grip to be heavy-handed, although those new to the book after the crash of 2008 might not find it so.
Death
In 1979, Farrell decided to quit London to take up residence on the Sheep's Head peninsula in southwestern Ireland. A few months later he was found drowned on the coast of Bantry Bay, after falling in from rocks while angling. He was 44.
He is buried in the cemetery of St. James's Church of Ireland in Durrus. The manuscript library at Trinity College, Dublin holds his papers: Papers of James Gordon Farrell (1935–1979). TCD MSS 9128-60.
Legacy
Ronald Binns described Farrell's colonial novels as "probably the most ambitious literary project conceived and executed by any British novelist in the 1970s."
In the 1984 novel Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie, Vinnie Miner, the protagonist, reads a Farrell novel on her flight from New York to London. In the 1991 novel The Gates of Ivory by Margaret Drabble, the writer Stephen Cox is modelled on Farrell.
Charles Sturridge scripted a film version of Troubles made for British television in 1988 and directed by Christopher Morahan.
Quotes
Farrell said to George Brock in an interview for The Observer Magazine, "the really interesting thing that's happened during my lifetime has been the decline of the British Empire." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/12/2015.)
Book Reviews
Remarkable.... Mr. Farrell deserves high praise for this novel. It is subtly modulated, richly textured, sad, funny, and altogether memorable.
Times Literary Supplement (UK)
Farrell wrote superbly; all his books had a quality that hallmarks great literary talent—he could “do” texture. This album—which is what Troubles feels like—records the same Anglo-Irish as Elizabeth Bowen knew and belonged to. As with Bowen, this feels like the real thing (which is all a novel has to do). Always judge a writer by his grasp of what he doesn’t know: Farrell died young yet his old people are almost his best creations.
Frank Delaney - The Guardian (UK)
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 Troubles:
1. Why does Edward Spencer want his tenants to sign the loyalty oath to the King? Why do the tenants refuse?
2. Why does Farrell use the hotel as the setting for his novel? What is the irony behind the name of the hotel...and in what way does it serve as a metaphor?
3. What is the cause of the hotel's increasing dilapidation...and why do its residents remain? As Farrell's descriptions of the hotel began to pile up, one after the other, does it elicit in you a sense of claustrophobia?
4. One reviewer says that the "decrepitude of the Majestic offers Farrell unlimited opportunities to indulge his formidable gifts of description and wry humor." Take a few moments to pick out some passages that demonstrate those descriptive and humorous gifts. How about the Palm Court...or the Imperial Bar? The peacocks...or cats? Or the Major switching from one room to another?
5. What about Angela Spencer, Major Archer's fiancee? What do you think of her? And how 'bout that Sarah Devlin? Discuss thoroughly...and defend your answer!
6. What attitude do the Protestants take vis-a-vis Sinn Fein and the killings? How do those in the hotel view the Irish people in general?
7. What is the significance of the shooting of the Majestic's cats...and Edward's shooting his beloved dog? What do the shootings foreshadow?
8. What do you come to learn about the effects of the 1916 Easter Rebellion and disturbances at the Peace Day Parade in Dublin? Do those events and others justify the actions of Sinn Fein? Or do the actions of Sinn Fein simply encourage reprisals on the part of the British? Can revenge killing be justified—on either side?
9. Farrell incorporates news stories into his novel. What is their purpose...what do they convey? Did you enjoy the tecnhique...or find it disruptive to the flow of the narrative?
10. How does Farrell's work present colonialism. Is his presentation fair...or biased? Were the effects of colonialism always negative; were there ever benefits?
11. As a writer does Farrell create sympathy with one side of the Irish conflict over the other? Or does he portray both sides in a compassionate, although perhaps satiric (even absurd), manner. Did you find yourself sympathsizing with the Anglo-aristocracy driven out of their homes, as well as with the oppressed Irish people?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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True Colors
Kristin Hannah, 2009
St. Martin's Press
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312606121
Summary
The Grey sisters have always been close. After their mother’s death, the girls banded together, becoming best friends. Their stern, disapproving father cares less about his children than about his reputation. To Henry Grey, appearances are everything, and years later, he still demands that his daughters reflect his standing in the community.
Winona, the oldest, needs her father’s approval most of all. An overweight bookworm who never felt at home on the sprawling horse ranch that has been in her family for three generations, she knows that she doesn’t have the qualities her father values. But as the best lawyer in town, she’s determined to someday find a way to prove her worth to him.
Aurora, the middle sister, is the family peacemaker. She brokers every dispute and tries to keep them all happy, even as she hides her own secret pain.
Vivi Ann is the undisputed star of the family. A stunningly beautiful dreamer with a heart as big as the ocean in front of her house, she is adored by all who know her. Everything comes easily for Vivi Ann, until a stranger comes to town.
In a matter of moments, everything will change. The Grey sisters will be pitted against one another in ways that none could have imagined. Loyalties will be tested and secrets revealed, and a terrible, shocking crime will shatter both their family and their beloved town.
With breathtaking pace and penetrating emotional insight, True Colors is an unforgettable novel about sisters, rivalry, forgiveness, redemption—and ultimately, what it means to be a family. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September, 1960
• Where—Southern California, USA
• Reared—Western Washington State
• Education—J.D., from a school in Washington (state)
• Awards—Golden Heart Award; Maggie Award; National Reader's Choice
• Currently—lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington
I was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When I was eight years old, my father drove us to Western Washington where we called home.
After working in a trendy advertising agency, I decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words I will never forget from my mother. I was in my third-and final-year of law school and my mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. I was shocked to discover that she believed I would become a writer. For the next few months, we collaborated on the worst, most cliched historical romance ever written.
After my mom's death, I packed up all those bits and pieces of paper we'd collected and put them in a box in the back of my closet. I got married and continued practicing law.
Then I found out I was pregnant, but was on bed rest for five months. By the time I'd read every book in the house and started asking my husband for cereal boxes to read, I knew I was a goner. That's when my darling husband reminded me of the book I'd started with my mom. I pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time my son was born, I'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred me to try harder, work more. In 1990, I got "the call," and in that moment, I went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and I've never looked back. In all the years between then and now, I have never lost my love of, or my enthusiasm for, telling stories. I am truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. (From the author's website .)
Book Reviews
Deliciously romantic and often heartbreaking, this is a book you'll want to climb inside of and stay as long as possible.
People
In her 17th novel, bestseller Hannah portrays the delicate and enduring bonds of sisterhood. The story of the Grey sisters is set in a small Washington town and follows Winona, Aurora and Vivi Ann from the time of their mother's death, when they are young teens in 1979, on through adulthood, cataloguing their trials and the men who typically come bearing them, beginning with Luke, Winona's high school best friend and secret crush. But when he falls in love with Vivi Ann, who later cheats on him with farmhand Dallas, it leads a jealous Winona to betray her sister. Vivi Ann and Dallas get married, have a baby and run the Grey family farm, but Dallas is eventually arrested for murder, and lawyer Winona refuses to take his case, seemingly killing her relationship with Vivi Ann. Dallas is convicted and things look bleak for Vivi Ann and her son, but Winona's late-breaking friendship with her nephew paves the way for the happy ending. Though Hannah boldly embraces over-the-top drama, she really knows what women—her characters and her audience—want.
Publishers Weekly
As Hannah explores the deep, emotional connection between sisters, she creates a beautiful and captivating story of love and rivalry, family and community, that readers will happily devour.
Booklist
Teenage sisters Winona, Aurora, and Vivi Ann are shattered when their mother dies, but what comes close to destroying their relationship is the reaction of their father, a hard man who dotes on his youngest daughter, Vivi Ann, disparages Winona, the eldest, and ignores Aurora, who tries hard to keep peace in the family. Flash-forward 13 years, and Winona is still desperate for her father's approval and increasingly jealous of Vivi Ann. When Luke Connelly, the man Winona has always loved, begins dating an oblivious Vivi Ann, events are set in motion that will hurt everyone involved and come close to destroying one sister's life. It is difficult to care for the self-righteous Winona, the novel's central character, but Hannah, a former romance writer (Once in Every Life) and prolific novelist (Firefly Lane), does a lovely job of handling the relationship between Vivi Ann and her husband. An engrossing, fast-paced story that will appeal to readers of Barbara Delinsky and fans of women's fiction.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. In the novel’s opening scene, Henry pits one daughter against the other by simply handing one a lead rope. Winona realizes the impact of his action and knows that from then on, something in their family is changed. Does her realization change the outcome or solidify it? How does this scene reflect the central conflict in the novel? How do Henry’s choices set in motion the difficulties that lie ahead?
2. The epigraph at the start of the novel is about passion. Why do you think the author chose this quote? How does passion, in all its many forms, lie at the very heart of True Colors?
3. Winona, Aurora, and Vivi Ann have similar and idealized perceptions of their mother. How has her absence affected them, separately and collectively? Conversely, each sister has a radically different perception of Henry. Who is the real Henry? Which sister has the most accurate understanding of who he is? Is Henry’s antipathy toward his daughters subject to interpretation or is he as cold and uncaring as he appears?
4. There is obviously a symbiotic relationship between person and place in this novel. What part does the small town setting play in the novel? Could this story have taken place in a big city? What would have played out differently, in your opinion? What would have remained the same? How does the setting reflect the differences between Vivi Ann and Winona? Certainly it appears at first glance that Vivi Ann is more rooted at Water’s Edge and in Oyster Shores than Winona. Is this really true?
5. The Grey sisters would have said that they were happy before Dallas came to town. Is that true? Or was Winona right at fifteen when she observed that “from then on, jealousy had become an undercurrent, swirling beneath their lives”? Was Dallas actually the cause of their troubles? Was Luke? Or was the disintegration of the family inevitable? Who is most to blame for the bad things that happen to the Grey family?
6. How do Winona’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities play into the story? How do her strengths? Do you see her as a likeable character? A good sister?
7. How about Vivi Ann? In what way is she really the architect of her own life? How do her strengths and weaknesses allow for all of the good and bad things in the novel to happen? How would this story have been changed by honesty between the sisters from the beginning?
8. There are several moments in the story when Winona makes difficult choices. Was she right to tell Luke about Vivi Ann’s affair? Should she have represented Dallas at his first trial? Did she deny the case for personal or professional reasons?
9. Noah becomes the first true catalyst for change in the Grey family. Like Vivi Ann, Aurora, and Winona, he has grown up in the shadow of loss. He is a fatherless boy; they are motherless girls. How has Vivi Ann’s parenting hurt Noah and set him on his self destructive path? Is Vivi Ann’s downfall understandable? Regrettable? Unacceptable? If she had been your sister, what would you have done to help her deal with Dallas’s imprisonment?
10. Do you understand Dallas? Or did he remain enigmatic throughout the story? Did your belief in his guilt or innocence change throughout the course of the novel? How much did he contribute to his own legal problems? How did Vivi Ann contribute to them? When did he fall in love with Vivi Ann, and why?
11. Prejudice is an important component of the story. In small, close-knit communities like Oyster Shores, it can often be difficult to be perceived as an outsider. How much of Dallas’s arrest depends upon prejudice? Would he have been arrested as quickly if he’d been “one of them?” What if he had been white? How much did his own bad reputation in town work against him?
12. Eyewitness testimony is often unreliable. This is especially true for minorities and people of color. Why do you think this is? What should we, as a society, do about it? Was Myrtle mistaken in her testimony? Did she lie? Did she simply see what she expected to see?
13. Was Vivi Ann wrong to give up on Dallas? Was Dallas right to ask it of her?
14. Discuss Henry. Does he change over the course of the story? Does he love his daughters? How did the loss of his wife contribute to the father he has become? Would he change if he could?
15. Think about the future. How is the Grey family changed by all that they have endured? Where do they go from here? Do Vivi, Noah, and Dallas stay at Water’s Edge? What about Winona? How has she been changed by the journey she has undertaken? Is she still jealous of her sister? Desperate for her father’s love? Will she stay in Oyster Shores? Should she? Will she and Luke make a future together? And what about Noah? For most of his life he’s been able to blame his bad behavior on someone else. What will his life be like now that his father is home?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Truly Madly Guilty
Liane Moriarty, 2016
Flatiron Books
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250069795
Summary
Liane Moriarty turns her unique, razor-sharp eye towards three seemingly happy families.
Sam and Clementine have a wonderful, albeit, busy life: they have two little girls, Sam has just started a new dream job, and Clementine, a cellist, is busy preparing for the audition of a lifetime. If there’s anything they can count on, it’s each other.
Clementine and Erika are each other’s oldest friends. A single look between them can convey an entire conversation. But theirs is a complicated relationship, so when Erika mentions a last minute invitation to a barbecue with her neighbors, Tiffany and Vid, Clementine and Sam don’t hesitate. Having Tiffany and Vid’s larger than life personalities there will be a welcome respite.
Two months later, it won’t stop raining, and Clementine and Sam can’t stop asking themselves the question: What if we hadn’t gone?
In Truly Madly Guilty, Liane Moriarty takes on the foundations of our lives: marriage, sex, parenthood, and friendship. She shows how guilt can expose the fault lines in the most seemingly strong relationships, how what we don’t say can be more powerful than what we do, and how sometimes it is the most innocent of moments that can do the greatest harm. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 1966
• Where—Sydney, Australia
• Education—M.A., Macquarie University
• Currently—lives in Sydney
Liane Moriarty is an Australian author and sister of author Jaclyn Moriarty. In its review of her 2013 novel, The Husband's Secret, she was referred to as "an edgier, more provocative and bolder successor to Maeve Binchy" by Kirkus Reviews.
Moriarty began work in advertising and marketing at a legal publishing company. She then ran her own company for a while before taking work as a freelance advertising copywriter. In 2004, after obtaining a Master's degree at Macquarie University in Sydney, her first novel Three Wishes, written as part of the degree, was published.
She is now the author of several other novels, including The Last Anniversary (2006) and What Alice Forgot (2010), The Hypnotist's Love Story (2011), The Husband's Secret (2013), and Big Little Lies (2014). She is also the author of the Nicola Berry series for children.
Moriarty lives in Sydney with her husband and two children. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/5/2013.)
Book Reviews
Sadly, there is too much trope and too much tease in Liane Moriarty's Truly, Madly, Guilty for it to stand up well in comparison to her previous novels—Big Little Lies or What Alice Forgot. In this latest, the women come off as cliches—the stripper with a heart of gold, the childless woman who desperately wants children, and the talented artist, haunted and insecure. READ MORE.
Cara Kless - LitLovers
Truly Madly Guilty…[is] about the day of a terrible, terrible barbecue, and features only a small group of characters. They are well delineated and saddled with various pathologies. (Ms. Moriarty is quite good with this kind of detail.) But hey, it’s just a barbecue. How earthshaking can the fallout be? The author does her damnedest to make it seem colossally important. She gives each character enough baggage for a world tour, even though this is just an afternoon in a showy suburban backyard in Sydney.… [I]t’s a shame to see her resort to the level of contrivance that this book requires.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Ms. Moriarty’s shining talent in Truly Madly Guilty is her uncanny ability to get into the mind of her well-developed characters, turn the mirror on the reader and make you think about your own relationships, both past and present. All those feelings of elation, adoration, complacency, regret and selfishness? I had them all while reading this book, and I truly couldn’t be more thankful for it.
Dominic DeAngelo - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The novel holds back the meat of the story until the reader is about to burst with curiosity, but this technique strangely doesn't feel like torture; it gives readers a chance to consider the endless possibilities of every moment.
Publishers Weekly
What's worse than a terrible riot at Pirriwee Public's annual school Trivia Night that leaves one parent dead? The sneaking suspicion that the death was actually murder.
Library Journal
[A] barbecue in Sydney gone terribly awry. What happened emerges slowly through glimpses of characters coping—or not coping.… Moriarty’s characters resolve their issues too neatly and with too much comforting ease. Not one of Moriarty's best outings.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the novel’s title. Why do all of the characters feel so guilty? Should they? How do they deal with their guilt?
2. The epigraph is a Claude Debussy quote: "Music is the silence between the notes." What does that mean to you? How significant are silences and the unsaid in this novel?
3. Erika’s psychologist tells her, "You’ve got to get this idea out of your head about there being some objective measure of normality.… This ‘normal’ person of whom you speak doesn’t exist!" Do you agree? Do you think this relates back to Tolstoy’s famous quote, "… each unhappy family is unhappy in itsown way"? Is the real normal that, once you scratch the surface, no family is normal?
4. What does Clementine mean when she thinks back on the "extraordinaryordinariness" of her life before the barbecue? How is the ordinary treated in this novel? Do you think it’s inevitable that we don’t appreciate the ordinary? Do we need a life event as jarring as what happened to Sam and Clementine in order to fully appreciate our lives?
5. Discuss Tiffany’s meditation on sex: "People had such complicated feelings when they heard that she’d been a dancer. It was all mixed up with their feelings about sex, which sadly for most people were always inextricably linked with shame and class and morality (some people thought she was confessing to an illegal act), and for the women there were issues relating to body image and jealousy and insecurity, and the men didn’t want to look too interested, even though they were generally very interested, and some men got that angry,defensive look as if she were trying to trick them into revealing a weakness, and most people, men and women, wanted to giggle like teenagers but didn’t know if they should. It was a freaking minefield." Did you feel yourself judging Tiffany because of her background? The second part of the quote touches on women’s body issues, a recurring theme in Moriarty’s novels. Why do you think she so often includes it in her stories? Do you think men have similar issues with their bodies? If so, do you think they are intricately tied to sex the way they are with women?
6. When Clementine asks Tiffany if she ever felt that the men who watched her dance were effectively cheating on their wives, she replies: "Their middle-aged wives were probably at home reading Fifty Shades of Grey…Or lusting over the lead in a chick flick." Do you think that’s a fair response? As a dancer, was Tiffany just another kind of fictional character? And going back to the notion of the ordinary losing its excitement, how do you think Vid and Tiffany’s relationship changed as it developed from an exotic dancer in a club and her customer to a long-married husband and wife with a child?
7. Were you surprised that Erika and Oliver have a healthier sex life than Clementine and Sam? Discuss Clementine’s bleak view of marriage: "sometimes she felt a sense of loss, of actual grief over the loss of their sex life, and other times she wondered if it was all in her head, if she was being typically melodramatic about something natural and inevitable. It happened to everyone, it was called getting ‘stale,’ it was called marriage." Do you agree? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the three marriages in this novel?
8. Discuss Clementine and Erika’s complicated friendship: "It was strange, because Clementine always felt that she hid herself from Erika, that she was more ‘herself’ with her ‘true’ friends, where the friendship flowed in an ordinary, uncomplicated, grown-up fashion (emails, phone calls, drinks, dinners, banter and jokes that everyone got), but right now it felt like none of those friends knew her the raw, ugly, childish, basic way that Erika did." Are the truest friendships the most difficult ones? Or would you say that Erika and Clementine are more like sisters, as Tiffany observes? What did you make of Oliver’s statement: "I’m your best friend, Erika…Don’t you know that?" Do you think best friends of the same gender can be closer than spouses? Why or why not?
9. What did you make of Erika’s request that Clementine donate her eggs? Were you surprised by Clementine’s response? Erika tells Oliver: "We did save Ruby’s life. That’s a fact. Why shouldn’t they repay us by doing something in return? And what does it matter what her motivations are?" Do you agree that in this case "the ends justify the means"?
10. In this novel, parenting is not always easy and wonderful: "No one warned you that having children reduced you right down to some smaller, rudimentary, primitive version of yourself, where your talents and your education and your achievements meant nothing." What do you think? How do the various mothers and fathers balance family and career?
11. Money and class are knotty issues in this novel. Vid’s relationship with wealth seems to be very straightforward: "He had the money. He could afford the best. So he’d buy the best and take pleasure in it." Tiffany’s, though, is more complicated. Why do you think that is? What role do you think gender plays in this difference, if at all?
12. Discuss this description of Sam and Clementine: "First-world medical care meant they didn’t have to pay for their first-world negligence." What is the relationship between status and guilt for the characters?
13. Dakota spends a good portion of the novel feeling guilty that Ruby fell into the fountain, and then at the end, we find out that Holly also feels guilt about her sister falling in. These two children shouldered tremendous guilt that no one realized, just as Erika felt guilt over her mother’s situation. The famous psychologist and psychoanalyst Erik Erikson believed that there are eight stages of development for children, one of which is guilt. As a child, did you feel guilty about something that you now realize was not your fault? How did this shape you as an adult?
14. Sylvia’s hoarding is a major source of embarrassment and sorrow for Erika. She reflects: "Her mother loved things so much that she had nothing." What do you make of that line?
15. Near the end of the novel, Clementine wonders "what sort of person Erika could have been, would have been, should have been, if she’d been given the privilege of an ordinary home. You could jump so much higher when you had somewhere safe to fall." Do you agree? How are the various characters helped and hindered by their respective childhoods?
16. Discuss Clementine’s revelation about Sam: "Her focus had always been on how his actions affected her feelings, as if his role was to do things for her, to her, and all that mattered was her emotional response to him, as if a ‘man’ were a product or a service, and she’d finally chosen the right brand to get the right response. Was it possible she’d never seen or truly loved him the way he deserved to be seen and loved? As a person? An ordinary, flawed, feeling person?" Does that resonate with you at all?
17. Sam and Clementine can’t understand why they are so affected by the barbecue: "They weren’t fighting over money or sex or housework. There were no knotty issues to untangle. Everything was the same as before the barbecue. It was just that nothing felt the same." What do they mean by that? How does life change for the three families after the barbecue? Do you think they are ultimately strengthened by what they went through?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Trust Exercise
Susan Choi, 2019
Henry Holt & Company
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250309884
Summary
In an American suburb in the early 1980s, students at a highly competitive performing arts high school struggle and thrive in a rarified bubble, ambitiously pursuing music, movement, Shakespeare, and, particularly, their acting classes.
When within this striving “Brotherhood of the Arts,” two freshmen, David and Sarah, fall headlong into love, their passion does not go unnoticed—or untoyed with—by anyone, especially not by their charismatic acting teacher, Mr. Kingsley.
The outside world of family life and economic status, of academic pressure and of their future adult lives, fails to penetrate this school’s walls—until it does, in a shocking spiral of events that catapults the action forward in time and flips the premise upside-down.
What the reader believes to have happened to David and Sarah and their friends is not entirely true—though it’s not false, either. It takes until the book’s stunning coda for the final piece of the puzzle to fall into place—revealing truths that will resonate long after the final sentence.
As captivating and tender as it is surprising, Susan Choi's Trust Exercise will incite heated conversations about fiction and truth, and about friendships and loyalties, and will leave readers with wiser understandings of the true capacities of adolescents and of the powers and responsibilities of adults. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—South Bend, Indiana, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.F.A., Cornell University
• Awards—PEN/W.G. Sebald Award; Asian American Literary Award
• Currently—lives in New York City (Brooklyn)
Susan Choi is an American novelist. She was born in South Bend, Indiana to a Korean father and the American daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. When she was nine years old, her parents divorced. She and her mother moved to Houston, Texas. Choi earned a B.A. in Literature from Yale University (1990) and an M.F.A. from Cornell University. She currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.
After receiving her graduate degree, she worked for The New Yorker as a fact checker.
Choi won the Asian American Literary Award for Fiction and was a finalist of the Discover Great New Writers Award at Barnes & Noble for her first novel, The Foreign Student. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her historical fiction novel, American Woman. In 2010, she won the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award.
With David Remnick, she edited an anthology of short fiction entitled Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. Choi's second novel, American Woman, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, A Person of Interest, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2009. My Education, her fourth, was published in 2013; her fifth novel, Trust Exercise, came out in 2019. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/10/2013.)
Book Reviews
Choi's new novel, her fifth, is titled Trust Exercise, and it burns more brightly than anything she's yet written. This psychologically acute novel enlists your heart as well as your mind. Zing will go certain taut strings in your chest…Choi builds her novel carefully, but it is packed with wild moments of grace and fear and abandon. She catches the way certain nights, when you are in high school, seem to last for a month—long enough to sustain entire arcs of one's life.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
Choi’s voice blends an adolescent’s awe with an adult’s irony. It’s a letter-perfect satire of the special strain of egotism and obsession that can fester in academic settings.… [Choi is] a master of emotional pacing: the sudden revelation, the unexpected attack.… How cunningly this novel considers the way teenage sexuality is experienced, manipulated, and remembered.… The result is a dramatic exploration of the distorting forces of memory, envy, and art.… You won’t be disappointed.
Washington Post
Susan Choi’s thrilling new novel, Trust Exercise, is a rare and splendid literary creature: piercingly intelligent, engrossingly entertaining, and so masterfully intricate that only after you finish it, stunned, can you step back and marvel at the full scope of its unshowy achievements.
Boston Globe
Immerses the reader in the suffocating hothouse atmosphere of a 1980s performing arts high school and all the intense drama, heartbreak, and scandal many remember from their teen years.
Los Angeles Times
In her masterful, twisty [novel], Susan Choi upgrades the familiar coming-of-age story with remarkable command… [displaying her] talent for taking ineffable emotions and giving them an oaken solidity.… So many books and films present teenage years as a passing phase, a hormonal storm that passes in time. Choi, in this witty and resonant novel, thinks of it more like an earthquake―a rupture that damages our internal foundations and can require years to repair.
USA Today
Book groups, meet your next selection.… Trust Exercise is fiction that contains multiple truths and lies. Working with such common material, Choi has produced something uncommonly thought-provoking.
NPR
A twisting feat of storytelling.… [Choi] uses language brilliantly.… She is an astute, forensic cartographer of human nature; her characters are both sympathetic and appalling. In the end, [Trust Exercise] is a tale of missed connection and manipulation―and of willing surrender to the lure and peril of the unknown.
Economist
An intelligent and layered portrait of a school’s legacy.… [Trust Exercise] makes something dramatic and memorable from the simple elements of a teen movie.
The New Yorker
Mind-bending.… A Gen-X bildungsroman that speaks to young generations, a Russian nesting doll of unreliable narrators, and a slippery #MeToo puzzle-box about the fallibility of memory.… [A] perfectly stitched together Frankenstein’s monster of narrative introspection and ambiguity.… It flexes its own meta-existence―as a novel about the manipulation inherent in any kind of narrative―brilliantly.
New York Magazine
Perhaps the best [novel] this year.… [Trust Exercise] begins as an enthralling tale of teenage romance and then turns into a meticulously plotted interrogation of the state of the novel itself.… Read it once for pleasure, and then again to turn up all the brilliant Easter eggs.
Vulture
Electrifying.… [A] story that cuts to the heart of gender politics and the teacher-student dynamic.
People
A gonzo literary performance one could mistake for a magic trick, duping its readers with glee before leaving them impossibly moved.… Facts are debated in Trust Exercise, yes, but Choi always tells the truth.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review) Superb, powerful.… Choi’s themes—among them the long reverberations of adolescent experience, the complexities of consent and coercion, and the inherent unreliability of narratives—are timeless and resonant. Fiercely intelligent, impeccably written, and observed with searing insight, this novel is destined to be a classic.
Publishers Weekly
[N]either sentimentalizes nor trivializes the emotional lives of the teens.… [T]he first half of the novel feels "truer" than the more contrived… second half…. The latter retrospective approach serves best in examining the confusion and ambiguity of teenage sexuality and how that can be exploited. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal
(Starred review) [Choi’s] finest novel.… Trust Exercise should immediately put readers on alert… exposing tenuous connections between fiction, truth, lies, and, of course, people. Literary deception rarely reads this well.
Booklist
(Starred review) [A] story of obsessive first love… twists into something much darker in Choi's singular new novel.… The writing (exquisite) and the observations (cuttingly accurate) make Choi's latest both wrenching and one-of-a-kind. Never sentimental; always thrillingly alive.
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 TRUST EXERCISE … then take off on your own:
1. Any one of these talking points could relate to your own life. As you consider each question with regards to Susan Choi's novel, also consider it in terms of your own experiences and what you recall of your adolescent years. Ask yourself how reliable your own memory is, and how others might remember those same events.
2. Start your discussion off with the central couple, Sarah and David. Talk about each as a character and the degree to which Choi enables us to get inside them, to know them. Also, talk about their love for one another. What is it that draws the couple together? Does their attachment feel true; is it deeply felt as, say, a more mature adult's?
3. Talk about Mr. Kingsley. In what ways does he overstep bounds? How does he use his students' own confusion and anxiety to bolster his lessons? Have you ever known teachers/professors like Kingsley?
4. Do the students have any concept of how transgressive, even dangerous, Kingsley's lessons are? How do they view these intimate dynamics?
5. Choi writes of "the excruciating in-betweenness of no longer being children, yet lacking those powers enjoyed by adults." How does her novel depict that line between adolescence and adulthood? In what ways is the line blurred and confusing, thrilling and dangerous?
6. What is the significance of the novel's title, Trust Exercise? Consider that each section of the novel uses the phrase as its title, focusing on a different set of betrayals. Is Choi's novel itself a "trust exercise"? Are all novels? (Now we're in the realm of meta fiction.)
7. At what point in the novel do you first begin to realize that perhaps you've misunderstood what you originally thought was happening?
8. Fast forward 15 years, to the second half of the novel. How have characters and their lives been altered?
9. Follow-up to Question 8: High school years, especially, can be transforming as well deforming, with the scars of betrayals and hurts carried forward, well into adulthood. What are the scars that Choi's characters bear (or perhaps bare)?
10. Related to Question 5: At one point, David talks with Sarah's old friend, recalling students who, they believe, slept with the director. David insists, "We knew what we were doing. Remember what we were like?" "We were children," Sarah's friend points out." But David retorts, "We were never children." What does he mean? How aware are teens to the issues of abuse? Should they know better—are they capable of knowing better?
11. How does the play in the second half reveal what actually happened in the first half?
12. Is Sarah's book betrayal, revenge, or is it art?
13. Discuss the ways in which Trust Exercise takes aim at a number of cultural issues, including the cult of the "Great Man" and the "Elite Brotherhood of the Arts." In what other ways is the book satirical?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Trust No One
Debra Webb, 2020
Amazon Publishing
428 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781542018098
Summary
A double homicide and a missing woman lead a detective to unearth disturbing secrets in this gripping thriller from USA Today bestselling author Debra Webb.
It’s the worst possible time for Detective Kerri Devlin to be involved in an all-consuming double-homicide case. She’s locked in a bitter struggle with her ex-husband and teenage daughter, and her reckless new partner is anything but trustworthy.
Still, she has a job to do: there’s a killer at large, and a pregnant woman has gone missing.
Once Devlin and her partner get to work, they quickly unearth secrets involving Birmingham’s most esteemed citizens. Each new layer of the investigation brings Devlin closer to the killer and the missing woman, who starts looking more like a suspect than a victim.
But just as answers come into view, the case twists, expands, and slithers into Devlin’s personal life.
There’s a much more sinister game at work, one she doesn’t even know she’s playing—and she must unravel the truth once and for all to stop the killer before she loses everything. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Debra Webb is an American author of romance-suspense novels. Webb grew up on a farm outside Scottsboro, Alabama. As a child, she created stories in her head, and began to write them down when she was only nine.
Even as she got older, Webb continued to invent stories. But, once she married, her heavy work schedule as vacuum cleaner salesperson, factory worker, and fast-food worker afforded her little time to write her stories down.
After the birth of the couple's child, Webb returned to school to earn a degree in Business Administration. Her husband joined the military and was eventually stationed in Berlin. The family joined him there, and Debra continued working, this time as a secetary in the commanding general's office. In 1985 the family returned to the US, and Webb went to work as an executive secretary at NASA.
In 1995, after a chronic illness, Webb decided to focus on her stories again. For three years, she researched the romance novel market, and in 1998 she sold her first novel—a comedic romance. Six weeks later, she sold a second novel, this time to Harlequin.
Today, Debra Webb is the author of more than 150 novels, a number of them bestsellers on the USA Today list. She has more than four million books in print in many languages and countries.
Webb is the recipient of the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Romantic Suspense, as well as numerous Reviewers’ Choice Awards. In 2012 became the first recipient of the L. A. Banks Warrior Woman Award for courage, strength, and grace in the face of adversity. When she published her 100th novel, she received the distinguished Centennial Award. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[G]ripping.… Det. Kerri Devlin and her junior partner, Det. Luke Falco… investigate a double homicide.… [T]he action barrels along to the explosive conclusion. Police procedural fans who like to see evil rich people get their comeuppance will be satisfied.
Publishers Weekly
Can wealth and power shield the privileged from justice?… [A] game of cat and mouse in which the mice have all the power. A powerful combination of police procedural and psychological thriller whose every clue provides a fresh shock.
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 TRUST NO ONE … 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.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- 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?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- 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.)
The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
Joel Dicker, 2012 (Engl. trans., 2014)
Penguin Group (USA)
656 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143126683
Summary
The publishing phenomenon topping bestseller lists around the world
August 30, 1975: the day fifteen-year-old Nola Kellergan is glimpsed fleeing through the woods, never to be heard from again; the day Somerset, New Hampshire, lost its innocence.
Thirty-three years later, Marcus Goldman, a successful young novelist, visits Somerset to see his mentor, Harry Quebert, one of the country’s most respected writers, and to find a cure for his writer’s block as his publisher’s deadline looms. But Marcus’s plans are violently upended when Harry is suddenly and sensationally implicated in the cold-case murder of Nola Kellergan—whom, he admits, he had an affair with.
As the national media convicts Harry, Marcus launches his own investigation, following a trail of clues through his mentor’s books, the backwoods and isolated beaches of New Hampshire, and the hidden history of Somerset’s citizens and the man they hold most dear. To save Harry, his own writing career, and eventually even himself, Marcus must answer three questions, all of which are mysteriously connected:
—Who killed Nola Kellergan?
—What happened one misty morning in Somerset in the summer of 1975?
—And how do you write a book to save someone’s life?
A chart-topping worldwide phenomenon, with sales approaching a million copies in France alone and rights sold in more than thirty countries, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair is a fast-paced, tightly plotted, cinematic literary thriller, and an ingenious book within a book, by a dazzling young writer. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 16, 1985
• Where— Geneva, Switzerland
• Education—M.J.D., University of Geneva
• Awards—Geneva Writers’ Prize; Grand Prix du Roman de l’Academie Francaise
• Currently—lives in Geneva, Switzerland
Joel Dicker is a Swiss novelist from Geneva Switzerland, a French-speaking city. His writing career started when he was a child. At the age of 10, he founded La Gazette des Animaux, a monthly magazine about wildlife. He was its editor-in-chief for seven years. In this capacity he won the Cuneo Prize for the Protection of Nature, and was named “Switzerland’s Youngest Editor-in-Chief” by the Tribune de Genève.
At 19 Dicker left for drama school in Paris, at the Cours Florent. After one year he returned to Switzerland to enroll in law school, where he received his Masters of Law from the University of Geneva in 2010.
Dicker became Europe’s publishing sensation of 2013 when his book La Vérité sur l’Affaire Harry Quebert sold nearly a million copies in France. In 2010, he won the Prix des Ecrivains Genevois (Geneva Writers’ Prize), a prestigious prize for unpublished manuscripts. After his win, the Parisian editor Bernard de Fallois acquired Dicker’s winning submission, "Les Derniers Jours de Nos Pères," and published it in early 2012.
Only six months later, de Fallois published Dicker’s La Vérité sur l’Affaire Harry Quebert (The Truth About the Affair of Henry Quebert) With translation rights sold in 32 languages, the novel has been called “the cleverest, creepiest book you'll read this year.” The worldwide excitement started at the 2012 Frankfurt Book Fair, where many foreign editors rushed to buy the rights. In late October 2012, La Vérité… (The Truth…) won the 2012 Grand Prix du Roman de l’Academie Francaise.
In summer 2013, La Vérité… knocked Dan Brown’s Inferno from the top of bestseller lists all over Europe. Early readers of the English translation have described the book as “literary and clever” and compared to the fiction of Nabokov and Roth, as well as the television series Twin Peaks, the book became one of the biggest original acquisitions in the history of Penguin Books and was published in the U.S. in 2014. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/7/2014.)
Book Reviews
The cleverest, creepiest book you’ll read this year.... The most talked-about French novel of the decade.... Breathtakingly plotted.... Addictively fast.... It’s like Twin Peaks meets Atonement meets In Cold Blood.... The New England setting [is] immersively convincing..... Very few foreign-language novels make big waves in Anglophone countries, but this one seems genuinely likely to buck the trend.
Telegraph (UK)
With enough plot twists to fill a truck, it is a racy read.... Part master-and-disciple tale, part whodunnit, Mr. Dicker’s thriller is also a postmodern confabulation of timelines and stories, in the manner of Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life.
Economist (UK)
[An] In Cold Blood–style investigation of a Twin Peaks–like town.... A smart, immensely readable, impressively plotted page-turner [that] keeps the surprises coming right up to the closing pages.... An immersive, propulsive, continually wrongfooting twister of a tale, it should delight any reader who has felt bereft since finishing Gone Girl, or Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy.
Metro (UK)
[It] does well....what all good thrillers should: it twists and turns.... [It] has the pleasing spryness of one of Jessica Fletcher’s outings [in Murder, She Wrote].... Just like a [Harlan] Coben novel, it’s very enjoyable.
Guardian (UK)
If you dip your toes into this major novel, you’re finished: you won’t be able to keep from sprinting through to the last page. You will be manipulated, thrown off course, flabbergasted and amazed by the many twists and turns, red herrings and sudden changes of direction in this exuberant story.
Journal du Dimanche (France)
A master stroke.... A crime novel with not one plot line but many, full of shifting rhythms, changes of course and multiple layers that, like a Russian doll, slot together beautifully.... In maestro form, Dicker alternates periods and genres (police reports, interviews, excerpts from novels) and explores America in all its excesses—media, literary, religious—all the while questioning the role of the literary writer.
L’Express (France)
Dizzying, like the best American thrillers.... Rich in subplots and twists, moving backwards and forwards in time, containing books within books.
Le Figaro (France)
[A]n ambitious, multilayered novel of suspense that’s already an international bestseller.... Marcus sets out to clear Harry’s name—and promises his publisher to write a book about the experience. While at times unwieldy and repetitive, this tale of fame, friendship, loyalty, and fiction versus reality moves at warp speed.
Publishers Weekly
A missing girl, small-town secrets and literary ambition drive this busy, entertaining debut thriller.... Dicker keeps the prose simple and the pace snappy in a plot that winds up with more twists than a Twizzler....Nola's precociousness strains plausibility, and a demon ex machina out of Alabama is one twist too many—or maybe it's Dicker enjoying himself too much.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. While you were reading the novel, were you conscious of the fact that it was originally written in French?
2. Were Harry and Nola in love? Is true love possible between an adult in his thirties and a fifteen-year-old adolescent?
3. There are no explicit sex scenes between Harry and Nola in the novel. Is it possible that their relationship was unconsummated?
4. How well do you think Dicker captured small-town American life? Are the Quinns a typical American family?
5. Is Marcus a reliable narrator?
6. Do you agree with Marcus’s ultimate decision to write a book about “The Harry Quebert Affair”? What would you have done in his position?
Spoiler Alert for the next set of questions
7. Who was Nola Kellergan: a victim, a seductress, or something else?
8. Elijah Stern goes to great lengths to atone for the crime he committed in his youth. Did his actions adequately compensate his victim?
9. Was Harry, in part, to blame for Nola’s death because of the way he misled Jenny Quinn?
10. How did the truth about The Origin of Evil affect your opinion of Harry? Should he have publicly admitted that it was really written by someone else?
11. Did you suspect the identity of the true killer?
12. Were you satisfied that justice had been served?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Truth According to Us
Annie Barrow, 2015
Random House
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385342940
Summary
A wise, witty, and exuberant novel that illuminates the power of loyalty and forgiveness, memory and truth, and the courage it takes to do what’s right.
Annie Barrows once again evokes the charm and eccentricity of a small town filled with extraordinary characters. Her new novel, The Truth According to Us, brings to life an inquisitive young girl, her beloved aunt, and the alluring visitor who changes the course of their destiny forever.
In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck’s father, a United States senator, cuts off her allowance and demands that she find employment on the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program. Within days, Layla finds herself far from her accustomed social whirl, assigned to cover the history of the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia, and destined, in her opinion, to go completely mad with boredom.
But once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is drawn into their complex world and soon discovers that the truth of the town is entangled in the thorny past of the Romeyn dynasty.
At the Romeyn house, twelve-year-old Willa is desperate to learn everything in her quest to acquire her favorite virtues of ferocity and devotion. It becomes a search that leads her into a thicket of mysteries, including the questionable business that occupies her charismatic father and the reason her adored aunt Jottie remains unmarried.
Layla’s arrival strikes a match to the family veneer, bringing to light buried secrets that will tell a new tale about the Romeyns. As Willa peels back the layers of her family’s past, and Layla delves deeper into town legend, everyone involved is transformed—and their personal histories completely rewritten. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Raised—San Anselmo, California
• Education—B.A., University of California-Berkeley; M.F.A., Mills College
• Currently—lives in Northern California
Annie Barrows was born in 1962 in San Diego, California, but quickly moved to a small town called San Anselmo in the San Francisco Bay Area. She spent most of her childhood at the library. She wouldn’t leave, so they hired her to shelve books at the age of twelve.
Annie attended UC Berkeley and received a B. A. in Medieval History. She knows more than the average person about 3rd century saints. Under the impression that a career in publishing meant she’d get to read a lot, Annie became a proofreader at an art magazine and later an editor at a textbook publishing company.
In 1988, Chronicle Books hired Annie as an editorial assistant, from which platform she became successively assistant editor, managing editor, Editor, and Senior Editor. Somewhere in this trajectory, she acquired Griffin & Sabine, Chronicle’s first New York Times best seller.
In 1996, Annie received her Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Mills College and had a baby, a confluence of events that persuaded her to leave editorial work and move into writing. She wrote several non-fiction books on topics ranging from fortune-telling to opera before turning her attention to children’s books.
In 2006, the first book in her children’s series, Ivy + Bean was published. This title, an ALA Notable Book for 2007, was followed by nine others. The Ivy + Bean series appears with some regularity on the New York Times best-seller list and a number of other national best-seller lists. The Ivy + Bean books have been translated into 14 languages; in 2013 Ivy + Bean: The Musical premiered in the San Francisco Bay Area. A novel for older children, The Magic Half, was published in 2008. Its sequel, Magic in the Mix, came out in 2014.
In addition to her children’s books, Annie is the co-author, with her aunt Mary Ann Shaffer, of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which was published by The Dial Press in 2008. A New York Times best-seller, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has been published in 37 countries and 32 languages.
Annie lives in Northern California with her husband and two daughters. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[As] delightfully eccentric as Guernsey yet refreshingly different.... It’s an epic but intimate family novel with richly imagined characters, an intriguing plot and the social sensibilities you would expect of a story set in the South.... If Guernsey is a tribute to the power of books, The Truth According to Us is a testament to the toxicity of secrets.... Just as we did in Guernsey, we empathize with the characters as if they’re our neighbors.... Macedonia is a great place to spend some time this summer. The temperatures are soaring, but it’s nothing compared to the heat generated by this sizzling story.
Washington Post
Annie Barrows creates a worthy successor to Lee’s beloved Scout Finch.... The Truth According to Us has all the characteristics of a great summer read: A plot that makes you want to keep turning the pages; a setting that makes you feel like you’re inhabiting another time and place; and characters who become people you’re sad to leave behind—and thus who always stay with you. As Jottie tells Willa at the beginning of the book, the "Macedonian virtues" are ferocity and devotion. The Truth According to Us is the sort of book that inspires both.
Miami Herald
It takes a brave author to make the heroine of a new novel an observant and feisty girl . . . like Scout Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.... But Barrows...has created a believable and touching character in Willa.
USA Today
[A] heartwarming coming-of-age novel [that] sparkles with folksy depictions of a tight-knit family and life in a small town.... In a novel full of richly drawn, memorable characters, bright, feisty Willa is the standout.... Add The Truth According to Us to the stack of repeat-worthy literary pleasures.
Seattle Times
A big, juicy family saga with warm humor and tragic twists, Truth is lively and engaging.... The story gets more and more absorbing as it moves briskly along.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
A pleasant summer read.... There is much to recommend this book: The characters are engaging, the historical details appear thorough and accurate, and there are sufficient conflicts and plot twists to render a compelling story.
Roanoke Times
Some characters...fail to live up to their initial promise; some plot points are developed and then dropped abruptly. Nevertheless, Barrows does capture the interior life of her primary characters in this portrait of a town on the border between the past and present.
Publishers Weekly
Barrows follows up The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with a small-town story filled with big characters.... A warm family novel of love, history, truth, and hope that is a solid fit for fans of Lee Smith and Paula McLain.
Library Journal
Barrows has crafted a luminous coming-of-age tale that is sure to captivate her grown-up audience. Against a lively historical setting, the joys and hardships of the rollicking Romeyn family will keep readers eagerly turning pages.
BookPage
The ironic contrast between Macedonia's official and actual history is played to the hilt, [but] this unique corner of Americana...is re-created...vividly.... Undeniably entertaining but as slow-moving as a steamy Macedonian summer.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Early in The Truth According to Us, Willa resolves to acquire the virtues of "ferocity and devotion." Do you concur that these are, actually, virtues? Which of the characters in The Truth According to Us possesses them? Do you know anyone who does?
2. Much of the story of The Truth According to Us revolves around events that occurred when Jottie, Felix, Vause, and Sol were children and teenagers. Do you think the author believes that character is essentially unchanging from childhood to adulthood? Do you agree? Have you changed in essence from your childhood self?
3. The Truth According to Us is set in a small town where everyone seems to know everyone else. Have you ever lived in a situation like that? Would you find living in Macedonia appealing or stifling? With our multiple forms of instantaneous communication, it could be said that the entire world has become a small town. Do you agree? Do you think we live in a more or less anonymous world now?
4. Felix Romeyn is undoubtedly a flawed character. Sol McKubin is, by most standards, a far more honorable person. And yet Jottie speaks of "...her growing certainty that if Sol had been in Felix’s place, he would, after a time, have come to believe that what he told her was the truth." Do you agree? If so, which man is more honorable?
5. Of all the characters in The Truth According to Us, Layla Beck may be the one that changes the most. In her final letter to her father, she says that she’s learned that "ignoring the past is the act of a fool." What is she referring to? Discuss how the lessons she’s learned are revealed in the differences between her relationship with Felix and that with Emmett.
6. While The Truth According to Us is not an epistolary novel, there are many letters from Layla’s various correspondences woven throughout the narrative. How did these letters contribute to your understanding of her character, and to the story as a whole? Are there any letters that really stand out in your memory? Why do you think that is?
7. Is Felix a good father? Why or why not?
8. Author Annie Barrows has said, with regard to setting her novel in 1938, "The second world war looms so large in our perception of our individual selves—and even larger in our perception of America’s identity—that it takes a massive feat of imagination to remove it, or block it out, even very temporarily. To catch a glimpse of a small town in America, not 'before the War,' or even 'before people realized War was inevitable,' but without the inevitability—well, it’s nearly impossible." Discuss the historical events that have marked your time. Do you think that we, like the characters in The Truth According to Us, are facing a major pivot point in our national identity? What do you predict it to be?
9. At one point, Willa’s Uncle Emmett advises her "Don’t ask questions if you’re not going to like the answers." He clarifies that she should ask herself whether the answer could endanger something that’s precious to her, and if so, refrain from asking. Willa ignores his advice entirely, but would it have been better—for her and everyone else—if she had taken it? Have you ever regretted your own curiosity?
10. The possibility of knowing the truth about the past is a central preoccupation of The Truth According to Us. Layla says that "if history were defined as only those stories that could be absolutely verified, we’d have no history at all." Do you agree? Do you think that Layla still believes this at the end of the summer?
11. Of all the characters in The Truth According to Us, with whom do you most identify and why?
12. The sisterly bond between Jottie, Mae, and Minerva is intimate and powerful, with Mae and Minerva choosing to live under the same roof during the week, away from their husbands, because "the two of them can’t stand to be apart…they found out they were miserable without each other." In contrast, the relationship between the two Romeyn brothers is tense. What do you think of this distinction? How does the presence of strong feminine companionship impact this story? How does this model of loyalty and devotion affect the relationship between young Willa and Bird?
13. The Truth According to Us is broken up into multiple different perspectives, blending young and old voices with epistolary fragments and flashbacks. How do these varied viewpoints contribute to characterization and development in the story? How do they deepen our connection to these characters?(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Truth in Advertising: A Novel
John Kenney, 2013
Touchstone
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451675542
Summary
F. Scott Fitzgerald said that there are no second acts in American lives. I have no idea what that means but I believe that in quoting him I appear far more intelligent than I am. I don’t know about second acts, but I do think we get second chances, fifth chances, eighteenth chances. Every day we get a fresh chance to live the way we want.
Finbar Dolan is lost and lonely. Except he doesn’t know it. Despite escaping his blue-collar Boston upbringing to carve out a mildly successful career at a Madison Avenue ad agency, he’s a bit of a mess and closing in on forty. He’s recently called off a wedding. Now, a few days before Christmas, he’s forced to cancel a long-postponed vacation in order to write, produce, and edit a Super Bowl commercial for his diaper account in record time.
Fortunately, it gets worse. Fin learns that his long-estranged and once-abusive father has fallen ill. And that neither of his brothers or his sister intend to visit. It’s a wake-up call for Fin to reevaluate the choices he’s made, admit that he’s falling for his coworker Phoebe, question the importance of diapers in his life, and finally tell the truth about his past.
Truth in Advertising is debut novelist John Kenney’s wickedly funny, honest, at times sardonic, and ultimately moving story about the absurdity of corporate life, the complications of love, and the meaning of family. (From the publisher.)
Watch the (very funny) video.
Author Bio
John Kenney has worked as a copywriter in New York City for seventeen years. He has also been a contributor to The New Yorker magazine since 1999. Some of his work appears in a collection of the New Yorker’s humor writing, Disquiet Please! He lives in Brooklyn, New York. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The protagonist, Finbar Dolan, is Don Draper stripped of all his glamour, success and pomade. What Fin, a midlevel copywriter, does have on Don is a sense of humor.... Framed around a surprisingly sweet romance, as well as Fin’s eventual confrontation with his painful family history, this debut offers a pleasing lightness-to-heart ratio.
New York Times
Peppered with colorful impressions of New York City life, Truth in Advertising is a quick-witted, wry sendup of the advertising industry and corporate culture…[it] delivers a clear-eyed, sympathetic story about complex family ties and the possibility of healing.
John Wilwol - Washington Post
[Kenney’s] insights are dead-on.... [His] plot is perfectly balanced between the insanity of both work and family, and the ending is satisfying without being saccharine.... Engaging and entertaining.... The joy is in the journey, of spending time with a character that is, at times, annoying and thoughtful, arrogant and scared, childish and mature— in other words, someone like the rest of us.
Dallas Morning News
Truth in Advertising has a cinematic sense of motion.... [Kenney is] a naturally comic author who has created a likeable narrator in Fin Dolan.... Humor springs from a deep well of family-induced anguish, and soon enough comedy and tragedy are braided throughout the narrative.
Chicago Tribune
This debut novel reads at times like a laugh-out-loud standup routine. What sustains it, though, is much more substantial: an engaging, believable plot, a fascinating if jaundiced view inside the contemporary world of New York advertising, and most of all, a lead character you're glad you get to know.... It's a measure of Kenney's writing talent that the regular gusts of delicious, smart-alecky ad agency banter among Dolan and his witty comrades and the painful-to-read scenes depicting the toxic relations among siblings feel equally real in this novel.... [A] smart, cinematic story.
Associated Press
Kenney, who’s worked as a copywriter for 17 years, mines this rich territory for satire.... Fin’s struggle to understand his dad brings a layer of emotional complexity to the tale.... Kenney’s novel wrestles with deep questions: What makes a good man? What makes a good life? What should one’s contribution to the world be?
Business Week
The debut novel from New Yorker humorist and former advertising copywriter Kenney is a hilarious ad-world satire and a modest family drama. Finbar Dolan has a successful career in commercials, managing a diaper account for a big New York agency. Otherwise, Fin’s life is a mess...and [when] his abusive, long-lost father turns up in the hospital, Fin’s universe is tipped on its ear. The advertising insider lore and commercial shoot set pieces are golden; the family drama is less successful. ... As a satire, the novel is willing to bite off an ambitious chunk of popular culture, but as a human drama, it chooses to make safe choices. Even so, much is a comic tour de force.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) The dilemma of the storyteller powerless to shape his own story gets a beautiful new spin in this first novel about an adman facing a family crisis....The narrator...is protagonist Finbar Dolan, 39-year-old senior copywriter at a top-tier New York agency.... Now, his oldest brother, Eddie, is calling to say their father, unseen for 25 years, is in the hospital, a heart attack.... With wry humor, always on point, Kenney guides us through the maze of work, family, love (elusive) and friendship (a lifesaver). This is an outstanding debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Truth in Advertising pokes fun at the advertising industry, yet often makes a case for it being an underappreciated art form. Do you think there is artistic value in advertising? Can you think of an example of an ad campaign or commercial that might be considered aesthetically important?
2 .Fin’s relationship with his father was volatile and complicated. Is it always necessary, or possible, to forgive those who have done us so much damage in the past? Is there ever an excuse for cutting ties with a parent?
3. At different points throughout the novel, Fin has imaginary interviews with Terry Gross, Barbara Walters, and Oprah. What function does this device serve? Do you think it’s effective?
4. Why do you think the author waits so long to reveal that Fin was present when his mother died? What does this revelation teach the reader about Fin? Do you think he was right to keep this secret to himself for so many years?
5. In today’s media-saturated culture, individuals are often encouraged to “brand” themselves using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks. How would you define the difference between a person’s “brand” and their personality? What is Fin’s brand?
6. Of all the Dolan children, why do you think Fin is the only one who agrees to scatter their father’s ashes? Is this act merely symbolic? Or do you really think it helps him resolve some of his anger toward his father?
7. Fin notes that both Phoebe and Pam are friends who “understand what you mean, not what you say” (p. 232) Why is this important to Fin?
8. Oftentimes tragedies bring families closer together. In the Dolans’ case, their father’s death initially just serves as a reminder of their troubled childhood and how far apart they’ve grown. What makes them incapable of finding solace in each other, and how do you think this has changed by the end of the novel?
9. Fin frequently complains about being dissatisfied with his job, yet he remains unable to leave. What aspects of the advertising industry does he find so compelling even as he struggles to justify staying in it? He talks about advertising being based on mythology and lies. What are some societal myths about happiness and success that Fin buys into and why do you think these are ultimately unable to satisfy him?
10. Phoebe and Fin play a game where they point out one beautiful thing they see each day. How does Fin’s relationship with Phoebe and the game they play affect the way he deals with his own anger and pain? Do you think there is beauty even in tragedy?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Tuesday Nights in 1980
Molly Prentiss, 2016
Gallery/Scout Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501121043
Summary
An intoxicating and transcendent debut novel that follows a critic, an artist, and a desirous, determined young woman as they find their way—and ultimately collide—amid the ever-evolving New York City art scene of the 1980s.
Welcome to SoHo at the onset of the eighties: a gritty, not-yet-gentrified playground for artists and writers looking to make it in the big city.
Among them: James Bennett, a synesthetic art critic for the New York Times whose unlikely condition enables him to describe art in profound, magical ways, and Raul Engales, an exiled Argentinian painter running from his past and the Dirty War that has enveloped his country.
As the two men ascend in the downtown arts scene, dual tragedies strike, and each is faced with a loss that acutely affects his relationship to life and to art. It is not until they are inadvertently brought together by Lucy Olliason—a small town beauty and Raul’s muse—and a young orphan boy sent mysteriously from Buenos Aires, that James and Raul are able to rediscover some semblance of what they’ve lost.
As inventive as Jennifer Egan's A Visit From The Goon Squad and as sweeping as Meg Wolitzer's The Interestings, Tuesday Nights in 1980 boldly renders a complex moment when the meaning and nature of art is being all but upended, and New York City as a whole is reinventing itself.
In risk-taking prose that is as powerful as it is playful, Molly Prentiss deftly explores the need for beauty, community, creation, and love in an ever-changing urban landscape. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1984
• Where—Santa Cruz, California, USA
• Education—M.F.A., California College of the Arts
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Molly Prentiss was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California. She was a Writer in Residence at Workspace at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, the Blue Mountain Center, and the Vermont Studio Center and was chosen as an Emerging Writer Fellow by the Aspen Writers Foundation.
She holds an MFA in creative writing from the California College of the Arts. She lives in Brooklyn. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Molly Prentiss sets an almost impertinently high bar for herself. She's determined to write a love letter in polychrome to a bygone Manhattan; to recreate the squalid exuberance of Jean-Michel Basquiat's and Keith Haring's art scene; to explore all the important, hairy themes—love, creativity, losing your innocence in one cruel swoop. That she mostly pulls it off is impressive, thrilling.
Jennifer Senior - New York Times Book Review
The gritty New York art scene of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s pulsed with creative energy, and so does this engaging novel… It portrays an intoxicating world and its raw, ungentrified backdrop—both about to be transformed by greed.
People
[Prentiss’s] sensual linguistic flourishes exquisitely evoke the passions we can feel for people and places we’ve known or are discovering…again and again, the temptation is to underline passages…there are riveting plots and subplots… still the book’s magnificence remains in its shadings, descriptive and emotional… toward the end you’ll find yourself turning the pages slowly, sorry to realize you’re almost finished.
Oprah Magazine
It's 1980 in SoHo, and in this thrilling, vibrant debut, a synesthetic art critic could make or break [an artist named] Raul. And so could a girl named Lucy. Oh, and his own recklessness, too.
Marie Claire
Innovative to the max, this debut novel from Molly Prentiss is a book that I've been raving about to everyone I know…. Prentiss will leave you breathless as she plays with form and description in astounding new ways.
Bustle
[Prentiss'] writing is as vivid and sensitive as the pensées of her synesthetic art-critic protagonist...[her] descriptions of the eighties art world ring true on both the texture of the work and its go-go capitalist corruption.
Vulture
Prentiss vividly conjures a colorful love triangle set in the gritty, art-soaked world of downtown New York in 1980.... One yearns for more time spent on the women artists who are minor characters.... Nevertheless, this is a bold and auspicious debut.
Publishers Weekly
We are luckily introduced to three individuals who bravely take the stage, ready to conquer SoHo by storm. Their trek amongst the bright lights is captivating, and readers will be hanging on the edge of their seats.
Romance Times Book Reviews
(Starred review.) A...seductive writer, Prentiss combines exquisite sensitivity with unabashed melodrama to create an operatic tale of ambition and delusion, success and loss, mystery and crassness.... [A] vital, sensuous, edgy, and suspenseful tale of longing, rage, fear, compulsion, and love.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Prentiss' characters...[are] rich, nuanced, satisfyingly complicated.... [T]he novel is elegantly infused with an ambient sense of impending loss...[but] miraculously manages to dodge the trap of easy nostalgia, thanks in large part to Prentiss' wry humor. As affecting as it is absorbing. A thrilling debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the 1980 "portrait of Manhattan" offered here. How does New York City act as its own of character throughout the novel? How does it change and grow? How would you describe a portrait of your own home, in 2015?
2. James’s first journalism teacher claims that there is "influence in oddity." How do we find ways to absorb difference into our identity? Discuss James’s complex relationship to his synesthesia.
3. Like James, we all have a "Running List of Worries." What do think would be on Lucy’s or Raul’s list? Marge’s or Arlene’s? Why do you think it is so much easier to internalize our regrets over our accomplishments?
4. There is a perverse comfort afforded to those who share tragedy, like Franca’s resistance group or John Lennon’s mourners, that is inaccessible to those who suffer in solitude, like Raul. Where and how do you think Raul finally finds a similar kind of recognition?
5. Discuss James’s relationship to art commercialization as it swarms up around him. Why does his black-and-white stance on separating art from currency fade to gray?
6. For these characters, there is often a wide gap between perception and reality. Do you think Manhattan culture perpetuates this gap? Why or why not?
7. When Raul paints Franca, she asks him not to paint the "bad parts," but Raul becomes fixated on the flaws that surround him. Discuss how these fragments can make up a beautiful whole, or even act as a whole themselves. How does this resonate throughout the novel?
8. Discuss the role of fate and timing in the story, especially as it relates to Winona’s New Year’s Eve party. How much agency do these characters really have?
9. Raul’s father plays him a scratched recording of "Little Child" by the Beatles before professing that "the scratches are what make a life." Do you agree? Why do you think the author chose "Little Child" for this moment?
10. When she moves to New York, Lucy wants a life of momentum, change, and propulsion. Do you think she feels the same at the end? Do you agree with Raul that she doesn’t yet know how to "need herself"? What does that mean?
11. After breaking up with Lucy, Raul realizes that "memories of sweet times now felt sour." In the novel, how does memory shift to reflect shame and regret, and how does that extend to Raul and Franca’s siblinghood? James and Marge’s marriage?
12. James insists that every work of art must be a journey, filled with associative power, while Raul wonders if it is possible to begin with a complete idea already in hand. What do you think, and why?
13. Discuss the symbolism of James’s white suit. What does the black stain mean?
14. Lucy often compartmentalizes herself, neatly splitting her identity between her girlhood in Idaho and her womanhood in the city. Discuss the inherent disconnect here. In the end, how do these character learn to reconcile each part of themselves?
(Questions issued by Gallery/Scout Press at Simon & Schuster.)
Tumbleweeds
Leila Meacham, 2012
Grand Central Publishing
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781455509232
Summary
Recently orphaned, eleven-year-old Cathy Benson feels she has been dropped into a cultural and intellectual wasteland when she is forced to move from her academically privileged life in California to the small town of Kersey in the Texas Panhandle where the sport of football reigns supreme.
She is quickly taken under the unlikely wings of up-and-coming gridiron stars and classmates John Caldwell and Trey Don Hall, orphans like herself, with whom she forms a friendship and eventual love triangle that will determine the course of the rest of their lives. Taking the three friends through their growing up years until their high school graduations when several tragic events uproot and break them apart, the novel expands to follow their careers and futures until they reunite in Kersey at forty years of age.
Told with all of Meacham's signature drama, unforgettable characters, and plot twists, readers will be turning the pages, desperate to learn how it all plays oute. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1938 or 1939
• Where—Minden, Louisiana, USA
• Raised—Texas
• Education—B.A., North Texas State University
• Currently—lives in San Antonio, Texas
Beginning in the 1960s, Ms. Meacham taught English to high school students in a handful of cities in Texas. She published three romance novels in the mid-1980s with Walker & Company, but she mostly found the process burdensome. “I didn’t like the isolation,” she said. “I didn’t like the discipline required. I didn’t like the deadlines. So I put away my pen. The romance novel was not my calling.”
Ms. Meacham was a decade into her retirement, growing increasingly bored...when she returned to Roses, a manuscript that she had started in the 1980s. When she completed the novel, one of her friends made a call to a niece, who just happened to be married to David McCormick, a literary agent in New York. Mr. McCormick agreed to take on the book and later sold it to Grand Central, which published it in January 2010. Reviewers compared it to those door-stopper-size, soap operatic novels by the likes of Belva Plain and Barbara Taylor Bradford that were popular in the late 1970s and ‘80s. [She is currently working a a sequel to Roses.]....
Tumbleweeds [2012], which takes place between 1979 and 2008, begins in a small West Texas town and revolves around two star high school football players who fall for the same girl. Yet other than the contemporary setting, it is very much of a piece with Roses, with twists piled atop twists, and well-intentioned characters who seem to make a wreck of things. (Adapted from the New York Times "Texas Weekly.")
Book Reviews
Meacham (Roses) explores a small-town love triangle against the backdrop of Texas football in her overblown latest. Since childhood, Trey Don "TD" Hall and best friend John Caldwell have cared primarily for football and one another. But when recently orphaned Catherine Ann Benson moves to town to live with her grandmother, the boys are immediately drawn to her. At first, the three sixth-graders are just fast friends, but after adolescence sets in, their relationship deepens and complicates. Despite the boys' stellar high school football careers and Catherine Ann's equally sterling academic record, their future plans are fumbled thanks to a botched prank, a secret infatuation, and an accidental pregnancy, all of which will have consequences stretching far into the future. Spanning nearly 30 years, the novel seems unsure of its intentions: is it a romance, a sports saga, or a murder mystery?
Publishers Weekly
Meacham's second sprawling novel is as large as Texas itself. The author skillfully manipulates multiple themes of friendship, loss, guilt, and the possibility of redemption. Readers who love epic sagas that span a couple of generations will enjoy this soap opera tale of young love, betrayal, and living a life that might not have a happy ending. —Lesa Holstine, Glendale P.L., AZ
Library Journal
A topical soap opera from bestselling novelist Meacham (Roses, 2010), set on the familiar turf of small-town Texas.... Meacham captures the period details in her description of 11-year-old Cathy Benson... [who] without really meaning to...gets inside the heads of two local boys.... Well, one thing leads to another, and another, and another, and Cathy finds herself with a love bump and no place to go.... The plot is serviceable, the writing sometimes less so.... Meacham's latest is of a piece with her past work, and sure to find an eager audience among romance buffs.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The quote at the beginning of the book by Sir John Suckling says, “Our sins, like our shadows when day is in its glory, scarce appear. Toward evening, how great and monstrous they appear.” At the end, are Cathy and John able to overcome the shadows from the beginning of their lives? Or have the shadows changed them into people they would never have become otherwise?
2. At difficult moments in the novel, one of the recurring events is Cathy’s struggle with selective mutism. How does this develop from her parents’ deaths to Trey’s death? If she had been able to call the police, would the ending have been different? Would John have stayed at Harbison House?
3. Although being set in the early 1880s, there is a lot of open discussion concerning sex and birth control, even across generations, such as between Cathy and Emma. How might Cathy have been viewed differently by her readers if the book had been published during this time? Are we, as readers, able to sympathize more with Cathy because we live in an age where birth control is widely used?
4. On page 125 at the Harbison House, Trey tells John, “It’s not in me, Tiger. That’s why I need you. That’s why you’re my man. You keep me on the straight and narrow.” Discuss whether this is actually true—did Trey’s life disintegrate because he no longer had John’s presence, or did John begin to lack faith in his friend, mwhich then led to their estrangement?
5. When Cathy is in the hospital, just after Will’s birth, she says, “You are about to meet your daddy, John Will.” Rather than Trey, however, John walks into the room. How did John’s life in the priesthood mold him into a father for Will? Did you feel relief when Trey finally divulged his secret to John?
6. While working at Pelican Bay State Prison, John becomes good friends with Dr. Laura Rhinelander. Is this friendship refreshing for each of them, or does it serve to keep them tied to their pasts? What do you think each of them is looking for in the other?
7. One of the things that Deke Tyson struggles with, when he uncovers the evidence for Donny’s death, is the fine line between the truth and what is right. In the black-and-white world of justice, he should implicate both Trey and Father John in the act, but John has proven himself a good and loving man. Have you ever had a similar situation in which silence is better than the truth? What do you believe Deke should have done and why?
8. Warren Buffett once said, “It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” How was Cathy’s reputation hurt by her pregnancy? Did she ever completely lose the respect of the town? Keep in mind not only her struggles to find a job but also her transformation of Bennie’s and the aftermath of Trey’s death.
9. When John arrives at Bennie’s to first tell Cathy that Trey is back in town, “He sensed a gathering of shadows—those long, reckoning shades cast by old sins that time cannot disperse.” What are the sins that Cathy, Trey, and John committed when they were younger? What “reckoning” do those sins force each of them to come to?
10. For those who have read Leila Meacham’s previous novel, Roses, what parallels do you see and what lesson can you draw? Is pride truly a more powerful force than love? Can it take a lifetime to realize young mistakes, or is redemption possible before the end?
11. At the end of Chapter 10, Emma considers the trio’s friendship: “She worried only that Trey’s unswerving trust in Cathy and John made him vulnerable to disappointment—and her granddaughter and John open to its consequences. All human beings were subject to falling below others’ expectations, and Trey was of the particular bent that, once betrayed, there would be no rescuing of the ties that once bound.” Did Cathy and John ever truly betray him? Did he, in turn, betray them by keeping his silence?
12. Was Trey right to leave without explanation? Would Cathy and John have been able to marry, and would he have been able to move past his love for Catherine Ann? Who, ultimately, did his choice hurt the most?
13. How did the title of the novel apply as a symbol of the main characters?
14. John calls him the victim of his own nature. Do you agree and if so, explain in what ways. How did John and Cathy save Trey from himself?
15. How was Cathy’s and John’s love for Trey unique from all others? And how was that a factor in Trey “never able to make it happen again?”
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Turn of Mind
Alice LaPlante, 2011
Grove/Atlantic
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802145901
Summary
Alice LaPlante’s Turn of Mind is a spellbinding novel about the disintegration of a strong woman’s mind and the unhinging of her family. Dr. Jennifer White, recently widowed and a newly retired orthopedic surgeon, is entering the beginning stages of dementia—where the impossibility of recognizing reality can be both a blessing and a curse.
As the story opens, Jennifer’s life-long friend and neighbor, Amanda, has been killed, and four fingers surgically removed. Dr. White is the prime suspect in the murder and she herself doesn’t know if she did it or not. Narrated in her voice, fractured and eloquent, a picture emerges of the surprisingly intimate, complex alliance between this pair—two proud, forceful women who were at times each other’s most formidable adversaries.
The women’s thirty-year friendship deeply entangled their families, and as the narrative unfolds we see that things were not always as they seemed. Jennifer’s deceased husband, James, is clearly not the scion he was thought to be. Her two grown children—Mark, a lawyer, and Fiona, a professor, who now have power over their mother’s medical and financial decisions respectively—have agendas of their own. And Magdalena, her brusque live-in caretaker, has a past she hides. As the investigation intensifies, a chilling question persists: is Dr. Jennifer White’s shattered memory preventing her from revealing the truth or helping her to hide it?
Told through the voice of a woman with a powerful intellect that is maddeningly slipping away, Turn of Mind is not only a suspenseful psychological thriller that pulses with intensity but also a brilliant portrayal of the fragility of consciousness and memory, and of a mind finally turning on itself. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., M.B.A., University of Illinois
• Awards—Wallace Stegner Fellowship; Welcome Prize
• Currently—lives in Palo Alto, California
Alice LaPlante is an award-winning fiction writer and university creative writing instructor. She was a Wallace Stegner Fellow and a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, and teaches creative writing at both Stanford and San Francisco State University. The author of both fiction and nonfiction books, Alice includes among her publications a writing textbook, Method and Madness: The Making of a Story (2009), Playing For Profit: How Digital Entertainment is Making Big Business Out of Child's Play (2000); and Passion to Profits: Business for Non-Business Majors (2008).
Her novel, Turn of Mind (2011) became a New York Times, NPR, and American Independent Booksellers Association bestseller within a month of release. Turn of Mind was also designated a New York Times Editors' Choice, an NPR, O Magazine, Vogue, and Globe and Mail Summer Reading Pick, and is featured in Barnes and Noble 2011 Discover Great New Writers program. Turn of Mind was also the first work of fiction to win the Welcome Prize.
Three years later, in 2014, LaPlante published her second novel, A Circle of Wives, about the murder of a respected plastic surgeon, who is later discoverd to have been a polygamist.
Alice also has more than 25 years experience as an award-winning journalist, corporate editorial consultant, writing coach, and university-level writing instructor. She has written for Forbes ASAP, BusinessWeek, ComputerWorld, InformationWeek, Discover, and a host of other national publications. Her corporate clients include some of the best-known brands in the technology industry, including IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Symantec, Deloitte, and HP. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
This is a portrait of an unstable mind, an expansive, expertly wrought imagining of memory's failures and potential.... Alzheimer's is bleak territory, and to saddle Jennifer with suspected murder seems cruel and unusual punishment. But in LaPlante's vivid prose, her waning mind proves a prism instead of a prison, her memory refracted to rich, sensual effect.... The twists and turns of mind this novel charts are haunting and original.
Zoe Slutzky - New York Times
To call Turn of Mind a thriller—or a chronicle of illness, or a saga of friendship for that matter—would confine it to a genre it transcends. This is a portrait of an unstable mind, an expansive, expertly wrought imagining of memory’s failures and potential.... In LaPlante’s vivid prose, [Dr. White’s] waning mind proves a prism instead of a prison, her memory refracted to rich, sensual effect. There are moments of steely, surgical calm, the language tight and fractured..and there are moments of blooming, antic poetry.... LaPlante has imagined a lunatic landscape well. The twists and turns of mind this novel charts are haunting and original.
New York Times Book Review
Gripping.... Skilfull.... Unique.... [A] compelling whodunit.... LaPlante has created an unforgettable portrait of the process of forgetting.
Washington Post Book World
Rare.... LaPlante's fine novel is both lyrical and shocking.
Boston Globe
Expertly paced.... A stunning act of imagination.
Chicago Tribune
A page-turner.... Creates a startling range and texture of fear. From agonizing, slow-motion-car-crash moments to the ironic frissons of a good horror movie, [LaPlante] hits every bell.... The complexity never fades.... The razor sharp quality of [Jennifer's] thoughts, even at their most fragmented, gives her entire ordeal a "Twilight Zone" feel. Up until the final stages of the disease, she still somehow manages to retain the quality of a lone sane person adrift in a world that definitely isn't.
Los Angeles Times
Remarkably poignant.... An artful, ambitious, and arresting attempt to capture the thoughts and feelings, by turns confused, conspiratorial, canny, and clear, of a person in the throes of mental illness.... LaPlante reminds us all, passionately, that no matter what the state of our health, reality can be elusive and subjective.
San Francisco Chronicle
How does LaPlante pull a story out of [a protagonist] with no memory? In a word: deftly.... A clever whodunit.... If this portrait is correct, Jennifer is a sad but true reflection of a disease that ebbs and flows unmercifully. One minute she stares in wonder at a commonplace item like a toothbrush, the next she reacts with almost animal cunning, and the next—almost miraculously—she displays the most salient facets of her former self. The novel’s ending alone will show what a long and winding road it is from confused to comatose.
Seattle Times
Unforgettable.... It sounds like an almost impossible task: to write a murder mystery from the perspective of a suspect with Alzheimer's. And yet LaPlante pulls it off and with flair.... Jennifer is a hard, funny, acerbic woman when she is able to marshal her wandering wits.... Fragmented and disorienting.... [A] distressingly believable portrait of a mind sinking into dementia.
Guardian (UK)
Haunting.... Blackly humorous.... Remarkable.... [Told in] the crisp, super-intelligent, and brutally confused voice of Dr. Jennifer White.... LaPlante is certain in her footing—the verisimilitude here is unnerving...[as] she takes us into a world of gauzy shadows and scattered puzzle pieces.
Newsday
This poignant debut immerses us in dementia’s complex choreography.... Dr. White is...by turns brilliant, hallucinatory, and heartbreakingly vulnerable.... [A] lyrical mosaic, an indelible portrait of a disappearing mind.
People
Impressive.... Part mystery novel, part family drama.... LaPlante has a gift for rhythm, crafting rat-a-tat passages that are their own pleasures.... It’s no small feat that LaPlante manages to spin a coherent tale despite her main character’s profound disorientation.
Entertainment Weekly
This book is to 2011 what Anna Quindlen’s Every Last One was to 2010—the dread-filled, un-putdownable page turner.... Skillfully written in the memory-loss first person, the book combines murder mystery with family drama, bringing new meaning to the term ‘psychological thriller.’
Vanity Fair
This dazzlingly adroit debut novel is full of suspense, rueful humor, and scalpel-sharp insights into the intricacies of love and friendship—as well as the resilience of the human spirit.
More
LaPlante's impressive first novel sensitively explores the mental disintegration of widowed 64-year-old Jennifer White, a once-lauded Chicago hand surgeon, who charts her own experiences with Alzheimer's both consciously, in notes she writes to herself and thoughts she shares, and unconsciously, as she records conversations and actions she witnesses but doesn't understand. When someone fatally bludgeons Jennifer's best friend, 75-year-old Amanda O'Toole, who lives just three doors away, suspicion falls on Jennifer because the killer surgically removed four fingers from Amanda's right hand. In a satisfying twist, Jennifer honestly doesn't know herself whether she committed the murder. Jennifer's 29-year-old lawyer son, Mark, wishes to have his mother declared mentally incompetent, while her 24-year-old daughter, Fiona, a sweet, loving flake, and her full-time caretaker, Magdalena, act out of less selfish motives. Mystery fans should be prepared for a subtle literary novel in which the unfolding of Jennifer's condition and of her past matters far more than the whodunit.
Publishers Weekly
Dr. Jennifer White, 64, is a widowed retired orthopedic surgeon with rapidly advancing dementia. As she narrates her story, she is alternately eloquent and profoundly disconnected from reality. She lives at home with her caregiver; her son and daughter are doing their best to cope with her mood swings, confusion, and wanderings, but they have their own challenges. When Jennifer's best friend and neighbor is found murdered with four of her fingers surgically removed, she is understandably the prime suspect. She has no memory of committing the crime. Her children do their best to insulate her from incarceration as her grip on reality continues to slip. Her fractured and sometimes brilliant narrative of police questioning reveals the intimate story of two strong women whose friendship was both compassionate and highly adversarial. Verdict: This extraordinarily crafted debut novel guides the reader through family drama that is becoming all too familiar. That the author is able to do it so convincingly through the eyes and voice of the central character is an amazing achievement. Heartbreaking and stunning, this is both compelling and painful to read. —Susan Clifford Braun, Bainbridge Island, WA
Library Journal
LaPlante's literary novel explores uncharted territory, imagining herself into a mind, one slipping, fading, spinning away from her protagonist, a woman who may have murdered her best friend.... A haunting story masterfully told.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is the time span of the novel? Were you clear about the flashbacks in Jennifer’s memory? Even in her surreal perceptions, is she still working out the past in the stories of James, Mark, Fiona, Amanda, and Peter? What about Dr. Tsu? Is the past really the past in Turn of Mind?
2. Would the story have worked as well if it had been told chronologically? Why, or why not? Consider the overlays of memory of all the characters. Do they provide double or triple exposures? The book is a memoir, a case history, and a mystery. “Something just wasn’t right about this from the beginning, she says, nothing fit.” (p. 278). How does the mystery reflect Jennifer’s condition? Does the ground keep shifting, for the reader, the detective, and, of course, Jennifer? Which characters keep searching for the missing piece of mosaic, lost somewhere in Jennifer? Are there times when we know more than Inspector Luton does? More than Jennifer? Or are we all, characters and readers, held with hints and suspicions until the end?
3. “This half state. Life in the shadows. As the neurofibrillary tangles proliferate, as the neuritic plaques harden, as synapses cease to fire and my mind rots out, I remain aware. An unanesthesized patient” (p. 8). Jennifer in her notebook describes her life in a fog. The term “coming of age” has a new meaning in Turn of Mind. As people grow up, we expect a loss of innocence. How is the process reversed in Alzheimer’s dementia? When Jennifer is trying to identify faces, she feels less capable than a six-month-old child, trying to “separate the known from the unknown” (p. 145). We think of Shakespeare’s "Ages of Man" when Jennifer compares the unhinged despair of fellow patients to the inconsolable, howling infant Fiona with colic.
4. After his riding catastrophe, Christopher Reeve lay frozen in his own body. He said to his wife, “I’m still here.” The essential Christopher was in there somewhere like the butterfly in the bell jar. Is that true of Jennifer? Which character do you think is able to see that essence the way Reeve’s wife could?
5. “What crime have I committed? How long have I been incarcerated?” Think of Kafka’s The Trial or The Castle or The Metamorphosis. (Gregor, as a giant beetle, hangs on to an internal reality, but his condition is surreal. His disconnect with family and friends is undeniable.) Kafka’s characters are doomed for unknowable causes. Does Jennifer probe at guilt as a way to make sense of her fate?
6. What draws Jennifer and Amanda together? What locks them in a friendship/competition like a pair of magnets that often get turned around, wrong end to? At one point, Jennifer says, “My best friend. My adversary. An enigma at the best of times. Now gone, leaving me utterly bereft” (p. 53). Asked by police about the relationship, Jennifer says, “Close, but combative. Amanda was in many ways a difficult woman” (p. 41). “You’d have to hold your own or be vanquished” (p. 45). (Does this remind us of Jennifer’s own mother?)
7. What surprised you about the marriage of Jennifer and James? How well do you think you know James? James, described as a creature of darkness, is known for “keeping his own counsel on things of import” (p. 47). What were these things? Why are they important in unraveling the mysteries of the book?
8. “Magdalena would like a clean slate, while I am mourning the involuntary wiping of mine” (p. 81). What is Magdalena trying to erase in her past? Is her name suggestive of her role? “I swear, sometimes I feel like I’m the one going nuts in this house” (p. 55). Is that surprising for one who is expected to be both advocate and jailer for Jennifer?
9. How does Jennifer refuse to be discounted? Even paranoiac, she has power. (Or is it paranoia when indeed everyone around her is set to restrain her or to humor her—patronize her, as she says.)
10. What is it about Jennifer that makes her so compelling, appealing, even? She behaves badly, outrageously, but there is a larger-than-life element in her that we admire. Give examples. Her professional competency is widely praised, but when we meet her, judgment and self-control have been suspended. Terrible odds are against her, but her wit and pluck survive. There is vitality in her whether she rails against her cursed predicament or shrewdly cuts through the cant of caretakers or officials. As a character, is Jennifer someone you just want to spend time with—at a safe distance?
11. Even if you have not experienced Alzheimer’s at close hand, what is there in LaPlante’s book that speaks to us all? What is the universality of Jennifer White’s dilemma? How is it a metaphor for the human condition?
12. Did you enjoy the resonance of other works in LaPlante’s book? What authors were you reminded of? Since the perspective is Jennifer’s for the most part, what do the echoes tell us about her turn of mind, her intellectual modus operandi?
13. Sometimes people’s treatment of Jennifer seems to be a touchstone of their own characters. How did various hospital staff treat her? The taxi driver? People in the Italian bar? The homeless? A woman I once knew patted her Alzheimer’s husband as he was dying and said, “This is not the man I married, but I’ve learned to love this one, too.” Do Mark and Fiona show signs of this reconciliation with their mother’s condition?
14. Reconciliations of all kinds seem to evaporate in Turn of Mind. It is not only Jennifer who is mercurial in the family. Talk about Mark and Jennifer, their family past and their adult lives. In the book there is a longing for order and restored harmony, but is this likely in the mayhem of an Alzheimer family? It is a world that tilts unpredictably, an image that recurs repeatedly.
15. "Do no harm." What are the ironies of the surgical amputation of Amanda’s fingers? How can one both mutilate and do good?
16. What is the Russian icon? How does it, as a symbol, work on multiple levels? Describe it. What is its history to Jennifer and James, Amanda, Mark, and Fiona?
17. Peter, in a prescient moment, says, “It’s those damned cicadas.... They make one think about Old Testament–style wrath-of-God type things” (p. 46). What are the dreadful revelations that grow more apocalyptic as they have to repeated, again and again, to Jennifer?
18. Are there ways in which Jennifer is privileged in her dementia? Think of her visions, her visitations. Once, as she looks into a mirror, she says, “I don’t recognize the face. Gaunt, with too-prominent cheekbones and eyes a little too large, too otherworldly. The pupils dilated. As if used to seeing strange visions. And then, a secret satisfied smile. As if welcoming them” (p. 200). Her fantasy life is a rich one, culminating in a scene like the book of Revelation when she re-enters the hallucinatory world of Amanda’s house, finding comfort in the crowds of old friends and family. “Perhaps this is my revelation? Perhaps this is heaven? To wander among a multitude and have a name for each” (p. 95).
19. Detective Luton is a linchpin for the story. How is she drawn to Jennifer, not only professionally but also personally? She says that her heart had been broken long ago, and it is being broken again with Jennifer. She sees in Jennifer a woman of quality and tries to reason with her. But Jennifer says, “The words make no sense. She is your sister, your long-lost sister. A shape-shifter. Anything is possible.... Who does she remind you of? Someone you can depend on” (pp. 277-278). How does the detective bring both hunches and skill to the case?
20. Fiona recalls “Amanda at her worst, her supercilious morality on full display” (p. 303). What is the confrontation here between “the iconoclast and the devoted godmother” as Fiona has earlier described her?
21. “Too many good-byes lie ahead.... How many times will I have to say good-bye to you, only to have you reappear like some newly risen Christ. Yes, better to burn the bridge and prevent it from being crossed and recrossed until my heart gives out from sheer exhaustion” (p. 114). Do we learn something new about Amanda here? Does the statement relate to her final acts? How directive is she to the end?
22. “Some things shouldn’t be scrutinized too closely. Some mysteries are only rendered, not solved” (p. 198). This is Jennifer to Mark about his father, but does it have relevance to the end of Turn of Mind? Are all the mysteries, in fact, explained at the end? Are there things that still puzzle you?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Turn of the Key
Ruth Ware, 2019
Gallery/Scout Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 352
Summary
When she stumbles across the ad, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss—a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary.
And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten—by the luxurious "smart" home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family.
What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare—one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder.
Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unravelling events that led to her incarceration. It wasn’t just the constant surveillance from the cameras installed around the house, or the malfunctioning technology that woke the household with booming music, or turned the lights off at the worst possible time.
It wasn’t just the girls, who turned out to be a far cry from the immaculately behaved model children she met at her interview. It wasn’t even the way she was left alone for weeks at a time, with no adults around apart from the enigmatic handyman, Jack Grant.
It was everything.
She knows she’s made mistakes. She admits that she lied to obtain the post, and that her behavior toward the children wasn’t always ideal. She’s not innocent, by any means. But, she maintains, she’s not guilty—at least not of murder. Which means someone else is.
Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, The Turn of the Key is an unputdownable thriller from the Agatha Christie of our time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1977
• Raised—Lewes, Sussex, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Manchester University
• Currently—lives in London
Ruth Ware is the British author of mystery thrillers. She grew up in Sussex, on the south coast of England. After graduating from Manchester University she moved to Paris, before returning to the UK. She has worked as a waitress, a bookseller, a teacher of English as a foreign language, and a press officer. She now lives in London with her husband and two small children.
After her debut In a Dark, Dark Wood was published in 2015, Ware was asked by NPR's David Greene about mystery writers who had influenced her:
I read a huge amount of it as a kid. You know, Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, Dorothy L. Sayers, Sherlock Holmes. And I didn't consciously channel that when I was writing, but when I finished and reread the book, I did suddenly realize how much this kind of structure owed to...Agatha Christie. And it wasn't consciously done, but...I would say I definitely owe a debt to Christie.
Indeed many have noticed Christie's influence in both of Ware's books, including her second, The Woman in Cabin 10, released in 2016. Ware's third novel, The Lying Game, came out in 2017, and her fourth, The Death of Mrs. Westaway in 2018. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Let’s just say that if you’ve got an Echo, you’re going to unplug it as soon as you finish the book…. What Ware does beautifully is infuse The Turn of the Key with a creepy Gothic sensibility. For all of the novel’s contemporary touches… she has delivered an old-fashioned horror story, peopled by children with "eyes full of malice," a dour housekeeper straight out of Rebecca and an inscrutable handyman.
New York Times Book Review
A superb suspense writer… Ware is a master at signaling the presence of evil at the most mundane moments…. Rowan stays put for reasons we won’t understand until the final act of this tragedy. And that’s when Ware’s gifts for structuring an ingenious suspense narrative really come to the fore…. Ware pulls out a stunner on the penultimate page that radically alters how we interpret everything that’s come before. Brava, Ruth Ware. I daresay even Henry James would be impressed.
Maureen Corrigan - Washington Post
A clever and elegant update to James's story…. Surveillance and home technology slot easily into the conventions of horror: They bring the sense that your environment is invaded and controlled from afar, and that you are never quite as alone as you might wish…. The Turn of the Key, and novels like it, point to a new reality. We are all, constantly, haunted.
NPR
This appropriately twisty Turn of the Screw update finds the Woman in Cabin 10 author in her most menacing mode, unfurling a shocking saga of murder and deception.
Entertainment Weekly
Henry James via Black Mirror…. While the ambiguity in James’s masterpiece is "ghosts or madness?," here it is "ghosts or glitch?" Unlike The Turn of the Screw, however, Ware picks a lane, deploying a satisfyingly dizzying parade of twists and reveals without leaving much unexplained.
Los Angeles Review of Books
[E]xcellent…. Ware does a good job of creating tension…. [A]bove all, Ware skillfully lays the bread crumbs to the novel’s satisfying conclusion… but also leaves readers with one final, haunting question… that will stay with them long after they turn the last page.
Publishers Weekly
[C]lassic tropes… are combined with 21st-century creepiness.… Ware hits another one out of the park. Fans of hers or anyone with a taste for the disturbing will stay up late devouring this.
Library Journal
Ruth Ware’s homage to The Turn of the Screw is filled with all of the best gothic elements…. The Turn of the Key is compulsively readable and will keep readers guessing until the very last page... Straddling gothic and thriller, this novel will delight fans of both genres.
BookPage
[A] creepy mystery.… Regrettably, the novel's ending leaves a few too many loose ends while also avoiding the delicious ambiguity of its Victorian predecessors. Truly terrifying! Ware perfects her ability to craft atmosphere and sustain tension with each novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book opens with Rowan Caine’s desperate plea for help from prison. If you received this letter as Mr. Wrexham, would you keep reading? Is there anything she could say that would persuade you to represent her?
2. Rowan describes the Elincourt estate in detail when she visits for her interview. What is your first impression of the house? What aspects were appealing or unappealing to you?
3. The interview with Sandra is standard but revealing. What do we learn about Rowan as she tries to come up with the perfect answers? Would you say Rowan is trustworthy? What do you learn about Sandra during this initial interaction?
4. Maddie, the second oldest girl, has an unexpected reaction to Rowan’s departure and makes a terrifying proclamation: "Don’t come here. It’s not safe" (p. 74). After everything Rowan saw and learned in the previous twenty-four hours, should she have heeded Maddie’s warning? Would you have listened to Maddie?
5. Rowan has a very negative first impression of Bill Elincourt and their relationship only gets worse from there. Why is her initial reaction so strong? How would you handle the ensuing harassment by an employer?
6. Sandra and Bill leave Rowan on her first day with the kids and she struggles to reign them all in. Discuss the kids’ behavior and how Sandra’s constant check-ins affect Rowan’s authority in the house. Look specifically at the interactions on page 131 and 158.
7. Rowan believes she is finally building a relationship with Maddie and Ellie when they show her their secret garden. But when their malicious intent is exposed, Rowan, Maddie, and Ellie all react intensely. Describe each of their reactions and the emotions behind them.
8. After the house goes haywire in the middle of the night, Rowan is sleep-deprived, on edge, and paranoid, and she jumps to several rash conclusions. Are these thoughts reasonable possibilities or delusions based in fear? Imagine how you might respond in her situation.
9. The Elincourts’ housekeeper, Jean McKenzie, immediately dislikes Rowan, but it seems to run deeper than their negative first encounter. Why? Could Jean be the one tormenting Rowan at night, as she suspects?
10. Rowan is deeply disturbed by the girl in Maddie’s drawing. "Tears were streaming down her face, her mouth was open in a despairing wail, and there were red scribbles of blood on her face and on her dress" (p. 228). What do you think it represents? Do you think Rowan should have addressed this directly?
11. When Jack and Rowan break into the attic, it is much worse than they expected. Discuss their ensuing conversation. What answers does Rowan have now and what questions remain? How do you think the doll head came to be in Rowan’s lap?
12. Rowan’s opinion of Jack changes repeatedly in her short time at Heatherbrae. He began as her confidant, became her lead suspect, and finally seemed to earn her trust. Do you think he is trustworthy? Why or why not?
13. We finally learn who Rachel Gerhardt is and of her personal connection to the family. Were there any clues that led you to suspect this before the big reveal? Do you believe Rachel’s version of events as she explains them to Mr. Wrexham?
14. In the last chapter, the truth of what happened to Maddie is finally revealed. How does Ellie’s letter align with Rachel’s retelling of that night? What, if any, questions remain?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James, 1898
100+ pp. (Varies by publisher.)
Summary
One of literature's most gripping ghost stories depicts Miles and Flora, two children who see ghostly apparitions. Their young governess, believes the specters morally dominate the two.
James's story follows the sinister transformation of the children—are they become flagrant liars, or innocents enthralled to evil spirits?
The Turn of the Screw is an elegantly told tale of unspoken horror and psychological terror creates what few stories in literature have been able to do—a complete feeling of dread and uncertainty. (Adapted from various publisher summaries.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 15, 1843
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Death—February 28, 1916
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—Attended schools in France and Switzerland
Harvard Law School
• Awards—British Order of Merit from King George V
Henry James was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr. and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James.
James alternated between America and Europe for the first 20 years of his life, after which he settled in England, becoming a British subject in 1915, one year before his death. He is primarily known for the series of novels in which he portrays the encounter of Americans with Europe and Europeans.
James contributed significantly to literary criticism, particularly in his insistence that writers be allowed the greatest possible freedom in presenting their view of the world. James claimed that a text must first and foremost be realistic and contain a representation of life that is recognisable to its readers. His theatrical work is thought to have profoundly influenced his later novels and tales.
Life
James was born in New York City into a wealthy family. His father, Henry James Sr., was one of the best-known intellectuals in mid-19th-century America. In his youth James traveled back and forth between Europe and America. At the age of 19 he briefly attended Harvard Law School, but preferred reading literature to studying law. James published his first short story, A Tragedy of Error, at age 21, and devoted himself to literature. In 1866–69 and 1871–72 he was a contributor to The Nation and Atlantic Monthly.
Among James's masterpieces are Daisy Miller (1879) and The Portrait of a Lady (1881). The Bostonians (1886) is set in the era of the rising feminist movement. What Maisie Knew (1897) depicts a preadolescent girl who must choose between her parents and a motherly old governess. In The Wings of the Dove (1902) an inheritance destroys the love of a young couple. James considered The Ambassadors (1903) his most "perfect" work of art. James's most famous novella is The Turn of the Screw, a ghost story in which the question of childhood corruption obsesses a governess. Although James is best known for his novels, his essays are now attracting a more general audience.
James regularly rejected suggestions that he marry, and after settling in London proclaimed himself "a bachelor." F. W. Dupee, in several well-regarded volumes on the James family, originated the theory that he had been in love with his cousin Mary ("Minnie") Temple, but that a neurotic fear of sex kept him from admitting such affections.
James's letters to expatriate American sculptor Hendrik Christian Andersen have attracted particular attention. James met the 27-year-old Andersen in Rome in 1899, when James was 56, and wrote letters to Andersen that are intensely emotional: "I hold you, dearest boy, in my innermost love, & count on your feeling me—in every throb of your soul". In a letter from May 6, 1904, to his brother William, James referred to himself as "always your hopelessly celibate even though sexagenarian Henry". How accurate that description might have been is the subject of contention among James's biographers, but the letters to Andersen were occasionally quasi-erotic: "I put, my dear boy, my arm around you, & feel the pulsation, thereby, as it were, of our excellent future & your admirable endowment." To his homosexual friend Howard Sturgis, James could write: "I repeat, almost to indiscretion, that I could live with you. Meanwhile I can only try to live without you."
He corresponded in almost equally extravagant language with his many female friends, writing, for example, to fellow-novelist Lucy Clifford: "Dearest Lucy! What shall I say? when I love you so very, very much, and see you nine times for once that I see Others! Therefore I think that—if you want it made clear to the meanest intelligence—I love you more than I love Others."
Work
James is one of the major figures of trans-Atlantic literature. His works frequently juxtapose characters from the Old World (Europe), embodying a feudal civilization that is beautiful, often corrupt, and alluring, and from the New World (United States), where people are often brash, open, and assertive and embody the virtues—freedom and a more highly evolved moral character—of the new American society. James explores this clash of personalities and cultures, in stories of personal relationships in which power is exercised well or badly.
Critics have jokingly described three phases in the development of James's prose: "James the First, James the Second, and The Old Pretender" and observers do often group his works of fiction into three periods. In his apprentice years, culminating with the masterwork The Portrait of a Lady, his style was simple and direct (by the standards of Victorian magazine writing) and he experimented widely with forms and methods, generally narrating from a conventionally omniscient point of view. Plots generally concern romance, except for the three big novels of social commentary that conclude this period. In the second period, as noted above, he abandoned the serialised novel and from 1890 to about 1897[citation needed], he wrote short stories and plays. Finally, in his third and last period he returned to the long, serialised novel.
More important for his work overall may have been his position as an expatriate, and in other ways an outsider, living in Europe. While he came from middle-class and provincial belongings (seen from the perspective of European polite society) he worked very hard to gain access to all levels of society, and the settings of his fiction range from working class to aristocratic, and often describe the efforts of middle-class Americans to make their way in European capitals. He confessed he got some of his best story ideas from gossip at the dinner table or at country house weekends. He worked for a living, however, and lacked the experiences of select schools, university, and army service, the common bonds of masculine society. He was furthermore a man whose tastes and interests were, according to the prevailing standards of Victorian era Anglo-American culture, rather feminine, and who was shadowed by the cloud of prejudice that then and later accompanied suspicions of his homosexuality.
Major Novels
Although any selection of James's novels as "major" must inevitably depend to some extent on personal preference, the following books have achieved prominence among his works in the views of many critics. James believed a novel must be organic. Parts of the novel need to go together and the relationship must fit the form. If a reader enjoys a work of art or piece of writing, then they must be able to explain why. The very fact that every reader has different tastes, lends to the belief that artists should have artistic freedom to write in any way they choose to talk about subject matter that could possibly interest everyone.
The first period of James's fiction, usually considered to have culminated in The Portrait of a Lady, concentrated on the contrast between Europe and America. The style of these novels is generally straightforward and, though personally characteristic, well within the norms of 19th century fiction. Although the book shows some signs of immaturity—this was James's first serious attempt at a full-length novel—it has attracted favourable comment due to the vivid realisation of the three major characters.
Although Roderick Hudson featured mostly American characters in a European setting, James made the Europe–America contrast even more explicit in his next novel. In fact, the contrast could be considered the leading theme of The American (1877). This book is a combination of social comedy and melodrama concerning the adventures and misadventures of Christopher Newman, an essentially good-hearted but rather gauche American businessman on his first tour of Europe.
Washington Square (1880) is a deceptively simple tragicomedy that recounts the conflict between a dull but sweet daughter and her brilliant, domineering father. The book is often compared to Jane Austen's work for the clarity and grace of its prose and its intense focus on family relationships. James was not particularly enthusiastic about Jane Austen, so he might not have regarded the comparison as flattering. In fact, James was not enthusiastic about Washington Square itself. He tried to read it over for inclusion in the New York Edition of his fiction but found that he could not. So he excluded the novel from the edition.
In The Portrait of a Lady (1881) James concluded the first phase of his career with a novel that remains his most popular piece of long fiction. The narrative is set mainly in Europe, especially in England and Italy. Generally regarded as the masterpiece of his early phase, The Portrait of a Lady is described as a psychological novel, exploring the minds of his characters, and almost a work of social science, exploring the differences between Europeans and Americans, the old and the new worlds.
The Bostonians (1886) is a bittersweet tragicomedy that centres on Basil Ransom, an unbending political conservative from Mississippi. The storyline concerns the contest between Ransom and Olive for Verena's allegiance and affection, though the novel also includes a wide panorama of political activists, newspaper people, and quirky eccentrics.
James followed with The Princess Casamassima (1886), the story of an intelligent but confused young London bookbinder, Hyacinth Robinson, who becomes involved in far left politics and a terrorist assassination plot. The book is something of a lone sport in the Jamesian canon for dealing with such a violent political subject. But it is often paired with The Bostonians, which is also concerned with political issues.
Just as James was beginning his ultimately disastrous attempt to conquer the stage, he wrote The Tragic Muse (1890). This novel offers a wide, cheerful panorama of English life and follows the fortunes of two would-be artist. The book reflects James's consuming interest in the theatre and is often considered to mark the close of the second or middle phase of his career.
Criticism, Biographies and Fictional Treatments
James's work has remained steadily popular with the limited audience of educated readers to whom he spoke during his lifetime, and remained firmly in the British canon, but after his death American critics, such as Van Wyck Brooks, expressed hostility towards James's long expatriation and eventual naturalisation as a British citizen. Oscar Wilde once criticised him for writing "fiction as if it were a painful duty".
Despite these criticisms, James is now valued for his psychological and moral realism, his masterful creation of character, his low-key but playful humour, and his assured command of the language.
Early biographies of James echoed the unflattering picture of him drawn in early criticism. F.W. Dupee, as noted above, characterised James as neurotically withdrawn and fearful, and although Dupee lacked access to primary materials his view has remained persuasive in academic circles, partly because Leon Edel's massive five-volume work, published from 1953 to 1972, seemed to buttress it with extensive documentation.
The published criticism of James's work has reached enormous proportions. The volume of criticism of The Turn of the Screw alone has become extremely large for such a brief work. The Henry James Review, published three times a year, offers criticism of James's entire range of writings, and many other articles and book-length studies appear regularly.
Legacy
Perhaps the most prominent examples of James's legacy in recent years have been the film versions of several of his novels and stories. Three of James's novels were filmed: The Europeans (1978), The Bostonians (1984) and The Golden Bowl (2000). The Iain Softley-directed version of The Wings of the Dove (1997) was successful with both critics and audiences. Agnieszka Holland's Washington Square (1997) was well received by critics, and Jane Campion tried her hand with The Portrait of a Lady (1996) but with much less success.
Most of James's work has remained continuously in print since its first publication, and he continues to be a major figure in realist fiction, influencing generations of novelists. James has allowed the genre of the novel to become worthy of a literary critic's attention. James has formulated a theory of fiction that many today still discuss and debate.
In 1954, when the shades of depression were thickening fast, Ernest Hemingway wrote an emotional letter in which he tried to steady himself as he thought James would: "Pretty soon I will have to throw this away so I better try to be calm like Henry James. Did you ever read Henry James? He was a great writer who came to Venice and looked out the window and smoked his cigar and thought." The odd, perhaps subconscious or accidental allusion to "The Aspern Papers" is striking. More recently, James' writing was even used to promote Rolls-Royce automobiles: the tagline "Live all you can, it's a mistake not to", originally spoken by The Ambassadors' Lambert Strether, was used in one advertisement. This is somewhat ironic, considering the novel's sardonic treatment of the "great new force" of mass marketing. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Classic works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
Discussion Questions
1. In The Turn of the Screw, the misbehavior of the children, Miles and Flora, as the story progresses makes us suspect that they are not as innocent as they seem. And yet the source of their misbehavior is left ambiguous: Is it natural mischievousness or has it been instigated by an evil, corrupting force in the form of the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel? Trace through the story the changes in the way the governess views the children and their misbehaviors. How does the uncertainty about the children, and their possible awareness of the ghosts, intensify the governess's predicament?
2. In the beginning chapters of the story, the governess recounts several unsettling events: The children's uncle insists that he not be bothered with anything relating to the children's care; we learn of the death of the governess's predecessor, Miss Jessel; and we learn that sweet and charming Miles has been expelled from school. These are just some of the forebodings that set the stage for the supernatural events that soon follow, and so when the governess first relates the appearance of a ghost it doesn't seem entirely unexpected. To what degree is the governess a force of sense and reason in these unsettling surroundings, and to what degree does she become a destabilizing force herself as the story progresses? How does our answer to this question affect our understanding of the story's ending?
3. Any interpretation of The Turn of the Screw hinges on the question, debated vociferously by critics, of whether the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel are real or whether they are figments of the governess's imagination.* What are the implications of the governess's imagining them? If we read this not as an actual ghost story but as a story about the governess's perceptions of ghosts, what sort of psychological underpinnings are suggested? Could it be in these dimensions that the real horror of the story may lie?
* James himself, as recorded in Leon Edel's comprehensive biography, Henry James: A Life (five volumes: 1953-72), said that The Turn of the Screw was a ghost story— the ghosts were to be taken as real, not imagined.
Yet "authorial intent" has been under scrutiny for some years: current criticism rarely gives credence to authors' claims about what they "meant." Memories are faulty and authors draw from a mysterious well of creativity—readers often see things in works that weren't consciously put there by the author. The Turn of the Screw is certainly ambiguous, which opens the path to numerous ways of reading.
Also, a 2009 production I saw of Benjamin Britten's opera of the same name placed the setting in a mental asylum!—a stunning interpretation that called into question whether the events of the story even took place. [LitLovers - Ed.]
(Questions issued by Random House edition.)
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Turning Point
Susan Lynn Pelletier, 2015
Xlibris
188 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781503586727
Summary
A return to Seagull’s Perch is the last thing Angelique intended to do, but the request from her great-great-grandmother to be there to celebrate her 105th birthday could not be ignored.
Arriving home with her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Angelique is faced with her mother, whom she hasn’t spoken to in three years. Also entering back into her life is her ex-fiance seeking forgiveness and hoping to become a part of her and her daughter’s life.
Angelique seeks to reconcile the past so she can move forward with her future. Her great-great-grandmother is aware that time for her is running out. The family all gather to listen to Varvara telling her story—a colorful history of events spanning more than ten decades—beginning with her birth in Russia, to her life on an estate in France, and finally to the present, living on the shores of Rhode Island.
Turning Point is an intimate look into one woman’s life—a compelling tale of love, loss, joy and sorrow. Through her faith and courage, Angelique overcomes many obstacles, and in the end this strong, courageous woman’s love binds five generations of family together.
Author Bio
• Birth—December 22, 1953
• Where—Oxford, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—Quinsigamond Community College
• Currently—lives in Oxford, Massachusetts
Susan Lynn Pelletier was born in Oxford, Massachusetts to Leslie C. and Irene Haynes. The fifth of seven children, she grew up with five sisters and one brother. Her family took pride in being American and of Armenian descent. There was also a strong emphasis on family togetherness. Family suppers were eaten together and Sundays were set aside as family days. After church you were expected to be in the family room playing games, making puzzles, or watching the Red Sox on TV. Once, her parents took all seven children to see the Sox play at Fenway. Ms. Pelletier is still an avid Sox and Patriot fan. Family trips to Cape Cod each summer began her love of the ocean.Church, the ocean, horses, singing, writing, and reading are among Ms.Pelletier favorite things. She has been singing in church choirs since second grade and has been a member of her present church choir for over 35 years. While attending Quinsigamond Community College, she was a member of their first traveling concert choir which toured the Bavarian Alps.
In her childhood years Ms. Pelletier joined the Girl Scouts. She loved being a scout and earned its highest award, the God and Community Award. She also spent one summer as a camp counselor. As a teenager, time was spent on a local farm mucking out the stalls in exchange for time riding their horses. Susan also began her passion for writing poetry at the age of nine.
Ms.Pelletier met her husband at the Getty station across the street from her home. While joking, they discussed their birthdays and discovered they were only one day apart. Two years later at exactly 12 mid-night, he proposed. They were married on October 20, 1973. Ms. Pelletier designed and sewed the wedding gown she wore on her wedding day.
Over the next eight years, while helping her husband build their own home, she gave birth to her three children. When her youngest child started school, Ms.Pelletier decided to go back to work. At first she only worked part-time, but she began working full time as a teacher’s aide at Project Duke in the Oxford School system. Ms. Pelletier had worked with Autistic students for twenty-two years when she retired.
While working, she became best friends with another aide, Jan Bursell. At the end of the school year all the aides decided to go to the beach. Jan, who grew up in Westerly, Rhode Island, suggested Misquamicut Beach. Ms. Pelletier calls Misquamicut, “Her Ocean” and it is the setting for Turning Point.
In 2004, Susan was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Eventually forcing her to stop working, she turned to her dream of writing a book. Turning Point is her first novel. She still lives in the home she built with her husband of 42 years and her dog Zorro. Ms. Pelletier has the “over 60 nativity sets” mentioned in her novel. When not at home, she’s spending time with her five grandchildren or volunteering on her church’s mission trips.
Discussion Questions
1. What is your family heritage?
2. Did it influence who you are today? Why or why not?
3. Do you have family traditions passed down for generations?
4. What is your favorite holiday? Do you have a special memory?
5. In Turning Point, Varvara travels to many countries. Where have you traveled? Do you have a favorite trip you remember?
6. The angel tree and the collection of over 60 Nativity sets described in the book actually are Susan's. Do you collect anything special?
7. Varvara tells Vari that butterflies bring down messages from heaven. Do you believe this? Do you have another belief that's similar?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Turtle Moon
Alice Hoffman, 1992
Penguin Group USA
291 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425161289
Summary
Turtle Moon transports the listener to Verity, Florida, a place where anything can happen during the month of May, when migrating sea turtles come to town, mistaking the glow of the streetlights for the moon.
A young single mother is murdered in her apartment and her baby is gone. Keith, a 12-year-old boy in the same apartment building—the self-styled "meanest boy" in town—also disappears. In pursuit of the baby, the boy and the killer, are Keith's divorced mother and a cop who himself was once considered the meanest boy in town.
Their search leads them down the humid byways of a Florida populated almost exclusively by people from somewhere else; emotional refugees seeking sanctuary along the swampy coast. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 16, 1952
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Adelphi Univ.; M.A., Stanford Univ.
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
Born in the 1950s to college-educated parents who divorced when she was young, Alice Hoffman was raised by her single, working mother in a blue-collar Long Island neighborhood. Although she felt like an outsider growing up, she discovered that these feelings of not quite belonging positioned her uniquely to observe people from a distance. Later, she would hone this viewpoint in stories that captured the full intensity of the human experience.
After high school, Hoffman went to work for the Doubleday factory in Garden City. But the eight-hour, supervised workday was not for her, and she quit before lunch on her first day! She enrolled in night school at Adelphi University, graduating in 1971 with a degree in English. She went on to attend Stanford University's Creative Writing Center on a Mirrellees Fellowship. Her mentor at Stanford, the great teacher and novelist Albert Guerard, helped to get her first story published in the literary magazine Fiction. The story attracted the attention of legendary editor Ted Solotaroff, who asked if she had written any longer fiction. She hadn't — but immediately set to work. In 1977, when Hoffman was 25, her first novel, Property Of, was published to great fanfare.
Since that remarkable debut, Hoffman has carved herself a unique niche in American fiction. A favorite with teens as well as adults, she renders life's deepest mysteries immediately understandable in stories suffused with magic realism and a dreamy, fairy-tale sensibility. (In a 1994 article for the New York Times, interviewer Ruth Reichl described the magic in Hoffman's books as a casual, regular occurrence — "...so offhand that even the most skeptical reader can accept it.") Her characters' lives are transformed by uncontrollable forces — love and loss, sorrow and bliss, danger and death.
Hoffman's 1997 novel Here on Earth was selected as an Oprah Book Club pick, but even without Winfrey's powerful endorsement, her books have become huge bestsellers—including three that have been adapted for the movies: Practical Magic (1995), The River King (2000), and her YA fable Aquamarine (2001).
Hoffman is a breast cancer survivor; and like many people who consider themselves blessed with luck, she believes strongly in giving back. For this reason, she donated her advance from her 1999 short story collection Local Girls to help create the Hoffman Breast Center at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Hoffman has written a number of children's books, including Fireflies: A Winter's Tale (1999), Horsefly (2000), and Moondog (2004).
• Aquamarine was written for Hoffman's best friend, Jo Ann, who dreamed of the freedom of mermaids as she battled brain cancer.
• Here on Earth is a modern version of Hoffman's favorite novel, Wuthering Heights.
• Hoffman has been honored with the Massachusetts Book Award for her teen novel Incantation.
• When asked what books most influenced her life or career, here's what she said:
Edward Eager's brilliant series of suburban magic: Half Magic, Magic by the Lake, Magic or Not, Knight's Castle, The Time Garden, Seven-Day Magic, The Well Wishers. Anything by Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, J. D. Salinger, Grace Paley. My favorite book: Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
True to form, Ms. Hoffman relates [the novel's] events with such easy fluency that the reader is quickly enveloped in her story; it's like sinking into a rocking chair and being gently seduced by the movement and rhythm. Ms. Hoffman's facility as a writer, however, only temporarily disguises the highly contrived nature of a plot propelled by implausible coincidences. These developments—combined with a series of cute, supernatural events that are never organically integrated into the overall narrative—eventually undermine the novel's emotional power: the reader finishes the book feeling vaguely manipulated, and hence detached from the characters' fates. The result is a book that's entertaining enough to read, but lacking in significant emotional afterlife.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Once charmed into one of Ms. Hoffman's stories about the intersection of wounded people who seek to learn where and how to give their love, the reader can't help searching for a happy ending as eagerly as Alice Hoffman's characters labor to achieve it.... In Turtle Moon, her latest work, Ms. Hoffman writes quite wonderfully about the magic in our lives and in the battered, indifferent world. I don't know that she's written better.
Frederick Busch - New York Times Book Review
Combining aspects of a suspense thriller and a romance, and including such surefire elements as an abandoned baby, a youngster on the verge of juvenile delinquency who is reformed, two dogs and a supernatural character who provides the requisite touch of fantasy, Hoffman's new novel has commercial success written all over it. But some readers will fail to find the enchantment provided in such previous works as Illumination Night and Seventh Heaven. The town of Verity, Fla., starts to steam up in May, when the humidity and temperature soar. (Among the things readers must accept is the dreadful, oppressive May heat; one is tempted to ask, if it's so unbearable in May, how do people live through the summer?) Verity is full of divorcees, and when one of them is murdered, Keith Rosen, "Verity's meanest 12-year-old," finds her baby, who was in fact the object of an aborted kidnapping, and runs away, instinctively hiding the threatened child. This development brings together Keith's divorced mother, Lucy, and the town's surly policeman, Julian Cash, a loner with a tragedy in his past. Despite the murder and a stalking assassin, this is really a fairy tale: Keith bonds with the baby and tames a vicious dog ("No one has ever known him the way this dog does"); a ghost/angel falls in love and brings redemption to Julian, and several people begin new lives. Hoffman lards her slick plot with ponderously sentimental observations, the kind of bromides that could be embroidered on a pillow. But she knows how to manipulate suspense and tug the heartstrings; with its cinematic flow and larger-than-life characters, her novel will make a wonderful movie.
Publishers Weekly
A mix of murder and magic in the Florida sunshine as only Hoffman (Seventh Heaven, 1990, etc.) could conjure it. Verity, Florida, once known for live alligators, is now better known for alligator salads (a mix of spinach, peppers, avocado and chopped eggs, tinted green), as well as for having more divorced women from New York than any other town in the state of Florida. Lucy Rosen is one of those women. She has recently moved to Verity, and what she doesn't know yet is that in May, when the turtles come out and crawl across the roads, anything can happen. People go crazy. Dogs bite. Ficus hedges burst into flame. This particular May, a woman in Lucy's condo complex is murdered, her baby is missing, and Lucy's own son, Keith, has vanished as well. With the assistance of Julian Cash, a reclusive Verity policeman, Lucy sets out to find out who committed the murder and what has become of the missing children. The fact that the ultimate resolution of these mysteries is only partly plausible doesn't really matter in the end. Because Hoffman's strength is that she deals in dreams. She knows all about the everyday things that defy simple explanations—lovers who suddenly turn cold, turtles who mistake streetlights for the moon. The Florida she paints here is not the one promoted by any chamber of commerce. With a climate that is both mesmerizing and malignant, it is a place where dragonflies' wings catch fire and strangler plums drop down from trees, leaving dents in parked cars. It is a place where rattlesnakes crawl into telephone booths and angels lurk outside the Burger King. It's a place where anything might happen. And, naturally, it does. Pure Hoffman: her take on the tropics is haunting, hypnotic, and hot as a fever dream.
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 Turtle Moon:
1. Hoffman presents us with two deeply troubled males, 12-year-old Keith and adult Julian. What do they have in common? What has caused Keith's anger and Julian's anguish? Is history destiny for these two people—for all of us?
2. Why does Keith run off with the baby?
3. Talk about Lucy Rosen. What kind of woman is she? Why can't she seem to penetrate her son's anger? Why has she left her husband in New York, and what is she seeking in Verity? In fact, what are all the divorced women in Verity seeking or running from?
4. Talk about the characters—both major and minor ones. Whom do you find especially appealing or sympathetic?
5. Whose ghost is in the tree outside Burger King? Why is it there? And how does it eventually bring redemption to Julian?
6. Hoffman believes in a magical world and wants her readers to experience it. Talk about what Hoffman means by "magic" and how she injects it into this novel. What role do signs and wonders play in the book; in other words, how do they affect characters and events? Do you enjoy her use of the fantastic...or find it off-putting? Either way, why?
7. Hoffman has said that the landscape and weather of Florida, inspired her to write Turtle Moon—the fictional Verity became the first character in her novel. What might she mean—how can setting be character?
8. Talk about the role of the dogs in this story? Why is Arrow important to Keith? What do you think about the finale, especially Arrow's fate?
9. Find and discuss passages in the book that you feel express some truth or poignancy or humor. These, for instance:
There is, after all, strong brown soap for poison ivy, iodine for cuts and bruises, mud for bee stings, honey for sore throats, chalky white casts for broken bones. But where is the cure for meanness of spirit?
The air all around the town limits is so thick that sometimes a soul cannot rise and instead attaches itself to a stranger, landing right between the shoulder blades with a thud that carries no more weight than a hummingbird.
He cried so hard that when he finished there was a pile of tiny pebbles at his feet.
10. What is the thematic significance of the book's title? What do turtles mistaking street lights for the moon have to do with the events of the novel? In other words, how do the turtles' movements express an underlying meaning of the novel?
11. How about the ending—what do characters learn by the end, how do they bind up their wounds? Is the ending satisfying or not?
12. If you've read other books by Alice Hoffman, how does this one compare?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Turtles All the Way Down
John Green, 2017
Penguin Young Readers
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525555360
Summary
Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred thousand dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate.
So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis.
Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.
In his long-awaited return, John Green, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Looking for Alaska and The Fault in Our Stars, shares Aza’s story with shattering, unflinching clarity in this brilliant novel of love, resilience, and the power of lifelong friendship. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1977
• Where—Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
• Rasied—Orlando, Florida
• Education—Kenyon College
• Awards—Michael L. Printz Award (twice); Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel;
Corine Literature Prize.
• Currently—lives in Indianapolis, Indiana
John Michael Green is an American author of young adult fiction and a YouTube vlogger. He is also a #1 Best Selling author on the New York Times Bestseller list.
Green grew up in Orlando, Florida, before attending Indian Springs School, a boarding and day school outside of Birmingham, Alabama. He graduated from Kenyon College in 2000 with a double major in English and Religious Studies.
Green lived for several years in Chicago, where he worked for the book review journal Booklist as a publishing assistant and production editor while writing Looking for Alaska. While there, he reviewed hundreds of books, particularly literary fiction and books about Islam or conjoined twins. He has also critiqued books for the New York Times Book Review and written for National Public Radio's All Things Considered and WBEZ, Chicago's public radio station. He lived in New York City for two years while his wife attended graduate school.
Green currently resides in Indianapolis, Indiana with his wife, Sarah, his son Henry, and his dog, a West Highland Terrier, named Willy (full name Fireball Wilson Roberts).
Writing
Green's first novel, Looking for Alaska (based on his own boarding school experience), won the 2006 Michael L. Printz Award presented by the American Library Association, and made the ALA 2005 Top 10 Best Book for Young Adults. The film rights to Looking for Alaska were purchased by Paramount in 2005 and the movie scheduled to be released in 2013.
His second novel, An Abundance of Katherines (2006), was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Award Honor Book, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and may also be made into a movie in the future.
Green collaborated on a book with fellow young adult authors Maureen Johnson and Lauren Myracle called Let It Snow (2008), which contains three interconnected short stories that take place in the same small town on Christmas Eve during a massive snowstorm. The story that he penned is called "A Cheertastic Christmas Miracle". On November 27, 2009, the book reached number 10 on the New York Times bestseller list for paperback children's books.
Green's third novel, Paper Towns (2008 ), debuted at number 5 on the New York Times bestseller list for children's books, and the movie rights to Paper Towns have been optioned, with Green hired to write the screenplay. Paper Towns was awarded the 2009 Edgar Award for Best Young Adult Novel and the 2010 Corine Literature Prize.
Green collaborated with fellow young adult writer and friend David Levithan on the 2010 book entitled Will Grayson, Will Grayson, and Green appeared on the Smart Mouths Podcast to discuss the book and collaboration.
Before Green's fifth book, The Fault in Our Stars, was released in 2012, he agreed to signed all 150,000 copies of the first printing, as well as his wife and his brother leaving their own symbols, a Yeti and an Anglerfish respectively. The New York Times Best Seller List for Children's Books listed the book at #1 within weeks.
John is also the cocreator (with his brother, Hank) of the popular video blog Brotherhood 2.0, which has been watched more than 30 million times by Nerdfighter fans all over the globe. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
No reviews have been published for this book as of yet. Once the book is published (October 10, 2017), reviews will be forthcoming … and we'll include them as they come in.
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 publisher questions if and when they're available.)
Tuscan Rose
Belinda Alexandra, 2010 (2013, U.S. ed.)
Gallery Books
592 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451679076
Summary
A magical, richly woven World War II–era saga filled with passion, secrets, beauty, and horror.
Florence, 1914—
A mysterious stranger known as The Wolf leaves an infant with the sisters of Santo Spirito. A tiny silver key hidden in her wrappings is the one clue to the child’s identity. . . .
Fifteen years later—
Young Rosa must leave the nuns, her only family, and become governess to the daughter of an aristocrat and his strange, frightening wife. Their house is elegant but cursed, and Rosa—blessed with gifts beyond her considerable musical talents—is torn between her desire to know the truth and her fear of its repercussions.
All the while, the hand of Fascism curls around beautiful Italy, and no citizen is safe. Rosa faces unimaginable hardship: her only weapons her intelligence, intuition, and determination...and her extraordinary capacity for love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Belinda Alexandra has been published to wide acclaim in Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, Holland, Poland, Norway, and Spain.Sh e is the daughter of a Russian mother and Australian father and has been an intrepid traveller since her youth.
Her love of other cultures and languages is matched by her passion for her home country, Australia, where she is a volunteer rescuer and caregiver for the NSW Wildlife Information and Rescue Service. (From the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
In the tradition of The Thorn Birds and Corelli’s Mandolin, Tuscan Rose is a sweeping story, taking Rosa from musician, to antique dealer, to nurse, to revolutionary, all the while maintaining her indomitable and loving spirit. There is plenty of intrigue, emotion, and bravery, and a few scenes that will remain with the reader for some time. —Elizabeth Dickie
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Rosa forms several surrogate families in the absence of a biological one. Do these groups help her find peace with the mystery of her past?
2. Rosa is faced with many impossible choices under Mussolini and during the war. Would you have chosen as she does?
3. Would you be able to fight—and risk your life—for the greater good as Luciano does? Or would you focus on the survival of those closest to you?
4. Rosa’s musical talent takes a back seat to her struggle—and Italy’s struggle—over the years before and during the war. Can you see her finding a way back to performing?
5. How do you respond to Rosa’s ability to "read" the past of objects? Do you think such an ability would be more blessing or burden?
6. Tuscan Rose is divided into parts that could be said to function in the same way as the movements of a piece of music. How else does music color Belinda Alexandra’s writing?
(Questions from the author's website.)
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Twain's End
Lynn Cullen, 2015
Gallery Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476758961
Summary
A fictionalized imagining of the personal life of America’s most iconic writer: Mark Twain.
In March of 1909, Mark Twain cheerfully blessed the wedding of his private secretary, Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager, Ralph Ashcroft. One month later, he fired both.
He proceeded to write a ferocious 429-page rant about the pair, calling Isabel "a liar, a forger, a thief, a hypocrite, a drunkard, a sneak, a humbug, a traitor, a conspirator, a filthy-minded and salacious slut pining for seduction." Twain and his daughter, Clara Clemens, then slandered Isabel in the newspapers, erasing her nearly seven years of devoted service to their family.
How did Lyon go from being the beloved secretary who ran Twain’s life to a woman he was determined to destroy?
In Twain’s End, Lynn Cullen "cleverly spins a mysterious, dark tale" (Booklist) about the tangled relationships between Twain, Lyon, and Ashcroft, as well as the little-known love triangle between Helen Keller, her teacher Anne Sullivan Macy, and Anne’s husband, John Macy, which comes to light during their visit to Twain’s Connecticut home in 1909.
Add to the party a furious Clara Clemens, smarting from her own failed love affair, and carefully kept veneers shatter.
Based on Isabel Lyon’s extant diary, Twain’s writings, letters, photographs, and events in Twain’s boyhood that may have altered his ability to love, Twain’s End triumphs as "a tender evocation of a vain, complicated man’s twilight years and a last chance at love" (People). (Summary from the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 11, 1955
• Where—Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA
• Education—B.A., Indiana University
• Currently—lives in Atlanta, Georgia
Lynn Cullen grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the fifth girl in a family of seven children. She learned to love history combined with traveling while visiting historic sites across the U.S. on annual family camping trips.
Lynn attended Indiana University in Bloomington and Fort Wayne, and took writing classes with Tom McHaney at Georgia State. She wrote children’s books as her three daughters were growing up, while working in a pediatric office and, later, at Emory University on the editorial staff of a psychoanalytic journal.
While her camping expeditions across the States have become fact-finding missions across Europe, she still loves digging into the past. She does not miss, however, sleeping in musty sleeping bags. Or eating canned fruit cocktail. She now lives in Atlanta with her husband, their dog, and two unscrupulous cats.
Books
Lynn is the author of the 2010 novel, The Creation of Eve, which was named among the best fiction books of the year by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and was an April 2010 Indie Next selection.
Her 2011 novel, Reign of Madness, about Juana the Mad, daughter of the Spanish Monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand, was chosen as a Best of the South selection by the Atlanta Journal Constitution and was a 2012 Townsend Prize finalist.
Her 2013 novel, Mrs. Poe, examines the fall of Edgar Allan Poe through the eyes of poet Francis Osgood.
Twain's End, published in 2015, explores the tangled relationship among Mark Twain, his secretary Isabel V. Lyon, and his business manager Ralph Ashcroft.
Lynn is also the author of numerous award-winning books for children, including the 2007 young adult novel I Am Rembrandt’s Daughter, which was a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" selection, and an ALA Best Book of 2008. (From the author's website.)
Be sure to check out Lynn Cullen's essay on how she and a group of women formed their book club some 25 years ago. She was a guest on the Booking Mama blog.
Book Reviews
A tender evocation of a vain, complicated man's twilight years and last chance at love.
People
Twain’s End remains a book that is a joy to read. Ms. Cullen is the Bronte of our day.
Huffington Post
Cullen has a knack for weaving in small details to create rich fictional portraits of real-life figures.
Atlanta Magazine
A fascinating book about a complicated writer.
Missourian
(Starred review.) The extraordinary relationship between the popular, complicated author Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, and his longtime secretary Isabel Lyon is wonderfully reimagined in this absorbing novel.... [A] fascinating interpretation of this early 20th-century literary immortal, distinguished by incisive character portrayals and no-holds-barred scrutiny.
Publishers Weekly
Intelligently drawn…Cullen expertly portrays both Samuel Clemens and Mark Twain… fans of historical fiction and biographies will enjoy.
Library Journal
Cullen portrays the author as a Jekyll-and-Hyde character.... Because Cullen succeeds in portraying Clemens as so unsympathetic, Isabel's devotion becomes a problem for the novel. She comes across as star-struck.... A more nuanced character would have strengthened this sad story of futile, desperate love.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Samuel Clemens often talks about his dual personalities—Sam Clemens and Mark Twain—occasionally saying he wishes to be rid of the latter or even that he hates him. How much do you believe an author’s life is caught up in their identity as a writer? Do you think Sam Clemens uses Mark Twain as an excuse for his behavior, or do you think his fame and renown as Twain fuel the behavior?
2. Samuel Clemens, Clara, and others tell Isabel that Sam is completely dependent on her. Do you believe his affection for her stems in large part from that dependency?
3. Do you think Sam’s attraction to women stems from their beauty and youth, or do you think that other factors, like their status of subservience to him, play a role? Consider the invalid Olivia, or Isabel, whose fortune was gone and financial need great. Do you suppose a need for power and status fueled his passions? How much of his childhood and background plays a role, if at all, in his psychology?
4. Do you think that Sam would have married Isabel on his return from England if the reporter’s question concerning marriage rumors had not been denied? Do you believe Sam ever had intentions of marrying Isabel, or was he too conscious of his reputation?
5. Why do you think Mrs. Clemens speaks so candidly with Isabel about Sam’s roving eye without admonishing Isabel for her flirtation? Why do you imagine she tells her about his propensity to break hearts and hurt people that are close to him? How much of this is said out of kindness, and how much of it is a warning? Do you think she spoke so openly with her husband’s previous interests?
6. How do you explain Isabel’s passion for Sam despite her knowledge of his philandering, his status as a married man, and her role in his family? Do you think she ought to have left her role as his secretary? How soon should she have left her position for her life to have taken a different trajectory? How do you think it would have turned out differently?
7. Thinking of her daughter singing before a crowd with her husband in attendance, Olivia Clemens feels troubled, as she believed “Clara hadn’t a chance. No one did, really, against Mark Twain. Not even Youth himself.” What do you think of Mrs. Clemens’s attitude toward the power of her husband’s alter ego? Do you think she means to say that no one can compete with the popularity of Mark Twain, or is she getting at something more?
8. What do you make of Olivia Clemens’s situation? How would you characterize her relationship with Sam? Is her husband truly the cause of her illness? If so, why has she persisted in living with him and tolerating his actions?
9. The story of the young Sam discovering Jennie and his father together sheds light on Sam’s sense of guilt, but in what other insights does it offer on his personality? On his understanding of himself?
10. What do you think is the largest draw for Isabel: Mr. Clemens’s wit, charm, intellect, status, or his unavailability? Do you think their closeness sealed her affection and she would have been equally as passionate had Sam been less famous or even not famous at all?
11. Why do you think the author chose to write the final chapter from the perspective of Mrs. Lyon instead of Isabel?
12. How much did you know about Samuel Clemens’s life before reading this book? How has your reading of Twain’s End impacted your perception of the man? Of Mark Twain and his books?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Twelve (The Passage Trilogy, 2)
Justin Cronin, 2012
Random House
592 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345504982
Summary
In the present day, as the man-made apocalypse unfolds, three strangers navigate the chaos. Lila, a doctor and an expectant mother, is so shattered by the spread of violence and infection that she continues to plan for her child’s arrival even as society dissolves around her.
Kittridge, known to the world as “Last Stand in Denver,” has been forced to flee his stronghold and is now on the road, dodging the infected, armed but alone and well aware that a tank of gas will get him only so far. April is a teenager fighting to guide her little brother safely through a landscape of death and ruin. These three will learn that they have not been fully abandoned—and that in connection lies hope, even on the darkest of nights.
One hundred years in the future, Amy and the others fight on for humankind’s salvation—unaware that the rules have changed. The enemy has evolved, and a dark new order has arisen with a vision of the future infinitely more horrifying than man’s extinction. If the Twelve are to fall, one of those united to vanquish them will have to pay the ultimate price.
A heart-stopping thriller rendered with masterful literary skill, The Twelve is a grand and gripping tale of sacrifice and survival. (From the publisher.)
The Twelve (2012) is the second in the planned trilogy. The Passage (2010) is the first installment.
Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Raised—in New England, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; M.A., Iowa Writers'
Workshop
• Awards—PEN/Hemingway Award; Stephan Crane Prize;
Whiting Writer's Award
• Currently—lives in Houston, Texas
Justin Cronin (born 1962) is an American author. He has written four novels: Mary and O'Neil and The Summer Guest, as well as The Passage and The Twelve as part of a trilogy. He has won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Stephen Crane Prize, and the Whiting Writer's Award.
Born and raised in New England, Cronin is a graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He taught creative writing and was the "Author in-residence" at La Salle University in Philadelphia, PA from 1992 to 2005. He lives with his wife and children in Houston, Texas where he is a professor of English at Rice University.
In July 2007, Variety reported that the screen rights to Cronin's trilogy was purchased by Fox 2000. The first book of the series, The Passage, was released in June 2010. The second book, The Twelve, came out in 2012. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Bestseller Cronin’s bloated apocalyptic thriller, like many a trilogy’s middle book, falls short of the high standard set by its predecessor, 2010’s The Passage. The struggle for survival between humanity’s last hope, personified by Amy Harper Bellafonte, and vampire-like virals comes across as watered-down Stephen King, short on three-dimensional characters as well as genuine scares. The action shifts from the “present”—five years after the First Colony, a refuge, has fallen to the virals—to Year Zero, when the virus that caused the catastrophe was unleashed, but the value added by the flashbacks isn’t obvious. A prologue surveys the events of The Passage in biblical prose (“And a decree shall go forth from the highest offices that twelve criminals shall be chosen to share of the Zero’s blood, becomingdemons also”), but fails to bring readers adequately up to speed. A dramatis personae at the back listing more than 80 names is scarcely more helpful.
Library Journal
Cronin continues the post-apocalyptic—fior, better, post-viral—fisaga launched with 2010's The Passage. The good citizens of Texas might like nothing better than to calve off into a republic and go to war with someone with their very own army and navy, but you wouldn't want to wish the weird near-future world of Cronin's latest on anyone, even if it means that Rick Perry is no longer governor.... Cronin serves up a largely predictable high-concept blend of The Alamo and The Andromeda Strain, but his yarn has many virtues: It's very well-paced. It's not very pleasant ("A strong smell of urine tanged in her nostrils, coating the membranes of her mouth and throat"), but it's very well-written, far more so than most apocalypse novels, and that excuses any number of sins.... A viral spaghetti Western; it's not Sergio Leone—or, for that matter, Michael Crichton—but it's a satisfying confection.
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)
Come back later. LitLovers is in the process of developing our own questions for The Twelve.
The Twelve Dogs of Christmas (An Andy Carpenter Mystery 15)
David Rosenfelt, 2018
St. Martin's Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250106766
Summary
Defense lawyer Andy Carpenter usually tries to avoid taking on new cases at all costs. But this time, he’s happy—eager, even—to take the case that’s just come his way.
Andy’s long-time friend Martha "Pups" Boyer takes in stray puppies and then finds good homes for them. Not everyone admires her work.
With Christmas just around the corner, one of her neighbors has just reported Pups to the city for having more than the legal number of pets in her home under the local zoning laws.
Andy happily takes Pups’s case. Who could punish someone for rescuing puppies, after all, especially at Christmas time?
But things get a lot more complicated when Randy Hennessey, the neighbor who registered the complaint against Pups, turns up dead. All the evidence seems to point to Pups as the killer, and suddenly Andy has a murder case on his hands.
As he starts digging deeper into the truth behind Hennessey’s murder, Andy may find himself facing a killer more dangerous than he ever imagined. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1949
• Where—Paterson, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., New York University
• Awards—Shamus Award
• Currently—lives on Damariscotta Lake in Maine
David Rosenfelt is an author who has written nineteen novels and three TV movies. His main character in most of his mystery books is Andy Carpenter, attorney and dog lover.
Rosenfelt graduated from New York University and then decided to work in the movie business. After being interviewed by his uncle, who was the President of United Artists, he was hired and worked his way up the corporate culture. Rosenfelt eventually became the marketing president for Tri-Star Pictures. He married and had two children during this period.
Rosenfelt left the corporate industry and wrote screenplays for movies and television. He turned to writing novels and has become quite successful in that genre. In 1995, he and his wife started the "Tara Foundation" which has saved almost 4,000 dogs. He is a dog lover and supports more than two dozen dogs.
Rosenfelt, a dog lover and who worked with many lawyers in his occupation, created a character, Andy Carpenter, an attorney who faces corporate cultures and who is a dog lover. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/3/2019.)
Book Reviews
Rosenfelt’s entertaining 15th legal thriller featuring Patterson, N.J., attorney Andy Carpenter…. Rosenfelt integrates Andy’s vocation of finding rescued dogs permanent homes—which the author shares with his character—without overwhelming the story.
Publishers Weekly
The wisecracking, dog-loving attorney still has plenty of appeal in this fast-paced Christmas mystery that avoids any holiday sentimentality.
Library Journal
Rosenfelt…continues to write some of the best hooks in the genre…. [His] canine-loving hero is always good company—especially when he deals with someone who’s gone to the dogs even more completely than him.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Many thanks to Shelley Holley, M.L.S., of the Southington (CT) Public Library for creating THE TWELVE DOGS OF CHRISTMAS questions … and sharing them with us:
1. What did you think of the book?
2. Does this story make you want to read his other stories in the series?
3. What did you think of the setting and the community in this book?
4. Did you like that the dogs had a big part of the story?
5. Did you find it easy to relate to Andy because he was very open about his manner in helping Pups?
6. Did you find it odd that Pups and Jake never wanted to sell the land?
7. Did you ever believe that Pups was the killer?
8. Did you find Linda Devereux a credible witness?
9. Did Linda’s testimony make you think that Jake was cheating on Pups?
10. How long did it take you to figure out the mystery?
11. Were you surprised that Hank Boyer was an imposter?
12. Did you think that Rosenfelt kept the suspense going throughout the book?
(Questions submitted to LitLovers by Shelley Holley of the Southington Public Library. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution to both. Thanks.)
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley
Hannah Tinti, 2017
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781472234384
Summary
A coming-of-age novel and a literary thrill ride about the price we pay to protect the people we love most.
Samuel Hawley isn’t like the other fathers in Olympus, Massachusetts. A loner who spent years living on the run, he raised his beloved daughter, Loo, on the road, moving from motel to motel, always watching his back.
Now that Loo’s a teenager, Hawley wants only to give her a normal life. In his late wife’s hometown, he finds work as a fisherman, while Loo struggles to fit in at the local high school.
Growing more and more curious about the mother she never knew, Loo begins to investigate. Soon, everywhere she turns, she encounters the mysteries of her parents’ lives before she was born. This hidden past is made all the more real by the twelve scars her father carries on his body.
Each scar is from a bullet Hawley took over the course of his criminal career. Each is a memory: of another place on the map, another thrilling close call, another moment of love lost and found.
As Loo uncovers a history that’s darker than she could have known, the demons of her father’s past spill over into the present—and together both Hawley and Loo must face a reckoning yet to come.(From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1972
• Raised—Salem, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Connecticut College; M.F.A., New York University
• Awards—PEN/Noral Magid Award, Magazine Editing; Alexa Award
• Currently—lives in in Brooklyn, New York City
Hannah Tinti is an American writer and the co-founder of One Story magazine. Raised in Salem, Massachusetts, she earned her Bachelor's Degree from Connecticut College in 1994 and her Master's from New York University.
In 2002, Tinti co-founder of One Story magazine for which she received the PEN/Nora Magid Award for Magazine Editing in 2009. She now serves as the magazine's executive editor.
Her first novel, The Good Thief, published in 2008, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; it received the American Library Association's Alex Award and the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her second novel, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley was released in 2017.
Tinti has also published a short story collection, Animal Crackers, which was among the runners-up for the PEN/Hemingway Award.
In addition to writing and editing, Tinti also teaches creative writing, co-founding the Sirenland Writers Conference in Italy. She has also taught writing at New York University's Graduate Creative Writing Program, Columbia University's MFA program, City University of New York, and the Museum of Natural History in New York City.
Tinti lives in Brooklyn, New York City, where in 2014 she was listed as one of the "100 Most Influential People in Brooklyn Culture." (Adapted from Wikipedia and the author's website. Retrieved 3/25/2017.)
Book Reviews
Game of Throne‘s Arya Stark has found her match (or twin) in Loo Hawley, the young heroine of Hannah Tinti’s new novel. Loo’s father, though, is no Ned Stark; Samuel Hawley is a low-level criminal. Even so, despite his violent past, Samuel achieves a surprising nobility, making him one of the most likeable — dare it be said, "admirable" — murderers in fiction. We root for him every step of the way.
P.J. Adler - LitLovers
[A] terrific new novel.… [Tinti] knows how to cast the old campfire spell. I was so desperate to find out what happened to these characters that I had to keep bargaining with myself to stop from jumping ahead to the end.… Lovely, richly written.… [Tinti is] a gorgeous writer…[with] a profound sense of the complex affections between a man wrecked by sorrow and the daughter he hoped “would not end up like him.”
Ron Charles - Washington Post
A miraculous accomplishment in genre-bending: Not only a gripping American-on-the-run thriller, it’s also a brilliant coming-of-age tale and a touching exploration of father-daughter relationships. Regardless of what your reading tastes are, there’s something here for absolutely everyone.
Newsweek
(Starred review.) [B]eautifully intricate.… [A] convincingly redemptive and celebratory novel: an affirmation of the way that heroism and human fallibility coexist, of how good parenting comes in unexpected packages.
Publishers Weekly
There is enough action and suspense to satisfy thriller fans, but the core of the story is the character development and exploration of relationships common to literary fiction. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [An] atmospheric, complexly suspenseful saga…with life or death struggles in dramatic settings…and starring a fiercely loving, reluctant criminal and a girl of grit and wonder…a breathtaking novel of violence and tenderness.
Booklist
The daughter of a career criminal explores her family's past along with the family business.… The novel is at its strongest when it focuses on Sam and Lily or Loo.… An accomplished if overstuffed merger of coming-of-age tale and literary thriller.
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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The Twelve Tribes of Hattie
Ayana Mathis, 2012
Knopf Doubleday
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307949707
Summary
A debut of extraordinary distinction: Ayana Mathis tells the story of the children of the Great Migration through the trials of one unforgettable family.
In 1923, fifteen-year-old Hattie Shepherd flees Georgia and settles in Philadelphia, hoping for a chance at a better life. Instead, she marries a man who will bring her nothing but disappointment and watches helplessly as her firstborn twins succumb to an illness a few pennies could have prevented. Hattie gives birth to nine more children whom she raises with grit and mettle and not an ounce of the tenderness they crave.
She vows to prepare them for the calamitous difficulty they are sure to face in their later lives, to meet a world that will not love them, a world that will not be kind. Captured here in twelve luminous narrative threads, their lives tell the story of a mother’s monumental courage and the journey of a nation.
Beautiful and devastating, Ayana Mathis’s The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is wondrous from first to last—glorious, harrowing, unexpectedly uplifting, and blazing with life. An emotionally transfixing novel, a searing portrait of striving in the face of insurmountable adversity, an indelible encounter with the resilience of the human spirit and the driving force of the American dream. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1973
• Raised—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—New York University, Temple University, and
The New School (no degree); Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, New York
Ayana Mathis emerged from a low-income background, raised by as single mother in Philadelphia. Growing up with little around her, the thought of a stable career always seemed to beckon in the back of her mind of what she thought her mother would want her to do. Her mother, however, did the opposite—she pushed her to pursue her talent of writing.... In her twenties, Mathis took up poetry, however, her motivation to keep toiling with words didn’t last for long. She had a day job as a waitress and worked as a fact-checker at a magazine, while she continued to write in her spare time. When she felt like she couldn’t write poetry anymore, Mathis gave up on writing and years passed before she would pick up the pen again. (From Ebony.)
She attended New York University, Temple University and the New School without earning an undergraduate degree. “I sort of wandered off,” she said. She took writing courses and mostly wrote poetry, never considering herself a fiction writer. An avid traveler, she even ended up living in Italy for four years, learning the language and acquiring some cooking skills. A year or so after her return to New York she found her way to a private creative writing class taught by Jackson Taylor, a novelist. She was still bouncing around at fact-checking jobs. “She came to the class with the skills of the magazine—deadline, fluidity, structure,” Mr. Taylor said. “But then she blossomed in a forum where she could explore and explode her poetic gifts. (From New York Times.)
In 2009 she attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop and began to work on a fictionalized memoir. But after getting a reality check on a story she wrote—a critique from her instructor, Marilynne Robinson—Ayana decided to work on some short stories instead...not knowing that they would become the beginnings of the The Twelve Tribes of Hattie. (From Huffington Post.)
Book Reviews
In a movement as vast as the Great Migration, there are so many stories buried in the ashes of memory, so much untold and yet to be sung that perhaps no book should bear the burden of telling it all. In the end, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is less about the migration than about a mother's loss and the toll it takes on her and her children, their feeble attempts to escape their lives and the costs borne by every one of them. Hattie's family represents itself and itself alone. This deeply felt novel does not seek to tell the story of all, but of one that perhaps might have been.
Isabel Wilkerson - New York Times Book Review
In a movement as vast as the Great Migration, there are so many stories buried in the ashes of memory, so much untold and yet to be sung that perhaps no book should bear the burden of telling it all. In the end, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie is less about the migration than about a mother's loss and the toll it takes on her and her children, their feeble attempts to escape their lives and the costs borne by every one of them. Hattie's family represents itself and itself alone. This deeply felt novel does not seek to tell the story of all, but of one that perhaps might have been.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Mathis’s prose is lush yet deliberate, with hardly a wasted word, and her touch is elegant and sure.[Mathis's] prose style…is clean and transparent, and though she manipulates time and chronology in sophisticated ways, she never leaves us…in the dense mist of her private vision…Too many writers of literary fiction tend to stage intimate stories in the hermetically sealed worlds of their own clever imaginations, but Mathis never loses touch with the geography and the changing national culture through which her characters move.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Mathis’s prose is lush yet deliberate, with hardly a wasted word, and her touch is elegant and sure.... As certainly as August Wilson did in the plays of his 20th-century cycle, Mathis is chronicling our nation.... Why we read [stories]: because they remind us that every pain that anyone’s ever known is part of the human condition, and so we are not alone.... All of that unhappiness has happened before, and it will happen again. Likewise all of the joy. In the vivid specificity of Mathis’s tale, she is telling a universal story, and it is profoundly consoling.
Laura Collins-Hughes - Boston Globe
(Starred review.) Remarkable…Mathis weaves this story with confidence, proving herself a gifted and powerful writer.
Publishers Weekly
Writing with stunning authority, clarity, and courage, debut novelist Mathis pivots forward in time, spotlighting intensely dramatic episodes in the lives of Hattie's nine subsequent children (and one grandchild to make the ‘twelve tribes’), galvanizing crises that expose the crushed dreams and anguished legacy of the Great Migration…Mathis writes with blazing insight into the complexities of sexuality, marriage, family relationships, backbone, fraudulence, and racism in a molten novel of lives racked with suffering yet suffused with beauty. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
Cutting, emotional…pure heartbreak…though Mathis has inherited some of Toni Morrison’s poetic intonation, her own prose is appealingly earthbound and plainspoken, and the book’s structure is ingenious…an excellent debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Hattie is, by any measure, a complicated, difficult woman. Did you love her, hate her, find it difficult to have sympathy for her? Is she a good mother? Why or why not?
2. Why do you suppose the author chose to have Philadelphia and Jubilee die in the novel’s first chapter? The novel moves backward and forward in time. What function is served by showing us this loss at the outset? How does this serve the novel and inform our understanding of Hattie?
3. “In Georgia the preacher had called the North a New Jerusalem. The congregation said he was a traitor to the cause of the southern Negro. He was gone the next day on a train for Chicago. Others, too, were going, disappearing from their shops and their fields. All of those souls, escaped from the South, were at this very moment glowing with promise in the wretched winters of the cities of the North. Hattie knew her babies would survive. Though they were small and struggling, Philadelphia and Jubilee were already among those luminous souls, already the beginning of a new nation.” Discuss this passage in relation to the novel’s themes. In fact, Hattie is mistaken here; her babies do not survive. What does this say about the provenance of the new nation of which she speaks?
4. Six perceives his spiritual gifts as an affliction, entangled with his physical suffering, and likens his moments of communion to seizures and fits. “What was grace if it came on him like a seizure that left him as frail and hurting as he had been before its visit? His experience of God was a violent surge he couldn’t control...if he’d known how to pray, Six would have asked God to take his gift away.” Elsewhere, he describes himself as a “ruined instrument” of God. What is your understanding of Six’s spirituality? Does he have the power to heal? How do you think the author views him, and what do you think happens to him in the future? Does the author provide another glimpse of him in the novel, and if so, what does she suggest about his fate?
5. In one of the novel’s most dramatic and revealing chapters, Hattie leaves August with the older children and escapes with baby Ruthie (then called Margaret) and her lover, Lawrence. How did this make you feel? Were you hoping she would stay with Lawrence or go back to August and the children?
6. “Lawrence understood her. It seemed to him that every time he made one choice in his life, he said no to another. All of those things he could not do or be were huddled inside of him; they might spring up at any moment, and he would be hobbled with regret. He pulled to the shoulder of the rode and held her. She was a beating heart in his hand.” What is at stake in this moment, for each of them?
7. What do you learn in the chapter called “Ruthie” about August as a husband? As a father? As a man?
8. Does August change throughout the course of the novel? Do you feel differently about him at the novel’s end than at the beginning?
9. Discuss the disagreement between Hattie and August in the chapter “Ruthie” about Cassie learning to play piano. Cassie’s teacher agrees to teach her for free. Hattie rejects the offer, saying that “it wasn’t practical for a Negro girl to fill her head with music.” August feels it’s a mistake to take away her dreams. Who is right? Look in particular at their disagreement and at the passage on page 88 in which August ponders their predicament and the question of what it means to have “a better life.” What do you think it means, in this context, to have a better life?
10. What kind of marriage do Hattie and August have? Look at the scene in which Hattie returns from Baltimore. Were you surprised that August took her back, with, as he says, “another man’s baby in her arms? Anyone would agree that he ought to do something terrible to her, but she had been gone fifteen hours, and in that fifteen hours his life had crumpled like a lump of dry earth.” What has August learned in Hattie’s absence? Look also at the chapter’s ending, in which Mathis writes: “It was not an invite to embrace but a resignation, as if to say, here we are; this is all we have…There were too many disappointments to name and too much heartbreak. They were beyond punishment or forgiveness, beyond what they had inflicted each other, beyond love.” What does it mean to be beyond love? Consider as well Hattie’s confession in the chapter “Ella,” in which she describes “her body’s insistence on a man who was the greatest mistake of her life.”
11. Discuss the scene in which Pearl and Benny are interrupted during their picnic by a group of white men. How did you feel about Benny’s choices? Does Pearl have a right to be angry? What do you think you would have done in these circumstances?
12. Reread the anguished scene in which Hattie and August give Ella to Marion and Benny. August tells Hattie, “We had that pain…and we’ll have this too.” Did they do the right thing? Was this chapter tragic? Hopeful?
13. Discuss the use of point of view in the chapter “Alice and Billups.” Whose point of view did you initially trust in this chapter? How does this change by the chapter’s end?
14. Why does Franklin throw his letter to Sissy into the bay? Is this an act of cowardice, or could it be read as heroism?
15. In one of the novel’s climactic moments, Hattie and Lawrence bump into each other in a department store, and she discovers that Lawrence is romantically entangled with her daughter Bell. Why does Bell seduce Lawrence? What does she hope to achieve? What, if anything, does she learn about herself after her mother discovers her affair?
16. How is Bell different from her sisters and brothers? How is her relationship with Hattie different? How has her relationship with her mother defined her? Look in particular at the passage on page 212, in which Mathis writes: “Adulthood brought Bell a kind of freedom but no relief. She felt defective in some vital way, incapable of doing the right thing. She was constantly afraid that some force would strike her down for her failings.” Look also at the extraordinary passage on page 217: “Ruthie had said once that Bell and Hattie were just alike. It wasn’t true. Hattie was stronger than Bell could ever be. She didn’t know how to tend to her children’s souls, but she fought to keep them alive and to keep herself alive. That was more than Bell could say. All of them—Hattie and Willie and Evelyln and even crazed, ruined Walter—were like little lights; sparks flying upward in dark places, trying to stay alight though they were compelled toward ash.”
17. Race, poverty, history, class—Ayana Mathis speaks to all of these in The Twelve Tribes of Hattie and subtly complicates our understanding of the forces and conditions that drove political and social reform in the first part of the twentieth century. An argument could be made that the new North was built on the backs of Hattie’s children. Discuss this idea.
18. Why does Hattie refuse to let Sala take the mercy seat?
19. Reread the novel’s final paragraph. Is this a happy ending or a heartbreaking one? Resigned, or hopeful? Did you feel differently about Hattie in the novel’s last lines? Has she changed?
20. How do you imagine Sala’s life might differ from the lives of her aunts and uncles? What do you think the author is suggesting thematically through the character of Sala, who, although a generation removed, is Hattie’s essential twelfth tribe?
Twelve Years a Slave
Solomon Northup, 1853, 1968, 2008
Penguin Group (USA)
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143125419
Summary
Perhaps the best written of all the slave narratives, Twelve Years a Slave is a harrowing memoir about one of the darkest periods in American history. It recounts how Solomon Northup, born a free man in New York, was lured to Washington, D.C., in 1841 with the promise of fast money, then drugged and beaten and sold into slavery. He spent the next twelve years of his life in captivity on a Louisiana cotton plantation.
After his rescue, Northup published this exceptionally vivid and detailed account of slave life. It became an immediate bestseller and today is recognized for its unusual insight and eloquence as one of the very few portraits of American slavery produced by someone as educated as Solomon Northup, or by someone with the dual perspective of having been both a free man and a slave. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 1808
• Where—Minerva, New York, USA
• Death—1863?
• Where—unknown
Solomon Northup was a free-born African American from New York, the son of a freed slave. A farmer and violinist, he owned a property in Hebron. In 1841 he was kidnapped by slave-traders, having been enticed with a job offer as a violinist. When he accompanied his supposed employers to Washington, DC, they drugged him and sold him as a slave.
He was shipped to New Orleans where he was sold to a plantation owner in Louisiana. He was held in the Red River region of Louisiana by several different owners for 12 years, during which time his friends and family had no word of him. He made repeated attempts to escape and get messages out of the plantation. Eventually he got news to his family, who contacted friends and enlisted the Governor of New York, Washington Hunt, to his cause. He regained his freedom in January 1853 and returned to his family in New York.
Northup sued the slave traders in Washington, DC, but lost in the local court. District of Columbia law prohibited him as a black man from testifying against whites and, without his testimony, he was unable to sue for civil damages. Later, in New York State, two men were charged with kidnapping but two years later the charges were dropped.
In his first year of freedom Northup published an account of his experiences in the memoir Twelve Years a Slave (1853). Northup also gave dozens of lectures throughout the Northeast about his experiences in order to support the abolitionist cause. The details of his death are uncertain.
Northup's memoir was adapted and produced as a 2013 film directed and produced by Steve McQueen, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northup. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/25/2014.)
Book Reviews
I could not believe that I had never heard of this book. It felt as important as Anne Frank’s Diary, only published nearly a hundred years before.... The book blew [my] mind: the epic range, the details, the adventure, the horror, and the humanity.... I hope my film can play a part in drawing attention to this important book of courage. Solomon’s bravery and life deserve nothing less. (From the Forward.)
Steve McQueen, director of 12 Years a Slave
If you think the movie offers a terrible-enough portrait of slavery, please, do read the book.... The film is stupendous art, but it owes much to a priceless piece of document. Solomon Northup’s memoir is history.... His was not simply an extraordinary story, but an account of the life of a great many ordinary people.
Daily Beast
Northup published a memoir of his 12-year nightmare in 1853, the year after Uncle Tom’s Cabin came out, and it was so successful that he went on to participate in two stage adaptations. The book dropped from sight in the 20th century, but the movie tie-in will certainly reestablish its virtually unique status as a work by an educated free man who managed to return from slavery.
Hollywood Reporter
Discussion Questions
1. Solomon Northup's Twelve Years a Slave was one of some 150 so-called "Slave Narratives" published before the Civil War. Their purpose was to give the white Northerners a first-hand glimpse of slavery and to enlist them in the antislavery crusade. They were both literature and propaganda. What is the essence of Northup's description of Southern slavery?
2. One of the distinguishing features of Twelve Years a Slave is its specificity. Unlike most slave narratives, Northup did not employ pseudonyms for persons or places and rarely wrote in generalities. Northup also studiously avoided stereotypes: there are good masters and bad; slaves who resist and those who collapse before white power. Northup hoped that this frank portrayal would convince readers of the authenticity of his story. Does it? How does it achieve that aim?
3. After witnessing the brutalities not only of white masters against enslaved blacks, but also white brutality against other whites, Northup observed, "It is not the fault of the slaveholder that he is cruel, so much as it is the fault of the system under which he lives" (p. 135). Do you think this observation is accurate? Does it seem accurate to state that both whites and enslaved blacks that lived in the South were mutually affected by the system of slavery?
4. Although Northup says little directly about the struggle against slavery that is preoccupying the nation in the decade before the Civil War, Twelve Years a Slave is one of the most powerful weapons in the antislavery arsenal. What makes it so?
5. Another distinguishing mark of Twelve Years a Slave is the author's free status. Most of the slave narratives-like that of Frederick Douglass, for example-were written by an author who had been born into slavery. How does Northup's free status shape his narrative? How might it have influenced the book's reception?
6. How does Northup depict black life in the North?
7. In the North, free black people lived in fear of kidnappers, who operated with near impunity in almost all Northern cities. Yet, Northup seems impervious to the possibilities that he might be targeted and that the offer to join a circus might be too good to be true. What might have made Northup miss the seemingly obvious danger?
8. Solomon Northup was a keen observer of human nature. Did his ability to discern people's character build solidarity with his fellow slaves or did his analytic skills to observe how others dealt with the reality of enslavement distance him from the slave community? With what types of men and women did Northup find commonality or comradeship?
9. Solomon Northup never gave up hope of regaining his freedom and resisted the dehumanization of enslavement in many ways. How did he and other slaves resist slavery?
10. The family played a critical role in Northup's life in both freedom and slavery. How does his portrayal of black family life shape his narrative and his critique of slavery?
11. Related to the emphasis on family life is the role played by women, black and white, in Northup's narrative. In fact, females are among the most important characters in Twelve Years a Slave. How do women serve as a measure for the nature of slavery?
12. Describe the position of women within the slaveholding world. How would you characterize someone like Eliza or Patsy? What are the differences between the experiences of enslaved women and slaveholding mistresses like Mrs. Epps? Are women more or less vulnerable than men to the brutality of a slave society, or is it a different kind of vulnerability altogether? What advantages or disadvantages might enslaved women have over enslaved men?
13. Northup has a good deal to say about labor. What is his understanding of the nature of work, the development of a work ethic, the relations between employees and employers (in the North) and slave and masters (in the South), and the quality and productivity of labor in both sections?
14. Music plays a large role in Northup's life. Northup's omnipresent fiddle was a source of empowerment and a symbol of his subordination. What does the fiddle tell us about Northup and African American life in slavery and freedom?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Twenties Girl
Sophie Kinsella, 2009
Random House
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385342032
Summary
Lara Lington has always had an overactive imagination, but suddenly that imagination seems to be in overdrive. Normal professional twenty-something young women don’t get visited by ghosts. Or do they?
When the spirit of Lara’s great-aunt Sadie—a feisty, demanding girl with firm ideas about fashion, love, and the right way to dance—mysteriously appears, she has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that had been in Sadie’s possession for more than seventy-five years, and Sadie cannot rest without it. Lara, on the other hand, has a number of ongoing distractions. Her best friend and business partner has run off to Goa, her start-up company is floundering, and she’s just been dumped by the “perfect” man.
Sadie, however, could care less.
Lara and Sadie make a hilarious sparring duo, and at first it seems as though they have nothing in common. But as the mission to find Sadie’s necklace leads to intrigue and a new romance for Lara, these very different “twenties” girls learn some surprising truths from each other along the way. Written with all the irrepressible charm and humor that have made Sophie Kinsella’s books beloved by millions, Twenties Girl is also a deeply moving testament to the transcendent bonds of friendship and family. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Madeleine Wickham
• Birth—December 12, 1969
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Oxford University, M.Mus., King's College,
London
• Currently—lives in London, England
Madeleine Sophie Wickham (born Madeleine Sophie Townley) is an English author of chick lit who is most known for her work under the pen name Sophie Kinsella.
Madeleine Wickham was born in London. She did her schooling in Putney High School and Sherborne School for Girls. She studied music at New College, Oxford, but after a year switched to Politics, Philosophy and Economics. She then worked as a financial journalist (including for Pensions World) before turning to fiction.
While working as a financial journalist, at the age of 24, she wrote her first novel. The Tennis Party (1995) was immediately hailed as a success by critics and the public alike and became a top ten bestseller. She went on to publish six more novels as Madeleine Wickham: A Desirable Residence (1996), Swimming Pool Sunday (1997), The Gatecrasher (1998), The Wedding Girl (1999), Cocktails for Three (2000), and Sleeping Arrangements (2001).
Her first novel under the pseudonym Sophie Kinsella (taken from her middle name and her mother's maiden name) was submitted to her existing publishers anonymously and was enthusiastically received. She revealed her real identity for the first time when Can You Keep a Secret? was published in 2005.
Sophie Kinsella is best known for writing the Shopaholic novels series, which focus on the misadventures of Becky Bloomwood, a financial journalist who cannot manage her own finances. The series focuses on her obsession with shopping and its resulting complications for her life. The first two Shopaholic books—Confessions of a Shopaholic (2000) and Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (2001) were adapted into a film in February 2009, with Isla Fisher playing an American Becky and Hugh Dancy as Luke Brandon. The latest addition to the Shopaholic series, Mini shopaholic came out in 2010.
Can you Keep a Secret (2004), was also published under the name Sophie Kinsella, as were The Undomestic Goddess (2006), Remember Me (2008), Twenties Girl (2009), I've Got Your Number (2012), and Wedding Night (2013). All are stand-alone novels (not part of the Shopaholic series).
A new musical adaptation by Chris Burgess of her 2001 novel Sleeping Arrangements premiered in 2013 in London at The Landor Theatre.
Personal life
Wickham lives in London with her husband, Henry Wickham (whom she met in Oxford), the headmaster of a boys' preparatory school. They have been married for 17 years and have five children. She is the sister of fellow writer, Gemma Townley. (From Wikipedia.)
Extras
Excerpts from a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:
• "I am a serial house mover: I have moved house five times in the last eight years! But I'm hoping I might stay put in this latest one for a while.
• "I've never written a children's book, but when people meet me for the first time and I say I write books, they invariably reply, 'Children's books?' Maybe it's something about my face. Or maybe they think I'm J. K. Rowling!
• "If my writing comes to a halt, I head to the shops: I find them very inspirational. And if I get into real trouble with my plot, I go out for a pizza with my husband. We order a pitcher of Long Island Iced Tea and start talking—and basically keep drinking and talking till we've figured the glitch out. Never fails!"
• Favorite leisure pursuits: a nice hot bath, watching The Simpsons, playing table tennis after dinner, shopping, playing the piano, sitting on the floor with my two small boys, and playing building blocks and Legos.
• Least favorite leisure pursuit: tidying away the building blocks and Legos.
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her answer:
My earliest, most impactful encounter with a book was when I was seven and awoke early on Christmas morning to find Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in my stocking. I had never been so excited by the sight of a book—and have possibly never been since! I switched on the light and read the whole thing before the rest of my family even woke up. I think that's when my love affair with books began. (Interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Think Topper, that impossibly sophisticated and goofy 1937 ghost tale of blithe spirits bugging the only living soul who can hear them. Kinsella creates an equally vexing and endearing shade, Sadie, a wild-at-heart flapper with unfinished earthly business who badgers 27-year-old great-niece Lara into doing her bidding. Predictable mayhem and the most delicious and delightful romp a ghost and girl-at-loose-ends could ever have in 21st century London ensue. Sadie discovers just how loved she really is, and Lara channels her inner '20s girl to discover the difference between wanting to be in love and finding love. Kinsella, a master of comic pacing and feminine wit (see: the wildly successful Shopaholic series), casts a bigger net with this piece of fun and fluff, weaving family dynamics and an old-fashioned mystery into the familiar chick lit romance. And there's a sweet nod to old folks ("All that white hair and wrinkled skin is just cladding.... They were all young, with love affairs and friends and parties and an endless life ahead of them"). It's a breath of crackling fresh air that may well keep readers warm right through winter.
Publishers Weekly
Struggling Londoner gets the shock of a lifetime when the meddlesome ghost of a recently deceased relative haunts her. Between relationship woes, work dramas and the day-to-day life of a city gal, Lara could probably be excused for having minimal contact with Great-Aunt Sadie during the last years of her life. The woman was, after all, 105 and confined to a nursing home. Still, Lara feels guilty when hardly anyone shows up to the old lady's funeral. Her sadness quickly gives way to confusion, though, as first the voice and then the form of a 1920s flapper appear before her. It's Sadie in her youth, and Lara is the only one she can communicate with directly. Opinionated, loud and self-absorbed, Sadie is primarily interested in retrieving a lost necklace before moving on to her final rest, but she's also determined to squeeze in a bit more action. To this end she sets her sights on a handsome young American named Ed who reminds her of Rudolph Valentino. Using her supernatural powers, Sadie gets into Ed's head and convinces him to ask out Lara, who is still hung up on her ex, the unworthy Josh. This results in an understandably awkward first date during which Sadie dictates, Cyrano-style, what Lara should do to seduce Ed. Lara, for her part, gets a lead on the missing piece of jewelry and uncovers Sadie's tragic past as an artist's muse, unjustly separated from the only man she really loved. In spite of their differences (the whole living vs. dead thing) the two grow close, and Lara takes some steps in her personal and professional life that she probably would not have taken without the freewheeling flapper by her side. Kinsella (Remember Me?, 2008, etc.) is in her element with scattered, wisecracking Lara, and Sadie (and her outfits) are fabulous. But this one goes on a bit longer than necessary.
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 Twenties Girl:
1. How do Sadie and Lara differ in personality? What does Sadie want Lara to do with her life?
2. What do the two eventually come to have in common?
3. Both Sadie and Lara want to find the missing necklace, but both have different motives for wanting to find it. What are they?
4. Twenties Girl has been described as a coming-of-age story in which a young protagonist learns something that enables her to cross over into the adult world, more mature and wise than before. What does Lara learn by the end of the novel?
(Usually, LitLovers claims credit for its questions, asking only for attribution if used. But not these—there's no pride of authorship here.)
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The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi
Arthur Japin, 1997 (Eng. trans., 2000)
Knopf Doubleday
400pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375718892
Summary
“The first ten years of my life I was not black.”
Thus begins this startlingly eloquent and beautiful tale based on the true story of Kwasi Boachi, a 19th-century African prince who was sent with his cousin, Kwame, to be raised in Holland as a guest of the royal family.
Narrated by Kwasi himself, the story movingly portrays the perplexing dichotomy of the cousins' situation: black men of royal ancestry, they are subject to insidious bigotry even as they enjoy status among Europe’s highest echelons. As their lives wind down different paths–Kwame back to Africa where he enlists in the Dutch army, Kwasi to an Indonesian coffee plantation where success remains mysteriously elusive—they become aware of a terrible truth that lies at the heart of their experiences.
Vivid, subtle, poignant and profound, The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi is an exquisite masterpiece of story and craft, a heartrending work that places Arthur Japin on a shelf that includes Joseph Conrad, J.M. Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro and Nadine Gordimer. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 26, 1956
• Where—Haarlem, The Netherlands
• Education—Kleinkunstacademie
• Awards—see below
• Currently—lives in
Arthur Valentijn Japin is a renowned Dutch novelist.
His parents were Bert Japin, a teacher and writer of detective novels, and Annie Japin-van Arnhem. After a difficult childhood—his father killed himself when Arthur was twelve years old —Japin entered the Kleinkunstacademie in Amsterdam, where he trained as an actor. He was also briefly an opera singer at De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam.
His first novel, De zwarte met het witte hart (1997), translated as The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi, was the story of two Ashanti princes, Kwame Poku and Kwasi Boachi, who were taken from today's Ghana and given as gifts to the Dutch king Willem II in 1837. Based in part on Japin's own traumatic youth, and based on ten years of research in the Netherlands, Germany, Africa, and Indonesia, the book became a bestseller and is considered to be a classic of modern Dutch literature. In November 2007, an opera based on the novel premiered in Rotterdam, with an English libretto by Arthur Japin and music by the British composer Jonathan Dove.
His second book, De droom van de leeuw, (2002), is a novelized version of his relationship with the Dutch actress and novelist Rosita Steenbeek in Rome, where Steenbeek became the last lover of the Italian director Federico Fellini.
His third novel, Een schitterend gebrek, translated as In Lucia's Eyes (2003), was a return to the historical novel, about Casanova's first lover, Lucia, who, he reports in his Memoirs, inexplicably abandoned him in his youth, only to resurface years later as a hideous prostitute in an Amsterdam brothel.
His fourth novel, De overgave, translated as Someone Found, takes the subject of the 19th-century Texas Indian wars, dramatizing the story of the Fort Parker Massacre of 1836, in which a white girl, Cynthia Ann Parker, was taken as a Comanche hostage, later becoming the mother of the famous Comanche chief Quanah Parker.
Japin has also published several volumes of stories. The first two, Magonische verhalen and De vierde wand, were gathered into the omnibus Alle verhalen, (2005). Magonische verhalen was made into the film Magonia by the Dutch director Ineke Smits.
Japin was the author of the Boekenweekgeschenk (Book Week Gift) 2006, De grote wereld, a short novel about a pair of circus-performing dwarves caught in Nazi Germany, which had a record first printing of 813,000 copies. He has won almost every prestigious prize in Dutch literature, including the Libris Prize for In Lucia's Eyes. Japin lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Awards
1990 - Gorcumse Literatuurprijs for De klap van Ediep Koning
1995 - LIRA-prijs for De roering van het kielzog
1995 - Literaire prijs van de provincie Gelderland for De draden van Anansi
1998 - Lucy B. en C.W. van der Hoogtprijs for De zwarte met het witte hart
1998 - Halewijn-literatuurprijs van de stad Roermond for the body of his work
1999 - ECI-prijs voor Schrijvers van Nu for De zwarte met het witte hart
2004 - Libris literatuurprijs for Een schitterend gebrek
2005 - De Inktaap for Een schitterend gebrek
2008 - NS
(Author bio from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi works on us as a novel, thought it makes use of certain documentary devices, letters, journals, etc. There is no conflict here; the diary Kwame sends Kwasi in the days before his suicide is among the book's finest achievemtns. The whole is as seamless in its artistry as it is moving in its emotional investigation.
Times Literary Supplement (UK)
A fascinatingly ambitious first novel...a historically complex, richly empathetic account.... [The book] has an arch, devastating delicacy that conveys its ideas about colonialism with bitter ease....[though] less successful when spelling things out more literally.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Rich and risky.... A less exact and intelligent writer might have made a sermon out of these facts.... A deeply humane book about a spectacularly exotic subject. It has a spaciousness and stamina, and an unforced sense of history.
Michael Pye - New York Times Book Review
A classic tragedy.... This is a true story, fully and humanly imagined, and that is the measure of Japin’s accomplishment.
San Francisco Chronicle
Dutch singer/actor Japin's debut draws on extraordinary real-life material: in 1837 two young Ashanti princes, Kwasi and Kwame, were taken to Holland, ostensibly to receive a European education, but in fact as peons in a cynical exchange between the Ashanti king (Kwame's father) and the still active slave traders. Kwasi tells the strange story as a gentle, peevish old man living on a failed coffee plantation in Java at the turn of the century. He remembers his jungle boyhood with cousin Kwame, the coming of the Dutch traders and his and Kwame's early years as curiosities at a Dutch school. Later embraced by the royal court, the two went on to college and became offbeat figures in Dutch society, struggling to persuade themselves that they had really found a new life. Kwasi, the more adaptable, cherished a passion for a Dutch princess until she married elsewhere for convenience. Kwame, deeply uneasy at his equivocal role, joined the army and was posted back to Africa where, eventually realizing that he was a mere plaything of the Dutch, he killed himself. Only toward the end of his life is Kwasi aware that he, too, has lived in self-deception. Japin tells the tale with imaginative empathy and, in the case of Kwame, truly powerful poetic re-creation. However, his incorporation of text from authentic 19th-century documents is disconcerting. This is an unusual story that could appeal to an appetite for the odd corners of history, but perhaps is too close to history to please the lovers of literary fiction who would at first seem to be its natural readers.
Publishers Weekly
Based on the true story of two young African Ashanti princes sent to Holland in 1837, this first novel by a Dutch actor/opera singer explores in compelling fashion the themes of race, assimilation, and prejudice. Kwame and Kwasi are sent to Holland ostensibly to be educated, but in reality they are pawns in a deal that allowed for the continued surreptitious trade of slaves ("recruits" in treaty terms). Thrust into the totally alien environment of a Dutch boarding school, the two princes prove to be bright, ambitious learners whose status provides entry into the highest levels of society, where they nevertheless find themselves regarded more as curiosities than as equals. The once intimate cousins choose different paths in attempting to deal with their "separateness"; Kwasi tries his best to assimilate, while Kwame is determined to retain and assert his African-ness. Given our increasingly diverse society, this exploration of the difference between tolerance and of acceptance is both evocative and important. An excellent choice for any academic or public library. —David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, FL
Library Journal
Quietly moving, Japin's novel is a powerful study of displacement and disillusionment. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
[A] brilliant first novel, a compact epic of the consequences of European colonization of Africa, written by a Dutch Renaissance man who's also a well-known actor and opera singer. Based on the true story of two African princes, cousins who are uprooted from their Gold Coast Ashanti village and sent to Amsterdam in 1837 to be educated, it's a potent dramatization of culture shock, ethnic injustice, and exploitation—revealed by a narrator who only gradually realizes how much has been taken from him. He's the eponymous Kwasi, who writes the story of his life in 1900 while residing on a coffee plantation in Java, following the last of several token appointments granted him by the Dutch government. Kwasi recalls experiences shared with his cousin Kwame, as beneficiaries of a regime eager to retain its rights to a thriving slave trade. Kwasi consents to"blend in," unlike his troubled cousin, whose determination to"stand out" widens the ever-increasing gap between them. The one "assimilates" perfectly to European culture; the other enters the Dutch colonial army, finally returning to Africa, unable—as he had long feared—to live among his people any longer. Japin crystallizes these conflicts in several stunning scenes: episodes at a boarding school, and later at the Dutch court, where the cousins are alternately welcomed and abused; a painful public speech given by Kwasi, in which he loftily criticizes "the religion, customs, and thinking of my forebears"; a long exchange of letters after the cousins are separated for the last time; and particularly a moment of blinding clarity when Kwasi, examining a daguerreotype of himself, sees both "a white man with a black shadow, and a dark man with a white aura ... [and regretfully concludes that] I have been both these men." As artful and moving an analysis of the tragedy of colonialism as we have seen in many years.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi:
1. Talk about Japin's use of imagery—for example, the portrait of the princes, the wounded monkey, and the butterflies in the mine. What do the images signify, and how do they deepen the story's impact?
2. The Dutch title of this work is "The Black Man with the White Heart." Which title do you prefer, English or Dutch? Why might the English publishers have changed the title?
3. How did the 19th-century Dutch manage to get around the prohibition against slavery?
4. How are the two young cousins different from one another? Why did they choose different paths for living in Dutch society—Kwasi wishing to assimilate, to blend in; Kwami to stand out and maintain his African identify. Talk about the consequences of those two choices—how did Kwasi's assimilation and Kwami's separatism end up shaping their lives?
5. Were you surprised at the physical acts of violence that the two young princes met while attending the school in Delft? Are there any parallels to racism in the 21st Century? To what degree does racism still exist today?
6. To what degree is Kwasi, in particular, aware of racism and the barrier against his black skin color?
7. What was behind Kwasi's speech to the students' club in which he repudiates his African origins?
8. Princess Sophie and Kwasi were both outsiders living in royal circles—they didn't belong. What would it feel like to never "belong" somewhere. How would that sense of dislocation shape your identity?
9. How does older Kwasi make fun of the portrait he and Kwami had painted with the major general? What was the message the portrait was intended to convey?
10. What do both Kwasi and Kwami come to understand about their treatment by their Dutch hosts?
11. Years later, Kwame recalls Holland and thinks that "a vast panorama is necessarily finite." When he thinks of the jungles of Africa, however, he writes, "an obstructed view suggests infinity."
12. Kwasi opens the book with this statement:
The first ten years of my life I was not black. I was in many ways different from those around me, but not darker. That much I know. Then came the day when I became aware that my colour had deepened. Later, once I was black, I paled again.
How does this passage reflect the narrative arc of the book? What does Kwasi mean when he says that he "was not black" as a child and that later he "paled again"?
13. How does Kwasi come to discover and define his identity, his soul?
14. Talk about the government mandate regarding "noblesse de peau," which Kwasi finally reads. Were you shocked by its blatancy? Was Kwasi? Or had he come by then to understand the barrier of skin color?
15. Japin frames The Two Hearts, beginning and end, with an older Kwasi reflecting on his life. Why would the author have framed his novel using the voice of an older man?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Two If by Sea
Jacquelyn Mitchard, 2016
Simon & Schuster
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501115578
Summary
From the author of The Deep End of the Ocean comes an epic story of courage and devotion that spans three continents and the entire map of the human heart.
Just hours after his wife and her entire family perish in the Christmas Eve tsunami in Brisbane, American expat and former police officer Frank Mercy goes out to join his volunteer rescue unit and pulls a little boy from a submerged car, saving the child’s life with only seconds to spare.
In that moment, Frank’s own life is transformed.
Not quite knowing why, Frank sidesteps the law, when, instead of turning Ian over to the Red Cross, he takes the boy home to the Midwestern farm where he grew up. Not long into their journey, Frank begins to believe that Ian has an extraordinary, impossible telepathic gift; but his only wish is to protect the deeply frightened child.
As Frank struggles to start over, training horses as his father and grandfather did before him, he meets Claudia, a champion equestrian and someone with whom he can share his life—and his fears for Ian. Both of them know that it will be impossible to keep Ian’s gift a secret forever.
Already, ominous coincidences have put Frank’s police instincts on high alert, as strangers trespass the quiet life at the family farm.
The fight to keep Ian safe from a sinister group who want him back takes readers from the ravaged shores of Brisbane to the middle of America to a quaint English village. Even as Frank and Claudia dare to hope for new love, it becomes clear that they can never let Ian go, no matter what the cost.
A suspenseful novel on a grand scale, Two If by Sea is about the best and worst in people, and the possibility of heroism and even magic in ordinary life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 10, 1956
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—University of Illinois (no degree)
• Currently—lives in Brewster, Massachusetts
Jacquelyn Mitchard is an American journalist and novelist. She is the author more than 25 books for adults, teens, and children. She is best known for The Deep End of the Ocean, which on September 17, 1996, was the first selection for Oprah's Book Club.
Background
Born and raised in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois, Mitchard's father was a plumber, from Newfoundland, Canada, and her mother a hardware store clerk, a competitive horsewoman, and a member of the Lac du Flambeau Chippewa Cree tribe.
Journalism
Mitchard studied creative writing for three semesters under Mark Costello (author of The Murphy Stories) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 1979, she became a newspaper reporter, eventually achieving a position as lifestyle columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper. Her weekly column, "The Rest of Us: Dispatches from the Mother Ship," appeared in 125 newspapers nationwide until she retired it in 2007.
Mitchard is also a contributing editor for More (magazine) and is featured regularly in Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, Hallmark, Real Simple and other publications. Her nonfiction work includes the 1986 memoir Mother Less Child and essays in more than 30 anthologies.
In 1980, Mitchard married Dan Allegretti, a reporter for The Capital Times; the couple had three children and a daughter from Allegretti's previous marriage. In 1993, after 13 years of marriage, Allegretti died of cancer. He was only 45.
Books
The idea for a novel first came to Mitchard in a dream in the summer of 1993, and after her husband died, she began writing what would become The Deep End of the Ocean. All the while, Mitchard continued to work—as a freelance writer for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and in a part-time job in public relations for the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Deep End was published in 1996. Bolstered by being featured by Oprah, the novel sold close to 3 million copies by May of 1998. It was listed on the New York Times Bestseller for 29 weeks—13 of those as #1. The book was adapted to film in 1999, starring Michelle Pfeiffer.
All of Mitchard's other novels have been bestsellers and garnered critical acclaim—particularly for The Most Wanted, Cage of Stars and The Breakdown Lane. The Most Wanted was nominated for Britain's Orange Prize for Fiction, and Cage of Stars for Britain's Spread The Word Prize.
In 2004 Mitchard entered the field for young readers. That year she published two books—Baby Bat's Lullaby (a picture book) and Starring Prima! The Mouse of the Ballet Jolie (a middle-school book). In 2005 she released Rosalie, My Rosalie: The Tale of a Duckling (middle-school), and in 2007 she issued Ready, Set, School! (a second picture book).
Personal life
Mitchard and local thespian J. Patrick performed together in the theatre play Love Letters by A.R. Gurney at the Performing Arts Center at Oregon High School in 1999. She performed as Mrs. Cratchit in the CTM production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.
Mitchard lives in Brewster, Massachusetts on Cape Cod with her husband, Christopher Brent, and their children.
In 2011, Mitchard wrote that she and her husband had lost millions of dollars and most of their possessions to investment advisor Trevor Cook, who was convicted of operating a Ponzi Scheme.
One Writer's Place
Hoping to create a place for women and men in disadvantaged circumstances created by divorce or widowhood, in 2007 Mitchard founded One Writer's Place, a residence dedicated to healing through creativity. Though a successful endeavor, One Writer's Place was closed in the spring of 2011.
Adult and young adult fiction
| 1996 - The Deep End of the Ocean 1998 - The Most Wanted 2001 - A Theory of Relativity 2003 - Christmas, Present 2003 - Twelve Times Blessed 2005 - The Breakdown Lane 2006 - Age of Stars |
2007 - Still Summer 2007 - Now You See Her 2008 - All We Know of Heaven 2009 - No Time to Wave Goodbye 2011 - Second Nature: A Love Story 2013 - What We Lost In the Dark 2016 - Two If by Sea |
(Author bio adapted fom Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/24/2016.)
Book Reviews
Bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard (The Deep End of the Ocean) balances love and loss in her new novel, Two If By Sea. It is a sweet story of one man’s road to recovery and the challenges he faces to protect the people he loves…It’s a universal adventure full of emotion and quite a bit of intrigue.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
[C]ombines elements of science fiction and suspense with a heartfelt meditation on family and grief, to mixed results.... Mitchard’s usual strong characters and emotionally resonant prose are evident here, but a few predictable twists and a shoehorned-in love interest drag things down.
Publishers Weekly
[H]eartbreaker.... Frank Mercy [loses] his wife and all her family in Brisbane's Christmas Eve "inland tsunami." During the flooding, he's managed to rescue a little boy named Ian and breaks the rules by taking him back to his family home in America's Midwest.
Library Journal
A gripping new family drama… Mitchard deftly weaves together domestic drama with taut suspense as she builds to a heart-stopping climax…Mitchard explores new territory in this unusual and suspenseful tale.
Booklist
After losing his wife and unborn son in a tsunami in Australia, an expat horse trainer adopts a psychic 3-year-old.... A troubled protagonist, beset by disaster and malefaction, is touched by magic as he develops new emotional connections.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What if there really were a child with Ian’s gift? What would the people who love such a child owe him? To protect him from those who would use him and let him have an ordinary life? to develop his gifts and learn to share them? What would such a child owe the world? How would you protect someone with abilities like Ian’s? Evaluate Frank’s approach and Julia Madrigal’s.
2. There are many different types of families in Two If by Sea: for example, Tura and Cedric; the Donovan clan; Frank’s family; and Claudia, her sisters, and her widowed father. How does each character draw what he or she needs from their biological family—or the family he or she creates?
3. Jacquelyn Mitchard uses beautiful language to describe the magical relationships that can exist between people and animals, especially horses. Why is it important to the novel that Frank is a horse trainer? What do the horse farms and the community around them add to the novel? How do the relationships with animals add to our understanding of Ian’s abilities and the power and vulnerability that come with them?
4. Were you surprised by Frank’s decision to take Ian? How do you explain this? Can there ever be a time when doing something that is wrong in the eyes of the world be the only right choice?
5. In the aftermath of the tsunami, Frank thinks: “Life was not a statement of choice in the fucking good earth or whatever Cedric had said. Life was as random as a pair of dice with ten sides.” Is Frank right? Or is Cedric? Why or why not? Do you think by the end of the book that Frank would still feel that way?
6. Do you believe that Ian has supernatural powers? Or do you believe that Ian is no more than an especially charismatic little boy? How does your understanding of Ian’s skills change throughout the course of the novel? How does it change when more of the boy’s history is revealed?
7. When Ian talks for the first time at Eden’s wedding, how does that moment function as a turning point? How does it affect Frank? At what points do the words Ian says to Frank cause him to take the next step at every critical point in their relationship?
8. Consider the following passage, as Frank proposes to Claudia: “Love can make people cruel. Love can make people weak. Love doesn’t always stay the same. And sometimes it goes dark, like a star that gets extinguished and just leaves the memory of its light.” Despite its cruelties and pitfalls, why is love worth the trouble? Why does Frank ask Claudia to love him, despite all the challenges he faces?
9. Has Frank fully experienced his grief when he asks Claudia to marry him? Why or why not? When, if ever, does Frank come to terms with his feelings for his dead wife?
10. Two if By Sea considers parenthood from every possible angle and in every possible iteration. Discuss how each character approaches the idea of parenthood. What does the power and responsibility of parenthood mean to Frank? To Claudia? To Hope? To Eden and Marty? Even to Glory Bee? What is Mitchard (who has nine children of her own, both through birth and adoption) asking the reader to consider about the bonds between parents and their children, the bonds of blood and those of choice?
11. What is the significance of the novel’s title?
12. Why are the relationships Ian and Colin forge in Britain ultimately so important? Why does Frank feel safe enough to let the boys out alone?
13. Frank’s mother says about leaving their farm: “It’s as if I’m not leaving home, Frank, it’s leaving me.” There are strong themes of finding a sense of home and family throughout Two If by Sea. Which qualities create a sense of home for each character? What creates a sense of family? Are they same thing? Why or why not?
14. The book starts with Frank seeing the wave “that would sweep away the center of his life in the minutes after midnight, and, by the time the sun rose, send surging into his arms the seed of his life to come.” How did tragedy make way for what would come next in Frank’s life? How did tragedy inform the lives of other characters? If there is a message about human existence behind the author’s insistence in seeing the “next wave,” what is it?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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Two Seas: A Journey into the Heart of Italy
Lynn Rodolico, 2012
Eccolo Editions
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9788890698699
Summary
An American woman happily married to an Italian and living in Florence for the past twenty years, unexpectedly finds herself falling in love-with Sicily. This beautifully written, deeply personal cross-cultural memoir, recounted with an astute foreigner-in-residence perspective, offers a graceful strategy for growing older: the wonders in store for those willing to exchange the symptoms of an empty nest for the veil of a second honeymoon.
By turns insightful and humorous, this seemingly simple tale of true happiness is chock-full of nuance: every page offers a glimpse of the sublime at the end of the rainbow. (From the publisher.)
Here's also a stunning video with original music of the spot in Sicily where the book takes place.
Author Bio
• Birth—April 1, 1953
• Where—Santa Monica, California, USA
• Education—Univeristy of California, Santa Barbara
• Awards—Book of the Month Award (France)
• Currently—lives in Sicily and Florence, Italy
Lynn was born in 1953 in Santa Monica, California, and grew up in the coastal town of Pacific Palisades. Her earliest, happiest memories come from inventing stories beneath the large fruit trees in her backyard, and later, when she was old enough to roam, the dramatic pounding of the Pacific Ocean below the town’s cliffs. Despite the idyllic setting, it wasn’t until she left Pacific Palisades and her family that she began to feel at home.
Writing had always been a favourite pastime but it wasn’t until she quit her job as Administrator of Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, Massachusetts that she started writing full time. She gave herself one year in which to succeed or fail as a writer. To perfect her skills, first in the Berkshires and later in New York City, she wrote commercial novels in the Romance genre under a series of pseudonyms. Her success was quick and exceptional.
Her first published novel, Passion’s Flight sold 350,000 copies and was translated into seven languages. Her second novel, Heart and Soul, proved a greater success, both commercially and literary, winning the Book of the Month Club Award in France. Opening Bid was another best seller romance and was translated into eleven languages. Intimates moved out of the romance category, allowing for real character development, but its circulation was thwarted when her editor changed publishing houses and the book remained orphaned in the warehouse.
In 1985 she moved to Italy for a year to finish a novel, Wooden Nickels. On her first day in Florence she met Antonino Rodolico, the man who would transform her life from a solitary search to a unified communion. Two Seas is a fictionalized memoir of their life on an olive farm in the Tuscan hills and their unexpected love affair with the Island of Sicily. They have two grown daughters.
Lynn's most recent novel, Small Change, takes place in Italy and England. It was published in 2013. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
There are no mainstream press reviews online. See the author's website, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews and reviews by other writers.
Discussion Questions
1. Two Seas raises the question: how much is enough?” Do you believe that simplicity can facilitate happiness?
2. Discuss the relevance of the book's title? Does its significance remain the same throughout the novel? What does it imply as an overall statement to the novel?
3. What is the meaning of the trice-repeated line: “Is it the clouds that reflect on the sea, coloring it in shades of gray and white, or the sea itself, turbulent?” Can an image alter the way we perceive the world? What is the significance of nature for Kate in Two Seas?
4. Kate describes the cheese making process as miraculous, while Eugenio dismisses it with a rational explanation. What is your opinion? Are there logical experiences in your life that you find miraculous?
5. What is the importance of the little pool in Two Seas? What does it reveal about Niccolo and Kate as characters?
6. Weather is a constant but changing presence in Two Seas, appearing in many guises: fog, mist, storms, winds. Are these images descriptive of the place or metaphorical?
7. What emotions were engaged as you read Two Seas? Were you saddened by the death of Edoardo? Convinced of Kate’s love for Niccolo? How did you view Niccolo’s relationship with his mother? His brother? Did any of these relationships feel similar to those in your life?
8. Do the Italian characters in Two Seas reinforce an Italian stereotype? Did you see differences between the Tuscan and Sicilian personalities? Did the author’s descriptions of Italy evoke the place? Elicit your curiosity? Has your perception of Italy and Italians changed after reading this novel?
9. How would you describe the Aragona family? In what ways does it differ from your family? In what ways is it the same?
10. What feelings are evoked from the description of the harvest of olives in Tuscany? Did it create nostalgia for a familiar time and place or give you a glimpse into an unfamiliar world? Is the author romanticizing hard work? Can you find a parallel example in your own life?
11. How would you describe Electra’s relationship with her mother? With her sister? What do you believe will happen between Electra and Bernardo after Two Seas finishes?
12. What is the significance of the animals present in Two Seas? Are they part of the depiction of place or do they serve a deeper purpose?
13. How does Kate’s flawed relationship with her father affect her rapport with the other characters in Two Seas? Is the relationship resolved during the course of the novel? Are there other relationships left unresolved?
14. Would you agree with Kate’s change in career from commercial success to artistic satisfaction? Do you believe she needed to leave the country to find her “still, small voice," as she says? How large a part, if any, does fate play in the events in Two Seas?
15. Were you surprised by the events in Two Seas or did you find the plot predictable? Would you describe it as a plot-driven novel or focussed on character development and setting?
16. What is the meaning of Il Faro—The Lighthouse? Why does it capture Kate and Niccolo’s attention? And what do they gain when they decide to let it go?
17. If you could ask the author a question, what would it be? Have you read other books by the same author? If so, how are they similar or dissimilar? If not, does this book inspire you to read others?
18. Has this novel changed you? Has it broadened your perspective? Have you learned something new about Italy? About yourself? Can you see yourself living the life the author describes?
(Questions from author's website.)
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights
Salman Rushdie, 2015
Random House
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812998917
Summary
From Salman Rushdie, one of the great writers of our time, comes a spellbinding work of fiction that blends history, mythology, and a timeless love story. A lush, richly layered novel in which our world has been plunged into an age of unreason, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is a breathtaking achievement and an enduring testament to the power of storytelling.
In the near future, after a storm strikes New York City, the strangenesses begin. A down-to-earth gardener finds that his feet no longer touch the ground. A graphic novelist awakens in his bedroom to a mysterious entity that resembles his own sub–Stan Lee creation.
Abandoned at the mayor’s office, a baby identifies corruption with her mere presence, marking the guilty with blemishes and boils. A seductive gold digger is soon tapped to combat forces beyond imagining.
Unbeknownst to them, they are all descended from the whimsical, capricious, wanton creatures known as the jinn, who live in a world separated from ours by a veil.
Centuries ago, Dunia, a princess of the jinn, fell in love with a mortal man of reason. Together they produced an astonishing number of children, unaware of their fantastical powers, who spread across generations in the human world.
Once the line between worlds is breached on a grand scale, Dunia’s children and others will play a role in an epic war between light and dark spanning a thousand and one nights—or two years, eight months, and twenty-eight nights.
It is a time of enormous upheaval, in which beliefs are challenged, words act like poison, silence is a disease, and a noise may contain a hidden curse.
Inspired by the traditional "wonder tales" of the East, Salman Rushdie’s novel is a masterpiece about the age-old conflicts that remain in today’s world. Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is satirical and bawdy, full of cunning and folly, rivalries and betrayals, kismet and karma, rapture and redemption. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 19, 1947
• Where—Bombay, Maharashtra, India
• Education—M.A., King's College, Cambridge, UK
• Awards—Booker Prize, 1981; Best of the Bookers, 1993 (the best novel to win the Booker
Prize in its first twenty-five years); Whitbread Prize, 1988 and 1995
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie is a British Indian novelist and essayist. His second novel, Midnight's Children (1981), won the Booker Prize in 1981. Much of his fiction is set on the Indian subcontinent. He is said to combine magical realism with historical fiction; his work is concerned with the many connections, disruptions and migrations between East and West.
His fourth novel, The Satanic Verses (1988), was the centre of a major controversy, provoking protests from Muslims in several countries, some violent. Death threats were made against him, including a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, on February 14, 1989.
Rushdie was appointed Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France in January 1999. In June 2007, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him for his services to literature. In 2008, The Times ranked him thirteenth on its list of the fifty greatest British writers since 1945.
Since 2000, Rushdie has lived in the United States, where he has worked at the Emory University and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His most recent book is Joseph Anton: A Memoir, an account of his life in the wake of the Satanic Verses controversy.
Career
Rushdie's first career was as a copywriter, working for the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, where he came up with "irresistibubble" for Aero and "Naughty but Nice" for cream cakes, and for the agency Ayer Barker, for whom he wrote the memorable line "That'll do nicely" for American Express. It was while he was at Ogilvy that he wrote Midnight's Children, before becoming a full-time writer. John Hegarty of Bartle Bogle Hegarty has criticised Rushdie for not referring to his copywriting past frequently enough, although conceding: "He did write crap ads...admittedly."
His first novel, Grimus, a part-science fiction tale, was generally ignored by the public and literary critics. His next novel, Midnight's Children, catapulted him to literary notability. This work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in 1993 and 2008, was awarded the Best of the Bookers as the best novel to have received the prize during its first 25 and 40 years. Midnight's Children follows the life of a child, born at the stroke of midnight as India gained its independence, who is endowed with special powers and a connection to other children born at the dawn of a new and tumultuous age in the history of the Indian sub-continent and the birth of the modern nation of India. The character of Saleem Sinai has been compared to Rushdie. However, the author has refuted the idea of having written any of his characters as autobiographical, stating...
People assume that because certain things in the character are drawn from your own experience, it just becomes you. In that sense, I’ve never felt that I’ve written an autobiographical character.
After Midnight's Children, Rushdie wrote Shame, in which he depicts the political turmoil in Pakistan, basing his characters on Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Shame won France's Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (Best Foreign Book) and was a close runner-up for the Booker Prize. Both these works of postcolonial literature are characterised by a style of magic realism and the immigrant outlook that Rushdie is very conscious of as a member of the Indian diaspora.
Rushdie wrote a non-fiction book about Nicaragua in 1987 called The Jaguar Smile. This book has a political focus and is based on his first-hand experiences and research at the scene of Sandinista political experiments.
His most controversial work, The Satanic Verses, was published in 1988 (see below). Rushdie has published many short stories, including those collected in East, West (1994). The Moor's Last Sigh, a family epic ranging over some 100 years of India's history was published in 1995. The Ground Beneath Her Feet presents an alternative history of modern rock music. The song of the same name by U2 is one of many song lyrics included in the book, hence Rushdie is credited as the lyricist. He also wrote Haroun and the Sea of Stories in 1990.
Rushdie has had a string of commercially successful and critically acclaimed novels. His 2005 novel Shalimar the Clown received, in India, the prestigious Hutch Crossword Book Award, and was, in Britain, a finalist for the Whitbread Book Awards. It was shortlisted for the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
In his 2002 non-fiction collection Step Across This Line, he professes his admiration for the Italian writer Italo Calvino and the American writer Thomas Pynchon, among others. His early influences included James Joyce, Günter Grass, Jorge Luis Borges, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Lewis Carroll. Rushdie was a personal friend of Angela Carter and praised her highly in the foreword for her collection Burning your Boats.
Other Activities
Rushdie has quietly mentored younger Indian (and ethnic-Indian) writers, influenced an entire generation of Indo-Anglian writers, and is an influential writer in postcolonial literature in general. He has received many plaudits for his writings, including the European Union's Aristeion Prize for Literature, the Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy), and the Writer of the Year Award in Germany and many of literature's highest honours. Rushdie was the President of PEN American Center from 2004 to 2006 and founder of the PEN World Voices Festival.
He opposed the British government's introduction of the Racial and Religious Hatred Act, something he writes about in his contribution to Free Expression Is No Offence, a collection of essays by several writers.
In 2007 he began a five-year term as Distinguished Writer in Residence at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, where he has also deposited his archives.
In May 2008 he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Though he enjoys writing, Salman Rushdie says that he would have become an actor if his writing career had not been successful. Even from early childhood, he dreamed of appearing in Hollywood movies (which he later realised in his frequent cameo appearances).
Rushdie includes fictional television and movie characters in some of his writings. He had a cameo appearance in the film Bridget Jones's Diary based on the book of the same name, which is itself full of literary in-jokes.
On May 12, 2006, Rushdie was a guest host on The Charlie Rose Show, where he interviewed Indo-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, whose 2005 film, Water, faced violent protests. He appears in the role of Helen Hunt's obstetrician-gynecologist in the film adaptation of Elinor Lipman's novel Then She Found Me. In September 2008, and again in March 2009, he appeared as a panellist on the HBO program Real Time with Bill Maher.
Rushdie is currently collaborating on the screenplay for the cinematic adaptation of his novel Midnight's Children with director Deepa Mehta. The film will be released in October, 2012.
Rushdie is a member of the advisory board of The Lunchbox Fund, a non-profit organisation which provides daily meals to students of township schools in Soweto of South Africa. He is also a member of the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America, an advocacy group representing the interests of atheistic and humanistic Americans in Washington, D.C. In November 2010 he became a founding patron of Ralston College, a new liberal arts college that has adopted as its motto a Latin translation of a phrase ("free speech is life itself") from an address he gave at Columbia University in 1991 to mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Satanic Verses and the fatwa
The publication of The Satanic Verses in September 1988 caused immediate controversy in the Islamic world because of what was perceived as an irreverent depiction of the prophet Muhammad. The title refers to a disputed Muslim tradition that is related in the book. According to this tradition, Muhammad (Mahound in the book) added verses (sura) to the Qur'an accepting three goddesses who used to be worshipped in Mecca as divine beings. According to the legend, Muhammad later revoked the verses, saying the devil tempted him to utter these lines to appease the Meccans (hence the "Satanic" verses). However, the narrator reveals to the reader that these disputed verses were actually from the mouth of the Archangel Gibreel. The book was banned in many countries with large Muslim communities.
On February 14, 1989, a fatwa requiring Rushdie's execution was proclaimed on Radio Tehran by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of Iran at the time, calling the book "blasphemous against Islam." A bounty was offered for Rushdie's death, and he was thus forced to live under police protection for several years. On March 7, 1989, the United Kingdom and Iran broke diplomatic relations over the Rushdie controversy.
The publication of the book and the fatwa sparked violence around the world, with bookstores firebombed. Muslim communities in several nations in the West held public rallies, burning copies of the book. Several people associated with translating or publishing the book were attacked and even killed.
On September 24, 1998, as a precondition to the restoration of diplomatic relations with Britain, the Iranian government gave a public commitment that it would "neither support nor hinder assassination operations on Rushdie."
Hardliners in Iran have continued to reaffirm the death sentence. In early 2005, Khomeini's fatwa was reaffirmed by Iran's current spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Muslim pilgrims making the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Additionally, the Revolutionary Guards have declared that the death sentence on him is still valid. Iran has rejected requests to withdraw the fatwa on the basis that only the person who issued it may withdraw it, and the person who issued it – Ayatollah Khomeini – has been dead since 1989.
Rushdie has reported that he still receives a "sort of Valentine's card" from Iran each year on February 14 letting him know the country has not forgotten the vow to kill him. He said, "It's reached the point where it's a piece of rhetoric rather than a real threat."
A memoir of his years of hiding, Joseph Anton, was published in 2012. Joseph Anton was Rushdie's secret alias.
In 2012, following uprisings over an anonymously posted YouTube video denigrating Muslims, a semi-official religious foundation in Iran increased the reward it had offered for the killing of Rushdie from $2.8 million to $3.3 million dollars. Their stated reason: "If the [1989] fatwa had been carried out, later insults in the form of caricature, articles and films that have continued would have not happened."
Knighthood
Rushdie was knighted for services to literature in the Queen's Birthday Honours on June 16, 2007. He remarked, "I am thrilled and humbled to receive this great honour, and am very grateful that my work has been recognised in this way." In response to his knighthood, many nations with Muslim majorities protested. Several called publicly for his death. Some non-Muslims expressed disappointment at Rushdie's knighthood, claiming that the writer did not merit such an honour and there were several other writers who deserved the knighthood more than Rushdie.
Al-Qaeda has condemned the Rushdie honour. The Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri is quoted as saying in an audio recording that Britain's award for Indian-born Rushdie was "an insult to Islam", and it was planning "a very precise response."
Religious Beliefs
Rushdie came from a Muslim family though he is an atheist now. In 1990, in the "hope that it would reduce the threat of Muslims acting on the fatwa to kill him," he issued a statement claiming he had renewed his Muslim faith, had repudiated the attacks on Islam in his novel and was committed to working for better understanding of the religion across the world. However, Rushdie later said that he was only "pretending".
Personal Life
Rushdie has been married four times. He was married to his first wife Clarissa Luard from 1976 to 1987 and fathered a son, Zafar (born 1980). His second wife was the American novelist Marianne Wiggins; they were married in 1988 and divorced in 1993. His third wife, from 1997 to 2004, was Elizabeth West; they have a son, Milan (born 1999). In 2004, he married the Indian American actress and model Padma Lakshmi, the host of the American reality-television show Top Chef. The marriage ended on July 2, 2007, with Lakshmi indicating that it was her desire to end the marriage.
In 1999 Rushdie had an operation to correct ptosis, a tendon condition that causes drooping eyelids and that, according to him, was making it increasingly difficult for him to open his eyes. "If I hadn't had an operation, in a couple of years from now I wouldn't have been able to open my eyes at all," he said.
Since 2000, Rushdie has "lived mostly near Union Square" in New York City. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is replete with fantastical creatures, scary monsters, very bad men (or rather, male jinns/genies) and one heroic woman.... While Rushdie has written hyped up sagas of worlds colliding before, and always espouses reason over fanaticism, there is something so loopy, so unleashed, about this tale as to make it particularly thrilling.
New York Daily News
In these nested, swirling tales, Rushdie conjures up a whole universe of jinn slithering across time and space, meddling in human affairs and copulating like they’ve just been released from twenty years in a lamp.... Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights translates the bloody upheavals of our last few decades into the comic-book antics of warring jinn wielding bolts of fire, mystical transmutations and rhyming battle spells.
Washington Post
Splendid and heartfelt.... There’s an abundance of authorial winking here, the unabashed symbolism and double entendres quickly stacking up in a manner that wires Rushdie into an ancient storytelling tradition without preventing him from maintaining his own claim on originality and freshness.... Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights will be welcomed with a pure and generous affection by many, rather than the shock and awe of some of Rushdie’s earlier works.
Boston Globe
This is Rushdie’s first [novel] for adults since 2008, and he seems to be having fun with the adult content. He works in jokes about the sexual appetites of his jinn, brings alive dark corners of Manhattan, explores misplaced love, and creates a good-versus-evil battle that’s firmly grounded in phil;osophy.... Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights is erudite without flaunting it, an amusement park of a pulpy disaster novel that resists flying out of control by being grounded by religion, history, culture and love.
Los Angeles Times
[Salman] Rushdie is our Scheherazade, inexhaustibly enfolding story within story and unfolding tale after tale with such irrepressible delight that it comes as a shock to remember that, like her, he has lived the life of a storyteller in immediate peril.... This book is a fantasy, a fairytale—and a brilliant reflection of and serious meditation on the choices and agonies of our life in this world.... I like to think how many readers are going to admire the courage of this book, revel in its fierce colors, its boisterousness, humor and tremendous pizzazz, and take delight in its generosity of spirit.
Ursula K. Le Guin - Guardian (UK)
The title adds up to 1,001 nights, an allusion to the story of Scheherazade, and although there are not 1,001 strands of story here, there are many, and they are colourful and compelling.... Rushdie displays the wry humour that helped make Midnight’s Children such a masterpiece.
Independent (UK)
A comic novel about Medieval Islamic philosophy, fairies and the near end of the world may sound difficult. Rushdie’s brilliance is in the balance between high art and pop culture.... This is a novel of both intellectual heft and sheer reading pleasure—a rare feat.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
There are monsters who slip through wormholes, or slits between worlds; there are battles and set pieces, in Fairyland and on Earth; there are sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hilarious comic turns; stories within stories; riddles within tales within legends. And there is Salman Rushdie, manic Scheherazade, assuming all the voices, playing all the parts, making a mad kind of sense of it all.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
A boisterous novel of ideas, a spirited manifesto for reason disguised as a tale of a jinn war lasting exactly two years, eight months and twenty-eight nights, or 1,001 nights.... What results is hallmark Rushdie: a composite of magic realism, mythology, science fiction and straight-up fantasy.... Like the best Rushdie novels, Two Years is playful and inventive, and also intellectually bracing.
Toronto Globe and Mail
(Starred review.) In his latest novel, Rushdie (Joseph Anton) invents his own cultural narrative—one that blends elements of One Thousand and One Nights, Homeric epics, and sci-fi and action/adventure comic books.... [A]n intellectual treasure chest cleverly disguised as a comic pop-culture apocalyptic caprice.
Publishers Weekly
Most readers will overlook Rushdie's not-so-subtle scolding in this rollicking magical realist adventure, which is fast paced and accessible. It can be enjoyed as a fairy-tale adventure, literary fiction, or a political allegory for our times. —Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. Lib., MD
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [A] rambunctious, satirical, and bewitching metaphysical fable, perhaps [Rushdie's] most thoroughly enjoyable to date.... Rushdie is having wickedly wise fun here. Every character has a keenly hilarious backstory, and the action...[is] exuberantly madcap, magical, and genuinely emotional.... [A] delectable update of One Thousand and One Nights.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Rushdie turns in a sometimes archly elegant, sometimes slightly goofy fairy tale...for grown-ups: "A fairy king," he writes, and he knows whereof he speaks, "can only be poisoned by the most dreadful and powerful of words." Beguiling and astonishing, wonderful and wondrous. Rushdie at his best.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Two-Family House
Lynda Cohen Loigman, 2016
St. Martin's Press
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250076922
Summary
Brooklyn, 1947: In the midst of a blizzard, in a two-family brownstone, two babies are born, minutes apart.
The mothers are sisters by marriage: dutiful, quiet Rose, who wants nothing more than to please her difficult husband; and warm, generous Helen, the exhausted mother of four rambunctious boys who seem to need her less and less each day.
Raising their families side by side, supporting one another, Rose and Helen share an impenetrable bond forged before and during that dramatic winter night. When the storm passes, life seems to return to normal; but as the years progress, small cracks start to appear and the once deep friendship between the two women begins to unravel. No one knows why, and no one can stop it.
One misguided choice; one moment of tragedy.
Heartbreak wars with happiness and almost, but not quite, wins. Moving and evocative, Lynda Cohen Loigman's debut novel The Two-Family House is a heart-wrenching, gripping multigenerational story, woven around the deepest of secrets. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1968-69
• Raised—Longmeadow, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University; J.D., Columbia University
• Currently—llives in Chappaqua, New York
Lynda Cohen Loigman's 2016 debut novel, The Two-Family House, takes place in Brooklyn, a place to which she feels a strong connection—for two reasons. First, the New York borough was once her mother's home; second, it is the setting for her favorite childhood novel, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a book that has cast a spell over Lynda from the time she was 10. "No other book I knew offered the same vivid characters or richness of setting. I must have read it fifty times," she said during an interview on Tall Poppy Writers.
Loigman grew up in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. She received a B.A. in English and American Literature from Harvard College and a J.D. from Columbia Law School. She is now a student of the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, and lives with her husband and two children in Chappaqua, New York. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
It’s hard to believe The Two-Family House is Lynda Cohen Loigman’s debut novel. A richly textured, complex, yet entirely believable story.... As compelling as the story line are the characters that Loigman has drawn here. None is wholly likable nor entirely worthy of scorn. All are achingly human, tragically flawed and immediately recognizable. We watch them change and grow as the novel spans more than 20 years....engrossing from beginning to end.
Associated Press
Where Loigman excels is in capturing the time period—1950s Brooklyn.... Loigman nails the way family members, especially parents and children, inadvertently pierce one another with careless comments or subtle looks. As the story unfolds, we are reminded of how a split-second decision can reverberate for decades, even for generations.... [T]he real strength of Loigman’s debut effort is her characters, to whom you find your loyalty shifting as the story unfolds.
Jerusalem Post
Peeling back the layers that surround an irreversible, life-altering secret, this novel weaves a complex and heartbreaking story about lies and love, forgiveness and family. Written from alternating perspectives of the different family members over more than two decades, the deeply developed voices will bring tears and awe, settling snugly into the heart and mind. It’s a reminder that love is always forgiving.
Romance Times Reviews
[E]ngrossing.... Loigman's use of shifting perspectives allows readers to witness first-hand...secrets and the insidious lies that cover them up. This historical family drama has a dark underbelly, but Loigman's decision to let the reader in on the secret allows the setting and mood of the novel take over as the characters move haltingly toward redemption and peace.
Publishers Weekly
In her first novel, Loigman uses complex characters to deconstruct the anatomy of family relationships and expose deep-rooted emotions, delivering a moving story of love, loss, and sacrifice.
Booklist
The Two-Family House takes you on a tour of dysfunction and deep and abiding love in a way that reflects the entanglements that come with a close-living family.... [I]ts examination of generations of a family with their own high expectations to live up to resonates on several different levels.... [T]his very literary tale actually gives readers so much more than it may seem at first.
Book Reporter
A debut novel explores the intertwining lives of two Brooklyn families.... That Loigman mistakes clamor for vigor is unfortunate. She had the beginnings of a powerful work here. This compelling novel strains beneath its own aspirations and never quite comes to life.
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 The Two-Family House...then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the personalities of the two sisters-in-law, Helen and Rose. At what point after the birth of the babies do cracks begin to appear in their relationship?
2. Discuss the husband/brothers, Mort and Abe. How are they different, and how do their parenting styles differ? Is it only Mort's wishes that drive the plot?
3. Talk about that fateful night, the night of the snowstorm and two births. What do you think of the decision that was made? Do you understand the motivation behind it? Could anyone have foreseen the consequences?
4. This book is very much about secrets and the lies that cover them up. Was there any point over the years when the secrets could have been laid bare, allowing the truth to emerge?
5. The story is told through shifting perspectives. What do the differing points of view bring to the reading experience? And why are only Judith and Natalie, of all the children, given voice in the novel?
6. Natalie tells Helen that although Helen couldn't save Teddy, "you did save me." What does she mean, and who else achieves redemption?
7. Whom do you identify with most closely in the novel? Does your loyalty shift as the story progresses?
8. Readers are in the position of knowing the secret from the onset. How does this knowledge affect your experience of reading The Two-Family House? What if readers had been kept in the dark like most of the characters—what difference would that make in how you read the novel?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime use these, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Umbrella
Will Self, 2012
Grove/Atlantic
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802120724
Summary
A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella. —James Joyce, Ulysses
Recently having abandoned his RD Laing-influenced experiment in running a therapeutic community—the so-called Concept House in Willesden—maverick psychiatrist Zack Busner arrives at Friern Hospital, a vast Victorian mental asylum in North London, under a professional and a marital cloud. He has every intention of avoiding controversy, but then he encounters Audrey Dearth, a working-class girl from Fulham born in 1890 who has been immured in Friern for decades.
A socialist, a feminist and a munitions worker at the Woolwich Arsenal, Audrey fell victim to the encephalitis lethargica sleeping sickness epidemic at the end of the First World War and, like one of the subjects in Oliver Sacks’ Awakenings, has been in a coma ever since. Realising that Audrey is just one of a number of post-encephalitics scattered throughout the asylum, Busner becomes involved in an attempt to bring them back to life—with wholly unforeseen consequences.
Is Audrey’s diseased brain in its nightmarish compulsion a microcosm of the technological revolutions of the twentieth century? And if Audrey is ill at all—perhaps her illness is only modernity itself? And what of Audrey’s two brothers, Stanley and Albert: at the time she fell ill, Stanley was missing presumed dead on the Western Front, while Albert was in charge of the Arsenal itself, a coming man in the Imperial Civil Service. Now, fifty years later, when Audrey awakes from her pathological swoon, which of the two is it who remains alive?
Radical in its conception, uncompromising in its style, Umbrella is Will Self’s most extravagant and imaginative exercise in speculative fiction to date. (From the British publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 26, 1961
• Where—North London, England, UK
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize; Aga Khan
Prize for Fiction; Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
• Currently—lives in Stockwell, South London, England
William Woodard "Will" Self is an English author, journalist and television personality. He is the author of nine novels, five collections of shorter fiction, three novellas and five collections of non-fiction writing, of which his novel Umbrella was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. His work has been translated into 22 languages.
His fiction is known for being satirical, grotesque, and fantastical, and is predominantly set within London. His fiction often deals with such themes as mental illness, illegal drugs and psychiatry. Self's regular columns for Building Design on the built environment, and for the Independent Magazine on the psychology of place brought him to prominence as a thinker concerned with the politics of urbanity.
Self is a regular contributor to publications including Playboy, Harpers, New York Times and London Review of Books. He currently writes two fortnightly columns for New Statesman, and over the years he has been a columnist for The Observer, The Times and the Evening Standard. He is a regular contributor on British television, initially as a guest on comic panel shows and, more lately, on serious political programs. He is also a frequent contributor to BBC Radio 4.
Early life
Self was born and raised in North London. His parents were Peter Self, Professor of Public Administration at the London School of Economics, and Elaine (nee Rosenbloom), an American from Queens, New York, who worked as a publisher's assistant. His father was from an Anglican family and his mother was Jewish.
As a child, Self spent a year living in the U.S.—in Ithaca, in upstate New York. His parents separated when he was nine and divorced when he was eighteen. Self was a voracious reader from a young age. At ten an interest in science fiction grew, with notable works such as Frank Herbert's Dune, J. G. Ballard and Philip K. Dick—reflecting the precociousness of Self's reading. Into his teenage years, Self claimed to have been "overawed by the canon," stifling his ability to express himself. Self's dabbling with drugs grew in step with his prolific reading: he started smoking marijuana at the age of twelve, graduating through amphetamines, cocaine, and acid to heroin, which he started injecting at eighteen.
Of Self's background Nick Rennison has written that he:
Self is sometimes presented as a bad-boy outsider, writing, like the Americans William S Burroughs and Hubert Selby Jr, about sex, drugs and violence in a very direct way. Yet he is not some class warrior storming the citadels of the literary establishment from the outside, but an Oxford educated, middle-class metropolitan who, despite his protestations to the contrary in interviews, is about as much at the heart of the establishment as you can get, a place he has occupied almost from the start of his career.
Career
After graduating from Oxford, Self worked for the Greater London Council, including a period as a road sweeper, while living in Brixton. He then pursued a career as a cartoonist for the New Statesman and other publications and as a stand-up comedian. In 1986 he entered a treatment centre, where he claims that his heroin addiction was cured. Then "through a series of accidents," he ended up running a small publishing company.
The publication of his short story collection The Quantity Theory of Insanity brought him to public attention in 1991. Self was immediately hailed as an original new talent by Salman Rushdie, Doris Lessing, Beryl Bainbridge, A. S. Byatt, and Bill Buford. In 1993 he was nominated by Granta magazine as one of the 20 "Best Young British Novelists." Conversely, Self's second book, My Idea of Fun, was "mauled" by the critics.
He gained some notoriety in 1997 when he was sent by the broadsheet The Observer to cover the election campaign of John Major and was caught by a rival journalist using heroin on the Prime Minister's jet. He was fired as a result. He says that he has abstained from drugs, except for caffeine and nicotine, since 1998.
Self has made many appearances on British television, especially as a panellist on Have I Got News for You and as a regular on Shooting Stars. Since 2008 Self has appeared five times on Question Time. Since 2007, Self has later stopped appearing in Have I Got News for You, stating the show has become a pseudo-panel show.
Since 2009 Self has written two alternating fortnightly columns for the New Statesman. The Madness of Crowds explores social phenomena and group behaviour, and in Real Meals he reviews high street food outlets.
In 2012, Self was appointed Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University. In July 2012, Self received his first Man Booker Prize long list nomination for Umbrella, which the Daily Telegraph described as "possibly Self's most ambitious novel to date." The book was later placed on the prize shortlist.
Personal life
Self was married from 1989 to 1997 to Kate Chancellor. They have two children, a son Alexis and a daughter Madeleine. In 1997, Self married journalist Deborah Orr, with whom he has sons Ivan and Luther. His brother is the author and journalist Jonathan Self. He lives in Stockwell, South London.
Self has described himself as a Psychogeographer and modern flaneur and has written about walks he has taken. In December 2006, he walked 26 miles from his home in South London to Heathrow Airport. Upon arriving at Kennedy Airport he walked 20 miles from there to Manhattan.
Self is 6' 5" tall, collects and repairs vintage typewriters and smokes a pipe; he claims that a psychologist once described him as schizoid personality and borderline personality.
Awards
1991: Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize for The Quantity Theory of Insanity
1998: Aga Khan Prize for Fiction from The Paris Review for Tough Tough Toys for Tough Tough Boys
2008: Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction for "The Butt"
Self has been shortlisted three times for the Bad Sex in Fiction Award: in 2002 for Dorian, in 2004 for "Dr Mukti" in Dr Mukti and Other Tales of Woe and in 2006 for The Book of Dave. (Author bio from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Brilliant but chaotic…Umbrella is a work of throwback modernism. It has no chapters and few paragraph breaks…It shuffles points of view without warning. It is freckled with Joycean neologisms…it's an erudite yet barking mad novel about barking madness. It's as much performance piece as novel. It will force you to hold contradictory ideas in your head…You give yourself over to Umbrella in flashes, as if it were a radio station you're unable to tune in that you suspect is playing the most beautiful song you will ever hear. Just when you are ready to give up on it entirely, this novel locks into moments of ungodly beauty and radiant moral sympathy. It tests your patience. It tests your nerve.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
Warning: Umbrella is what's known as a "difficult" novel. If that sounds as appealing as a difficult pregnancy, stop reading now. But if you enjoy challenges, in literature as well as life, read on because Umbrella…is a virtuosic performance…What's admirable about Umbrella is Self's ingenious treatment of his material: He welds form with content, using modernist techniques to deal with an epidemic that occurred during the heyday of modernism…Self's wildly nonlinear narrative offers other delights: richly detailed settings that bring the Edwardian era and mental hospitals sensuously alive, kaleidoscopic patterns of symbolism…and loads of mordant satire. Yes, Umbrella is a "difficult" novel, but it amply rewards the effort.
Steven Moore - Washington Post
A savage and deeply humane novel.... Umbrella is an old-fashioned modernist tale with retrofitted ambitions to boot.... Self has always been a fabulous writer... The result is page after page of gorgeously musical prose. Self’s sentences bounce and weave, and like poetry, they refract. The result is mesmerizing.... In its best moments, Umbrella compels a reader to the heights of vertigo Woolf excelled at creating...a triumph of form. With this magnificent novel Will Self reminds that he is Britain’s reigning poet of the night.
John Freeman - Boston Globe
Self’s latest novel...is a strange and sprawling modernist experiment that takes the human mind as its subject and, like the human mind, is infinitely capacious, wretchedly petty and ultimately magnificent.... It may not be beautiful, but it is extraordinary
NPR Books
A hefty, challenging stream-of-consciousness story whose engagement with modernist themes and techniques is announced in its epigraph from Joyce’s Ulysses.
New Yorker.com
In prose uninterrupted by chapters or line breaks, a twisted version of the 20th century is woven and unpicked again. It is a postmodern vivisection of Modernism, analyzing the dream and the machine, war as the old lie and a new liberation, and rituals sacred, profane and banal...a linguistically adept, emotionally subtle and ethically complex novel.
Guardian
An ambitiously conceived and brilliantly executed novel in the high modernist tradition of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf.... Its scope is dazzling.... The switches between perspective and chronology are demanding (there are no chapters), but Self handles them with bravura skill, setting up imagery and phrases that echo suggestively between different episodes.... Umbrella is an immense achievement.
Financial Times
Entertaining and enthralling...extensively researched.... An experimental novel that is also a compassionate and thrilling book—and one that, despite its difficulty, deserves to be read.
Economist
Will Self’s Joycean tribute is a stream of consciousness tour de force.... [It] builds into a heartbreaking mosaic, a sardonic critique of the woefully misdirected treatment of the mentally ill and the futility of war and, above all, a summation of the human condition. Despite the bleakness of the message, by the end you are filled with elation at the author’s exuberant ambition and the swaggering way he carries it all off, and then a huge sense of deflation at the realization that whatever book you read next, it won’t be anything like this.
Daily Mail
Umbrella is old-school modernism. It isn’t supposed to be a breeze. But it is, to use the literary critical term of art, kind of amazing … It may not be his easiest, but I think this may be Will Self’s best book.”—The Observer (London)Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Self’s sweeping experimental new novel (after Walking to Hollywood) creaks under the weight of chaotic complexity. At its core lies a fractured matrix only partially resembling a coherent story. For more than 50 years, octogenarian Audrey Death aka De’Ath, Deeth, Deerth has languished in North London’s Friern Mental Hospital, suffering from encephalitis lethargica—a brain-damaging sleeping sickness she contracted in 1918 that renders patients either “whirled into a twisted immobility, or else unwound spastic, hypotonic.” In 1971, whiz-bang psychiatrist Zachary Busner attempts to revive her and other “enkies” by plying them with L-Dopa (an anti-Parkinson’s drug). A fleeting reawakening reveals jarring glimpses into Audrey’s past (a hardscrabble childhood in Edwardian England; a job at a WWI munitions factory; a raunchy love affair with a married man), with alternating flashbacks to the lives of her brothers Stan (a gunner in the war) and Bert (a puffed-up civil servant), and jumps forward to Busner in 2010 reminiscing about his past (a failed marriage; adultery; his mixed career). Lacking chapter breaks, paragraph separations (mostly), and hopping between these four characters’ stream-of-consciousness points of view, the already puzzling tome can be difficult to follow, let alone grasp. But with snippets of dialects, stylistic flourishes, and inventive phrases loose with meaning, for those who grab hold and hang on, the experience falls just shy of brilliant.
Publishers Weekly
Cutting-edge psychiatrist Zachary Busner is concerned about some of the patients at a 1970s London mental hospital—in particular, Audrey Dearth, who was born in the slums in 1890 and unfolds her life story in alternate passages—but efforts to reach them don't end well. Long-listed for the 2012 Man Booker Prize.
Library Journal
Brainy and outlandish, though still in the mainstream of modernist fiction, this book captures a number of eccentric voices and sends the reader running to the dictionary. The epigraph to the novel is, fittingly, from Joyce's Ulysses: "A brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella," and Self offers us an account of Audrey Death and her two brothers, Albert and Stanley. Originally Audrey De'Ath, her name transmutes to Deerth and then to Dearth, a prime example of Self's--dare I say self-consciously?—Joycean word play. By whatever name, Audrey was born in 1890, came of age in the Edwardian era, involved herself in the suffragette movement, worked for a while in an umbrella shop, became ill with encephalitis lethargica (aka "sleeping sickness") toward the end of World War I and was institutionalized in 1922 at a mental hospital in north London. Now it's 1971, and Dr. Zachary Busner, a recurring character in Self's novels and stories, tries to treat her—and other sufferers from the illness—to bring them out of their catatonia. Self plunges the reader into the twisted conscious minds of both Audrey and Zach, a feat that's in equal parts exhilarating and bewildering. Consider the following description of a pianist Audrey had heard in her past: "Ooh, yairs, isn't it luvverly, such fine mahoggerny—while the fellow's knees rose and fell as he trod in the melody, Doo-d'doo, doo d'doo, doo d'dooo, doo d'dooo, triplets of notes going up and down." The novel disdains such literary conventions as chapters and just plunges us into the inner worlds of its characters. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, this novel is uncompromising and relentless in the demands it makes upon the reader, yet there's a lyrical, rhapsodic element that continually pulls one into and through the narrative. .
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.
Unaccustomed Earth (Short Stories)
Jhumpa Lahiri, 2008
Knopf Doubleday
333 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307278258
Summary
From the internationally best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, a superbly crafted new work of fiction: eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers.
In the stunning title story, Ruma, a young mother in a new city, is visited by her father, who carefully tends the earth of her garden, where he and his grandson form a special bond. But he’s harboring a secret from his daughter, a love affair he’s keeping all to himself. In “A Choice of Accommodations,” a husband’s attempt to turn an old friend’s wedding into a romantic getaway weekend with his wife takes a dark, revealing turn as the party lasts deep into the night. In “Only Goodness,” a sister eager to give her younger brother the perfect childhood she never had is overwhelmed by guilt, anguish, and anger when his alcoholism threatens her family. And in “Hema and Kaushik,” a trio of linked stories—a luminous, intensely compelling elegy of life, death, love, and fate—we follow the lives of a girl and boy who, one winter, share a house in Massachusetts. They travel from innocence to experience on separate, sometimes painful paths, until destiny brings them together again years later in Rome.
Unaccustomed Earth is rich with Jhumpa Lahiri’s signature gifts: exquisite prose, emotional wisdom, and subtle renderings of the most intricate workings of the heart and mind. It is a masterful, dazzling work of a writer at the peak of her powers. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 11, 1967
• Where—London, England, UK
• Raised—Kingston, Rhode Island, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard College; 2 M.A's., M.F.A., and
Ph.D., Boston University
• Awards—Pulitizer Prize (see more below)
• Currently—lives in Rome, Italy
Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name.She was born Nilanjana Sudeshna but goes by her nickname Jhumpa. Lahiri is a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Biography
Lahiri was born in London, the daughter of Indian immigrants from the state of West Bengal. Her family moved to the United States when she was two; Lahiri considers herself an American, having said, "I wasn't born here, but I might as well have been." Lahiri grew up in Kingston, Rhode Island, where her father Amar Lahiri works as a librarian at the University of Rhode Island; he is the basis for the protagonist in "The Third and Final Continent," the closing story from Interpreter of Maladies. Lahiri's mother wanted her children to grow up knowing their Bengali heritage, and her family often visited relatives in Calcutta (now Kolkata).
When she began kindergarten in Kingston, Rhode Island, Lahiri's teacher decided to call her by her pet name, Jhumpa, because it was easier to pronounce than her "proper names". Lahiri recalled, "I always felt so embarrassed by my name.... You feel like you're causing someone pain just by being who you are." Lahiri's ambivalence over her identity was the inspiration for the ambivalence of Gogol, the protagonist of her novel The Namesake, over his unusual name. Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989.
Lahiri then received multiple degrees from Boston University: an M.A. in English, M.F.A. in Creative Writing, M.A. in Comparative Literature, and a Ph.D. in Renaissance Studies. She took a fellowship at Provincetown's Fine Arts Work Center, which lasted for the next two years (1997–1998). Lahiri has taught creative writing at Boston University and the Rhode Island School of Design.
In 2001, Lahiri married Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush, a journalist who was then Deputy Editor and now Senior Editor of Time Latin America. The couple lives in Rome, Italy with their two children.
Literary career
Lahiri's early short stories faced rejection from publishers "for years." Her debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies, was finally released in 1999. The stories address sensitive dilemmas in the lives of Indians or Indian immigrants, with themes such as marital difficulties, miscarriages, and the disconnection between first and second generation United States immigrants. Lahiri later wrote,
When I first started writing I was not conscious that my subject was the Indian-American experience. What drew me to my craft was the desire to force the two worlds I occupied to mingle on the page as I was not brave enough, or mature enough, to allow in life.
The collection was praised by American critics, but received mixed reviews in India, where reviewers were alternately enthusiastic and upset Lahiri had "not paint[ed] Indians in a more positive light." However, according to Md. Ziaul Haque, a poet, columnist, scholar, researcher and a faculty member at Sylhet International University, Bangladesh,
But, it is really painful for any writer living far away in a new state, leaving his/her own homeland behind; the motherland, the environment, people, culture etc. constantly echo in the writer’s (and of course anybody else’s) mind. So, the manner of trying to imagine and describe about the motherland and its people deserves esteem. I think that we should coin a new term, i.e. “distant-author” and add it to Lahiri’s name since she, being a part of another country, has taken the help of "imagination" and depicted her India the way she has wanted to; the writer must have every possible right to paint the world the way he/she thinks appropriate.
Interpreter of Maladies sold 600,000 copies and received the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (only the seventh time a story collection had won the award).
In 2003, Lahiri published The Namesake, her first novel. The story spans over thirty years in the life of the Ganguli family. The Calcutta-born parents emigrated as young adults to the United States, where their children, Gogol and Sonia, grow up experiencing the constant generational and cultural gap with their parents. A film adaptation of The Namesake was released in 2007, directed by Mira Nair and starring Kal Penn as Gogol and Bollywood stars Tabu and Irrfan Khan as his parents. Lahiri herself made a cameo as "Aunt Jhumpa".
Lahiri's second collection of short stories, Unaccustomed Earth, was released in 2008. Upon its publication, Unaccustomed Earth achieved the rare distinction of debuting at number 1 on the New York Times best seller list. The Times Book Review editor, Dwight Garner, wrote, "It’s hard to remember the last genuinely serious, well-written work of fiction — particularly a book of stories — that leapt straight to No. 1; it’s a powerful demonstration of Lahiri’s newfound commercial clout."
Her fourth book and second movel, The Lowland, was published in 2013, again to wide acclaim. The story of two Indian born brothers who take different paths in life, it was placed on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize.
Lahiri has also had a distinguished relationship with The New Yorker magazine in which she has published a number of her short stories, mostly fiction, and a few non-fiction including "The Long Way Home; Cooking Lessons," a story about the importance of food in Lahiri's relationship with her mother.
Since 2005, Lahiri has been a Vice President of the PEN American Center, an organization designed to promote friendship and intellectual cooperation among writers. In 2010, she was appointed a member of the Committee on the Arts and Humanities, along with five others.
Literary focus
Lahiri's writing is characterized by her "plain" language and her characters, often Indian immigrants to America who must navigate between the cultural values of their homeland and their adopted home. Lahiri's fiction is autobiographical and frequently draws upon her own experiences as well as those of her parents, friends, acquaintances, and others in the Bengali communities with which she is familiar. Lahiri examines her characters' struggles, anxieties, and biases to chronicle the nuances and details of immigrant psychology and behavior.
Unaccustomed Earth departs from this earlier original ethos as Lahiri's characters embark on new stages of development. These stories scrutinize the fate of the second and third generations. As succeeding generations become increasingly assimilated into American culture and are comfortable in constructing perspectives outside of their country of origin, Lahiri's fiction shifts to the needs of the individual. She shows how later generations depart from the constraints of their immigrant parents, who are often devoted to their community and their responsibility to other immigrants.
Television
Lahiri worked on the third season of the HBO television program In Treatment. That season featured a character named Sunil, a widower who moves to the United States from Bangladesh and struggles with grief and with culture shock. Although she is credited as a writer on these episodes, her role was more as a consultant on how a Bengali man might perceive Brooklyn.
Awards
• 1993 – TransAtlantic Award from the Henfield Foundation
• 1999 – O. Henry Award for short story "Interpreter of Maladies"
• 1999 – PEN/Hemingway Award (Best Fiction Debut of the Year) for "Interpreter of Maladies"
• 1999 – "Interpreter of Maladies" selected as one of Best American Short Stories
• 2000 – Addison Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• 2000 – "The Third and Final Continent" selected as one of Best American Short Stories
• 2000 – The New Yorker's Best Debut of the Year for "Interpreter of Maladies"
• 2000 – Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her debut "Interpreter of Maladies"
• 2002 – Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2002 – "Nobody's Business" selected as one of Best American Short Stories
• 2008 – Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award for "Unaccustomed Earth"
• 2009 – Asian American Literary Award for "Unaccustomed Earth"
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/12/13.)
Book Reviews
[T]he fact that America is still a place where the rest of the world comes to reinvent itself—accepting with excitement and anxiety the necessity of leaving behind the constrictions and comforts of distant customs—is the underlying theme of Jhumpa Lahiri's sensitive new collection of stories.... Lahiri handles her characters without leaving any fingerprints. She allows them to grow as if unguided, as if she were accompanying them rather than training them through the espalier of her narration. Reading her stories is like watching time-lapse nature videos of different plants, each with its own inherent growth cycle, breaking through the soil, spreading into bloom or collapsing back to earth.
Liesl Schillinger - New York Times Book Review
As she did in her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of stories Interpreter of Maladies (1999) and her dazzling 2003 novel The Namesake, Ms. Lahiri writes about these people in Unaccustomed Earth with an intimate knowledge of their conflicted hearts, using her lapidary eye for detail to conjure their daily lives with extraordinary precision: the faint taste of coconut in the Nice cookies that a man associates with his dead wife; the Wonder Bread sandwiches, tinted green with curry, that a Bengali mother makes for her embarrassed daughter to take to school. A Chekhovian sense of loss blows through these new stories: a reminder of Ms. Lahiri's appreciation of the wages of time and mortality and her understanding too of the missed connections that plague her husbands and wives, parents and children, lovers and friends.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
The eight stories in this collection revolve less around the dislocation Lahiri's earlier Bengali characters encountered in America and more around the assimilation experienced by their children—children who, while conscious of and self-conscious about their parents' old-world habits, vigorously reject them in favor of American lifestyles and partners. Lahiri, who was raised and educated in the United States and whose parents are Bengali, is adept at showing us these cultural and generational conflicts. The stories she generates from these clashes appear true to life, and while a few lack nuance and at times feel familiar, they are never predictable. Lahiri is far too accomplished and empathic a writer to relax her gaze; she excels at uncovering character and choosing detail.
Lily Tuck - Washington Post
Stunning. [Lahiri] delves deeply and richly into the lives of immigrants. [But though] immigrants may be the stories’ protagonists, their doubts, insecurities, losses and heartbreaks belong to all of us. Never before has Lahiri mined so perfectly the secrets of the human heart.... In part, Lahiri’s gift to the reader is gorgeous prose that bestows greatness on life’s mundane events and activities. But it is her exploration of lost love and lost loved ones that gives her stories an emotional exactitude few writers could ever hope to match.
Carol Memmott - USA Today
Profound.... Powerful.... Haunting.... Lahiri’s prose here is deceptively simple, its mechanics invisible, as she enters into her characters’ innermost journeys. [In the title story,] the moment-to-moment rendering of Ruma’s vulnerability and her father’s rising panic at all that he’s keeping secret sweeps the reader into a compelling emotional landscape.... Lahiri invests [her characters] with great depth. [She is] a writer working at the height of her powers.
Lisa Fugard - Los Angeles Times Book Review
The gulf that separates expatriate Bengali parents from their American-raised children-and that separates the children from India-remains Lahiri's subject for this follow-up to Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake. In this set of eight stories, the results are again stunning. In the title story, Brooklyn-to-Seattle transplant Ruma frets about a presumed obligation to bring her widower father into her home, a stressful decision taken out of her hands by his unexpected independence. The alcoholism of Rahul is described by his elder sister, Sudha; her disappointment and bewilderment pack a particularly powerful punch. And in the loosely linked trio of stories closing the collection, the lives of Hema and Kaushik intersect over the years, first in 1974 when she is six and he is nine; then a few years later when, at 13, she swoons at the now-handsome 16-year-old teen's reappearance; and again in Italy, when she is a 37-year-old academic about to enter an arranged marriage, and he is a 40-year-old photojournalist. An inchoate grief for mothers lost at different stages of life enters many tales and, as the book progresses, takes on enormous resonance. Lahiri's stories of exile, identity, disappointment and maturation evince a spare and subtle mastery that has few contemporary equals.
Publishers Weekly
Four years after the release of her best-selling novel, The Namesake , the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lahiri returns with her highly anticipated second collection of short stories exploring the inevitable tension brought on by family life. The title story, for example, takes on a young mother nervously hosting her widowed father, who is visiting between trips he takes with a lover he has kept secret from his family. What could have easily been a melodramatic soap opera is instead a meticulously crafted piece that accurately depicts the intricacies of the father-daughter relationship. In a departure from her first book of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies , Lahiri divides this book into two parts, devoting the second half of the book to "Hema and Kaushik," three stories that together tell the story of a young man and woman who meet as children and, by chance, reunite years later halfway around the world. The author's ability to flesh out completely even minor characters in every story, and especially in this trio of stories, is what will keep readers invested in the work until its heartbreaking conclusion. Recommended for all public libraries.
John Hiett - Library Journal
Lahiri extends her mastery of the short-story format in a collection that has a novel's thematic cohesion, narrative momentum and depth of character. The London-born, American-raised author of Indian descent returns with some of her most compelling fiction to date. Each of these eight stories, most on the longish side, a few previously published in magazines, concerns the assimilation of Bengali characters into American society. The parents feel a tension between the culture they've left behind (though to which they frequently return) and the adopted homeland where they always feel at least a little foreign. Their offspring, who are generally the protagonists of these stories, are typically more Americanized, adopting a value system that would scandalize their parents, who are usually oblivious to the college lives their sons and daughters lead. Ambition and accomplishment are givens in these families, where it's understood that nothing less than attending a top-flight school and entering an honored profession (medicine, law, academics) will satisfy. The stunning title story presents something of a role reversal, as a Bengali daughter and her American husband must come to terms with the secrets harbored by her father. The story expresses as much about love, loss and the family ties that stretch across continents and generations through what it doesn't say, and through what is left unaddressed by the characters. Even "Only Goodness," the most heavy-handed piece in the collection, which concerns a character's guilt over her brother's alcoholism, sustains the reader's interest until the last page. The final three stories trace the lives of two characters, Hema and Kaushik, from their teen years through their 30s, when fate (or chance) reunites them. An eye for detail, ear for dialogue and command of family dynamics distinguish this uncommonly rich collection.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the relevance of the epigraph from Hawthorne’s “The Custom House” not just to the title story but also to the collection as a whole. In which stories do the children successfully “strike their roots into unaccustomed earth”? Why do others find themselves unable to establish roots? How do their feelings of restlessness and insecurity stem from growing up in two cultures? What other more universal problems do they experience? In what ways does their lack of attachment to a place or culture reflect a more general trend in society?
2. In “Unaccustomed Earth,” what underlies the tension in the relationship between Ruma and her father as the story opens? What aspects of the family’s history inhibit their ability to communicate with each other? How do their memories of Ruma’s mother and the life she led influence the paths they choose for the next stages in their lives? Do you feel more sympathy for either character’s point of view?
3. In what ways does “Heaven-Hell” echo the themes explored in “Unaccustomed Earth”? How does the way the story unfolds add to its power and its poignancy? What parallels are there between the narrator’s mother’s “crush” on Pranab and her own infatuation with him and Deborah?
4. What is the significance of the title “A Choice of Accommodations”? What does it imply about Amit and Megan’s marriage? Why do you think Lahiri chose to set the story at Amit’s old prep school? Do you think the events of the weekend bring Amit a better sense of who he is, what he wants and needs from Megan, and his role as a husband and father? Will the weekend change anything for Amit and Megan and their relationship?
5. “Only Goodness” traces the impact of parental expectations on a sister and brother. Why did Sudha and Rahul develop in such different ways? Discuss such factors as the circumstances surrounding their births and earliest years; the obligations Sudha takes on both as the “perfect daughter” and in response to the combination of love, envy, and resentment Rahul’s attitudes and behavior arouse in her; and the siblings’ awareness of and reactions to the “perplexing fact of [their] parents’ marriage” [p. 137]. Compare and contrast the siblings’ choice of partners. What attracts Sudha to Roger, and Rahul to Elena?
6. Why does Paul, the American graduate student in “Nobody’s Business,” find his roommate, Sang, the recipient of frequent marriage proposals, so intriguing? Does Paul really want to help Sang, or does he get involved in her relationship with Farouk for more selfish reasons? Why do you think Lahiri titled this story “Nobody’s Business”–and what does the title mean to you?
7. In “Once in a Lifetime,” Hema addresses Kaushik directly as she recalls the time they spent together as teenagers. How does this twist on the first-person narration change your experience as a reader? Does it establish a greater intimacy between you and the narrator? Does it have an effect on the flow of the narrative? On the way Hema presents her memories? Is it comparable, for example, to reading a private letter or diary? Are the same things true of Kaushik’s narrative in “Year’s End”?
8. In an interview with Bookforum, Lahiri, whose parents immigrated to London and then to the United States, said, “My parents befriended people simply for the fact that they were like them on the surface; they were Bengali, and that made their circle incredibly vast. There is this de facto assumption that they’re going to get along, and often that cultural glue holds them, but there were also these vast differences. My own circle of friends is much more homogenous, because most of my friends went to college—Ivy League or some other fine institution—and vote a certain way.” How is this mirrored by the friendship between the two sets of parents in “Once in a Lifetime,” who are close friends despite the differences in their backgrounds? Why does this attachment deteriorate when the Choudhuri family returns from India? Which of their habits or attitudes do Hema’s parents find particularly reprehensible and why? What is the significance of Kaushik’s breaking his family’s silence and telling Hema about his mother’s illness?
9. How would you describe the tone and style of Kaushik’s account of his father’s remarriage in “Year’s End”? Does his conversation with his father [pp. 253-255] reveal similarities between them? Why does Kaushik say, “I didn’t know which was worse—the idea of my father remarrying for love, or of his actively seeking out a stranger for companionship” [p. 255]? Does the time he spends with his father’s new family offer an alternate, more complex, explanation for his father’s decision?
10. What role do his stepsisters play in Kaushik’s willingness to accept his father’s marriage? Why is he so outraged by their fascination with the pictures of his mother? He later reflects, “in their silence they continued to both protect and punish me” [p.293]. In what ways does their silence and the reasons for it mirror Kaushik’s own behavior, both here and in “Once in a Lifetime”?
11. How do “Once in a Lifetime” and “Year’s End” set the stage for “Going Ashore,” the final story in the trilogy? What traces of their younger selves are visible in both Hema and Kaushik? In what ways do the paths they’ve chosen reflect or oppose the journeys their parents made as immigrants?
12. Why does Hema find the idea of an arranged marriage appealing? How has her affair with Julian affected her ideas about romantic love? What does her description of her relationship with Navin [pp. 296-298] reveal about what she thinks she wants and needs in a relationship? What role do her memories of her parents’ marriage play in her vision of married life?
13. What motivates Kaushik’s decision to become a photojournalist? In what ways does the peripatetic life of a photojournalist suit his idea of himself? In addition to the many moves his family made, what other experiences make him grow up to be an outsider, “away from the private detritus of life” [p. 309]?
14. What does the reunion in Rome reveal about the ties that bind Hema and Kaushik despite their many years of separation? What does it illustrate about their attempts to escape from the past and their parents’ way of life? What do they come to realize about themselves and the plans they have made as the intimacy between them escalates? Why does Lahiri introduce Hema’s voice as the narrator of the final pages?
15. In what ways does “Going Ashore” bring together the themes threaded through the earlier stories? What does the ending demonstrate about realities of trying to find a home in the world?
16. The stories in Unaccustomed Earth offer a moving, highly original perspective on the clash between family and cultural traditions and the search for individual identity. How does the sense of displacement felt by the older, immigrant generation affect their American-born children? What accommodations do the children make to their parents’ way of life? In trying to fit in with their American friends, do they sacrifice their connections to their heritage? In what ways are the challenges they face more complex than those of their parents?
17. Several stories feature marriages between an Indian-American and an American—and in once case, English—spouse. What characteristics do these mixed marriages share? In what ways does becoming parents themselves bring up (or renew) questions about cultural identity? What emotions arise as they contemplate the differences between the families they’re creating and those in which they grew up?
(Questions from publisher.)
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Unbecoming
Rebecca Scherm, 2015
Penguin Group
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143128311
Summary
A novel of psychological suspense about a daring art heist, a cat-and-mouse waiting game, and a small-town girl's mesmerizing transformation
On the grubby outskirts of Paris, Grace restores bric-a-brac, mends teapots, re-sets gems. She calls herself Julie, says she’s from California, and slips back to a rented room at night. Regularly, furtively, she checks the hometown paper on the Internet.
Home is Garland, Tennessee, and there, two young men have just been paroled. One, she married; the other, she’s in love with. Both were jailed for a crime that Grace herself planned in exacting detail. The heist went bad—but not before she was on a plane to Prague with a stolen canvas rolled in her bag. And so, in Paris, begins a cat-and-mouse waiting game as Grace’s web of deception and lies unravels—and she becomes another young woman entirely.
Unbecoming is an intricately plotted and psychologically nuanced heist novel that turns on suspense and slippery identity. With echoes of Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith, Rebecca Scherm’s mesmerizing debut is sure to entrance fans of Gillian Flynn, Marisha Pessl, and Donna Tartt. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—
• Where—
• Education—B.A., New York University; M.F.A., University of Michigan
• Currently—lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan
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Book Reviews
[S]artlingly inventive…Scherm's narrative technique can be disorienting: She's devoted to flashbacks and flash forwards, resists revelations and teases information from a scene. But her deliberately convoluted style suits Grace's elusive nature and that of all the other dissemblers in this story…As for Grace herself, she's a real work of art—even if she is a fake
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times
Scherm’s voice is gutsy.... She shows she has the chops to produce something delightfully wicked.
Chicago Tribune
Scherm has elevated the heist novel beyond entertainment. Like a painting that becomes more intriguing the longer you study it, Unbecoming is a genuine work of art.
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
This lively debut combines a knotty coming-of-age tale and a high-society caper. . . . Scherm is at her best when she is parsing the fumblings of a young woman trying to devise a persona in the world.
New Yorker
Intricately detailed and rich with art and deception, Scherm’s debut is a treat.
People
Scherm’s pulse-quickening debut follows crafty Grace as she flees a love triangle and a heist gone awry, leaving her husband and a friend—a man she secretly loves—to take the rap.
O Magazine
A clever, engrossing thriller . . . You won’t want to stop until you’ve turned the last page.
]Huffington Post
[T]he transformation of a smalltown American girl into a professional international jewel thief.... Scherm mixes a character study with a caper novel full of double-crosses, lies, and betrayals.... She is at her best when describing precious objects...ignored by their owners but appreciated by the professional hired to evaluate them.
Publishers Weekly
Scherm's debut has a plot that twists and turns, but it is the enigma of who Grace really is that will keep readers hooked until the very end. A bleak tone, deeply flawed protagonist, and dysfunctional relationships will draw well-deserved comparisons to Gillian Flynn. —Portia Kapraun, Monticello-Union Twp. P.L., IN
Library Journal
A small-town Tennessee girl flourishes into a classic, yet never cliché, femme fatale in Rebecca Scherm’s provocative coming-of-age debut.... With a well-researched plot and illuminating prose, Unbecoming is an atmospheric adventure from start to finish.
BookPage
More thrills and less ponderous thinking about thrills would have made this an impressive first novel. Instead, it's a decidedly mixed bag, taking too long to gather the momentum it needs to succeed as crime fiction and not quite making the cut as satisfying literary fiction, either.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the meaning of the novel’s title. Who is unbecoming, how, why, in what ways?
2. Compare Grace’s relationship with Riley to that with Alls. Does she behave differently with them? What are the power dynamics?
3. Grace is a challenging narrator—unreliable and at times unlikeable. How did this affect the way you read the book?
4. Were you surprised by the book’s ending? What were your feelings about the way it ended?
5. Mystery and charisma are a crucial a part of Grace’s personality. Have you ever met someone like Grace?
6. What is the effect of the story being told from Grace’s point of view? How is that significant?
7. What did you take away from theme of the exploring?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption
Laura Hillenbrand, 2010
Random House
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812974492
Summary
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood.
Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane’s bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.
The lieutenant’s name was Louis Zamperini. In boyhood, he’d been a cunning and incorrigible delinquent, breaking into houses, brawling, and fleeing his home to ride the rails. As a teenager, he had channeled his defiance into running, discovering a prodigious talent that had carried him to the Berlin Olympics and within sight of the four-minute mile. But when war had come, the athlete had become an airman, embarking on a journey that led to his doomed flight, a tiny raft, and a drift into the unknown.
Ahead of Zamperini lay thousands of miles of open ocean, leaping sharks, a foundering raft, thirst and starvation, enemy aircraft, and, beyond, a trial even greater. Driven to the limits of endurance, Zamperini would answer desperation with ingenuity; suffering with hope, resolve, and humor; brutality with rebellion. His fate, whether triumph or tragedy, would be suspended on the fraying wire of his will.
In her long-awaited new book, Laura Hillenbrand writes with the same rich and vivid narrative voice she displayed in Seabiscuit. Telling an unforgettable story of a man’s journey into extremity, Unbroken is a testament to the resilience of the human mind, body, and spirit. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1967
• Where—Fairfax, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., Kenyon College
• Awards—William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award;
National Book Critics Circle Award Nomination, 2002
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C.
Laura Hillenbrand is an American author of books and magazine articles. Born in Fairfax, Virginia, Hillenbrand spent much of her childhood riding bareback "screaming over the hills" of her father's Sharpsburg, Maryland, farm. A favorite of hers was Come On Seabiscuit, a 1963 kiddie book. "I read it to death, my little paperback copy," she says.
She studied at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, but was forced to leave before graduation when she contracted Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She has struggled with the condition ever since, remaining largely confined to her home. On the irony of writing about physical paragons while being so incapaciated herself, she says, "I'm looking for a way out of here. I can't have it physically, so I'm going to have it intellectually. It was a beautiful thing to ride Seabiscuit in my imagination. And it's just fantastic to be there alongside Louie Zamperini [hero of Unbroken] as he's breaking the NCAA mile record. People at these vigorous moments in their lives—it's my way of living vicariously.
She now lives in Washington, D.C, with her husband, Borden Flanagan, a professor of Government at American University. They were college sweethearts and married in 2008.
Writing
Hillenbrand's first book was the acclaimed Seabiscuit: An American Legend (2001), a non-fiction account of the career of the great racehorse Seabiscuit, for which she won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year in 2001. She says she was compelled to tell the story because she "found fascinating people living a story that was improbable, breathtaking and ultimately more satisfying than any story [she'd] ever come across."She first told the story through an essay she sold to American Heritage magazine, and the feedback was positive, so she decided to procede with a full novel. Upon the book's release, she recieved rave reviews for her storytelling and research. It was made into the Academy Award nominated film Seabiscuit (2003).
Hillenbrand's second book is Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (2010), a biography of World War II hero Louis Zamperini (1917-).
Her essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Equus magazine, American Heritage, Blood-Horse, Thoroughbred Times, Backstretch, Turf and Sport Digest, and many other publications. Her 1998 American Heritage article on the horse Seabiscuit won the Eclipse Award for Magazine Writing.
Hillenbrand is a co-founder of Operation Iraqi Children. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Just as she demonstrated in Seabiscuit, Ms. Hillenbrand is a muscular, dynamic storyteller…Her command of the action-adventure idiom is more than enough to hold interest. But she happens also to have located a tale full of unforgettable characters, multi-hanky moments and wild turns. And if some of it sounds too much like pulp fiction to be true, Ms. Hillenbrand has also done a bang-up research job.... [Unbroken] manages to be as exultant as Seabiscuit as it tells a much more harrowing, less heart-warming story.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Unbroken is wonderful twice over, for the tale it tells and for the way it’s told. A better book than Seabiscuit, it manages maximum velocity with no loss of subtlety. [Hillenbrand has] a jeweler’s eye for a detail that makes a story live.
Newsweek
A warning: after cracking open Unbroken you may find yourself dog tired the next day, having spent most of the night fending off sleep with coffee refills, eager to find out whether the story of Louis Zamperini, Olympic runner turned WWII POW, ends in redemption or despair..In Hillenbrand’s [hands], it’s nothing less than a marvel—a book worth losing sleep over.
Washingtonian
Will you be able to put [Unbroken] down once you poke your nose into it? You will not.... No one delivers a play-by-play better than Laura Hillenbrand.... No other author of narrative nonfiction chooses her subjects with greater discrimination or renders them with more discipline and commitment. If storytelling were an Olympic event, she’d medal for sure.
Laura Miller - Salon
(Starred review.) From the 1936 Olympics to WWII Japan's most brutal POW camps, Hillenbrand's heart-wrenching new book is thousands of miles and a world away from the racing circuit of her bestselling Seabiscuit. But it's just as much a page-turner, and its hero, Louie Zamperini, is just as loveable.... In May 1943 his B-24 crashed into the Pacific. After a record-breaking 47 days adrift on a shark-encircled life raft with his pal and pilot, Russell Allen "Phil" Phillips, they were captured by the Japanese. In the "theater of cruelty" that was the Japanese POW camp network, Louie landed in the cruelest theaters of all: Omori and Naoetsu, under the control of Corp. Mutsuhiro Watanabe, a pathologically brutal sadist (called the Bird by camp inmates) who never killed his victims outright—his pleasure came from their slow, unending torment.... And Louie, with his defiant and unbreakable spirit, was Watanabe's victim of choice. By war's end, Louie was near death. When Naoetsu was liberated in mid-August 1945, a depleted Louie's only thought was "I'm free!"... But as Hillenbrand shows, Louie was not yet free. [he was] haunted in his dreams, drinking to forget, and obsessed with vengeance. Hillenbrand...writes movingly of the thousands of postwar Pacific PTSD sufferers [who had] no help for their as yet unrecognized illness.... The book's final section is the story of how...Louie found his path. It is impossible to condense the rich, granular detail of Hillenbrand's narrative of the atrocities committed...against American POWs in Japan, and the courage of Louie and his fellow POWs.... Hillenbrand's triumph is that in telling Louie's story (he's now in his 90s), she tells the stories of thousands whose suffering has been mostly forgotten. She restores to our collective memory this tale of heroism, cruelty, life, death, joy, suffering, remorselessness, and redemption. —Sarah F. Gold
Publishers Weekly
The author of Seabiscuit now brings us a biography of World War II prisoner of war survivor Louis Zamperini (b. 1917). A track athlete at the 1936 Munich Olympics, Zamperini became a B-24 crewman in the U.S. Army Air Force. When his plane went down in the Pacific in 1943, he spent 47 days in a life raft, then was picked up by a Japanese ship and survived starvation and torture in labor camps. Eventually repatriated, he had a spiritual rebirth and returned to Japan to promote forgiveness and healing. Because of the author's popularity, libraries will want this book both for general readers who like a good story and for World War II history buffs; however, it's not essential reading for those who read Zamperini's autobiography, Devil at My Heels, with David Rensin, in its 2003 edition.
Library Journal
[Hillenbrand’s] skills are as polished as ever, and like its predecessor, this book has an impossible-to-put-down quality that one commonly associates with good thrillers.
Booklist
[Hillenbrand] returns with another dynamic, well-researched story of guts overcoming odds...Alternately stomach-wrenching, anger-arousing and spirit-lifting—and always gripping.
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 Unbroken:
1. Readers and critics alike have described Unbroken as gripping, almost impossible to put down. Was that your experience as well? How do you account for the page-turning quality given the grim subject material? Also, would your reading experience have been different if you didn't know that Zamperini survived? (Or didn't you know the outcome?)
2. Laura Hillenbrand gives us a moving story, one that brings to life the suffering and courage of not just one man but thousands, whose stories are untold. What is it about Hillenbrand's writing that saves her book from becoming mired in bathos and melodrama?
3. What do you admire most about Zamperini? What enables him to survive the plane crash and POW ordeal? Does he possess special strengths—personal or physical? Did his training in track, for instance, make a difference in his resilience?
4. How do the POW captives help one another survive? How are they able to communicate with one another? What devices do Zamperini and others use not only to survive but to maintain sanity?
5. What do you find most horrifying about Zamperini's captivity?
6. Does this book make you wonder at mankind's capacity for cruelty? What accounts for it—especially on the part of the Japanese, a highly cultured and civilized society? (The same question, of course, has been applied to the Nazis.)
7. Hillenbrand devotes time to the difficulty of veterans' re-entering life after the war. She says, "there was no one right way to peace; each man had to find his own path." What is Zamperini's path? How does his conversion under Billy Graham help him? What role does his wife, Cynthia, play?
8. Follow-up to Question 7: Why, after World War II, did the medical profession fail to acknowledge Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? After all, this was the mid-20th century, and psychiatry was a fairly established discipline. Plus, the horrors of World War I were only one generation behind. What took so long?
9. Unbroken is a classic inspirational story, but it lies somewhat on the surface, offering little in the way of psychological depth. Do you wish there were more instrospection in Zamperini's account? Or do you feel this story is rich enough as it is?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Uncommon Reader
Alan Bennett, 2007
Macmillan Picador
128 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616881085
Summary
A deliciously funny novella that celebrates the pleasure of reading. When the Queen in pursuit of her wandering corgis stumbles upon a mobile library she feels duty bound to borrow a book.
Aided by Norman, a young man from the palace kitchen who frequents the library, Bennett describes the Queen's transformation as she discovers the liberating pleasures of the written word. With the poignant and mischievous wit of The History Boys, England's best loved author revels in the power of literature to change even the most uncommon reader's life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 9, 1934
• Where—Yorkshire, England, UK
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Tony Award (New York's Broadway); 3 Olivier
Awards, (London)—one for Outstanding Contribution to
British Theater; National Critics Circle Award (USA)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Alan Bennett English author and Tony Award-winning playwright. Bennett was born in Armley in Leeds, Yorkshire. The son of a Co-op butcher, Bennett attended Leeds Modern School (when it was a state grammar school), learned Russian at the Joint Services School for Linguists during his National Service, and gained a place at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge.
However, having spent time in Cambridge during national service, and partly wishing to follow the object of his unrequited love, he decided to apply for a scholarship at Oxford University. He was accepted by Exeter College, Oxford and went on to receive a first-class degree in history. While at Oxford he performed comedy with a number of future successful actors in the Oxford Revue. He was to remain at Oxford for several years researching and teaching Medieval History before deciding he was not cut out to be an academic.
Early performing and writing
In August 1960, Bennett, along with Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, and Peter Cook, achieved instant fame by appearing at the Edinburgh Festival in the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe. After the Festival, the show continued in London and New York. He also appeared in My Father Knew Lloyd George. A highly regarded television comedy sketch series On the Margin (1966) was regrettably erased. Around this time Bennett often found himself playing vicars, and claims that as an adolescent he assumed he would grow up to be a Church of England clergyman, for no better reason than that he looked like one.
Bennett's first stage play, Forty Years On, was produced in 1968. Many television, stage and radio plays followed, along with screenplays, short stories, novellas, a large body of non-fictional prose and broadcasting, and many appearances as an actor. Bennett's lugubrious yet expressive voice (which still bears a slight Leeds accent) and the sharp humour and evident humanity of his writing have made his readings of his own work (especially his autobiographical writing) very popular. His readings of the Winnie the Pooh stories are also widely enjoyed.
Many of Bennett's characters are unfortunate and downtrodden, or meek and overlooked. Life has brought them to an impasse, or else passed them by altogether. In many cases they have met with disappointment in the realm of sex and intimate relationships, largely through tentativeness and a failure to connect with others.
Bennett is both unsparing and compassionate in laying bare his characters' frailties. This can be seen in his television plays for LWT in the late 1970s and the BBC in the early 1980s, and in the 1987 Talking Heads series of monologues for television which were later performed at the Comedy Theatre in London in 1992. This was a sextet of poignantly comic pieces, each of which depicted several stages in the character's decline from an initial state of denial or ignorance of their predicament, through a slow realization of the hopelessness of their situation, and progressing to a bleak or ambiguous conclusion. A second set of six Talking Heads pieces followed a decade later.
Recent writings
In his 2005 prose collection Untold Stories Bennett has written candidly and movingly of the mental illness that afflicted his mother and other family members. Much of his work draws on his Leeds background and while he is celebrated for his acute observations of a particular type of northern speech ("It'll take more than Dairy Box to banish memories of Pearl Harbor"), the range and daring of his work is often undervalued—his television play The Old Crowd, for example, includes shots of the director and technical crew, while his stage play The Lady in the Van includes two characters named Alan Bennett. The Lady in the Van was based on his experiences with a tramp called Miss Shepherd who lived on Bennett's driveway in a dilapidated van for fifteen years.
In 1994 Bennett adapted his popular and much-praised 1991 play The Madness of George III for the cinema as The Madness of King George. The film received four Academy Award nominations, including nominations for Bennett's writing and the performances of Nigel Hawthorne and Helen Mirren. It won the award for best art direction.
Bennett's critically-acclaimed The History Boys won three Olivier Awards in February 2005, for Best New Play, Best Actor (Richard Griffiths), and Best Direction (Nicholas Hytner), having previously won Critics' Circle Theatre Awards and Evening Standard Awards for Best Actor and Best Play. Bennett himself received an Olivier Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre.
The History Boys also went on to win six Tony Awards on Broadway, including best play, best performance by a leading actor in a play (Richard Griffiths), best performance by a featured actress in a play (Frances de la Tour), and best direction of a play (Nicholas Hytner).
A film version of The History Boys was released in the UK in 2006.
Honors and personal life
Bennett was made an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford in 1987. He was also awarded a D.Litt by the University of Leeds in 1990 and a hon Ph. D from Kingston in 1996. However in 1998 Bennett refused an honorary doctorate from Oxford University, in protest at its accepting funding for a named chair in honour of press baron Rupert Murdoch. He also declined a CBE in 1988 and a knighthood in 1996.
In September 2005, Bennett revealed that, in 1997, he had undergone treatment for cancer, and described the illness as a "bore". His chances of survival were given as being "much less" than 50%. He began Untold Stories (published 2005) thinking it would be published posthumously. In the event his cancer went into remission. In the autobiographical sketches which form a large part of the book Bennett writes openly for the first time about his homosexuality (Bennett has had relationships with women as well, although this is only touched upon in Untold Stories). Previously Bennett had referred to questions about his sexuality as being like asking a man dying of thirst to choose between Perrier or Malvern mineral water.
Bennett earned Honorary Membership of The Coterie in the 2007 membership list.
Bennett has lived in Camden Town in London for thirty years, and shares his home with Rupert Thomas, his partner for the last fourteen years. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
In The Uncommon Reader Mr. Bennett poses a delicious and very funny what-if: What if Queen Elizabeth at the age of 70-something were suddenly to become a voracious reader? What if she were to become an avid fan of Proust and Balzac, Turgenev and Trollope and Hardy? And what if reading were to lead her, in turn, to becoming a writer? Mr. Bennett's musings on these matters have produced a delightful little book that unfolds into a witty meditation on the subversive pleasures of reading…Mr. Bennett has written a captivating fairy tale. It's a tale that's as charming as the old Gregory Peck-Audrey Hepburn movie "Roman Holiday," and as keenly observed as Stephen Frears's award-winning movie "The Queen"—a tale that showcases its author's customary elan and keen but humane wit.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
In this charming novella Alan Bennett imagines what might occur if the sovereign of England, Queen Elizabeth herself, were suddenly to develop a ravenous passion for books. What might in less capable hands result in a labored exercise or an embarrassing instance of literary lese-majeste here becomes a delicious light comedy, as well as a meditation on the power of print…You can finish The Uncommon Reader in an hour or two, but it is charming enough and wise enough that you will almost certainly want to keep it around for rereading—unless you decide to share it with friends. Either way, this little book offers what English readers would call very good value for money. Enjoy.
Michael Dirda - Washington Post
Briskly original and subversively funny, this novella from popular British writer Bennett sends Queen Elizabeth II into a mobile library van in pursuit of her runaway corgis and into the reflective, observant life of an avid reader. Guided by Norman, a former kitchen boy and enthusiast of gay authors, the queen gradually loses interest in her endless succession of official duties and learns the pleasure of such a common activity. With the dawn of her sensibility...mistaken for the onset of senility, plots are hatched by the prime minister and the queen's staff to dispatch Norman and discourage the queen's preoccupation with books. Ultimately, it is her own growing self-awareness that leads her away from reading and toward writing, with astonishing results. Bennett has fun with the proper behavior and protocol at the palace, and the few instances of mild coarseness seem almost scandalous. There are lessons packed in here, but Bennett doesn't wallop readers with them.
Publishers Weekly
British screenwriter, playwright, and novelist Bennett, author of the Tony Award-winning play The History Boys, has written a wry and unusual story about the subversive potential of reading. Bennett posits a theoretical situation in which Queen Elizabeth II becomes an avid reader, and the new ideas she thus encounters change the way she thinks and reigns. Coming upon a traveling library near Buckingham Palace, Elizabeth, who almost never reads, decides to take a look. Mostly out of politeness, she begins to borrow from the library via a kitchen page. As she begins to view reading as her "duty," a way "to find out what people are like," she is exposed to increasingly sophisticated books and ideas that criticize society. As Elizabeth loses interest in the chain of ship launches and groundbreakings that make up her reign, her staff becomes resentful, and the story ends in an unexpected way. Though the book is at times annoyingly snobbish and harping that people do not read enough, the unusual story line keeps readers engrossed. Recommended for larger public libraries and libraries where British literature is popular.
Christina Bauer - Library Journal
A royal fable celebrating the transformative properties (and a few of the unsettling consequences) of reading as an obsession. In a country of commoners, the uncommon reader is the Queen. She has never been a reader, because reading isn't something that "one" (as she invariably refers to herself) does. Yet an unlikely incident involving her dogs and a mobile library making its weekly appearance outside Buckingham Palace moves her to borrow a book. And then another. And another, until reading has become her life's focus. Though the prolific Bennett is better known in America for his plays and screenplays (his Tony Award-winning play, The History Boys, was made into a movie in 2007), his subtle wit and tonal command show why he is so beloved in his native Britain. Yet this slight novella feels padded, because once he puts his plot into motion—the Queen reads, reading changes the Queen, others are uncomfortable with the changes—he doesn't really have anywhere to take it except in circles, as it moves toward what might be a surprise ending. There are some funny bits: her questioning of the president of France about Jean Genet (of whom he hasn't a clue) and the disdain she develops for the "perpetually irritating Henry James." She also enjoys a lovely visit with one of her literary subjects, Alice Munro. Perhaps the keenest insight here concerns her difficulty with Jane Austen, whose novels pivot so frequently on class distinctions that the Queen herself has never experienced. Those who love reading will recognize the process of the Queen's enrapturing, how one book inevitably leads to another, and so many others, and that the richness of the reading life will always be offset by the recognition that time grows shorter as the list of books grows longer. Yet this is ultimately a breezy afternoon's read, one that doesn't seem like it took all that much more effort to write. If, as the Queen discovers, reading is "a muscle" that she has "seemingly developed," this novella reads like light calisthenics rather than heavy lifting.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What play on words did you detect in the novella’s title? In the world of literature, how are commoners defined? What ironies exist in the mobile library’s intended purpose?
2. Early on, the Queen tells Norman that she reads because “one has a duty to find out what people are like.” The Queen later says to Sir Kevin, “One reads for pleasure. It is not a public duty.” What accounts for this transformation? Do you read because of a sense of duty, or purely for pleasure (as Norman does)?
3. What books were you reminded of as the Queen’s literary obsession began causing her to shirk her royal duties and pay less attention to her family? When have you preferred to lose yourself in fiction rather than confront reality?
4. Many critics and scholars have debated the “correct” way to interpret literature, ranging from those who scorn any political or sociological interpretations to those who scorn interpretation itself. How does the Queen seem to interpret what she reads? What determines whether she likes a book?
5. The Uncommon Reader contains references to dozens of authors and characters, including Joanna Trollope and Harry Potter, writers affiliated with the University of East Anglia (such as Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan), Alice Munro and Henry James. How did the Queen’s entourage discuss such a broad range with her? What are the implications of name games designed to judge a person by his or her taste in
books? What does one’s reading list say about oneself?
6. Would this tale have been as effective if the public leader at its center were not a monarch? Could a democratically elected ruler have generated as much humor? What makes the English Queen ideal for this scenario?
7. What comic elements are at work in the friendship between Norman and the Queen? What sort of literary adviser is he? What would you have advised her to read?
8. What is the effect of reading a novella—more substantial than a short story but not as lengthy as a novel? How did the author’s triumphs as a playwright and television writer shape the storytelling in The Uncommon Reader?
9. What is the effect of reading a book about reading books? How might the fictional Queen respond to The Uncommon Reader?
10. In her conversation with the university vice-chancellor and the creative writing professor, the Queen debates whether reading softens a person up while writing does the reverse. Do you agree that writing makes us tough but reading makes us soft? How does the Queen handle her transition from reader to writer?
11. A main premise of the novella is that the Queen has no hobbies of any kind; hobbies, we are told, imply preferences, which must be avoided because they can lead to the exclusion of various populations. Is this an accurate portrayal of public life in general? Can you name any public figures who not only admit to being avid readers but who also engage in public dialogues advocating books, or who advocate controversial
books or books written by marginalized populations?
12. In the closing scenes, the Queen begins to describe herself candidly as the kingdom’s“deodorant,” forced to passively oversee or tout dreadful public-policy decisions. In what ways did reading help her arrive at this realization? Is her final decision regarding the throne necessary to launch her career as a writer?
13. In what ways does The Uncommon Reader enhance your experience of other works by Alan Bennett? How might the novella’s Queen have responded to the students in The History Boys, and vice versa?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
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Uncommon Type: Some Stories
Tom Hanks, 2017
Knopf Doubleday
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101946152
Summary
A collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor.
A gentle Eastern European immigrant arrives in New York City after his family and his life have been torn apart by his country's civil war.
A man who loves to bowl rolls a perfect game—and then another and then another and then many more in a row until he winds up ESPN's newest celebrity, and he must decide if the combination of perfection and celebrity has ruined the thing he loves.
An eccentric billionaire and his faithful executive assistant venture into America looking for acquisitions and discover a down and out motel, romance, and a bit of real life.
These are just some of the tales Tom Hanks tells in this first collection of his short stories. They are surprising, intelligent, heartwarming, and, for the millions and millions of Tom Hanks fans, an absolute must-have! (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 9, 1956
• Where—Concord, California, USA
• Education—California State University-Sacramento
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks is an American actor and filmmaker, whose films have grossed more than $4.5 billion at U.S. and Canadian box offices and more than $9.0 billion worldwide, making him the third highest-grossing actor in North America. In 2017 Hanks published his collection of short stories, Uncommon Type.
Early years
Hanks was born in Concord, California, the son of Janet Marylyn (nee Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. The couple had four children; when they divorced in 1960, Tom stayed with his father, along with the two older children. The youngest child went with his mother. The family moved often — by the age of ten, Hanks had lived in ten different houses.
While Hanks' family religious history was Catholic and Mormon, he has characterized himself as being a "Bible-toting evangelical" for several years as a teenager. In school, he claims to have been unpopular with students and teachers alike, later telling Rolling Stone magazine,
I was a geek, a spaz. I was horribly, painfully, terribly shy. At the same time, I was the guy who'd yell out funny captions during filmstrips. But I didn't get into trouble. I was always a real good kid and pretty responsible.
In 1965, his father married Frances Wong, a San Francisco native of Chinese descent. Frances had three children, two of whom lived in the Hank household during Hanks high school years. Hanks acted in school plays, including South Pacific, while attending Skyline High School in Oakland, California.
Hanks studied theater at Chabot College in Hayward, California, and transferred to California State University, Sacramento, two years later. In 1986 he told New York magazine that
Acting classes looked like the best place for a guy who liked to make a lot of noise and be rather flamboyant. I spent a lot of time going to plays. I wouldn't take dates with me. I'd just drive to a theater, buy myself a ticket, sit in the seat and read the program, and then get into the play completely. I spent a lot of time like that, seeing Brecht, Tennessee Williams, Ibsen, and all that.
During his years studying theater, Hanks met Vincent Dowling, head of the Great Lakes Theater Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. At Dowling's suggestion, Hanks became an intern at the festival, an internship that stretched into a three-year experience, prompting Hanks to drop out of college.
Nonetheless, during the internship, Hanks learned numerous aspects of theater production — including lighting, set design, and stage management. During the same time, Hanks won the Cleveland Critics Circle Award for Best Actor for his 1978 performance as Proteus in Shakespeare's The Two Gentlemen of Verona, one of the few times he played a villain.
Professional career
Hanks is known for his various comedic and dramatic film roles, including Splash (1984), Big (1988), Turner & Hooch (1989), A League of Their Own (1992), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Forrest Gump (1994), Apollo 13 (1995), Saving Private Ryan (1998), You've Got Mail (1998), The Green Mile (1999), Cast Away (2000), Road to Perdition (2002), The Polar Express (2004), and The Da Vinci Code (2006), as well as for his voice work in the Toy Story series.
He has been nominated for numerous awards during his career. He won a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia, as well as a Golden Globe, an Academy Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and a People's Choice Award for Best Actor for his role in Forrest Gump. In winning Academy Awards for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump — in 1994 and 1995 — Hanks remains one of only two actors who won the Best Actor award for two consecutive years. (Spencer Tracy was the other.)
In 2004, Hanks received the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). In 2014, he received a Kennedy Center Honor and, in 2016, he received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, as well as the French Legion of Honor.
Hanks is also known for his collaborations with film director Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), The Terminal (2004), and Bridge of Spies (2015), as well as the 2001 miniseries Band of Brothers, which launched Hanks as a successful director, producer, and screenwriter. In 2010, Spielberg and Hanks were executive producers on the HBO miniseries The Pacific (a companion piece to Band of Brothers). (Author bio adapted from Wikkpedia. Retrieved 10/12/2017.)
Book Reviews
Oscar-winner Hanks’s debut collection is a wide-ranging affair of 17 stories threaded together by the recurring image of typewriters…. [T]he stories…generally charm.
Publishers Weekly
This story collection ranges from a man who worries that his sudden ESPN fame for bowling perfect games will ruin his life to an Eastern European immigrant struggling to adjust to New York after tragedy.
Library Journal
Tom Hanks has an understated [acting] style; the hard work …[is] under the surface, where we can’t see it. All we see is the truth of the character. The same goes for [his] 17 short stories in this thoroughly engaging book.
Booklist
[W]himsical stories—with a typewriter tucked into each one.… While these stories have the all-American sweetness, humor, and heart we associate with his screen roles, Hanks writes like a writer, not a movie star.”
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 publisher questions if and when they're available.)
The Uncoupling
Meg Wolitzer, 2011
Penguin Group USA
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594487880
Summary
When the elliptical new drama teacher at Stellar Plains High School chooses for the school play Lysistrata-the comedy by Aristophanes in which women stop having sex with men in order to end a war-a strange spell seems to be cast over the school. Or, at least, over the women.
One by one throughout the high school community, perfectly healthy, normal women and teenage girls turn away from their husbands and boyfriends in the bedroom, for reasons they don't really understand. As the women worry over their loss of passion, and the men become by turns unhappy, offended, and above all, confused, both sides are forced to look at their shared history, and at their sexual selves in a new light.
As she did to such acclaim with the New York Times bestseller The Ten-Year Nap, Wolitzer tackles an issue that has deep ramifications for women's lives, in a way that makes it funny, riveting, and totally fresh-allowing us to see our own lives through her insightful lens. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 28. 1959
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University
• Awards—National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1994; Best
American Short Stories, 1999; Pushcart Prize; 1998
• Currently—New York, New York
Meg Wolitzer grew up around books. Her mother, Hilma Wolitzer, published two novels while Meg was still in school, and weekly trips to the library were a ritual the entire family looked forward to. Not surprisingly, Meg served as editor for her junior high and high school literary magazines. She graduated from Brown University in 1981. One year later, she published her debut novel, Sleepwalking, the story of three college girls bonded by an unhealthy fascination with suicidal women poets. It marked the beginning of a successful writing career that shows no sign of slacking.
Over the years, Wolitzer has proven herself a deft chronicler of intense, unconventional relationships, especially among women. She has explored with wit and sensitivity the dynamics of fractured families (This Is Your Life, The Position); the devastating effects of death (Surrender, Dorothy), the challenges of friendship (Friends for Life), and the prospective minefield of gender, identity, and dashed expectations (Hidden Pictures, The Wife, The Ten-Year Nap, The Interestings).
In addition to her bestselling novels, Wolitzer has written a number of screenplays. Her short fiction has appeared in The Best American Short Stories and The Pushcart Prize, and she has also taught writing at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and at Skidmore College.
Extras
From a Barnes & Noble interview:
• First of all, I am obsessed with playing Scrabble. It relaxes me between fits of writing, and I play online, in a bizarro world of anonymous, competitive players. It's my version of smoking or drinking—a guilty pleasure. The thing is, I love words, anagrams, wordplay, cryptic crossword puzzles, and anything to do with the language.
• I also love children's books, and feel a great deal of nostalgia for some of them from my own childhood (Harriet the Spy and The Phantom Tollbooth among others) as well as from my children's current lives. I have an idea for a kids' book that I might do someday, though right now my writing schedule is full up.
• Humor is very important to me in life and work. I take pleasure from laughing at movies, and crying at books, and sometimes vice versa. I also have recently learned that I like performing. I think that writers shouldn't get up at a reading and give a dull, chant-like reading from their book. They should perform; they should do what they need to do to keep readers really listening. I've lately had the opportunity to do some performing on public radio, as well as singing with a singer I admire, Suzzy Roche, formerly of the Roches, a great group that started in 1979. Being onstage provides a dose of gratification that most writers never get to experience.
• But mostly, writing a powerful novel—whether funny or serious, or of course both—is my primary goal. When I hear that readers have been affected by something I've written, it's a relief. I finally have come to no longer fear that I'm going to have to go to law school someday....
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:
Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell—this is the perfect modern novel. Short, concise, moving, and about a character you come to care about, despite her limitations. It reminds me of life. It takes place over a span of time, and it's hilarious, tragic, and always stirring.
Book Reviews
Although The Uncoupling is enchanting from start to finish, that owes less to the spell than it does to the way Wolitzer liberally and inventively populates her storytelling. When writers turn to the supernatural, their characters often suffer, losing dimension and I.Q. points as their creators bat them around. But Wolitzer has too much respect for her craft to let this happen. Her characters would be engaging even without that cold, intrusive wind…Thoughtful and touching, The Uncoupling is also very funny.
Jincy Willett - New York Times
The drama teacher tells her students that Lysistrata is "a comedy, yes. But what it's about is something quite serious," and the same thing might be said about The Uncoupling. In the light patter of her novel, Wolitzer diagnoses the troubles that ruin so many marriages, break up so many families…Wolitzer is a tender, engaging narrator.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Wolitzer is both playfully mocking and compassionate toward her characters, several of whom are named for beloved writers—Willa, Heller, Stegner. She's at once amusing, sympathetic and trenchant on the men's peevish reactions to sexual deprivation, overprotective parents and adolescents, "the generation that had information, but no context.
Heller McAlpin - San Francisco Chronicle
The latest from Wolitzer (The Ten Year Nap) is a plodding story with a killer hook: will the women of Stellar Plains, N.J., ever have sex again? After new high school drama teacher Fran Heller begins rehearsals for Lysistrata (in which the women of Greece refuse to have sex until the men end the Peloponnesian War), every girl and woman in the community is overcome by a "spell" that causes them to lose all desire for sex. No one is immune, not Dory Lang and her husband, Robby, the most popular English teachers at Eleanor Roosevelt High School; not Leanne Bannerjee, the beautiful school psychologist; or the overweight college counselor Bev Cutler, shackled to a callous hedge-fund manager husband. The Langs' teenaged daughter, Willa, who eventually lands the lead in the play, is also afflicted, wreaking havoc on her relationship with Fran's son, Eli. Despite the great premise and Wolitzer's confident prose, the story never really picks up any momentum, and the questions posed—about parenthood, sacrifice, expectations, and the viability of long-term relationships in the age of Twitter—are intriguing but lack wallop.
Publishers Weekly
Wolitzer's new novel, after The Ten-Year Nap and The Position, is another well-written and engrossing tale. And this one is definitely more of a tale than a story. In the town of Stellar Plains, NJ, a new, bohemian drama teacher arrives at the local high school. She selects as the school play Lysistrata, Aristophanes' comedy in which the women decide to stop having sex with their men to convince them to stop fighting in a war. As the actors rehearse, a cool wind of a spell passes through the women of Stellar Plains. It touches other teachers and students alike. The chill makes the women want to abstain from sex. So what happens when an entire town of women start to push away their men for no apparent reason? Otherwise happy couples break up. The novel flits from English teacher to gym teacher to the lead actress in the play and on and on. It reads and infects like a dreamy fairy tale with beautifully expressive and strangely enticing writing. Verdict: Wolitzer again tackles a complicated and provocative subject, female sexuality, with creativity and insight. Her fans and readers of women's fiction that's smart and snappy will want this. —Beth Gibbs, Davidson, NC
Library Journal
Not previously known for whimsy, Wolitzer (The Ten-Year Nap, 2008, etc.) uses a magical premise to launch her sharp-eyed assessment of sexual desire in its permutations across generations and genders.... A risky strategy pays off for a smart author whose work both amuses and hits home
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Think about the women in the novel. Each of them reacts to the loss of desire in a different way. How does each woman's reaction reflect the stage of life she is in? Which woman do you think is the most changed at the end of the novel?
2. Willa and Miles both participate in an online world and communicate with each other electronically. How do you think electronic communication changes how relationships are built? Can it be a helpful tool? Can it be problematic?
3. Dory and Robby seem to be the perfect couple at the start of the book. How does the author signal that there might be problems beneath the surface? Think about other books you've read that feature married couples who start off happily married. How are those marriages similar to Dory and Robby's? How are they different?
4. Think about the character of Fran. Do you think she's a force in the book for good? Do you think she's fully aware of the consequences of what she's doing? What price does she pay for her actions?
5. The play Lysistrata figures prominently in the book. What do you know about the play Lysistrata? How does the action of the play relate to the events of the book? Why do you think the author chose this play to be central to her novel? How does Lysistrata relate to the modern world?
6. Think about the spell. How is each woman affected by the spell? What is the significance of the moment each woman comes under the power of the spell? What is the spell a metaphor for? What do you think the author's intention is?
7. While the spell affects the relationship between men and women, The Uncoupling also deals with the relationship between mothers and their children. How is Dory and Willa's relationship affected by the spell? What other mother and child relationships are in the book? How are those relationships changed by the end?
8. Neither Marissa nor Leanne is a committed relationship at the start of the book. How does the spell change their view of their own sexuality? How is it different from how the married women are changed?
9. The spell of course is fantasy, but think about real-life parallels. Are there examples in your life where you can see a similar "spell" at work? What are the causes? What are the solutions?
10. How does Wolitzer compare the effects of the spell of Lysistrata to the spell of falling in love—or out of love? Are there other experiences in life that make you feel as if you're falling under enchantment? The spell of a good book, for instance, of the spell of a play?
(Questions issused by publisher.)
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Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West
Stephen E. Ambrose, 1996
Simon & Schuster
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780684826974
Summary
In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson selected his personal secretary, Captain Meriwether Lewis, to lead a voyage up the Missouri River to the Rockies, over the mountains, down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean, and back.
Lewis was the perfect choice. He endured incredible hardships and saw incredible sights, including vast herds of buffalo and Indian tribes that had had no previous contact with white men. He and his partner, Captain William Clark, made the first map of the trans-Mississippi West, provided invaluable scientific data on the flora and fauna of the Louisiana Purchase territory, and established the American claim to Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.
Ambrose has pieced together previously unknown information about weather, terrain, and medical knowledge at the time to provide a colorful and realistic backdrop for the expedition. Lewis saw the North American continent before any other white man; Ambrose describes in detail native peoples, weather, landscape, science, everything the expedition encountered along the way, through Lewis's eyes.
Lewis is supported by a rich variety of colorful characters, first of all Jefferson himself, whose interest in exploring and acquiring the American West went back thirty years. Next comes Clark, a rugged frontiersman whose love for Lewis matched Jefferson's. There are numerous Indian chiefs, and Sacagawea, the Indian girl who accompanied the expedition, along with the French-Indian hunter Drouillard, the great naturalists of Philadelphia, the French and Spanish fur traders of St. Louis, John Quincy Adams, and many more leading political, scientific, and military figures of the turn of the century.
This is a book about a hero. This is a book about national unity. But it is also a tragedy. When Lewis returned to Washington in the fall of 1806, he was a national hero. But for Lewis, the expedition was a failure.
Jefferson had hoped to find an all-water route to the Pacific with a short hop over the Rockies-Lewis discovered there was no such passage. Jefferson hoped the Louisiana Purchase would provide endless land to support farming-but Lewis discovered that the Great Plains were too dry. Jefferson hoped there was a river flowing from Canada into the Missouri—but Lewis reported there was no such river, and thus no U.S. claim to the Canadian prairie. Lewis discovered the Plains Indians were hostile and would block settlement and trade up the Missouri. Lewis took to drink, engaged in land speculation, piled up debts he could not pay, made jealous political enemies, and suffered severe depression.
High adventure, high politics, suspense, drama, and diplomacy combine with high romance and personal tragedy to make this outstanding work of scholarship as readable as a novel. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 10, 1936
• Raised—Whitewater, Wisconsin, USA
• Death—October 13, 2002
• Where—Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
• Education—B.A., Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
M.A., Louisiana State University
• Awards—(see below)
Stephen Edward Ambrose was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many bestselling volumes of American history, including Undauntd Courage (1996).
Early years
Ambrose was born to Rosepha Trippe Ambrose and Stephen Hedges Ambrose. His father was a physician who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Ambrose was raised in Whitewater, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Whitewater High School. His family also owned a farm in Lovington, Illinois and vacation property in Marinette County, Wisconsin. He attended college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity and played on the University of Wisconsin football team for three years.
Ambrose originally wanted to major in pre-medicine, but changed his major to history after hearing the first lecture in a U.S. history class entitled "Representative Americans" in his sophomore year. The course was taught by William B. Hesseltine, whom Ambrose credits with fundamentally shaping his writing and igniting his interest in history.
While at Wisconsin, Ambrose was a member of the Navy and Army ROTC. He graduated with a B.A. in 1957. He also married his first wife, Judith Dorlester, in 1957, and they had two children, Stephenie and Barry. According to Ambrose, Judith died at age 27, when he was 29. A year or two later he married his second wife, Moira Buckley, and adopted her three children, Hugh, Grace, and Andrew. Ambrose received a master's degree in history from Louisiana State University in 1958, studying under T. Harry Williams. Ambrose then went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1963, under William B. Hesseltine.
Writing
Ambrose's earliest works concerned the Civil War. He wrote biographies of the generals Emory Upton and Henry Halleck, the first of which was based on his dissertation.
Early in his career, Ambrose was mentored by World War II historian Forrest Pogue. In 1964, Ambrose took a position at Johns Hopkins as the Associate Editor of the Eisenhower Papers, a project aimed at organizing, cataloging and publishing Eisenhower's principal papers. From this work and discussions with Eisenhower emerged an article critical of Cornelius Ryan’s The Last Battle, which had depicted Eisenhower as politically naive, when at the end of World War II he allowed Soviet forces to take Berlin, thus shaping the Cold War that followed. Ambrose expanded this into a book, Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe.
In 1964 Ambrose was commissioned to write the official biography of the former president and five-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower. This resulted in a book on Eisenhower's war years (published 1970) and a two-volume full biography (published 1983 and 1984), which are considered "the standard" on the subject. Ambrose also wrote a three-volume biography of Richard Nixon. Although Ambrose was a strong critic of Nixon, the biography is considered fair and just regarding Nixon's presidency.
His books, Band of Brothers (1992) and D-Day (1994), presented from the view points of individual soldiers in World War II, brought his works into mainstream American culture. His Citizen Soldiers (1997) and The Victors (1998) became bestsellers. He also wrote the popular book, The Wild Blue (2001), that looked at World War II aviation.
His other major works include Undaunted Courage (1996) about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Nothing Like It in the World (2000) about the construction of the Pacific Railroad. His final book, This Vast Land (2003), a historical novel about the Lewis & Clark expedition written for young readers, was published posthumously.
Ambrose was also a frequent contributor to magazines such as American Heritage.
Television, film, and other activities
Ambrose appeared as a historian in the 1974 ITV television series, The World at War, which detailed the history of World War II. The HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers (2001), for which he was an executive producer, helped sustain the fresh interest in World War II that had been stimulated by the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994 and the 60th anniversary in 2004. He was also the military adviser for the movie Saving Private Ryan. In addition, Ambrose served as a commentator for Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, a documentary by Ken Burns.
In addition to his academic work and publishing, Ambrose operated a historical tour business, acting as a tour guide to European locales of World War II. He was a founder of the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Awards
Ambrose was the recipient on numerous awards:
- 1998—The National Humanities Medal.
- 2000—The Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the highest honorary award the Department of Defense offers to civilians.
- 2001—The Theodore Roosevelt Medal for Distinguished Service from the Theodore Roosevelt Association.
- 2002—an Emmy Award as one of the producers for the mini-series Band of Brothers.
- He also received the George Marshall Award, the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award, the Bob Hope Award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, and the Will Rogers Memorial Award.
Final years
After retiring, Ambrose maintained homes in Helena, Montana, and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. A longtime smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in April 2002. His health deteriorated rapidly and seven months after the diagnosis he died, at the age of 66.
Controversy
• Plagarism
In 2002, Ambrose was accused by Tulane Law Professor Sally Richardson and others of plagiarizing several passages in his book, The Wild Blue. Fred Barnes reported in the Weekly Standard that Ambrose had taken passages from Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II, by Thomas Childers, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Ambrose had footnoted sources—but not enclosed in quotation marks—numerous passages from Childers' book.
Ambrose asserted that only a few sentences in all his numerous books were the work of other authors. He offered this defense:
I tell stories. I don't discuss my documents. I discuss the story. It almost gets to the point where, how much is the reader going to take? I am not writing a Ph.D. dissertation.
I wish I had put the quotation marks in, but I didn't. I am not out there stealing other people's writings. If I am writing up a passage and it is a story I went to tell and this story fits and a part of it is from other people's writing, I just type it up that way and put it in a footnote. I just want to know where the hell it came from.
A Forbes investigation of his work found cases of plagiarism involving passages in at least six books, with a similar pattern going all the way back to his doctoral dissertation. The History News Network lists seven of Ambrose's works—The Wild Blue, Undaunted Courage, Nothing Like It In the World, Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, Citizen Soldiers, The Supreme Commander, and Crazy Horse and Custer—containing content copied from twelve authors.
• Factual errors and disputed characterizations
In the 1973 ITV television series, The World at War, episode 25, "From War to Peace," Ambrose made basic factual errors. He underestimated the military US manpower as a percentage of the population and miscounted the population, as well.
In Nothing Like It in the World, about the building of the Pacific Railroad, three Western US railroad historians listed more than 60 inaccuracies and madeup quotes. Others found mislabeled maps, inaccurate dates, and geographical errors.
In the introduction to his biography of Eisenhower he claims that former president approached him to write his biography. But the Deputy Director of the Eisenhower Presidential Center revealed a letter from Ambrose to Eisenhower revealing that it was Ambrose who made first approach.
After Eisenhower's death in 1969, Ambrose made repeated claims to have been with Eisenhower "on a daily basis for a couple years" before his death "doing interviews and talking about his life." However, the former president's diary and telephone records show that the pair met only three times, for a total of less than five hours.
For a fuller account (with references) see Wikipedia under "Stephen Ambrose." (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/17/2014.)
Book Reviews
Meriwether Lewis, as secretary to Thomas Jefferson and living in the White House for two years, got his education by being apprenticed to a great man. Their friendship is at the center of this account. Jefferson hand-picked Lewis for the great cross-country trek, and Lewis in turn picked William Clark to accompany him. ... Without adding a great deal to existing accounts, Ambrose uses his skill with detail and atmosphere to dust off an icon and put him back on the trail west.
Publishers Weekly
Ambrose...uses the journals and documents...as well as the traditional sources, to craft a careful and detailed biography of Lewis that will stand as the standard account for some time to come. Ambrose not only recounts the expedition Lewis led with Clark but also explains how Lewis came to head it.... [G]eneral readers will also be enthralled by Ambrose's well-written account. —Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Library Journal
Though principally a biography of Meriwether Lewis, this narrative also provides fascinating portraits of Thomas Jefferson and William Clark, Sacagawea, and other members of the group of explorers who journeyed from the Ohio River to the Pacific Ocean in the years 1803-1806. While scholarly and well documented, this account is at the same time a great adventure story, and Ambrose generates a sense of excitement and anticipation.... An eminently readable resource. Molly Connally, Kings Park Library, Fairfax County, VA
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In Undaunted Courage, Ambrose gives us an unbiased account of Meriwether Lewis. He presents Lewis as both a hero and a flawed man. How does Ambrose reconcile these two sides of Lewis's character?
2. Discuss the ways in which Undaunted Courage shares a reading experience with that of a novel. Yet how is reading history unlike reading fiction?
3. Compare and contrast the social conventions of Lewis's time with those of our own—in particular the social standing and treatment of women, blacks, and Indians. How much did the harsh physical environment that people endured affect the attitudes of the time in the arena of racial and sexual equality?
4. What small but significant role did women play in the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition?
5. Discuss the way in which Ambrose clearly depicts the difficulty and confusion that faced both the Americans and the Indians when their paths began to cross. They were different peoples with different ways, and their inability to fully comprehend the other was mutual. Does Ambrose give us a sense of the inevitability of American expansion at the expense of the Indians, or does he suggest and/or imply that there might have been another way?
6. Ambrose brings to life the diversity of Indians in America in the early 1800s. Now, however, there is little trace of the many tribes that Ambrose described. We often consider what the Indians themselves lost, but what does the world lose when a whole culture of people becomes extinct'. Do you think the Indians gained anything from their assimilation?
7. At the end of the book, Lewis commits suicide. What does Lewis's suicide leave the living—both in his own time and ours?Discuss the apparent irony of a man who has endured the hardships, terrors, and rigors of a cross-country expedition, returning a hero, only to commit suicide later?
8. There were many firsts in Undaunted Courage. Lewis was the first white man to explore territory west of the Rockies. York was the first black man these Indians had ever seen. It was the first scientific discovery of many of the floral and fauna specimens Lewis came across during the expedition. What are some other firsts this book reveals?
9. Discuss the importance of Lewis's expedition. Speculate as to why the story of Lewis and Clark has previously been treated rather superficially? Has Undaunted Courage altered your perspective on American history? Why was Ambrose so tempted to go back and reexamine Meriwether Lewis?
10. Beyond its historical significance, Undaunted Courage is a story of a great and exciting adventure. Discuss the various hardships that the expedition endured, as well as the truly wondrous and spectacular sights they encountered. Speculate as to what would be encountered now if one were to follow the same voyage as Lewis and Clark.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Under My Skin
Orville Lloyd Douglas, 2014
Guernica Editions
80 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781550718492
Summary
Under My Skin is an incendiary collection of poetry which explores the life of a gay black man. The collection is semi-autobiographical and is separated into six sections. The poems explore taboo subjects such as a discussion about male homosexuality in the black community.
Under My Skin also looks at the conflict Douglas has with his Canadian identity. Many of poems ask what does it mean to be a Canadian? Is it just about skin colour? Are Canadian people only white? The poems also challenge the ideology that gay male sexuality should be hidden and not in the public sphere.
Author Bio
• Birth—September 26, 1976
• Where—Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., York University
• Currently—lives in Toronto
Book Reviews
Douglas is an essential poet just as his publisher's logo exclaims, for he's able to wrangle pure anger into pure poetry.... The fiery African-American poet Amiri Baraka is dead? No his spirit could drive Douglas's howls against the glib appeal of multiculturalism, so silent about anti- black, anti-native racism. But Douglas is sick of hypocritical cries of racial unity that exclude gay black men.
George Elliott Clarke - Chronicle Herald
Discussion Questions
1. Does multiculturalism really mean racial unity exists between people in Canada?
2. Why are gay black men invisible in black heterosexual and gay communities?
3. Is anger a valid emotion, or is it simply a waste of energy?
4. Why are some gay black men afraid to come out of the closet?
5. Are heterosexual black people hypocritical they whine and cry about racism yet they discriminate against black LGBT people?
6. Is Canada really more advanced than the United States in relation to race issues? Although gay rights have progressed in Canada do LGBT issues really matter or are discussed in non white communities?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
Under the Dome
Stephen King, 2009
Scribner
1008 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476735474
Summary
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing — even murder — to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 21, 1947
• Where—Portland, Maine, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Maine
• Awards—see below
• Currently—lives in Bangor, Maine
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books. King has published 50 novels, including seven under the pen-name of Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has written nearly two hundred short stories, most of which have been collected in nine collections of short fiction. Many of his stories are set in his home state of Maine.
Early life
King's father, Donald Edwin King, who was born circa 1913 in Peru, Indiana, was a merchant seaman. King's mother, Nellie Ruth (nee Pillsbury; 1913–1973) was born in Scarborough, Maine. The two were married in 1939 in Cumberland County, Maine.
Stephen Edwin King was born September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. When King was two years old, his father left the family under the pretense of "going to buy a pack of cigarettes," leaving his mother to raise King and his adopted older brother, David, by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to De Pere, Wisconsin, Fort Wayne, Indiana and Stratford, Connecticut. When King was eleven years old, the family returned to Durham, Maine, where Ruth King cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged. King was raised Methodist.
As a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. His family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned, speechless and seemingly in shock. Only later did the family learn of the friend's death. Some commentators have suggested that this event may have psychologically inspired some of King's darker works, but King makes no mention of it in his memoir On Writing.
King's primary inspiration for writing horror fiction was related in detail in his 1981 non-fiction Danse Macabre, in a chapter titled "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause." King makes a comparison of his uncle successfully dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. While browsing through an attic with his elder brother, King uncovered a paperback version of an H. P. Lovecraft collection of short stories entitled The Lurker in the Shadows that had belonged to his father. The cover art—an illustration of a yellow-green Demon hiding within the recesses of a Hellish cavern beneath a tombstone—was, he writes, the moment in his life which "that interior dowsing rod responded to." King told Barnes & Noble Studios during a 2009 interview, "I knew that I'd found home when I read that book."
Education and early career
King attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School, in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He displayed an early interest in horror as an avid reader of EC's horror comics, including Tales from the Crypt (he later paid tribute to the comics in his screenplay for Creepshow). He began writing for fun while still in school, contributing articles to Dave's Rag, the newspaper that his brother published with a mimeograph machine, and later began selling stories to his friends which were based on movies he had seen (though when discovered by his teachers, he was forced to return the profits). The first of his stories to be independently published was "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber", serialized over three published and one unpublished issue of a fanzine, Comics Review, in 1965. That story was published the following year in a revised form as "In a Half-World of Terror" in another fanzine, Stories of Suspense, edited by Marv Wolfman.
From 1966, King studied English at the University of Maine, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. That same year his first daughter, Naomi Rachel, was born. He wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Maine Campus, titled "Steve King's Garbage Truck", took part in a writing workshop organized by Burton Hatlen, and took odd jobs to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry. He sold his first professional short story, "The Glass Floor," to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. The Fogler Library at the University of Maine now holds many of King's papers.
After leaving the university, King earned a certificate to teach high school but, being unable to find a teaching post immediately, initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier. Many of these early stories have been published in the collection Night Shift. In 1971, King married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow student at the University of Maine whom he had met at the University's Fogler Library after one of Professor Hatlen's workshops. That fall, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels. It was during this time that King developed a drinking problem, which would plague him for more than a decade.
Writing, 1970-2000
In 1973, King's novel Carrie was accepted by publishing house Doubleday. King threw an early draft of the novel in the trash after becoming discouraged with his progress writing about a teenage girl with psychic powers. His wife retrieved the manuscript and encouraged him to finish it. His advance for Carrie was $2,500, with paperback rights earning $400,000 at a later date. King and his family moved to southern Maine because of his mother's failing health. At this time, he began writing a book titled Second Coming, later titled Jerusalem's Lot, before finally changing the title to Salem's Lot (published 1975). In a 1987 issue of The Highway Patrolman magazine, he stated, "The story seems sort of down home to me. I have a special cold spot in my heart for it!" Soon after the release of Carrie in 1974, his mother died of uterine cancer. His Aunt Emrine read the novel to her before she died. King has written of his severe drinking problem at this time, stating that he was drunk delivering the eulogy at his mother's funeral.
After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where King wrote The Shining (1977). The family returned to western Maine in 1975, where King completed his fourth novel, The Stand (1978). In 1977, the family, with the addition of Owen Phillip (his third and last child), traveled briefly to England, returning to Maine that fall where King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine. He has kept his primary residence in Maine ever since.
In 1985 King wrote his first work for the comic book medium, writing a few pages of the benefit X-Men comic book Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men. The book, whose profits were donated to assist with famine relief in Africa, was written by a number of different authors in the comic book field, such as Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, and Alan Moore, as well as authors not primarily associated with that industry, such as Harlan Ellison. The following year, King wrote the introduction to Batman No. 400, an anniversary issue in which he expressed his preference for that character over Superman.
On June 19, 1999 at about 4:30 pm, King was walking on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan Smith, distracted by an unrestrained dog moving in the back of his minivan, struck King, who landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet from the pavement of Route 5. According to Oxford County Sheriff deputy Matt Baker, King was hit from behind and some witnesses said the driver was not speeding, reckless, or drinking.
King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers to contact his family but was in considerable pain. The author was first transported to Northern Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by helicopter to Central Maine Medical Center, in Lewiston. His injuries—a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip—kept him at CMMC until July 9. His leg bones were so shattered doctors initially considered amputating his leg, but stabilized the bones in the leg with an external fixator. After five operations in ten days and physical therapy, King resumed work on On Writing in July, though his hip was still shattered and he could only sit for about forty minutes before the pain became worse. Soon it became nearly unbearable.
King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to prevent it from appearing on eBay. The van was later crushed at a junkyard, much to King's disappointment, as he dreamed of beating it with a baseball bat once his leg was healed. King later mentioned during an interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wanted to completely destroy the vehicle himself with a pickaxe.
During this time, Tabitha King was inspired to redesign his studio. King visited the space while his books and belongings were packed away. What he saw was an image of what his studio would look like if he died, providing a seed for his novel Lisey's Story.
In 2002, King announced he would stop writing, apparently motivated in part by frustration with his injuries, which had made sitting uncomfortable and reduced his stamina. He has since resumed writing, but states on his website that:
I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than previously and I think that if I come up with something really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to publish it because that still feels like the final act of the creative process, publishing it so people can read it and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's as it should be.
Writing, 2000's
In 2000, King published a serialized novel, The Plant, online, bypassing print publication. At first it was presumed by the public that King had abandoned the project because sales were unsuccessful, but he later stated that he had simply run out of stories. The unfinished epistolary novel is still available from King's official site, now free. Also in 2000, he wrote a digital novella, Riding the Bullet, and has said he sees e-books becoming 50% of the market "probably by 2013 and maybe by 2012." But he also warns: "Here's the thing—people tire of the new toys quickly."
In August 2003 King began writing a column on pop culture appearing in Entertainment Weekly, usually every third week. The column is called "The Pop of King," a play on the nickname "The King of Pop" commonly given to Michael Jackson. In 2006, King published an apocalyptic novel, Cell. The book features a sudden force in which every cell phone user turns into a mindless killer. King noted in the book's introduction that he does not use cell phones. In 2007, Marvel Comics began publishing comic books based on King's Dark Tower series, followed by adaptations of The Stand in 2008 and The Talisman in 2009.
In 2008, King published both a novel, Duma Key, and a collection, Just After Sunset. The latter featured 13 short stories, including a novella, N., which was later released as a serialized animated series that could be seen for free, or, for a small fee, could be downloaded in a higher quality; it then was adopted into a limited comic book series.
In 2009, King published Ur, a novella written exclusively for the launch of the second-generation Amazon Kindle and available only on Amazon.com, and Throttle, a novella co-written with his son Joe Hill, which later was released as an audiobook Road Rage, which included Richard Matheson's short story "Duel". On November 10 that year, King's novel, Under the Dome, was published. It is a reworking of an unfinished novel he tried writing twice in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and at 1,074 pages, it is the largest novel he has written since 1986's It. It debuted at No. 1 in The New York Times Bestseller List.
Writing, 2010s
On February 16, 2010, King announced on his website that his next book would be a collection of four previously unpublished novellas called Full Dark, No Stars. In April of that year, King published Blockade Billy, an original novella issued first by independent small press Cemetery Dance Publications and later released in mass market paperback by Simon & Schuster. The following month, DC Comics premiered American Vampire, a monthly comic book series written by King with short story writer Scott Snyder, and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque, which represents King's first original comics work. King wrote the background history of the very first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, in the first five-issue story arc. Scott Snyder wrote the story of Pearl.
In 2011 King published 11/22/63. It was nominated for the 2012 World Fantasy Award Best Novel. The eighth Dark Tower volume, The Wind Through the Keyhole, was published in 2012.
King's most recent novel is the 2013 Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining (1977).
Awards
Alex Award
Balrog Award
Black Quill Award
Bram Stocker AWards (14)
British Fantasy Society Awards (6)
Deutscher Phantastik Pries (5)
Horror Guild Awards (6)
Hugo Award
International Horror Guild Awards (2)
Locus Awards (5)
Mystery Writers of America Awards (2, incl.,Grand Master)
National Book Foundation, Medal of Distringuished Contribution to American Letters
O. Henry Award
Quill Award
Shirely Jackson Award
Thriller Award
World Fantasy Awards (4)
World Horror Convention, World Horror Grandmaster Award
Personal life
King and his wife own and occupy three different houses, one in Bangor, one in Lovell, Maine, and they regularly winter in their waterfront mansion located off the Gulf of Mexico, in Sarasota, Florida. He and Tabitha have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen, and three grandchildren.
Shortly after publication of The Tommyknockers, King's family and friends staged an intervention, dumping evidence of his addictions taken from the trash including beer cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, dextromethorphan (cough medicine) and marijuana, on the rug in front of him. As King related in his memoir, he then sought help and quit all forms of drugs and alcohol in the late 1980s, and has remained sober since. The first novel he wrote after quitting drugs and alcohol was Needful Things.
Tabitha King has published nine of her own novels. Both King's sons are published authors: Owen King published his first collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories, in 2005. Joseph Hillstrom King, who writes under the professional name Joe Hill, published a collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, in 2005. His debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was published in 2007 and will be adapted into a feature film by director Neil Jordan. King's daughter Naomi is a Unitarian Universalist Church minister in Plantation, Florida with her same-sex partner, Rev. Dr. Thandeka.
King is a fan of baseball, and of the Boston Red Sox in particular; he frequently attends the team's home and away games, and occasionally mentions the team in his novels and stories. He helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the Maine Little League Championship in 1989. He recounts this experience in the New Yorker essay "Head Down," which also appears in the collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. In 1999, King wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which featured former Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon as the protagonist's imaginary companion. In 2004, King co-wrote a book titled Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season with Stewart O'Nan, recounting the authors' roller coaster reaction to the Red Sox's 2004 season, a season culminating in the Sox winning the 2004 American League Championship Series and World Series. In the 2005 film Fever Pitch, about an obsessive Boston Red Sox fan, King tosses out the first pitch of the Sox's opening day game. (From Wikipedia. See complete article.)
Book Reviews
Under the Dome gravely threatens Stephen King's status as a mere chart-busting pop cultural phenomenon. It has the scope and flavor of literary Americana, even if Mr. King's particular patch of American turf is located smack in the middle of the Twilight Zone. It dispenses with his usual scatology and trippy fantasy to deliver a spectrum of credible people with real family ties, health crises, self-destructive habits and political passions. Even its broad caricatures prompt real emotion, if only via the damage they can inflict on others. Though the book's broad conspiratorial strokes become farfetched, its ordinary souls become ever more able to break hearts. This book has the heft of a brick…Hard as this thing is to hoist, it's even harder to put down.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
King has always produced at pulp speed. "Nov. 22, 2007 - March 14, 2009" proclaims the final page of Under the Dome: that's 1,100 pages in 480 days. We shouldn't be too squeamish about the odd half-baked simile or lapse into B-movie dialogue, is my point. Writing flat-out keeps him close to his story, close to his source. It seems to magnetize his imagination: by the final third of this novel King is effortlessly drawing in T. S. Eliot and the Book of Revelation, the patient etherized upon a table and the Star Wormwood.
James Parker - New York Times Book Review
In 2002 Stephen King announced that he'd given up writing.... [But] writing isn't done with King, not by a long shot....the result is one of his most powerful novels ever.... Although he's an undisputed master of suspense and terror, what gives King's work heft is his moral clarity. The harrowing climax of Under the Dome stems from a humane vision. It's another work in an oeuvre that identifies compassion as the antidote to evil, whether that evil be human or supernatural. And our stock of literature in the great American Gothic tradition is brilliantly replenished because of it.
Graham Joyce - Washington Post
[U]ncomfortably bulky, formidably complex and irresistibly compelling....[yet] King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully.... [W]hile this novel doesn't have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it's a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil.
Publishers Weekly
The frequent accusation that King writes too long is sometimes deserved. However, when he works in an epic mode, depicting dozens of characters and all their interrelationships, he can produce great work. He did it with The Stand and with It, and he has done it again here.... Some will balk at the page count, but a fast pace and compelling narrative make the reader's time fly. —Karl G. Siewert, Tulsa City-Cty. Lib., OK
Library Journal
Maine. Check. Strange doings. Check. Alien/demon presence. Check. Unlikely heroes. Check.... Evil is omnipresent here, but organized religion is suspect, useful only for those who would bleat, "The Dome is God's will." The woods are full of malevolent possibilities.... It hardly matters that, after 1,000-plus pages, the yarn doesn't quite add up. It's vintage King: wonderfully written, good, creepy, old-school fun.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
m. Stephen King says in an interview with his publisher that his inspirations for Under the Dome was "the serious ecological problems that we face.... we all live under the dome." What does he mean, and do you agree or disagree? Also, to what degree might "living under the dome" have wider implications than purely ecological?
m. In that same interview, King says...
In small towns, we think we know everybody else's business. But everybody holds back.... You're only as sick as your secrets, and some of the people in this book are pretty sick, indeed.
Who in particular, in this book's large cast of characters, has secrets...and what are they? Which characters would you say are "pretty sick, indeed"?
m. Finally, King says in the interview that Under the Dome explores one of the great subjects of fiction:
Why do people do what they do under stress? And in that sense you can see any novel is almost like a test tube case where you say, "what happens to ordinary people in extraordinary situations? How do they behave? Do they rise to the occasion or do they not?
Which character(s) in your estimation rise to the occasion, and in what way? Which ones do not? Had you been placed under the dome, how would you fare?
m. In what way is Dale Barbara an unlikely hero? Is he a hero?
m. Describe Jim Rennie, the book's mega-villain. Do you find him credible? Is he overdrawn, or do people like Rennie exist in the real world? Does Rennie get his just deserts...or would you have preferred a different end for him?
m. Where is God throughout this catastrophe? Is that a fair question...or not? What seems to be the underlying religious view of the book?
m. Which incidents do you find most heart-rending?
m. King doesn't address how and why the dome got there until the end. Why does he postpone the issue for so long? What seems to interest him in this book more than the answer to that question?
m. Were your surprised by the origin of the dome...or where you expecting it?
m. The book comes in at over 1,000 pages. Is it too long? Just long enough?
m. What are the moral implications of this book?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Under the Influence
Joyce Maynard, 2016
HarperCollins
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062257642
Summary
A poignant story about the true meaning—and the true price—of friendship.
Drinking cost Helen her marriage and custody of her seven-year-old son, Ollie. Once an aspiring art photographer, she now makes ends meet taking portraits of school children and working for a caterer.
Recovering from her addiction, she spends lonely evenings checking out profiles on an online dating site. Weekend visits with her son are awkward. He’s drifting away from her, fast.
When she meets Ava and Swift Havilland, the vulnerable Helen is instantly enchanted. Wealthy, connected philanthropists, they have their own charity devoted to rescuing dogs. Their home is filled with fabulous friends, edgy art, and dazzling parties.
Then Helen meets Elliott, a kind, quiet accountant who offers loyalty and love with none of her newfound friends’ fireworks. To Swift and Ava, he’s boring. But even worse than that, he’s unimpressed by them.
As Helen increasingly falls under the Havillands’ influence—running errands, doing random chores, questioning her relationship with Elliott—Ava and Swift hold out the most seductive gift: their influence and help to regain custody of her son. But the debt Helen owes them is about to come due.
Ollie witnesses an accident involving Swift, his grown son, and the daughter of the Havillands’ housekeeper. With her young son’s future in the balance, Helen must choose between the truth and the friends who have given her everything. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 5, 1953
• Where—Durham, New Hampshire, USA
• Education—Yale University (no degree)
• Currently—lives in Mill Valley, California
Daphne Joyce Maynard is an American author known for writing with candor about her life, as well as for her works of fiction and hundreds of essays and newspaper columns, often about parenting and family. The 1998 publication of her memoir, At Home in the World, made her the object of intense criticism among some members of the literary world for having revealed the story of the relationship she had with author J. D. Salinger when he was 53 and she was 18.
Early life
Maynard grew up in Durham, New Hampshire, daughter of the Canadian painter Max Maynard and writer Fredelle Maynard. Her mother was Jewish (daughter of Russian-born immigrants) and her father was Christian. She attended the Oyster River School District and Phillips Exeter Academy. She won early recognition for her writing from The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, winning student writing prizes in 1966, 1967, 1968, 1970, and 1971.
While in her teens, she wrote regularly for Seventeen magazine. She entered Yale University in 1971 and sent a collection of her writings to the editors of the New York Times Magazine. They asked her to write an article for them, which was published as "An Eighteen Year Old Looks Back on Life" in the magazine's April 23, 1972 issue.
J.D. Salinger
The Times Magazine article prompted a letter from J. D. Salinger, then 53 years old, who complimented her writing and warned her of the dangers of publicity.They exchanged 25 letters, and Maynard dropped out of Yale the summer after her freshman year to live with Salinger in Cornish, New Hampshire.
Maynard spent ten months living in Salinger's Cornish home, during which time she completed work on her first book, Looking Back, a memoir that was published in 1973, in which she adhered to Salinger's request that she not mention his role in her life. Her relationship with Salinger ended abruptly just prior to the book's publication. According to Maynard's memoir, he cut off the relationship suddenly while on a family vacation with her and with his two children; she was devastated and begged him to take her back.
For many years, Maynard chose not to discuss her affair with Salinger in any of her writings, but she broke her silence in At Home In the World, a 1999 memoir. The same year, Maynard put up for auction the letters Salinger had written to her. In the ensuing controversy over her decision, Maynard claimed that she was forced to auction the letters for financial reasons, including the need to pay her children's college fees; she would have preferred to donate them to Beinecke Library. Software developer Peter Norton bought the letters for $156,500 and announced his intention to return them to Salinger.
In September, 2013, Maynard wrote a New York Times opinion piece following the release of a documentary film on Salinger. She criticizes the film's hands-off attitude toward Salinger's numerous relationships with teenage girls.Now comes the word...
[that] Salinger was also carrying on relationships with young women 15, and in my case, 35 years younger than he. "Salinger" touches—though politely—on the story of just five of these young women (most under 20 when he sought them out), but the pattern was wider: letters I’ve received...revealed to me that there were more than a dozen.
Mid-career
Maynard never returned to college. In 1973, she used the proceeds from her first book to purchase a house on a large piece of land in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, where she lived alone for over two years. From 1973 until 1975, she contributed commentaries to a series called “Spectrum,” broadcast on CBS radio and television, frequently debating the conservative voices of Phyllis Schlafly and James J. Kilpatrick.
In 1975, Maynard joined the staff of the New York Times, where she worked as a general assignment reporter also contributing feature stories. She left the Times in 1977 when she married Steve Bethel and returned to New Hampshire, where the couple had three children.
From 1984 to 1990, Maynard wrote the weekly syndicated column “Domestic Affairs,” in which she wrote candidly about marriage, parenthood and family life. She also served as a book reviewer and a columnist for Mademoiselle and Harrowsmith magazines. She published her first novel, Baby Love, and two children’s books illustrated by her son Bethel. In 1986 she co-led the opposition to the construction of the nation’s first high-level nuclear waste dump in her home state of New Hampshire, a campaign she described in a New York Times cover story in April ,1986.
When Maynard’s own marriage ended in 1989—an event she explored in print—many newspapers dropped the “Domestic Affairs” column, though it was reinstated in a number of markets in response to reader protest. After her divorce, Maynard and her children moved to the city of Keene, New Hampshire.
Mature works
Maynard gained widespread commercial acceptance in 1992 with the publication of her novel To Die For which drew several elements from the real-life Pamela Smart murder case. It was adapted into a 1995 film of the same name starring Nicole Kidman, Matt Dillon, Joaquin Phoenix and Casey Affleck and directed by Gus Van Sant. In the late 1990s, Maynard became one of the first authors to communicate daily with her readership by making use of the Internet and an online discussion forum, The Domestic Affairs Message Board (DAMB).
Maynard has subsequently published in several genres. Both The Usual Rules (2003) and The Cloud Chamber (2005) are young adult titles. Internal Combustion (2006), was her first in the true crime genre. Although nonfiction, it had thematic similarities to the fictionalized crime in To Die For, dealing with the case of Michigan resident Nancy Seaman, convicted of killing her husband in 2004. Labor Day, an adult literary novel, was published in 2009 and is presently being adapted for a film to be directed by Jason Reitman. Maynard's most recent novels are The Good Daughters, published in 2010, and After Her, in 2013.
Maynard and her sister Rona (also a writer and the retired editor of Chatelaine) collaborated in 2007 on an examination of their sisterhood. Rona Maynard's memoir My Mother's Daughter was published in the fall of 2007.
Recent years
Maynard has lived in Mill Valley, California, since 1996. She was an adjunct professor at the University of Southern Maine and now runs writing workshops at Lake Atitlan, Guatemala.
In February 2010, Maynard adopted two Ethiopian girls, Almaz (10) and Birtukan, but in the spring of 2011, she announced to friends and family that she no longer felt she could care for the girls. She sent the girls to live with a family in Wyoming and, citing their privacy, removed all references to them from her website. On July 6, 2013, she married a lawyer, Jim Barringer. (Adapted fom Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/15/13.)
Book Reviews
Maynard’s latest is illuminating and mesmerizing, highlighting not only differing definitions of friendship, but the shades of gray between right and wrong and the lengths to which some will go to protect their self-interest.
Publishers Weekly
When Ava and Swift Havilland waltz into Helen's life, she's at a low point and is immediately drawn to their easy friendship and overflowing generosity.... Maynard quietly portrays Helen's journey of self-discovery. Her story, though told with great foreboding, is less sinister in the final analysis, but readers will keep reading nonetheless. —Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA
Library Journal
Helen, a struggling divorcee who's lost custody of her son after a drunken driving arrest, is befriended by a wealthy couple at an art opening.... But the Havillands' glow is soon to dim.... [I]t's clear that a very big reversal lies in wait. Maynard's expert narration and plotting plant the seeds for the explosive events at the end of her tale.
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 Under the Influence...then take off on your own:
1. Talk about Helen. In what state of mind is she when readers first meet her? Are you sympathetic toward her? Clearly, she is prone to making bad decisions—do you find her not infrequent lapses of judgment irritating...or understandable?
2. Talk about the widening gap in the relationship between Helen and Ollie? Is it inevitable that their visits would become awkward? Where Dwight in all of this, and what about his new wife Cheri?
3. What was your first impression of the Havillands, both Avis and Swift? And at what did you begin to feel uneasy about them?
4. Talk about the degree to which Helen falls "under the influence" of the Havillands? What were your feelings when she began to run errands and do chores for them? What in Helen's personality makes her susceptible to the attentions, and demands, of Ava and Swift?
SPOILER ALERT from here
5. What do you make of Elliot and his attentions to Helen? What sparks his suspicions of the Havillands?
6. We know from the start that something will go amiss in the relationship between Helen and the Havillands. Why might the author have structured her book this way? What affect does it have on your reading experience? What if Maynard hadn't telescoped the troubled friendship?
7. Once the accident happens, what would you have done in Helen's place? Did she make the right or wrong decision?
8. We you surprised by the turn the plot took by the end?
9. Does this book play into the idea of female victimhood? Yes? No? Possibly?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use these, online or off with attribution. Thanks.)
Under the Wide and Starry Sky
Nancy Horan, 2014
Random House
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345516541
Summary
From Nancy Horan, author of Loving Frank, comes her much-anticipated second novel, which tells the improbable love story of Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson and his tempestuous American wife, Fanny.
At the age of thirty-five, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne has left her philandering husband in San Francisco to set sail for Belgium—with her three children and nanny in tow—to study art. It is a chance for this adventurous woman to start over, to make a better life for all of them, and to pursue her own desires.
Not long after her arrival, however, tragedy strikes, and Fanny and her children repair to a quiet artists’ colony in France where she can recuperate. Emerging from a deep sorrow, she meets a lively Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, ten years her junior, who falls instantly in love with the earthy, independent, and opinionated “belle Americaine.”
Fanny does not immediately take to the slender young lawyer who longs to devote his life to writing—and who would eventually pen such classics as Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In time, though, she succumbs to Stevenson’s charms, and the two begin a fierce love affair—marked by intense joy and harrowing darkness—that spans the decades and the globe.
The shared life of these two strong-willed individuals unfolds into an adventure as impassioned and unpredictable as any of Stevenson’s own unforgettable tales. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Nancy Horan is the American author of Loving Frank (2007) and Under the Wide and Starry Sky (2014). The first is a novel about Mamah Borthwick and her relationship with American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. The author was awarded the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction by the Society of American Historians in 2009 for works written in 2007-2008.
Under the Wide and Starry Sky is her second biographical novel, this one detailing the marriage of Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne to Robert Louis Stevenson.
A native Midwesterner, Nancy Horan was a teacher and journalist before turning to fiction writing. She lived for 24 years in Oak Park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, where she raised her two sons. She now lives with her husband on an island in Puget Sound. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/9/2014.)
Book Reviews
Nancy Horan’s first novel, Loving Frank, explored the tangled personal life of Frank Lloyd Wright. Now, in her second, she takes a deep, long look at the intimate history of yet another creative man. This time, the action is viewed from two perspectives—those of Robert Louis Stevenson and (even more so) of his American wife, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne, who hopes to be a painter or a writer herself. Under the Wide and Starry Sky is at once a classic artistic bildungsroman and a retort to the genre, a novel that shows how love and marriage can simultaneously offer inspiration and encumbrance,
Susann Cockal - New York Times Book Review
The central couple is Fanny Osbourne and Robert Louis Stevenson....[detailing] their years spent in the South Pacific traveling from one island to another. Her own writing talent is submerged in the wake of Louis’s growing fame, and her influence over him creates envy among his circle of friends in Britain. This beautifully written novel, neatly balanced between its two protagonists, makes them come alive with grace, humor, and understanding.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Horan’s spectacular second novel has been worth the wait. Brimming with the same artistic verve that drives her complicated protagonists, it follows the loving, tumultuous partnership of Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and his Indiana-born wife, Fanny Osbourne…. Together, they are riveting and insightfully envisioned, including through moving depiction of how their relationship transforms over time…. [An] exhilarating novel.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. In order to separate from her unfaithful husband, Fanny Van de Grift Osbourne takes her children across the continental U.S. and the Atlantic to study art in Europe. Do you think it’s the wisest choice, given the impact on her children? Would you make a similar decision under the circumstances? Are there other options she could have pursued?
2.At first glance, Fanny and Robert Louis Stevenson might seem an unlikely match. Why do you think they are so drawn to each other? Why does their relationship endure?
3. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has become a phrase synonymous with the idea of the divided self. At any points in the novel, does Louis seem to live a double life? Does Fanny? In what ways do Fanny, Louis, and other characters struggle with their own identities?
4. After criticizing a story of Fanny’s, W. E. Henley incites a quarrel with Louis that threatens their friendship. Does Fanny deserve the criticism? Do you think she and RLS enhance or hinder each other’s artistic ambitions and accomplishments?
5. Take a look at John Singer Sargent’s painting “Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife” (1885; currently in the Steve Wynn collection). What do you think of his portrayal of Fanny and Louis?
6. Many of us feel the need to shape a story out of the facts of our lives. In making these stories, we sometimes create myths about ourselves. Does Fanny invent myths about herself? Does RLS do the same?
7. The Stevensons travel all over the globe in search of the ideal climate for their family, from Switzerland to the South Seas. How do landscape and environment affect each of them?
8. Many of Louis’s friends find Fanny overprotective of her husband. Do you agree or disagree? Are her actions justified?
9. In Samoa, late in their marriage, Louis suggests that the work Fanny does is not that of an artist. He tells her, “No one should be offended if it is said that he is not an artist. The only person who should be insulted by such an observation is an artist who supports his family with his work.” Do you agree with this? What does Fanny consider her art? Do you agree with her views?
10. Why do you think Horan chooses “Out of my country and myself I go” as the epigraph for this book?
11. What is Robert Louis Stevenson’s literary legacy? In what ways does reading Under the Wide and Starry Sky change your view of him and his writing?
(Questions from author's website.)
Undercover Angels: Malachi's Battle
Elliot Dylan, 2009, year
CreateSpace
340 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781448672813
Summary
Malachi Stevens is your average teenage boy with a not so average problem. His best friend, Van, is being controlled by a demon. Malachi has his own problem with an angel, Patrick, telling him he needs to study his Bible more to help save Van.
But, maybe with some help from Patience and Rosaline, and divine intervention, he just might be able to save his friend, and learn a little something about himself along the way.
Finally, Christian fiction that combines the excitement of action novels with Biblical character building lessons woven into the story. Great for readers from middle schoolers through adults. (From the book.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—state of Kansas, USA
• Currently—lives in Kansas
Elliot is an novelist for Christian Youth. Elliot loves books and has always enjoyed writing. She feels a daily walk with God is important and wants to weave Bible studies into her books to encourage youth to read their Bibles and study God's Word daily.
Elliot is a college graduate with a digital imaging degree. She has two younger sisters who inspire her to write for youth.
When she's not writing her novels, she has a hobby creating art for her online comic-strip, "Subject to Change: College Woes," featuring spin-offs of her long-time friends who have gone off to Union and Southern Colleges, (without her!).
She also designs art for t-shirts and other products, featuring the crazy antics of the Subject to Change gang. (From the author's webpage.)
Book Reviews
The following reviews can be found on ElliotDylan.com:
I thought this novel was inspiring and thought-provoking. Undercover Angels put a desire in my heart to read more about what God calls us to do as Christians. Reading the author's thoughts about the armor of God gave me a new perspective on what kind of power God can have in our lives. This unique book shed a new light on my perspective of the spiritual realm. I was so impressed with the way the author describes the warfare between evil and good. Not only did this book open my mind to new ideas and opinions, but it also encour
Kayla Frishman
I believe this author is filling a much-needed niche that hasn't been filled—that of Christian teen action-adventure. It's not one of those typical teen Christian fiction romance novels. In fact it's not about romance at all. It's about a teen boy who finds out he has a guardian angel and becomes a champion for God. His friend is making poor decisions and he and his guardian angel help his friend out of the troubles he has gotten into. There is a girl who is the go-to person for answering Biblical questions, which help him to earn the armor of God.
Nannette Thacker
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss how Malachi has changed throughout the book, starting with how he was at the start and how he has become by the end.
2. Malachi and Van have had a pretty long relationship that has changed over time. Have you ever had a childhood friend change the way they treated you? In Malachi's situation with Van how would you have handled the change in the relationship?
3. Malachi was disbelieving at first about the whole Undercover Angel thing. How would you have reacted? What do you think God's qualifications might be for you to become a UA?
4. The first piece of armor Malachi received after the sword was the Shield of Faith. If you were a UA what piece of armor do you think you would get next based off of the different characteristics associated with each piece?
5. Malachi hates pastors because of what happened to his father. Is it right to hate a group of people because of a bad experience with one? Why or why not?
6. Rosaline has some pretty annoying brothers who are constantly getting in her way but she soon learns it’s just because they love her. If you have any siblings, how can you be nicer to them today and show them you care?
7. Malachi learned a lot about angels. Who are angels and what is their purpose?
8. Quite a few times Malachi lost his focus on God and his faith that He is stronger than Satan. How could Malachi have prevented this? Do you think God was mad at him for the times he messed up, why or why not?
9. During his time as a UA Malachi had to do a lot of studying of God's Word in order to grow in his strength as a UA. Why do you think this was important? Should we also as warriors for God strive to read the Bible too?
10. Malachi learned what the Bible says about hell. Did your perception of hell change based on the Bible lessons in the book?
11. At summer camp Patience retold the story of Jonah and the whale. How could you retell other stories from the Bible that might get people interested so they'd want to read the original?
12. Though he faltered a few times, Malachi never gave up on Van. If put in the same situation would you be able to do the same, why or why not?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)
Underground Airlines
Ben H. Winters, 2016
Little, Brown and Co.
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316261241
Summary
It is the present-day, and the world is as we know it: smartphones, social networking and Happy Meals. Save for one thing: the Civil War never occurred.
A gifted young black man calling himself Victor has struck a bargain with federal law enforcement, working as a bounty hunter for the US Marshall Service. He's got plenty of work.
In this version of America, slavery continues in four states called "the Hard Four." On the trail of a runaway known as Jackdaw, Victor arrives in Indianapolis knowing that something isn't right—with the case file, with his work, and with the country itself.
A mystery to himself, Victor suppresses his memories of his childhood on a plantation, and works to infiltrate the local cell of a abolitionist movement called the Underground Airlines. Tracking Jackdaw through the back rooms of churches, empty parking garages, hotels, and medical offices, Victor believes he's hot on the trail.
But his strange, increasingly uncanny pursuit is complicated by a boss who won't reveal the extraordinary stakes of Jackdaw's case, as well as by a heartbreaking young woman and her child who may be Victor's salvation. Victor himself may be the biggest obstacle of all—though his true self remains buried, it threatens to surface.
Victor believes himself to be a good man doing bad work, unwilling to give up the freedom he has worked so hard to earn. But in pursuing Jackdaw, Victor discovers secrets at the core of the country's arrangement with the Hard Four, secrets the government will preserve at any cost.
Underground Airlines is a ground-breaking novel, a wickedly imaginative thriller, and a story of an America that is more like our own than we'd like to believe. (Adapted from the publisher. Retrieved 7/19/2016.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1975-76
• Where—Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., USA
• Education—Washington University, St. Louis
• Awards—Philip K. Dick Award; Edgar Award
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Ben Winters, an American author, journalist, teacher and playwright, was born in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C. In high school, Winters played in the punk band Corm alongside John Davis, now of Title Tracks. In 1998, he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, where he was active in the comedy group Mama's Pot Roast. He is married and now lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and three children.
Career
Winters was first known as the author of the 2009 New York Times bestseller Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. In June 2010, Android Karenina was released. Next came his two-book series for young adults, The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman in 2010 followed by The Mystery of the Missing Everything in 2011. He also published Bedbugs in 2011, a horror novel for adults.
In 2012, Winters published The Last Policeman, the first in a trilogy of detective novels set in a pre-apocalyptic United States; that book won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in the category Best Paperback Original. The second novel in the trilogy, Countdown City, came out in July 2013 and won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award for Distinguished Science Fiction. The third and final book, World of Trouble, was released in 2014.
Winters' 2016 novel, Underground Airlines, is set in a present-day alternate universe in which the American Civil War never happened and four states continue to practice human slavery—legally. The book's protagonist, a U.S. government bounty hunter, and former slave, attempts to infiltrate an abolitionist group known as the "Underground Airlines."
Winters is also a playwright. His work includes the Off-Broadway musical Slut (2005), as well as four children's musicals The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (2006), A (Tooth) Fairy Tale (2009), Uncle Pirate (2010), and the Neil Sedaka juke-box musical, Breaking Up Is Hard to Do (2005). (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/19/2016. Retrieved 2/19/2016.)
Book Reviews
Ben H. Winters’s chilling new thriller....tackles the thorny subject of racial injustice in America. It takes place in a contemporary United States where the Civil War never happened, and slavery remains legal in four states, and it’s narrated by a former slave who has paid a steep moral price for his freedom.... Attica Locke, a mystery novelist and a writer for the television show Empire, said she was taken aback at first when she picked up the book.... "For me, as a black writer, I have to be like, ‘What’s Ben trying to do here?" Then she got sucked into the story and was "blown away," she said.
Alexandra Alter - New York Times
[A] terrifying conceit at its heart...[t]he book is set in a country that largely resembles the contemporary United States.... A little past its halfway point this novel takes a surprising, but wholly necessary turn, directing Victor and the reader straight into the darkness that persists in [the remaining] four slaveholding states.... [Yet the] he novel succeeds so well in part because its fiction is disturbingly close to our present reality.... Winters has written a book that will make you see the world in a new light.
Jon Michaud - Washington Post
Underground Airlines will start a lot of conversations. A lot.... Most readers will happily overlook [some of] the cookie-cutter details as they'll be caught up in the alternate nation the author has created, one in which...some states have old-fashioned towns that keep Jim Crow statutes. If the denouement comes too late for us to care, well, we've learned along the way that this alternate nation...is ugly and evil.
Bethanne Patrick - NPR.org
(Starred review.) Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man meets Blade Runner in this outstanding alternate history thriller..... The novel’s closing section contains several breathtaking reversals, a genuinely disturbing revelation, and an exhilarating final course of action for Victor.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) In this alternative history, President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated en route to his inauguration. His death leads legislators to come together with one last proposal to keep the Union intact.... Explosive, well plotted, and impossible to put down.
Library Journal
For the most part, Winters neatly blends dystopian fiction with old-fashioned procedural.... If it lacks all the dramatic punch it might have had... [it's] smart and well paced. The story could use a little fine-tuning, but it moves deftly from a terrific premise and builds to a satisfying conclusion.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if and when they're available; in the meantime use these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Underground Airlines...then take off on your own:
1. Why does Victor refer to himself as having no name...
As being not really a person at all. A man was missing, that's all, missing and hiding, and I was not a person but a manifestation of will. I was a mechanism — a device. That's all I was.
2. (Follow-up to Question #1) Victor is a complex character with layers of emotion and history. Talk about Victor and his conflicted nature regarding his past and his present self.
3. This book falls under the genre of "alternate history." Describe the America as presented in Underground Airlines. What is it like, particularly the Four Hard" states?
4. The novel presents the idea that societal change is difficult if not impossible. According to Victor, "shit does not change." Absent a bloody, hard-fought civil war would it have been possible to transform our society? Consider that many in this alternate reality oppose the Hard Four's continuation of slavery. Consider, too, that slavery still exists in the Hard Four.
5.Talk about Victor's own change by the novel's end. Does he achieve redemption?
6. Should a white man have even attempted to write this book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385542364
Summary
Winner, 2017 Pulitzer Prize-Fiction
Winner, 2016 National Book Awards
A magnificent tour de force chronicling a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South.
Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood—where even greater pain awaits.
When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape.
Matters do not go as planned—Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor—engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven.
But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
Like the protagonist of Gulliver’s Travels, Cora encounters different worlds at each stage of her journey—hers is an odyssey through time as well as space. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day.
The Underground Railroad is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.(From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 6, 1969
• Where—New York City, New York (USA)
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Awards—PEN/Oakland Award; Whiting Writers Award
• Currently—ives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Colson Whitehead is a New York-based novelist and nonfiction works. He was born and raised in New York City, attending attending Trinity, a private prep school, in Manhattan. He graduated from Harvard College in 1991.
Books
After leaving college, Whitehead wrote for The Village Voice and while there began working on his novels. His first, The Institutionalist, published in 1999, concerned intrigue in the Department of Elevator Inspectors, and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway and a winner of the Quality Paperback Book Club's New Voices Award.
Next came John Henry Days in 2001. The novel is an investigation of the steel-driving man of American folklore. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award, and the Pulitzer Prize. The novel received the Young Lions Fiction Award and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.
The Colossus of New York followed in 2003. A book of essays about the city, it is a meditation on life in Manhattan in the style of E.B. White's well-known essay "Here Is New York." Colossus became a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Apex Hides the Hurt, released in 2006, centers around a fictional "nomenclature consultant" who gets an assignment to name a town. The book earned Whitehead the PEN/Oakland Award.
Sag Harbor, set in 1985, follows a group of teenagers whose families (like Whitehead's own) spend the summer in Sag Harbor, Long Island. Published in 2009, the novel was a finalist for both the PEN/Faulkner award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. In 2010 came Zone One, a post-apocalyptic story set New York City.
In 2014 Whitehead published his second work of nonfiction, this one about the 2011 World Series of Poker—The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky & Death. Two years later, in 2016, his novel The Underground Railroad, was released. Widely acclaimed, many critics agree that it is destined to become an American masterpiece.
In addition to his books, Whitehead's reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, Harper's and Granta, and others.
Teaching and writing
He has taught at Princeton University, New York University, the University of Houston, Columbia University, Brooklyn College, Hunter College, Wesleyan University, and been a Writer-in-Residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond, and the University of Wyoming.
In the spring of 2015, he joined The New York Times Magazine to write a column on language.
Honors
He has received a MacArthur Fellowship, A Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Dos Passos Prize, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. (Adapted from the author's website and Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/6/2016.)
Book Reviews
[A] potent, almost hallucinatory novel.... It possesses the chilling matter-of-fact power of the slave narratives collected by the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s, with echoes of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and brush strokes borrowed from Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka and Jonathan Swift…. He has told a story essential to our understanding of the American past and the American present.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
[T]ouches on the historical novel and the slave story, but what it does with those genres is striking and imaginative…carefully built and stunningly daring; it is also, both in expected and unexpected ways, dense, substantial and important…. [Whitehead] opens his eyes where the rest of us would rather look away. In this, The Underground Railroad is courageous but never gratuitous.... The Underground Railroad becomes something much more interesting than a historical novel. It doesn't merely tell us about what happened; it also tells us what might have happened. Whitehead's imagination, unconstrained by stubborn facts, takes the novel to new places in the narrative of slavery, or rather to places where it actually has something new to say. If the role of the novel, as Milan Kundera argues in a beautiful essay, is to say what only the novel can say, The Underground Railroad achieves the task by small shifts in perspective: It moves a couple of feet to one side, and suddenly there are strange skyscrapers on the ground of the American South and a railroad running under it, and the novel is taking us somewhere we have never been before.…The Underground Railroad is Whitehead's…attempt at getting things right, not by telling us what we already know but by vindicating the powers of fiction to interpret the world. In its exploration of the foundational sins of America, it is a brave and necessary book.
Juan Gabriel Vasquez - New York Times Book Review
Far and away the most anticipated literary novel of the year, The Underground Railroad marks a new triumph for Whitehead…. [A] book that resonates with deep emotional timbre. The Underground Railroad reanimates the slave narrative, disrupts our settled sense of the past and stretches the ligaments of history right into our own era.... The canon of essential novels about America's peculiar institution just grew by one.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
With this novel, Colson Whitehead proves that he belongs on any short list of America's greatest authors—his talent and range are beyond impressive and impossible to ignore. The Underground Railroad is an American masterpiece, as much a searing document of a cruel history as a uniquely brilliant work of fiction.
Michael Schaub - NPR
[T]hink Toni Morrison (Beloved), Alex Haley (Roots); think 12 Years a Slave…[A]n electrifying novel…a great adventure tale, teeming with memorable characters…. Tense, graphic, uplifting and informed, this is a story to share and remember (Book of the Week).
People
(Starred review.) "Each thing had a value... In America the quirk was that people were things." So observes Ajarry, taken from Africa as a girl in the mid-18th century to be sold and resold and sold again.... The story is literature at its finest and history at its most barbaric. Would that this novel were required reading for every American citizen.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Whitehead...puts escaped slaves Cora and Caesar on what is literally an underground railroad, using such brief magical realist touches to enhance our understanding of the African American experience.... [He] continues ratcheting up both imagery and tension.... [A] work that raises the bar for fiction addressing slavery. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Imagine a runaway slave novel written with Joseph Heller's deadpan voice leasing both Frederick Douglass' grim realities and H.P. Lovecraft's rococo fantasies…and that's when you begin to understand how startlingly original this book is.... [Whitehead] is now assuredly a writer of the first rank.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does the depiction of slavery in The Underground Railroad compare to other depictions in literature and film?
2. The scenes on Randall’s plantation are horrific—how did the writing affect you as a reader?
3. In North Carolina, institutions like doctor’s offices and museums that were supposed to help "black uplift" were corrupt and unethical. How do Cora’s challenges in North Carolina mirror what America is still struggling with today?
4. Cora constructs elaborate daydreams about her life as a free woman and dedicates herself to reading and expanding her education. What role do you think stories play for Cora and other travelers using the underground railroad?
5. "The treasure, of course, was the underground railroad…. Some might call freedom the dearest currency of all." How does this quote shape the story for you?
6. How does Ethel’s backstory, her relationship with slavery, and Cora’s use of her home affect you?
7. What are your impressions of John Valentine’s vision for the farm?
8. When speaking of Valentine’s Farm, Cora explains "Even if the adults were free of the shackles that held them fast, bondage had stolen too much time. Only the children could take full advantage of their dreaming. If the white men let them." What makes this so impactful both in the novel and today?
9. What do you think about Terrance Randall’s fate?
10. How do you feel about Cora’s mother’s decision to run away? How does your opinion of Cora’s mother change once you’ve learned about her fate?
11. Whitehead creates emotional instability for the reader: if things are going well, you get comfortable before a sudden tragedy. What does this sense of fear do to you as you’re reading?
12. Who do you connect with most in the novel and why?
13. How does the state-by-state structure impact your reading process? Does it remind you of any other works of literature?
14. The book emphasizes how slaves were treated as property and reduced to objects. Do you feel that you now have a better understanding of what slavery was like?
15. Why do you think the author chose to portray a literal railroad? How did this aspect of magical realism impact your concept of how the real underground railroad worked?
16. Does The Underground Railroad change the way you look at the history of America, especially in the time of slavery and abolitionism?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Unfinished Desires
Gail Godwin, 2010
Random House
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345483218
Summary
From Gail Godwin, three-time National Book Award finalist and acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Evensong and The Finishing School, comes a sweeping new novel of friendship, loyalty, rivalries, redemption, and memory.
It is the fall of 1951 at Mount St. Gabriel’s, an all-girls school tucked away in the mountains of North Carolina. Tildy Stratton, the undisputed queen bee of her class, befriends Chloe Starnes, a new student recently orphaned by the untimely and mysterious death of her mother. Their friendship fills a void for both girls but also sets in motion a chain of events that will profoundly affect the course of many lives, including the girls’ young teacher and the school’s matriarch, Mother Suzanne Ravenel.
Fifty years on, the headmistress relives one pivotal night, trying to reconcile past and present, reaching back even further to her own senior year at the school, where the roots of a tragedy are buried.
In Unfinished Desires, a beloved author delivers a gorgeous new novel in which thwarted desires are passed on for generations—and captures the rare moment when a soul breaks free. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 18, 1937
• Where—Birmingham, Alabama, USA
• Raised—Ashville, North Carolina
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;
M.A. and Ph.D., University of Iowa, Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in Woodstock, New York
Gail Kathleen Godwin, an American novelist and short story writer, has published one non-fiction work, two collections of short stories, and eleven novels, three of which have been nominated for the National Book Award and five of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List.
Personal life
Godwin was born in Birmingham, Alabama but raised in Asheville, North Carolina by her divorced mother and grandmother. She attended Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina (a women's college founded by Presbyterians in 1857) from 1955 to 1957, but graduated with a B.A. in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1959. She worked briefly as a reporter for the Miami Herald and married a Herald photographer named Douglas Kennedy. After the job and the marriage finished (by firing and by divorce, respectively), she worked as waitress back home in North Carolina to save money to travel to Europe. In the early 1960s, Godwin worked for the U.S. Travel Service at the U.S. Embassy in London and wrote novels and short stories in her spare time. She returned to the United States and worked briefly as an editorial assistant at the Saturday Evening Post before attending the University of Iowa, earning her M.A. (1968) from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and PhD (1971) in English Literature.
Godwin's body of work has garnered many honors, including three National Book Award nominations, a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Five of her novels have been on the New York Times best seller list.
Godwin lives and writes in Woodstock, New York. Her family includes her half-brother Rebel A. Cole and half-sister Franchelle Millender.
Writings
Godwin’s eighteen books have established her as a leading voice in American literature along several currents. Her first few novels, published in the early 1970s, explored the worlds of women negotiating restrictive roles. The Odd Woman (1974) was a National Book Award finalist, as was her fourth novel, Violet Clay (1978), in which she modernized the Gothic novel and explored such themes as villainy and suicide.
A Mother and Two Daughters (1982) marked a turning point in Godwin’s career. It encompassed a community, Mountain City, based on her hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, and carried out her empathetic method of entering many characters’ minds within a fluid narrative. Voted a National Book Award finalist, it also became Godwin’s first best-seller. Between it and her next four best-sellers, Godwin interposed Mr. Bedford and the Muses (1983), her second short story collection after Dream Children (1976).
Dream Children had been Godwin’s offering, with some additions, of work she’d created at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, studying with advisors Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Coover. It exhibits her early interest in allegory made real on a psychological level. The Iowa years come alive in her edited journals, The Making of a Writer, Journals, 1963-1969 (2010). A previous volume, The Making of a Writer, Journals, 1961-1963 (2006), presents her years in Europe after a do-or-die decision to become a writer. The novella, “Mr. Bedford,” which leads her second story collection, derives from her time in London. Narrated in the first person, it achieves the author’s quest for timelessness through a look into a living room window.
“Last night I dreamed of Ursula DeVane,” begins Godwin’s sixth novel, The Finishing School (1984), again employing a first person reverie, and turning it toward one of Godwin’s fertile interests, the effect of a powerful personality on a developing one. The suspense that tragically ensues relates to her next novel, A Southern Family, which returns to Mountain City, but is darker than A Mother and Two Daughters, as it involves a murder-suicide that sends shock waves and melancholy through a family. All of Godwin’s second three novels were published additionally as mass market paperbacks.
Father Melancholy’s Daughter (1991), also a best-seller, represented Godwin’s independence from the best-seller niche being marketed for her. The daughter of the title navigates her relationships with her father, an Episcopal minister; and with a classic Godwin character, a bewitching theatrical auteur. Theology, and its non-doctrinal meaning in spiritual life, became one of the areas in which Godwin began to act as a leading explorer. The subject is embraced in Evensong, her 1999 sequel to Father Melancholy’s Daughter; and in her 2010 novel, Unfinished Desires. It also informs her non-fiction book, Heart: A Natural History of the Heart-Filled Life (2001), illustrated by stories from her life and from her constant reading.
Godwin ninth novel, The Good Husband (1994), makes use of a form she’d emulated as a 24-year-old in Europe, Lawrence Durrell’s quartet (as in The Alexandria Quartet), by which a story is told through four related characters. Godwin’s new direction—not just in form, but also in choice of characters—did not reach the best-seller list. Evensong, her tenth novel, did; and then she engaged in another literary experiment, "Evenings at Five" (2003), a novella that explores, through a distinctive kind of stream-of-consciousness, the presence that follows the death of a long-term companion. It is based on her relationship with composer Robert Starer, with whom she collaborated on nine libretti. Regarding Evenings at Five, Godwin said she wanted “to write a different kind of ghost story.” The trade paperback edition of the book, with Godwin’s autobiographical “Christina Stories” added, became one of eight works of her fiction published as Ballantine Readers Circle trade paperbacks, with interviews and reader’s guides.
For her twelfth novel, Queen of the Underworld, Godwin fashioned a Bildungsroman, derived from her years as a Miami Herald reporter, 1959-60. Her experience included close familiarity with the Cuban emigre community, with whom, at times, she conversed in Spanish.
Unfinished Desires (2010) exemplified her empathetic method by inhabiting the minds and enunciating the voices of more than a dozen full characters. Set at a girls’ school run by nuns, it makes the connection between religious devotion and artistic seriousness. The novel openly reveals girls in adolescence, as well as their elders, who bequeath them their deep-set issues. Suspense comes from multi-punch power plays, as well as from characters’ struggles to be good. The novel’s original title, "The Red Nun," refers to the statue of a tragic novitiate, whose story becomes the subject of a school play, which in turns becomes an arena for acting out. The play’s the thing, dramatically, metaphorically, and psychologically. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Gail Godwin’s reserved yet powerful new novel, Unfinished Desires, is set in a Roman Catholic boarding school in the mountains of North Carolina.... Godwin has created several deeply affecting characters.... The novel’s...theme, played out in almost every major character, is the admonition raised on the first page: “What did you love most? And what have you left undone?” Much has been left undone, and by the end of this tale even more has come undone.
Dominique Browning - New York Times
The novel's structure is odd and original, with multiple time frames and perspectives, and a large cast of characters—difficult to sort out at first. Soon enough, though, clear patterns emerge.... The world of Mount St. Gabriel's is small, but the novel feels sprawling, and, if these women's power struggles are often petty, they are also delicious. Appalling characters are rendered sympathetic as we learn their secrets; good characters are allowed a decency that's surprisingly bracing. Though a where-are-they-now wrap-up section at the end is too long and too summarized, Unfinished Desires is usually brisk and involving.
Valier Sayers - Washington Post
A large, roomy story of love, loss, fidelity, secrets, rivalry and faith in the lives of a charming, flawed troupe of characters.... Provocative and rewarding.
Boston Globe
Tender but clear-eyed...Godwin’s South has always been a place where charm and good manners can barely conceal the emotional drama pulsing beneath the surface.... Recalls the fraught family bonds of Godwin’s best novels.
San Francisco Chronicle
Bestselling author Godwin (Evensong; The Finishing School) brings readers back in time to the early 1950s in this endearing story of Catholic school girls and the nuns who oversee them. As Mother Suzanne Ravenel begins a memoir of her 60-plus years at Mount St. Gabriel's School in Mountain City, N.C., she's forced to re-examine the “toxic year” of 1951–1952, one of her worst at the school—beginning with the arrival of ninth-grade student Chloe Starnes, who's recently lost her mother, and Mother Malloy, a beautiful young nun assigned to the freshman class. Starnes and Malloy's arrivals presage a shift in the ranks of freshman Tildy Stratton's cruel clique, with significant consequences for all involved. Change, when it finally comes, stems from the girls' attempt to revive a play written years before by Ravenel. Godwin captures brilliantly the subtleties of friendships between teenage girls, their ambivalence toward religion and their momentous struggle to define people—especially themselves. Poignant and transporting, this faux memoir makes a convincing, satisfying novel.
Publishers Weekly
She Godwin's latest novel (after Queen of the Underworld) is a convoluted tale of intrigue at a girls' boarding school that spans generations. Mount St. Gabriel, an exclusive academy in the North Carolina mountains, was founded by two nuns at the beginning of the 20th century. The school's sheltered atmosphere promoted rigorous academic and religious education but allowed adolescent jealousies to fester unchecked. The story's major characters attended the school in the early 1950s, when the school's headmistress was the manipulative Mother Ravenel, herself an alumna from the 1920s, as were some of the students' mothers. The story hopscotches in time from the school's founding to the near present, when the elderly Mother Ravenel dictates her memoir and aging classmates reunite to reminisce. It's a chore to keep the many generations of characters straight, especially when so many are superficially drawn. The promise of uncovering Mother Ravenel's involvement in a past incident of seeming import to one of the families lures the reader on, but the denouement, though tragic, reveals little motivation beyond schoolgirl pettiness. —Reba Leiding, James Madison Univ. Libs., Harrisonburg, VA
Library Journal
After a couple of subpar efforts, Godwin (Queen of the Underworld, 2006, etc.) is back in top form with a gripping tale of jealousies and power struggles at a Catholic girls' school. In the year 2001, elderly Mother Suzanne Ravenel tape-records her memories of her 50 years at Mount Saint Gabriel's in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. Her worst memories are of the dreadful school year 1951-52, when a turbulent ninth grader provoked an outburst that resulted in the headmistress being sent on a leave of absence. Mother Ravenel's own student years at Mount Saint Gabriel's in the 1930s also figure in the story, as does her fraught friendship with Antonia Tilden. This being the South, the separate generations are connected by blood and grievances. Antonia's orphaned niece Chloe is in that 1951-52 ninth-grade class, and she becomes best friends with manipulative, needy Tildy Stratton, daughter of Antonia's embittered twin Cordelia, who's convinced that Suzanne Ravenel's pushiness led to Antonia abandoning her true vocation as a nun. Cordelia's animosity and malice drive the plot, as Tildy takes up her mother's vendetta against the admittedly bossy, self-righteous Mother Ravenel. Chloe's kind Uncle Henry is the only male character of any significance; the emphasis is on female friendships, especially the adolescent variety, with its gusts of hormonal emotions and intricate maneuvers for position. Bad mothers get a good deal of attention as well (there are quite a few of them), and Godwin elicits our understanding for all her characters without letting them off the hook for bad behavior. She skillfully unfolds fascinatingly tangled motives as she keeps the action bustling along. Moving final scenes show an old nun realizing that mixed motives matter less than a lifetime of service, and two old friends reconnecting after 55 years, matured and seasoned by what they've endured, but not so very different from what they were at 14. A strong story populated by a host of memorable characters-smart, satisfying fiction, one of the author's best in years.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In Mother Ravenel’s 2001 reflections on Mount St. Gabriel’s, how does she foreshadow the events that transpire in the “toxic year” of 1951? By the end of Unfinished Desires, do you think she’s reconciled herself to this “year better forgotten”? Does she “prevail”? Does she leave anything “undone”?
2. Who is the Red Nun? How does the myth and tragedy of her origin shape, sustain, and “protect” the Mount St. Gabriel’s community?
3. What is “holy daring” as Mother Elizabeth Wallingford, foundress of Mount St. Gabriel’s, conceived it? Discuss how Mother Ravenel interprets and relates “holy daring” and “a woman’s freedom in God.”
4. How and why does Mother Malloy, at Madeline’s urging, encourage Tildy to keep her “intrepid little soul”? Does her diligent tutoring change Tildy?
5. Why does Mother Ravenel place Tildy in charge of the freshman class revival of the Red Nun play? Does she ultimately regret this decision?
6. What is Agnes’s “mortal mistake”? Do you think she anticipated her own untimely death? Why or why not? Is Chloe really “haunted” by her mother?
7. Tildy understands that “best friends have been known to do hurtful things to each other.” Does this explain why Suzanne Ravenel decides to enter as a postulant without her best friend, Antonia? If not, why did she “jump the gun on [her] vocation”?
8. Do you agree with Tildy that “some girls are just always background” and“some girls just stand out”? How does Chloe counter Tildy’s argument? Why doesn’t Chloe unveil her “masterpiece” to the class?
9. Discuss the impact of Cornelia Stratton’s “dry ice” comments on those she loves. How does her “caustic tongue” influence her daughters? Her sister, Antonia? Mother Ravenel?
10. Consider Tildy and Maud’s friendship from its beginning and from each girl’s perspective. How does their friendship evolve? Is it, like each of them, a “work in progress”? How do their perceptions of each other change? How would you define their relationship at the end of the novel?
11. Reading David Copperfield for Mother Malloy’s class, Maud is introduced to the idea that “someone else’s story, if told a certain way, could make you ache as though it were your own.” Do you identify strongly with one particular character’s story in Unfinished Desires? Which one(s)?
12. Discuss the importance and power of secrets in Unfinished Desires. How do they serve to either unite or isolate those who tell them and those whom they are about? (Questions issued by publisher.)
The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty
Amanda Filipacchi, 2015
W.W. Norton & Co.
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 978039335230#
Summary
In the heart of New York City, a group of artistic friends struggles with society's standards of beauty.
At the center are Barb and Lily, two women at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, but with the same problem: each fears she will never find a love that can overcome her looks.
Barb, a stunningly beautiful costume designer, makes herself ugly in hopes of finding true love.
Meanwhile, her friend Lily, a brilliantly talented but plain-looking musician, goes to fantastic lengths to attract the man who has rejected her—with results that are as touching as they are transformative.
To complicate matters, Barb and Lily discover that they may have a murderer in their midst, that Barb’s calm disposition is more dangerously provocative than her beauty ever was, and that Lily's musical talents are more powerful than anyone could have imagined.
Part literary whodunit, part surrealist farce, The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty is a smart, modern-day fairy tale. With biting wit and offbeat charm, Amanda Filipacchi illuminates the labyrinthine relationship between beauty, desire, and identity, asking at every turn: what does it truly mean to allow oneself to be seen? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 10, 1967
• Where—Paris, France
• Education—B.A., Hamilton College; M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Amanda Filipacchi (fila-paki) is an American novelist. She was born in Paris and educated in both France and the U.S. She is the author of four novels, Nude Men (1993), Vapor (1999), Love Creeps (2005), and The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty (2015). Her fiction has been translated into 13 languages.
Filipacchi was born in Paris, and was educated in France (attending the American School of Paris in St. Cloud) and in the U.S. She is the daughter of former model Sondra Peterson and Daniel Filipacchi, chairman emeritus of Hachette Filipacchi Medias.
Filipacchi has been writing since the age of thirteen, completing three unpublished novels in her teenage years. She has lived in New York since she was 17. She attended Hamilton College, from which she graduated with a B.A. in Creative Writing. At age 20 she tried her hand at non-fiction writing at Rolling Stone magazine. Then in 1990 Filipacchi enrolled in Columbia University's M.F.A fiction writing program, where she wrote a master's thesis, which she later turned into her first published novel, Nude Men.
In 1992, even before graduating from Columbia, her agent, Melanie Jackson, sold Nude Men to Viking Press. Filipacchi was only 24. The novel was translated widely and was anthologized in The Best American Humor 1994 (Simon & Schuster).
Reviewers have called Filipacchi "a prodigious postfeminist talent" and a "lovely comic surrealist." The Boston Globe described her writing style as "reminiscent in certain ways of Muriel Spark ... brisk, witty, knowing, mischievous." Love Creeps, her third book, was included in the syllabus for a course on the comic novel in Columbia University's graduate creative writing program.
In the lead-up to the release of The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty, Bustle listed the novel as one the "12 of the Most Anticipated Books of 2015, aka the Titles We Can't Get Our Hands On Soon Enough." Huffington Post listed it as one of its "2015 Books We Can't Wait To Read." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/5/2016.)
Book Reviews
Funny, surreal, absurd and charmingly preposterous.
Sarah Lyall - New York Times Book Review
The funniest novelist you’ve never heard of.... Few comic novelists get characters talking so naturally, and amusingly.
John Freeman - Boston Globe
Readers who’d like to spend a little time at the corner where a brisker Haruki Murakami meets a drier ‘30 Rock’ would do well to seek out Filipacchi’s radiantly intelligent and very funny novel.
Ellis Avery - San Francisco Chronicle
Filipacchi's lively story reflects on the unearned power that beauty confers on its recipients...breezy with a bite.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR
Magic spills from the pores of Filipacchi’s story.... The resulting romp is a witty and honest rendering of the unknowable distance between perception and reality, exploring the possibility that beauty is literally in the eyes of the beholder.
Alexandra Coakley - Slate
A surreal and utterly compelling triumph.
Buzzfeed
[A] zanily satirical, spot-on novel.
Leigh Haber - Oprah Magazine
Takes a fairy tale, flips it on its head, and adds an element of murder . . . will both make you laugh and keep you on the edge of your seat.
Lynsey Eidell - Glamour
Filipacchi’s fourth novel blithely upends the social constructs of beauty, desire, and art in her signature brisk, darkly comic style.... Filipacchi succeeds by loading this frothy plot with sharp surreal turns and layers of subversive meaning.... [W]hile looks can kill, they’re no match for Filipacchi’s rapier wit.
Publishers Weekly
Filipacchi's absurdist fourth novel requires a reader who is willing to suspend disbelief, so let's accept the ridiculous premise and dive in.... While some of Filipacchi's gags stray into eye-rolling territory and her message about the role of beauty in our culture manages to be both heavy-handed and superficial, the novel has its moments. —Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. Lib., MD
Library Journal
(Starred review.) An astute, piercing look at the value society and individuals place on appearance… impossible to put down and utterly dead-on in its assessment of human nature.
Booklist
[A] little over-the-top.... Still, there's something weirdly compelling about the whole excessive parade, and most people will keep reading just to find out how all the elaborate manipulations turn out.... [A]n unsettling portrait of the way extreme physical beauty or ugliness distort people's impressions.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty, both Barb and Lily don disguises, of opposite kinds, to hide what they really look like and thereby attract the man of their dreams. Can we consider Barb and Lily as foils for one another in the novel? Are their troubles finally the same or different?
2. Barb, Georgia, and Lily are all artists. What kind of distinction does the novel make between physical beauty and artistic beauty? Which is more powerful? More important? Can one get in the way of the other? Can one serve the other? How?
3. Would you consider The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty to be a comedy of manners? A murder mystery? A modern fairy tale? Or all of the above? Why?
4. The novel presents us with two different forms of love: love between friends and romantic love. Which is more powerful? More important? What is the relationship between love and beauty in the novel?
5. Which scene in the novel did you find funniest? Why?
6. Would you argue that the love between Strad and Lily is real, even though it is based on a lie? Why or why not?
7. Do you trust that Peter would have fallen in love with Barb even if he had not known what she really looked like? Why or why not? Does it matter?
8. Penelope earns her living by convincing customers that they have broken her ugly clay pots. Of this line of work, Barb says she "wouldn’t be surprised if the art of deception became the true art of the piece." Do you agree with Barb that Penelope is a kind of artist in her own right? Why or why not? How does her form of beauty, and art-making, play into the themes established by Barb’s and Lily’s?
9. How does the background information that we get about Barb’s parents help us understand her relationship to her own beauty? Is it really Gabriel’s suicide that causes her to don her disguise, do you think, or had her mother’s story been troubling her as well?
10. How "happy" did you find the ending? How did it resolve Lily’s and Barb’s more existential problems with the nature of physical beauty and of romantic love?
11. How important has physical beauty been in the trajectory of your own life? Do you ever wish you could try on another face? What difference do you think it would make?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Unhoneymooners
Christina Lauren, 2019
Simon & Schuster
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501128035
Summary
For two sworn enemies, anything can happen during the Hawaiian trip of a lifetime—maybe even love—in this romantic comedy from the New York Times bestselling author of Roomies.
Olive Torres is used to being the unlucky twin: from inexplicable mishaps to a recent layoff, her life seems to be almost comically jinxed.
By contrast, her sister Ami is an eternal champion … she even managed to finance her entire wedding by winning a slew of contests.
Unfortunately for Olive, the only thing worse than constant bad luck is having to spend the wedding day with the best man (and her nemesis), Ethan Thomas.
Olive braces herself for wedding hell, determined to put on a brave face, but when the entire wedding party gets food poisoning, the only people who aren’t affected are Olive and Ethan. Suddenly there’s a free honeymoon up for grabs, and Olive will be damned if Ethan gets to enjoy paradise solo.
Agreeing to a temporary truce, the pair head for Maui. After all, ten days of bliss is worth having to assume the role of loving newlyweds, right? But the weird thing is … Olive doesn’t mind playing pretend. In fact, the more she pretends to be the luckiest woman alive, the more it feels like she might be.
With Christina Lauren’s "uniquely hilarious and touching voice" (Entertainment Weekly), The Unhoneymooners is a romance for anyone who has ever felt unlucky in love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Christina Lauren is the pen name of two long-time writing partners and best friends, Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings. (You see what they've done there.) The two met in 2009, writing fanfiction online, eventually joining forces to coauthor 15 best selling adult and young adult fiction.
Their books have received high praise, winning many starred reviews. In addition, the duo has been featured in publications such as Forbes, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Time, Entertainment Weekly, People, O Magazine and more.
Lauren has a Ph.D. in neuroscience and worked in research before turning to full-time writing. A mother and wife, Lauren lives in Orange County, California. Christina was a junior high school counselor until, like Lauren, she became a full-time writer and mother and wife. Christina lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. (Adapted from the authors' website.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) [D]azzling… a hilarious comedy of coincidences.… Lauren brilliantly wields familiar rom-com tropes—enemies to lovers, fake marriage, even height differences—to craft a delightful romance that will have readers hanging on every word.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Sassy and appealing, writing duo Lauren’s ( My Latest Half-Night Stand) latest endeavor is sure to please. A perfect read for beach or poolside, this is one hot summer story not to miss!
Library Journal
Lauren (Love and Other Words, 2018) has penned a hilariously zany and heartfelt novel... the story is sure to please readers looking for a fun-filled novel to escape everyday life with.
Booklist
(Starred review) Blending witty banter with healthy adult communication, the fake newlyweds have real chemistry…. [T]ruth… [is] they're crazy about each other. Heartfelt and funny, this enemies-to-lovers romance shows that the best things in life are… free.
Kirkus Reviews
Lighthearted, laugh-out-loud funny and all too accessible…, The Unhoneymooners is delightful. Olive's initial dislike of Ethan, tempered by her slow realization of his good qualities, makes for a charming and enjoyable romance.
Shelf Awareness
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)