After Her
Joyce Maynard, 2013
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062257390
Summary
I was always looking for excitement, until I found some . . .
Summer, 1979. A dry, hot Northern California school vacation stretches before Rachel and her younger sister, Patty—the daughters of a larger-than-life, irresistibly handsome (and chronically unfaithful) detective father and the mother whose heart he broke.
When we first meet her, Patty is eleven—a gangly kid who loves basketball and dogs and would do anything for her older sister, Rachel. Rachel is obsessed with making up stories and believes she possesses the gift of knowing what's in the minds of people around her. She has visions, whether she wants to or not. Left to their own devices, the sisters spend their days studying record jackets, concocting elaborate fantasies about the mysterious neighbor who moved in down the street, and playing dangerous games on the mountain that looms behind their house.
When young women start turning up dead on the mountain, the girls' father is put in charge of finding the murderer known as the "Sunset Strangler." Watching her father's life slowly unravel as months pass and more women are killed, Rachel embarks on her most dangerous game yet . . . using herself as bait to catch the killer. But rather than cracking the case, the consequences of Rachel's actions will destroy her father's career and alter forever the lives of everyone she loves.
Thirty years later, still haunted by the belief that the killer remains at large, Rachel constructs a new strategy to smoke out the Sunset Strangler and vindicate her father—a plan that unexpectedly unearths a long-buried family secret.
Loosely inspired by the Trailside Killer case that terrorized Marin County, California, in the late 1970s, After Her is part thriller, part love story. Maynard has created a poignant, suspenseful, and painfully real family saga that traces a young girl's first explorations of sexuality, the loss of innocence, the bond shared by sisters, and the tender but damaged relationship between a girl and her father that endures even beyond the grave. (From the publisher.)
Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin star in the film adaptation to be released in January, 2014.
Author Bio
• Birth—November 5, 1953
• Raised—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
Veteran novelist Joyce Maynard has returned with a coming of age story woven into a serial killer investigation that is both evocative and captivating.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
[F]ar from a simple whodunit... [Maynard] deftly conveys that we are never truly safe, but that we can’t let fear stand in the way of our becoming who we want to be.
Real Simple
Maynard writes great characters and craft a story that will not let you go.
Bookreporter.com
[T]he story of a broken family rocked by a real-life Bay Area serial killer. Rachel Torricelli and her younger sister, Patty, idolized their father, a homicide detective.... [I]n the summer of 1979, when murders begin occurring....[t]he girls’ father is on the case...putting [Rachel] and her sister in harm’s way. Maynard captures the way that memory works in fragments....a testament to Maynard’s narrative dexterity. This cinematic coming-of-age murder mystery satisfyingly blends suspense with nostalgia.
Publishers Weekly
This title is loosely based on the Trailside Killer case that terrified Marin in the 1970s. Here the case is seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old, giving Maynard's thriller an interesting twist on what would otherwise be a simple reworking of a cold case of serial murder. Rachel is so focused on saving her father and her parents' failed marriage that everything else in the world around her is merely a blur. —Susan Clifford Braun, Bainbridge Island, WA
Library Journal
The plot of Maynard’s eighth novel, although based on the story of the real-life Trailside Killer, strains credulity at times; it is less a thriller than an affecting portrait of the relationship between a father and his daughters. —Joanne Wilkinson
Booklist
Cycling through big themes—love for a flawed father and a loyal sister; the pursuit of a serial killer; coming-of-age/receiving of family wisdom—Maynard's latest starts strong but fades....in a speedy, decades-later wrap-up that offers more tidiness than conviction. There's fluency and insight here but also a shortage of subtlety, with the book's underpinnings too visible through its skin.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book begins with Rachel and Patty pretending to be dead. What significance does this have for the rest of the story? What are some of the other instances of foreshadowing in the Prologue? Discuss the significance of the title "After Her."
2. One of the central elements of the novel is the bond between sisters Rachel and Patty. How have they come to rely so thoroughly upon each other? What significance lies in the fact that Patty must speak through Rachel? How does the relationship change as they get older?
3. Rachel loves making up stories and has an active imagination. On page 3 of the Prologue, she tells us,
This is how I remember it. I could be wrong. I had a big imagination when I was young. I was good at making up stories, and my stories were so good I even believed them myself sometimes.
Were there stories Rachel made up that she believed wholeheartedly even though they weren't true? Identify some of the ways that Rachel's imagination gets her into trouble and some of the ways in which it benefits her.
4. Rachel's parents divorce when she and Patty are young. Describe how that divorce affects their childhood and how it influences their respective relationships with their father and mother.
5. On page 95, Rachel and Patty are discussing Mr. Armitage and their "investigation" of him. Rachel says, "Some people have a secret dark side. They wouldn't call it a dark side if there wasn't a bright side too." Do you think this is an accurate observation of people in general? Was Rachel ultimately right about Mr. Armitage and his dark side?
6. Because her father is the head detective on the Sunset Strangler case, Rachel finds herself on the fast track to popularity. How does she handle this change in social status? How does it affect her relationship with Patty? Why do you think Rachel continues these relationships even though she concedes that Alison is likely just using her for information about the Sunset Strangler case and that Teddy is probably not a nice person?
7. Rachel's mother is depressed and spends very little time parenting her girls, often leaving them to their own devices. Discuss how this freedom influences their characters as they grow for better or worse.
8. Mount Tamalpais plays an important role in the story as Rachel's and Patty's playground and the site of several of the Sunset Strangler's murders. Discuss some of the symbolic and figurative roles that the mountain played.
9. "My Sharona" becomes the soundtrack of the summer of 1979, the Sunset Strangler case, and the novel as a whole. How does the author utilize the song and its lyrics, and what meaning do they take on for Rachel?
10. After receiving her father's notes on the Sunset Strangler, Rachel takes up the cause of catching the real Sunset Strangler. Why do you think she does this? Was it a good idea? Would you have done the same thing? Why or why not?
11. Patty's sudden death in Somalia comes as a tragic shock to both Rachel and the reader. How does Rachel cope with the loss of her best friend and sister? Is it similar to the manner in which she grieved for her father?
12. Rachel and Patty adored their father, Detective Anthony Torricelli. In what ways do you think Rachel's opinions of and experiences with her father affected her adult relationships with men?
13. What is Rachel's reaction when she discovers the existence of her half-sister, Gina? In your opinion, what spurs her resistance to Gina's friendly advances, and what changes after her final confrontation with the Sunset Strangler?
14. In the end, Rachel believes that children outgrow their imaginations. Do you think this is true? Do you believe we lose our ability to feel things as deeply as we do when we are young teenagers? Support your opinion using examples from the novel.
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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After I'm Gone
Laura Lippman, 2014
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062083395
Summary
When Felix Brewer meets Bernadette "Bambi" Gottschalk in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative—if not all legal—businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But in July 1976, Bambi's world implodes when Felix, facing prison, vanishes.
Though Bambi has no idea where her husband—or his money—might be, she suspects one woman does: his mistress, Julie. When Julie disappears ten years to the day after Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she's left to join her lover—until her remains are discovered in a secluded park.
Now, twenty-six years later, Roberto Sanchez, a retired Baltimore detective working cold cases for cash, is investigating her murder. What he discovers is a tangled web of bitterness, jealousy, resentment, greed, and longing stretching over five decades. At its center is the man who, though long gone, has never been forgotten: the enigmatic Felix Brewer. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 31, 1959
• Where—Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• Education—B.S., Northwestern University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Baltimore, Maryland
Lippman was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. She is the daughter of Theo Lippman Jr., a well known and respected writer at the Baltimore Sun, and Madeline Lippman, a retired school librarian for the Baltimore City Public School System. She attended high school in Columbia, Maryland, where she was the captain of the Wilde Lake High School It's Academic team. Lippman is a former reporter for the (now defunct) San Antonio Light and the Baltimore Sun. She is best known for writing a series of novels set in Baltimore and featuring Tess Monaghan, a reporter (like Lippman herself) turned private investigator. Lippman's works have won the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, Nero, Gumshoe and Shamus awards. Her 2007 release, What the Dead Know, was the first of her books to make the New York Times bestseller list, and was shortlisted for the Crime Writer's Association Dagger Award. In addition to the Tess Monaghan novels, Lippman wrote 2003's Every Secret Thing, which has been optioned for the movies by Academy Award–winning actor Frances McDormand.
Lippman lives in the South Baltimore neighborhood of Federal Hill and frequently writes in the neighborhood coffee shop Spoons. In addition to writing, she teaches at Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, just outside of Baltimore. In January, 2007, she taught at the 3rd Annual Writers in Paradise at Eckerd College.
Lippman is married to David Simon, another former Baltimore Sun reporter, and creator and an executive producer of the HBO series The Wire. The character Bunk is shown to be reading one of her books in episode eight of the first season of The Wire. She appeared in a scene of the first episode of the last season of The Wire as a reporter working in the Baltimore Sun newsroom.
Awards
2015 Anthony Award-Best Novel (After I'm Gone)
2008 Anthony Award-Best Novel (What the Dead Know)
2008 Anthony Award-Best Short Story ("Hardly Knew Her")
2008 Barry Award-Best Novel (What the Dead Know)
2008 Macavity Award-Best Mystery (What the Dead Know)
2007 Anthony Award-Best Novel (No Good Deeds)
2007 Quill Award-Mystery (What the Dead Know)
2006 Gumshow Award-Best Novel (To the Power of the Three)
2004 Barry Award-Best Novel (Every Secret Thing)
2001 Nero Award (Sugar House)
2000 Anthony Award-Best Paperback Original (In Big Trouble)
2000 Shamus Award-Best Paperback Original (In Big Trouble)
1999 Anthony Award-Best Paperback Original (Butchers Hill)
1998 Agatha Award-Best Novel (Butchers Hill)
1998 Edgar Award-Best Paperback Original (Charm City)
1998 Shamus Award-Best Paperback Original (Charm City)
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Although Ms. Lippman derived her story from the real-life disappearance of a Baltimore crook and also bases Sandy on a real homicide detective, this novel's murder case springs strictly from her own fecund imagination…Ms. Lippman is able to sustain a remarkable degree of detail about all these characters and still keep them sharply distinct and interesting.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Lippman is as skillful at plot as she is at characters and setting, and the twists in the novel’s final pages are both surprising and satisfying. [...] Like everything else Lippman has written, After I’m Gone transcends the limits of genre.
Washington Post
Equal parts love story, tragedy and murder mystery, Lippman’s latest thriller delivers twist and emotional depth with its tale of a philandering scheemer whose long-time mistress turns up dead years after he skipped town.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review.) On July 4, 1976, shady businessman Felix Brewer escapes the law by fleeing suburban Maryland, leaving behind his wife, Bambi; three daughters; and a mistress, Julie Saxony. So begins bestseller Lippman's finely wrought study of what it means to move forward without answers.
Publishers Weekly
[S]mart and mesmerizing...an involving and elegant novel of the psychological ravages of crime.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Coaxing the inevitable out of the improbable, Lippman is a bet you just can't lose.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. We begin the novel with Felix Brewer's point of view as he goes on the lam. Yet we don't return to Felix until the very last chapter, in which we see Felix through the eyes of his housekeeper, Consuelo. Why do you think the author chose to begin and end the story this way? Is this novel about Felix? Why or why not?
2. Young Bambi describes herself as a prize, and she certainly knows how to manage the game. What is it about Felix that draws her in so quickly and completely? Do you think his absence for much of their adult life influenced her feelings for him positively or negatively?
3. When Sandy reminisces about his first date with his departed wife, Mary, he recalls, "He was poised, as if on a tightrope, and things were either going to go very wrong or very right, no in-between." (p. 34) Do you think this kind of perspective is borne out by the events of the novel? Use examples to support your opinion.
4. On page 39, as he investigates the location where a dog-walking couple happened upon Julie Saxony's body, Sandy notes that everything seems too coincidental. He finds it odd that the location is so near Bambi's childhood home; that her disappearance occurred on the tenth anniversary of Felix's disappearance; and, finally, that her body "wasn't supposed to be found." He deduces that the killer wanted "people (not cops)" to think Julie had run off with Felix. In the end, for what "people" did the killer set up that assumption and why? What were the consequences of this choice?
5. One of the benefits of a novel with multiple point-of-view characters is that we get to see how each person's views of each other and of certain circumstances vary. Compare Felix's perspective of his relationships to Bambi and Julie in the first chapter to the reality these women express through their own perspectives. How else does the author use this technique to explore the complexity of the characters' relationships and of Julie's mysterious murder?
6. This novel revolves around two "father figure," older male characters: Felix, whose absence anchors the story, and Sandy, around whose investigation the story unfolds. Though he did it through criminal activity, Felix provided well for his family and valued his role as a father…until he left town. Sandy is a policeman, but looking back over his life he sees little more than a string of failures, especially regarding his son, Bobby, and his wife, Mary. Discuss these two characters and your opinions of them. What do you think the novel has to say about the total of our successes and shortcomings at the end of life?
7. Like any good mystery, the investigation of Julie Saxony's case is anything but straightforward. What clues did you pick up along the way, and which red herrings distracted you the most? On page 118, Sandy says, "Ruling stuff out was a kind of an answer." What does he rule out as he pursues Julie's killer?
8. Crow tells Sandy that his wife, a private investigator, "says money is the thing that drives people. Money and pride." (p. 142) Money—who has it, who doesn't—indeed plays a major role in this story. Identify some of the ways money influences the decisions made by characters in this novel. Was Julie's murder really about money in the end, as Sandy believes, or something else? How does pride factor into the events surrounding Julie's murder?
9. On page 145, Sandy admits with some surprise that "the things [he] thought he remembered best were the things he was getting wrong." But he also wonders if, as long as they were loving (particularly regarding Mary), it really mattered whether his memories were inaccurate. What do you think? How else do memories play a role in the mystery of After I'm Gone?
10. Sandy Sanchez, our detective, frequently expresses irritation that so many norteamericanos assume his nickname comes from his appearance. They are unaware, he explains with frustration, that fair hair and blue eyes—such as his own—are quite common in Cuba. Identify other characters in the novel who struggle with stereotypes. Who defies the stereotypes that others put on them? In what ways do some characters seem to support their stereotypes?
11. When Bambi almost offhandedly remarks that she's going to confess to Julie's murder, what did you think? Was it immediately apparent to you—as it was to the police—that she was lying? Why would she do this? What secrets did you unravel or fail to catch along the way to the big reveal?
12. After the truth is revealed, Bambi muses aloud to Bert, "It would be nice if at least one of us got what we wanted in this world. At least our kids seem to have. There's some comfort in that." (p. 312). What do you think—do any of the characters in After I'm Gone get what they want? At what cost?
13. In addition to the suspense of unraveling a murder mystery, this novel explores what happens to the Brewer women and Julie in the aftermath of Felix's disappearance. As we ride along on their journey, with glimpses into their most private thoughts and sometimes those of their closest friends, what did you come to think of these five women? Did your opinion of them, and their actions, change throughout the novel? If so, how? If not, why not?
14. Discuss the significance of the title, "After I'm Gone." In what ways does it refer to Felix? To what other characters and situations might it also apply?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
After the Crash
Michel Bussi, 2015
Hachette Books
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316309677
Summary
Psychological suspense at its finest—a consuming tale of one child, two families, and the dark secrets that define us all.
Just after midnight on December 23, 1980, a night flight bound for Paris plummets toward the Swiss Alps, crashing into a snowy mountainside. Within seconds flames engulf the plane, which is filled with holiday travelers. Of the 169 passengers, all but one perish.
The sole survivor is a three-month-old girl—thrown from the airliner before fire consumes the cabin.
But two infants were on board. Is "the Miracle Child of Mont Terri" Lyse-Rose or Emilie?
The families of both girls step forward to claim the child. Dogged by bad luck, the Vitrals live a simple life, selling snacks from a van on the beaches of northern France. In contrast, the de Carvilles, who amassed a fortune in the oil business, are powerful-and dangerous.
Eighteen years later, a private detective tasked with solving the mystery of the girl known as "Lylie" is on the verge of giving up. As he contemplates taking his own life, Crédule Grand-Duc suddenly discovers a secret hidden in plain view. Will he live to tell it?
Meanwhile, Lylie, now a beautiful university student, entrusts a secret notebook into the hands of Marc, the brooding young man who loves her, and then vanishes. After Marc reads the notebook's contents, he embarks on a frantic search for Lylie.
But he is not the only one looking for her. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 29, 1965
• Where—Louviers, Eure, France
• Education—N/A
• Awards—more than 15 French national, regional and local prizes
• Currently—lives in Normandy, France
Michel Bussi is the celebrated French aiuthor of nearly 10 detective novels, a political commentator, and Professor of Geography at the University of Rouen. After the Crash (2015) is his first book to appear in English.
Career
Bussi began writing in the 1990s. He wrote his first novel, set around the Normandy landings, when he was a young geography lecturer at the University of Rouen, but it was rejected by several publishing houses. He then wrote short stories, but they too were rejected.
Ten years later, inspired by a trip to Rome at the peak of popularity of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and by a centenary edition of Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc, Bussi resumed work on his manuscript. In 2006 he finished his book, Code Lupin, and found an academic publisher. The first manuscript, however, was reworked nine times before publishing. It sold more than 7,000 copies, and in 2010 was serialized over thirty days by the Paris Normandie daily newspaper.
Bussi now publishes a book a year although they can take several years to become popular. Both Mourir sur Seine (2008) and Nympheas Noirs (2011), for example, achieved only modest success at first. But a combination of the paperback editions, serializations, and finally his major bestseller, Un avion Sans Elle, propelled him into the limelight.
Most of his novels are set in Normandy. His local topicality, together with his teaching and research in Normandy, won him the title of Parrain Officiel (official sponsor) during the 2014 Normandy Festival, a regional festival celebrated throughout Normandy and beyond.
According to the Le Figaro/GfK list of bestsellers, Bussi was one of the 10 bestselling French writers of 2013, selling close to half a million books. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/10/2015.)
Book Reviews
A novel so extraordinary that it reminded me of reading Stieg Larsson for the very first time...I doubt I'll read a more brilliant crime novel this year.
Sunday Times (UK)
You find yourself quite frantic to know the truth, before this cleverly constructed, smart mystery concludes by delivering a delicious sting in the tail.
Sunday Express (UK)
A richly satisfying story...a hugely enjoyable ride.
Irish Independent
[A]n insightful thriller. A three-month-old girl...is the sole survivor of a 1980 airline crash..., and the primitive DNA testing of the time can’t provide an [identity].... This fascinating tale of intrigue and murder delves into complicated family bonds as it builds to a surprising and shocking conclusion.
Publishers Weekly
When he's not working as a geography professor at the University of Rouen, Bussi is one of France's best-known crime writers. But he really hit the jackpot with this book, which was on the best sellers list in France for two years.
Library Journal
[A]n intriguing premise, but many things about his narrative will frustrate readers, including DNA test results that no one bothers to read, and when people do, they keep the results secret.... Lots of initial promise, but the plot proves improbable and the execution melodramatic.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they more one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you, the reader, begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers are skillful at hiding clues in plain sight. How well does the author hide the clues in this work?
4. Does the author use red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray?
5. Talk about plot's twists & turns—those surprising developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense? Are they plausible? Or do the twists & turns feel forced and preposterous—inserted only to extend the story.
6. Does the author ratchet up the story's suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? How does the author build suspense?
7. What about the ending—is it satisfying? Is it probable or believable? Does it grow out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 2). Or does the ending come out of the blue? Does it feel forced...tacked-on...or a cop-out? Or perhaps it's too predictable. Can you envision a better, or different, ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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After the War Is Over
Jennifer Robson, 2015
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062334633
Summary
A tale of class, love, and freedom—in which a young woman must fnd her place in a world forever changed.
After four years as a military nurse, Charlotte Brown is ready to leave behind the devastation of the Great War. The daughter of a vicar, she has always been determined to dedicate her life to helping others.
Moving to busy Liverpool, she throws herself into her work with those most in need, only tearing herself away for the lively dinners she enjoys with the women at her boardinghouse.
Just as Charlotte begins to settle into her new circumstances, two messages arrive that will change her life. One is from a radical young newspaper editor who offers her a chance to speak out for those who cannot. The other pulls her back to her past, and to a man she has tried, and failed, to forget.
Edward Neville-Ashford, her former employer and the brother of Charlotte's dearest friend, is now the new Earl of Cumberland—and a shadow of the man he once was. Yet under his battle wounds and haunted eyes Charlotte sees glimpses of the charming boy who long ago claimed her foolish heart. She wants to help him, but dare she risk her future for a man who can never be hers?
As Britain seethes with unrest and postwar euphoria fattens into bitter disappointment, Charlotte must confront long-held insecurities to fnd her true voice...and the courage to decide if the life she has created is the one she truly wants. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 5, 1970
• Where—Peterborough, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., University of Western Ontario; Ph.D., Oxford University
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Canada
Jennifer Robson is a Canadian writer and former journalist living in Toronto, Canada. She has written three books—Moonlight Over Paris (2016), After the War is Over (2015), and Somewhere in France (2013)—all novels that use as their starting point, or background setting, Europe's Great War.
Perhaps it was her father, noted historian Stuart Robson, who passed on his love of history to Jennifer, a "lifelong history geek," as she refers to herself. In fact, it was her father from whom she first learned of the Great War, (1914-1918, which Americans refer to as World War I). Later she served as an official guide at the Canadian National Memorial at Vimy Ridge, France, one of the war's major battle sites.
Jennifer studied French literature and modern history as an undergraduate at King’s College at the University of Western Ontario, then attended Saint Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, where she earned her doctorate in British economic and social history. While at Oxford, she was both a Commonwealth Scholar and a Doctoral Fellow of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Before turning to full-time writing, Jennifer spent time as an editor. She and her husband have three children, a sheepdog and cat, and live in Toronto. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[Robson] weaves historical detail into a tale of a former military nurse and the man she loves.... Charlotte is an admirable protagonist: a strong woman with compassion and a forthright nature, which is evenly matched with her desire to find love and happiness. [An] emotionally charged novel from the first page.
Publishers Weekly
Robson captures the atmosphere of post-WWI England beautifully, portraying the changing social and political climate, as well as the rebuilding of the country in the aftermath of the Great War. Calmly and compassionately rendered, realistic and romantic, After the War is Over is a wonderful testament to its survivors.
Romance Times Reviews
Discussion Questions
Although Charlotte is the Oxford-educated daughter of an upper-middle-class clergyman, she seems certain that there is a huge gulf in status between her and Edward. Do you feel that was truly the case? Or is this more a reflection of her own feelings of inadequacy?
Why do you think Charlotte is so devoted to her work? Do you admire her for her tenacity, or do you pity her for so obviously neglecting her personal happiness?
Do you agree with Charlotte’s decision to regard her friendship with John Ellis in a purely platonic fashion?
How do you think you would have coped with the difficulties of the post-war period? Would you have been able to set them aside, as does Norma, and concentrate on simply having fun? Or would you be more like Meg and Rosie, and find it impossible to forget?
What did you think of the inclusion of Eleanor Rathbone, a real-life historical figure, in the novel? Do you like it when writers blend history with fiction in this manner? Or do you prefer the characters in a novel to be entirely fictitious?
Were you surprised that it takes so long for Edward’s friends and family to realize that he needs help? Do you think this is typical of veterans who suffered from psychological trauma at that time?
Do you feel that the gains made by women during the war were entirely lost in the post-war period? Do you think the war helped to accelerate change in any measurable way?
If you could choose to be poor and happy in the Britain of 1919, or wealthy and unhappy, which would you choose? And why?
Do you feel that Edward will be able to maintain his sobriety? Or will his experiences during the war forever haunt him?
If you compare Charlotte’s actions during the war to Lilly’s, whose are most admirable? Which of the two women is most changed by her experiences?
(Questions from the author's website.)
The After Wife
Gigi Levangie Grazer, 2012
Random House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345524003
Summary
Gigi Levangie Grazer, the New York Times bestselling author of The Starter Wife, returns with a hilarious and spirited tale of love—both lost and found.
L.A. is no place for widows. This is what forty-four-year-old Hannah Bernal quickly discovers after the tragic death of her handsome and loving husband, John. Misery and red-rimmed eyes are little tolerated in the land of the beautiful. But life stumbles on: Hannah’s sweet three-year-old daughter, Ellie, needs to be dropped off at her overpriced preschool, while Hannah herself must get back to work in order to pay the bills on “Casa Sugar,” the charming Spanish-styled bungalow they call home.
Fortunately, Hannah has her “Grief Team” for emotional support: earth mother and fanatical animal lover Chloe, who finds a potential blog post in every moment; aspiring actress Aimee, who has her cosmetic surgeon on speed dial; and Jay, Hannah’s TV producing partner, who has a penchant for Mr. Wrong. But after a series of mishaps and bizarre occurrences, one of which finds Hannah in a posh Santa Monica jail cell, her friends start to fear for her sanity. To make matters worse, John left their financial affairs in a disastrous state. And when Hannah is dramatically fired from her latest producing gig, she finds herself in danger of losing her house, her daughter, and her mind.
One night, standing in her backyard under a majestic avocado tree, in the throes of grief, Hannah breaks down and asks, “Why?” The answer that comes back—Why not?—begins an astounding journey of discovery and transformation that leads Hannah to her own truly extraordinary life after death. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 2, 1963
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California, Los
Angeles (UCLA)
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, Californnia
Georgianne "Gigi" Levangie Grazer is an American novelist and screenwriter. She attended UCLA, where she majored in political science. Her Hollywood career began as an intern on a late-night talk show, for which she wrote sketches; she later became an assistant to producer Fred Silverman, who dissuaded her from attending law school by offering her a substantial raise and writing assignments for the television series In the Heat of the Night.
Grazer is the author of five novels: Rescue Me (2000), Maneater (2003), which was turned into a Lifetime miniseries, The Starter Wife (2006), which was adapted for a 2007 miniseries on the USA Network. Its success led to a regular series that lasted one season. Her fourth novel, Queen Takes King, was released in 2009, and is being developed by Lifetime for a television movie. Her fifth novel, The After Wife, was published in 2012. She has written numerous magazine articles, featured in Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Glamour. She recently published "Wasbands and Wives, Seven Reasons to Stay Married", in Huffington Post.
Grazer's screenplay for the Susan Sarandon-Julia Roberts film Stepmom was based on her experience dealing with husband Brian Grazer's children Riley and Sage from his first marriage. Grazer is a host and judge for the Logo original series The Arrangement, a floral arranging competition reality television series. She has also appeared as a guest judge in Seasons 2 and 3 of RuPaul's Drag Race on Logo.
Personal life
In her 20s she was married to an "alluring Indian, Italian, African-American blues musician." They separated after three years and later divorced. She met Brian Grazer by accident at Orlando-Orsini on Pico at a lunch with a Playboy executive. They dated for six years and married on September 20, 1997. Gigi and Brian Grazer have two sons. Two weeks after her novel, The Starter Wife, was published (in 2006), Brian filed for legal separation. The two later reconciled; however, Brian filed for divorce on June 8, 2007, citing irreconcilable differences after nearly ten years of marriage. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[Grazer is] a quick-witted beach book queen.
New York Times
Jackie Collins with a sense of humor.
Wall Street Journal
Grazer’s entertaining satire is sure to spice up any occasion.
Publishers Weekly
After being widowed, a woman begins to see ghosts everywhere in Grazer's breezy postscript to The Starter Wife (2005). When her husband, John, a personal chef and cookbook author, is the victim of a hit-and-run while biking to the market, 40ish Hannah Bernal's life is upended. A stay-at-home dad to the Bernals' toddler daughter Ellie, John also ran their household (in Santa Monica's fashionable NoMo district) and made meals that went beyond mere nourishment. Hannah's colleague and best friend Jay, a trash-talking gay man, forms a "Grief Team" with two of Hannah's eccentric girlfriends, to help her get back on her feet. But John's death has imbued Hannah with a sixth sense. Under her backyard avocado tree, Hannah sees her first ghost, Trish, the former owner of Hannah's historic house. Hannah's side-chatter with ghostly interlopers at a business meeting gets her and Jay fired from their jobs in reality TV. The first time John appears, the parted spouses argue about topics serious (he let his life insurance policy lapse) and absurd (are Crocs shoes or sandals?). When John reveals that his hit-and-run killer was a Range Rover driven by a texting Momzilla, not a truck driven by the illegal immigrant who was arrested for the crime, Hannah goes to the aid of the immigrant, convincing the police to refocus their investigation. Unable to refinance her home and threatened with foreclosure (a Realtor frenemy is hounding her to sell to a tear-down entrepreneur), Hannah is a bit slow (especially for an ex-reality TV producer) to see the monetary potential in ghost whispering. A New Year's trip to Palm Desert for high colonics, Team in tow, occasions arch commentary on what L.A. sybarites consider entertainment. Her friends have their own troubles, involving coyotes, Pomeranians, feckless married men and failed auditions. Hannah's banter with interlocutors, corporeal or not, is the chief pleasure here, more so than the leggy and disjointed plot. Darkly humorous look at grief, L.A.-style.
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 After Wife:
1. Is this book funny? If so what makes it funny...and should a book on grief even attempt to be family? If you don't find the book funny, why not?
2. Off all the characters in the book, do you have a favorite (or favorites)? How, especially, would you describe Hannah?
3. At one point, Hannah tells us that "When John died Ellie's innocence died. He crawled down a rabbit hole and dragged us with him." Does death strip one of innocence, especially for children but even for adults? Should young children be "protected" from death somehow? How honest, or frank, should one be with youngsters?
4. Rhoda at Ellie's nursery school, Bunny Hill, behaves with shocking insensitivity, even cruelty toward Hannah and her daughter. Compare that to the kindness Stephanie extends with Hannah at the Methodist nursery school. Although those are extreme, people react differently to someone's loss. What does one say to a grieving acquaintance (other than a close friend)? Is it possible, as an acquaintance, to offer comfort? Are you personally uncomfortable around someone who has lost an important person in his/her life?
5. Hannah is urged to begin dating. How soon does one wait to start a romantic relationship after losing a spouse or loved one? Have you ever been surprised by someone who began dating after losing a spouse?
6. Hannah crosses over into the spirit world. Is she hallucinating? Or is this a novel of magical realism (along the lines of Alice Hoffman, or Sarah Allen Addison)? Or is there a spiritual world that living humans can connect with?
7. What do you think of Hannah's first contact with John? What about John's worr—after Hannah has had sex with Tom? Funny? Not funny?
8. Did you guess who Brandon's romantic interest was?
9. What are your favorite passages or sections of the book...and why?
10. What about the end...do you find it satisfying?
11. Have you read anything else by Grazer—The Starter Wife or Queen Takes King? If so, how does The After Wife compare? Does this book make you want to read Grazer's other works?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
After You
Jojo Moyes, 2015
Penguin Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525426592
Summary
How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?
Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.
Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .
For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.
After You is quintessential Jojo Moyes—a novel that will make you laugh, cry, and rejoice at being back in the world she creates. Here she does what few novelists can do—revisits beloved characters and takes them to places neither they nor we ever expected. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—B.A., London University
• Awards—Romantic Novel of the year (twice)
• Currently—lives in Essex, England
Jojo Moyes is a British journalist and the author of 10 novels published from 2002 to the present. She studied at Royal Holloway, University of London and Bedford New College, London University.
In 1992 she won a bursary financed by The Independent newspaper to attend the postgraduate newspaper journalism course at City University, London. She subsequently worked for The Independent for the next 10 years (except for one year, when she worked in Hong Kong for the Sunday Morning Post) in various roles, becoming Assistant News Editor in 1988. In 2002 she became the newspaper's Arts and Media Correspondent.
Moyes became a full-time novelist in 2002, when her first book Sheltering Rain was published. She is most well known for her later novels, The Last Letter From Your Lover (2010), Me Before You (2012), and The Girl You Left Behind ( 2013), all of which were received with wide critical accalim.
She is one of only a few authors to have won the Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Award twice—in 2004 for Foreign Fruit and in 2011 for The Last Letter From Your Lover. She continues to write articles for The Daily Telegraph.
Moyes lives on a farm in Saffron Walden, Essex with her husband, journalist Charles Arthur, and their three children. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Think Elizabeth Bennet after Darcy's eventual death; Alice after Gertrude; Wilbur after Charlotte. The "aftermath" is a subject most writers understandably avoid, but Moyes has tackled it and given readers an affecting, even entertaining female adventure tale about a broken heroine who ultimately rouses herself and falls in love again, this time with the possibilities in her own future.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR
Like its predecessor, After You is a comic and breezy novel that also tackles bigger, more difficult subjects, in this case grief and moving on.... We all lose what we love at some point, but in her poignant, funny way, Moyes reminds us that even if it’s not always happy, there is an ever after.
Miami Herald
This unexpected sequel to Moyes's Me Before You reveals what happened to Louisa Clark after that book's heart-wrenching finale.... This book doesn't reach the emotional level of its predecessor; it lacks the intense focus on two characters that elevated Me Before You.... [Still, the] many surprises and misunderstandings are all neatly tied up by the end. —Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.
Library Journal
Narrator Louisa is not quite as much fun this time around, but the optimistic final pages hint that her adventures may continue into another book. Moyes is a Maeve Binchy for the 21st century....[with] an understanding of family dynamics, a nod to social issues, plenty of moral uplift, and a sentimental streak, all buoyed by a rollicking sense of humor.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is Louisa’s emotional state at the start of this book? What has transpired for her between Will’s death and now?
2. Lou’s gig at the Shamrock and Clover is a great source of humor in the book. What other function does this particular job play in the book and how does it serve the story?
3. Lou worries that after her accident everyone thinks she’s suicidal. How would you describe her mental state and her role in the fall? Is she responsible, and why or why not?
4. Throughout the book Lou and her loved ones question her life decisions, and if she is in fact “living” at all after Will’s death. What is holding her back and what ultimately allows her to make changes?
5. Lou finds herself attracted to Sam, but she isn’t always straightforward with him about her feelings. What keeps her from being intimate with him?
6. How are the Traynors dealing with their complex grief in different ways?
7. How does the Moving On Circle help Lou? What insights does she take away from her experience?
8. In Chapter 19, the point of view changes to Lily’s perspective. Why does the author make this shift and how does it serve the overall plot of the book?
9. A running theme in the novel is about personal freedom and how Lou, Treena, and their mother all feel trapped by their respective situations. How do they learn from one another? How might they each benefit from having more freedom?
10. What does Lou learn from her relationship with Sam and how might these lessons serve her in her new life?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Afterlife
Julia Alvarez, 2020
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781643750255
Summary
The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.
Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies.
And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep.
Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.
Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 27, 1949
• Where—New York, New York
• Raised—Dominican Repubic
• Education—B.A., Middlebury College; M.F.A., University of Syracuse
• Awards—(below)
• Currently—lives in Middlebury, Vermont
Julia Alvarez was born in New York City during her Dominican parents' "first and failed" stay in the United States. While she was still an infant, the family returned to the Dominican Republic—where her father, a vehement opponent of the Trujillo dictatorship, resumed his activities with the resistance. In 1960, in fear for their safety, the Alvarezes fled the country, settling once more in New York.
Education
Alvarez has often said that the immigrant experience was the crucible that turned her into a writer. Her struggle with the nuances of the English language made her deeply conscious of the power of words, and exposure to books and reading sharpened both her imagination and her storytelling skills. She graduated summa cum laude from Middlebury College in 1971, received her M.F.A. from Syracuse University, and spent the next two decades in the education field, traveling around the country with the poetry-in-the-schools program and teaching English and Creative Writing to elementary, high school, and college students.
Writing
Alvarez is regarded as one of the most critically and commercially successful Latina writers of her time. Her published works include five novels, a book of essays, four collections of poetry, four children's books, and two works of adolescent fiction.
Among her first published works were collections of poetry; The Homecoming, published in 1984, was expanded and republished in 1996. Poetry was Alvarez's first form of creative writing and she explains that her love for poetry has to do with the fact that "a poem is very intimate, heart-to-heart." Her poetry celebrates nature and the detailed rituals of daily life, including domestic chores. Her poems portray stories of family life and are often told from the perspective of women. She questions patriarchal privilege and examines issues of exile, assimilation, identity, and the struggle of the lower class in an introspective manner. She found inspiration for her work from a small painting from 1894 by Pierre Bonnard called The Circus Rider. Her poems, critic Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez suggests, give voice to the immigrant struggle.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez's first novel, was published in 1991, and was soon widely acclaimed. It is the first major novel written in English by a Dominican author. A largely personal novel, the book details themes of cultural hybridization and the struggles of a post-colonial Dominican Republic. Alvarez illuminates the integration of the Latina immigrant into the U.S. mainstream and shows that identity can be deeply affected by gender, ethnic, and class differences. She uses her own experiences to illustrate deep cultural contrasts between the Caribbean and the United States. So personal was the material in the novel, that for months after it was published, her mother refused to speak with her; her sisters were also not pleased with the book. The book has sold over 250,000 copies, and was cited as an American Library Association Notable Book.
Released in 1994, her second novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, has a historical premise and elaborates on the death of the Mirabal sisters during the time of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. In 1960 their bodies were found at the bottom of a cliff on the north coast of the island, and it is said they were a part of a revolutionary movement to overthrow the oppressive regime of the country at the time. These legendary figures are referred to as Las Mariposas, or The Butterflies. This story portrays women as strong characters who have the power to alter the course of history, demonstrating Alvarez's affinity for strong female protagonists and anti-colonial movements. As Alvarez explains, "I hope that through this fictionalized story I will bring acquaintance of these famous sisters to English speaking readers. November 25, the day of their murders is observed in many Latin American countries as the International Day Against Violence Toward Women. Obviously, these sisters, who fought one tyrant, have served as models for women fighting against injustices of all kinds."
In 1997, Alvarez published Yo!, a sequel to How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, which focuses solely on the character of Yolanda. Drawing from her own experiences, Alvarez portrays the success of a writer who uses her family as the inspiration for her work. Yo! could be considered Alvarez's musings on and criticism of her own literary success. Alvarez's opinions on the hybridization of culture are often conveyed through the use of Spanish-English malapropisms, or Spanglish; such expressions are especially prominent in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Alvarez describes the language of the character of Laura as "a mishmash of mixed-up idioms and sayings."
In the Name of Salome (2000) is a novel that weaves together the lives of two distinct women, illustrating how they devoted their lives to political causes. It takes place in several locations, including the Dominican Republic before a backdrop of political turbulence, Communist Cuba in the 1960s, and several university campuses across the United States, containing themes of empowerment and activism. As the protagonists of this novel are both women, Alvarez illustrates how these women, "came together in their mutual love of [their homeland] and in their faith in the ability of women to forge a conscience for Out Americas." This book has been widely acclaimed for its careful historical research and captivating story, and was described by Publishers Weekly as "one of the most politically moving novels of the past half century.
Honors and awards
Alvarez has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. Some of her poetry manuscripts now have a permanent home in the New York Public Library, where her work was featured in an exhibit, "The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, From John Donne to Julia Alvarez." She received the Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 1974, first prize in narrative from the Third Woman Press Award in 1986, and an award from the General Electric Foundation in 1986.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was the winner of the 1991 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for works that present a multicultural viewpoint. Yo! was selected as a notable book by the American Library Association in 1998. Before We Were Free won the Belpre Medal in 2004, and Return to Sender won the Belpre Medal in 2010. She also received the 2002 Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature. (From Wikipedia and Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
A new short, lyric novel from the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies? Yes, please, and thank you.
Washington Post
Alvarez crafts a moving portrait of the lengths people will go to help one another in moments of uncertainty.
Time
[A] remarkable and nuanced novel exploring immigration, humanity and compassion in a bitter and fractured world.
Ms. Magazine
A gorgeously intimate portrait of an immigrant writer and recent widow carving out hope in the face of personal and political grief.
Oprah Magazine
A sweeping tour de force…. [O]ne of the most significant Latina writers of her time.
Entertainment Weekly
Alvarez blends light humor with deep empathy toward her characters, offering a convincing portrait of an older woman’s self discovery. This will satisfy her fans and earn new ones.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Alvarez’s prose is magnetic as she delves into the intricacies of sisterhood, immigration, and grief,… proving her mastery as a storyteller. This stirring novel reminds readers that actions… have a lasting impact—so they should always act with love.
Library Journal
(Starred review) The sisters’ dynamic relationships brim with a funny but genuine Latina exuberance flowing from deep-rooted love.… Antonia’s inner voice is engaging, troubled, and ultimately, hopeful. A charming novel of immigration, loss, and love.
Booklist
(Starred review) A funny, moving novel of loss and love…. Alvarez writes with knowing warmth about how well sisters know how to push on each other's bruises and how powerfully they can lift each other up. In this bighearted novel, family bonds heal a woman's grief.
Kirkus Reviews
(Starred review) In one moving scene after another, Alvarez dramatizes the sustaining power of stories…. True to its title, Afterlife cannily explores what it means to go on after a loss…. This is a beautiful book.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points for AFTERLIFE by JULIA ALVARAZ ... then take off on our own:
1. How is Antonia affected by both the death of her husband, grief of course, but also her retirement?
2. Antonia thinks that should she return to writing; she wants it "to come from that deeper, hurting place." What does she mean? Why must the creative endeavor come from a painful place? And where is "that" place located? In memory, in the psyche, in the soul? In other words, where does creativity come from?
3. Describe Antonia's relationship with her sisters. Their lives have been to some extent ensconced in privilege: they have never had to face the dehumanizing fear and oppression confronting Maria and Estela. Why have they been protected?
4. How does Antonia begin to realize the current life of young migrants and the daily anxieties they must cope with? Consider the sheriff and even Antonia's neighbors.
5. Does Antonia rise to the level of a savior, or does she hesitate, hemming and hawing, hoping to keep a distance between her new friends' problems. She reminds us that "just because she's Latina, doesn't automatically confer on her the… inclinations of a Mother Teresa." What do you think Antonia's moral obligations are? What would yours be in her shoes?
6. Trace the ways in which Antonia begins to define what it means to care for others—starting from the platitudes of self-care to eventually realizing her responsibility to those around her.
7. Afterlife asks us to consider what our obligations as humans are to one another? Does the leave you with a sense of hope for our fractured world… or not?
8. What role does Antonia's love for literature play in this novel? How does it offer her consolation and help her find her place in the larger world? What about you? Does literature provide you solace, does it reveal a vision of your better self and offer a path forward for living it?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Afterlife
Marcus Sakey, 2017
Amazon Publishing
318 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781477848401
Summary
Between life and death lies an epic war, a relentless manhunt through two worlds…and an unforgettable love story.
The last thing FBI agent Will Brody remembers is the explosion—a thousand shards of glass surfing a lethal shock wave.
He wakes without a scratch.
The building is in ruins. His team is gone. Outside, Chicago is dark. Cars lie abandoned. No planes cross the sky. He’s relieved to spot other people—until he sees they’re carrying machetes.
Welcome to the afterlife.
Claire McCoy stands over the body of Will Brody. As head of an FBI task force, she hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. A terrorist has claimed eighteen lives and thrown the nation into panic.
Against this horror, something reckless and beautiful happened. She fell in love…with Will Brody.
But the line between life and death is narrower than any of us suspect—and all that matters to Will and Claire is getting back to each other.
From the author of the million-copy bestselling Brilliance Trilogy comes a mind-bending thriller that explores our most haunting and fundamental question: What if death is just the beginning?
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1974
• Where—Flint, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Marcus Sakey is an American award-winning novelist, originally of crime thrillers and later speculative fiction. Most notably, he wrote The Brilliance Trilogy (2013-2016), a mixture of futurism, technology, genetics, and more.
Sakey was born in Flint, Michigan, where he attended the University of Michigan (1992–1996) with a double major in communication and political science. Following graduation, he worked in advertising, marketing, tv, and graphic design, once owning his own design studio in Atlanta. That 10-year-long interlude, as he says on his website, was the perfect background for a crime writer—it allowed him "plenty of exposure to liars and thieves."
Eventually let go from his last advertising job—a job he disliked and had already decided to leave—Sakey collected a severance package and spent the next year reading. After a year, he began writing, and although he hadn't set out to become a crime writer, he took a look around and realized that crime sold.
A year later, in 2007, his debut crime novel, The Blade Itself, was published. It was featured as a New York Times Editor's Pick and named one of Esquire Magazine's 5 Best Reads of that year. Best of all, it sold…enabling Sakey to devote himself full time to writing.
To research his crime novels, which are are set on the south side of Chicago, Sakey shadowed homicide detectives, gang cops, and interviewed soldiers. He rappelled with SWAT teams, hung out with bank robbers, and even dissected a brain.
The switch from the world of crime fiction to sci-fi came several years later and involved a hiking trip with writer pal Blake Crouch where the two bounced around new approaches to their novels. More ideas came as a result of his wife's professional interest in autism. From autism it was a short leap to savants (think Dustin Hoffman in The Rain Man) and eventually to the idea of "brilliants" or "abnorms," the fictional characters in The Brilliance Trilogy. Sakey describes the basis of the series in a Huffington Post interview:
Starting in the 1980s, one percent of the world's population was born with savant gifts—ways of thinking, categorizing, and dealing with the world—far exceeding those of ordinary people. They didn't possess superpowers, but the most powerful could do things like sense patterns in the stock market, or be the strategic equivalent of Einstein. Some had the ability to recognize facial features or bodily movements, allowing them to discern motives and hidden intentions of other people.
In addition to his novels, Marcus was the host and writer of the Hidden City on Travel Channel, for which he endured pepper spray and dog attacks. Sakey lives with his wife and daughter in Chicago. (Adapted from various online sources, including the author's website.)
Book Reviews
So what do you get if you cross The Lovely Bones with Netflix’s The Walking Dead? (Wait, you haven’t watched TWD? Too busy waiting for the next Game of Thrones?) What you get is Afterlife — Marcus Sakey’s smart, provocative, though sometimes silly novel. But one thing is certain: it’s unputdownable.… The premise — the idea of two worlds, the living and the dead, co-existing on separate planes, right alongside one another — is nicely done. And there’s good fun to be had. READ MORE ……
Philip J. Adler - LitLovers
(Starred review.) [A] remarkably conceived and passionately realized supernatural thriller.… Balancing lyric romance and altruistic self-sacrifice with horrifying scenes of cannibalism and wrenching violence, Sakey comes up with a fascinating answer to the eternal question of why humans exist.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Afterlife is simultaneously a beautiful love story, a grim tale of apocalyptic conflict, and an opportunity for an insightful writer to ruminate on the eternal verities. Great appeal across genres.
Booklist
(Starred review.) [A] disturbing book born in dark times but one in which Sakey employs all his storytelling gifts to craft a noodle-bender of the first order. A love story enmeshed in a twisty thriller that peels back the universe to see what lies beneath.
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 Afterlives
Thomas Pierce, 2018
Penguin Publishing
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594632532
Summary
Jim Byrd died.
Technically.
For a few minutes.
The diagnosis: heart attack at age thirty. Revived with no memory of any tunnels, lights, or angels, Jim wonders what—if anything—awaits us on the other side.
Then a ghost shows up. Maybe. Jim and his new wife, Annie, find themselves tangling with holograms, psychics, messages from the beyond, and a machine that connects the living and the dead.
As Jim and Annie journey through history and fumble through faith, they confront the specter of loss that looms for anyone who dares to fall in love. Funny, fiercely original, and gracefully moving, The Afterlives will haunt you. In a good way. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA
• Education—M.F.A., University of Virginia
• Awards—National Book Foundation 5 under 35 Award
• Currently—lives in near Charlottesville, Virginia
Thomas Pierce was born and raised in Spartanburg, South Carolina. He received a Master's in creative writing from the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, where he still lives with his wife and daughters.
Pierce spent five years with National Public Radio as a blogger, writer, and producer, work that he says has informed his fiction, particularly his appreciation for "clarity," as well as and the need to be "interesting and engaging."
When you write a radio script, there’s software you can use with a little clock in the upper right-hand corner that tells you the piece’s length in terms of time.… One of my short stories might steal forty-two minutes from your life. I want to use your time wisely.
Pierce's acclaimed short story collection, Hall of Small Mammals, was published in 2015, eventually winning him the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Award. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic, Oxford American, and elsewhere.
Afterlives, Pierce's debut novel, was released in 2018. (Adapted from online sources, including the publisher and The Paris Review. Retrieved 2/4/2018.)
Book Reviews
In Thomas Pierce’s warm and inventive debut novel, The Afterlives, reality is slippery, time is out of joint and profound disorientation is a feature of daily existence.… Pierce is brilliant at painting an entire life—encompassing passion, missed opportunities, tragedy—in a few pages. He also isn’t afraid to pose the biggest questions: How do we deal with loss? What are the limits and possibilities of love? What is the nature of time?.… Pierce has worked … magic, connecting us to fictional characters who seem, somehow, 100 percent real.
Daryl Gregory - New York Times Book Review
[T]ouching, thought-provoking.… Part love story and part speculative sci-fi, it’s a meandering, albeit meaningful, look at marriage, technology and ghosts—those of the otherworldly type that may exist but also specters of our past that influence our present.
USA Today
Excellent… The Afterlives is sprinkled with "Black Mirror"-style futuristic touches.… The [novel] is as much a dialogue and an attempt at reconciliation between faith and science as it is a contemplation of the opportunities of second chances.
Salon
[A] free-spirited lark that questions how people live with the presence of death.… Pierce’s breezy style only partially saves the overlong novel from a lack of urgency affecting almost all of its numerous story lines. When it gels, the novel manages a rare and significant clarity about the effects of death on the living….
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Pierce has a gift for probing the limits of the psychic realm to uncover the benevolence that manifests from metaphysical insight. Truly remarkable.
Library Journal
[Pierce] considers life, death, and what comes after.… Timeless questions. Tedious answers.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Afterlives … then take off on your own:
1. After his near brush with death (or his brush with near death?) Jim Byrd confesses to Annie that "I feel like maybe I've had a brain injury and didn't realize it." What does he mean? What's out whack? Do you begin to question Jim's perception of reality?
2. Jim is concerned that, even though technically dead, he has no memory of the other side: "No lights, no tunnels, no angels." Let's get down to the personal: What do you expect or hope to see on the "other side"? Have you had, or do you know of anyone who has had, a near death experience? How have they described it? Have you read Heaven Is for Real?
3. How do you describe Jim? Various readers say they found him irritating or not terribly engaging. Others found him funny and delightfully inquisitive. Where do you stand? Does the author bring him to life for you? What about Annie?
4. How would you describe Jim's religious beliefs at the beginning of the novel? After his heart attack, he sets off on a quest to find out what happens after death. With the HeartNet—literally the *power* of life and death—in his pocket, would a stronger traditional belief in the Judeo-Christian God have eased his heart (yep, pun intended)? This is a personal and highly subjective question, friends.
5. Describe Jim's hometown of Shula, N.C. Do you find it funny, with its hologram chickens …or slightly appalling, with its "boutique virus" …or both …or neither?
6. What is Sally Zinker's "daisy theory"? Can you explain it? Does it explain the strange occurrences Byrd experiences? It challenges Jim's concept of reality; does it challenge yours?
7. What role do the stories of Shula's previous residents play in the novel? Why does the author set them in the present tense? Which were your favorites?
8. (Follow-up to Question 7) What about Clara Lennox? In what way is her life a counterpoint to Jim's? A number of readers feel her story was actually more interesting than Jim and Annie's. What do you think?
9. Some reviewers (more than some) have found the book overlong, even tedious. Others say it took time but that eventually they were pulled in—all the way in. How did you experience reading Afterlives?
10. In a Vanity Fair interview, author Thomas Pierce said that most of us stay sane by trying "to avoid any thought of our own impermanence." Why don't Jim and Annie do likewise? What drives them in their quest?
11. Pierce is also interested in exploring the boundaries of technology. One of the questions posed in The Afterlives is the degree to which technology can hurt us as well as help us—holograms and AI, for example. How will we recognize the dangers, and at what point will we be able to turn back?
12. Ultimately, what do Jim and Annie come to understand about life and death? Do those two states have clear-cut boundaries? Or is everything truly more complicated than most of us believe?
13. In a book about matters of life and death, much has been made about the humor. What in particular did you find funny?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Afterwards
Rosamund Lupton, 2012
Crown Publishing
415 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307716552
Summary
The school is on fire. Her children are inside. Grace runs toward the burning building, desperate to reach them.
In the aftermath of the devastating fire which tears her family apart, Grace embarks on a mission to find the person responsible and protect her children from further harm. This fire was not an accident, and her daughter Jenny may still be in grave danger.
Grace is the only one who can discover the culprit, and she will do whatever it takes to save her family and find out who committed the crime that rocked their lives. While unearthing truths about her life that may help her find answers, Grace learns more about everyone around her—and finds she has courage she never knew she possessed.
Powerful and beautiful, with a riveting story and Lupton’s trademark elegant style that made Sister such a sweeping success, Afterwards explores the depths of a mother’s unswerving love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Rasied—Little Chesterford in Essex, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Cambridge University
• Awards—New Writers' Award (Carton Television)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Rosamund Lupton is a British author of three novels—Sister (2010), Afterwards (2012), and The Quality of Silence (2016). She studied literature at Cambridge University and lives in London with her husband and two children.
In her first novel, Sister, she tells the story of Beatrice, living in New York, in search for Tess, her missing sister, who lives in London. Sister was a great commercial success, selling well over a million copies worldwide. It has been translated in 30 languages, and it was a best-seller on the New York Times and London's Sunday Times lists.
Her second novel Afterwards was awarded "best mystery books of 2012" by the Seattle Times, and "best book of 2012" by Amazon USA.
Her third novel, The Quality of Silence, follows an astrophysicist and her deaf daughter through the Alaskan wilderness in search of their husband/father. It was optioned by FilmNation in March 2016.
Before turning to novels, Lupton was a script-writer for television and film, writing original screenplays. She won Carlton Television's new writers' competition. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/24/2016.)
Book Reviews
Readers...will be equally smitten with Afterwards, as much an homage to the mother-daughter relationship as it is a crime novel.... There are so many twists, turns and heartbreaks in this tragic, tense novel.
USA Today
Lupton takes her readers on a totally harrowing ride as she melds a suspenseful procedure with an emotionally fraught drama. Within a taut and sinuous narrative, heartbreak over a broken family vies with fear that the arsonist will return.... Masterful pacing and a highly charged atmosphere combine to make this an exceptionally gripping read.
Seattle Times
A blaze at a suburban London school takes on sinister overtones in Lupton’s superb follow-up to Sister (2010).... The uncommon but convincing narrative technique, adroit twists, and memorable characters combine to provide a wise and poignant portrait of a family confronted with malice and heartbreaking decisions.
Publishers Weekly
Like Lupton's acclaimed debut, Sister, her sophomore effort is a wonderful mix of smart thriller with tear-provoking literature.... Lupton has written a riveting story that will resonate with readers long after they have turned the last page. —Marianne Fitzgerald, Anne Arundel Cty. Sch., Annapolis, MD
Library Journal
Lupton takes her readers on a totally harrowing ride as she melds a suspenseful procedure with an emotionally fraught drama. Within a taut and sinuous narrative, heartbreak over a broken family vies with fear that the arsonist will return.... Masterful pacing and a highly charged atmosphere combine to make this an exceptionally gripping read.
Booklist
No one is above suspicion when a cozy scenario of suburban family accord morphs into a full-throttle psychological thriller, ring-fenced by a mother's love. Happy middle-class facades crumble and suspects multiply like flu germs.... The sinuous chain of plot twists reaches right to the story's literally heart-rending conclusion.... [T]his compulsive read confirms Lupton's instinctive commercial flair.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The fact that Grace and Jenny exist as spirits for much of the story is fairly unusual. Did you manage to suspend your disbelief enough for their state to feel convincing?
2. There are certain themes that seem to interest the author. Can you comment on these?
3. Can you comment on Jenny and Grace’s relationship and explain how it evolves throughout the story?
4. Can you also comment on the relationship between Michael and Adam and look at how their relationship evolves?
5. Did you guess who the arsonist was? How convincing are the red herrings?
6. Discuss the main themes of the book and look at how integral they are to the plot.
7. The dynamic between Grace and Sarah is an interesting one and changes quite significantly over the course of the story. Can you talk about this?
8. What are your thoughts on the ways in which family abuse is illustrated in the story.
9. What do you think of the two mother/daughter relationships in the book?
10. What do you think of Grace and Michael’s marriage? Perhaps talk about the connection between Grace and Michael even though they cannot communicate with each other.
11. Could the story have ended in any other way?
12. What do you think of Rosamund Lupton’s use of water imagery—for example, Adam needing armbands, Jenny being alone in the ocean as she dies, and the ending?
Age of Anger: A History of the Present
Pankaj Mishra, 2017
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374274788
Summary
One of our most important public intellectuals reveals the hidden history of our current global crisis.
How can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world—from American shooters and ISIS to Donald Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism across the world to racism and misogyny on social media?
In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the eighteenth century before leading us to the present.
He shows that as the world became modern, those who were unable to enjoy its promises—of freedom, stability, and prosperity—were increasingly susceptible to demagogues.
The many who came late to this new world—or were left, or pushed, behind—reacted in horrifyingly similar ways: with intense hatred of invented enemies, attempts to re-create an imaginary golden age, and self-empowerment through spectacular violence.
It was from among the ranks of the disaffected that the militants of the nineteenth century arose—angry young men who became cultural nationalists in Germany, messianic revolutionaries in Russia, bellicose chauvinists in Italy, and anarchist terrorists internationally.
Today, just as then, the wide embrace of mass politics and technology and the pursuit of wealth and individualism have cast many more billions adrift in a demoralized world, uprooted from tradition but still far from modernity—with the same terrible results.
Making startling connections and comparisons, Age of Anger is a book of immense urgency and profound argument. It is a history of our present predicament unlike any other. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India
• Education—B.S., Allahabad University; M.A., Jawaharlal Nehru University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK
Pankaj Mishra is an Indian novelist and nonfiction writer. He is the author of some 10 books, most well-know of which are Age of Anger: A History of the Present (2017) and From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia (2012).
Background
Mishra graduated with a bachelor's degree in commerce from Allahabad University before earning his Master of Arts degree in English literature at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
In 1992, he moved to Mashobra, a Himalayan village, where he began to contribute literary essays and reviews to The Indian Review of Books, India Magazine, and the newspaper The Pioneer.
Books
His first book, Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India (1995), is a travelogue describing the social and cultural changes in India in the context of globalization. His novel The Romantics (2000), an ironic tale of people longing for fulfilment in cultures other than their own, was published in 11 European languages and won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum award for first fiction.
His book, An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World (2004), mixes memoir, history, and philosophy while attempting to explore the Buddha's relevance to contemporary times. Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond (2006), describes the author's travels through Kashmir, Bollywood, Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal, and other parts of South and Central Asia.
From the Ruins of Empire (2012) examines the question of "how to find a place of dignity for oneself in this world created by the West, in which the West and its allies in the non-West had reserved the best positions for themselves." Age of Anger (2016) traces the history of the current era's political and social divisiveness.
Other writing
In addition to his books, Mishra has written literary and political essays for the New York Times, New York Review of Books, Guardian, London Review of Books, and New Yorker, among other American, British, and Indian publications. He is a columnist for Bloomberg View and the New York Times Book Review.
His work has also appeared in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Boston Globe, Common Knowledge, Financial Times, Granta, Independent, New Republic, New Statesman, Wall Street Journal, n+1, Nation, Outlook, Poetry, Time, Times Literary Supplement, Travel + Leisure, and Washington Post.
From 2007-2008, Mishra was the Visiting Fellow in the Department of English at University College, London. Today, he divides his time between London and India.
Recognition and awards
Mishara was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008. In 2012, Foreign Policy magazine named him one of the top 100 global thinkers. In 2015, Prospect nominated him to its list of 50 World Thinkers.
2000 - Art Seidenbaum Award for Best First Fiction: Romantics
2013 - Crossword Book Award: From the Ruins of Empire.
2014 - Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding: From the Ruins of Empire
2014 - Windham–Campbell Literature Prize-Nonfiction: From the Ruins of Empire
2014 - Premi Internacional D'assaig Josep Palau i Fabre)
(Author bio adaptd from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/27/2017)
Book Reviews
[I]mportant, erudite.… [Mishra] has a highly developed understanding of the psychic and emotional forces propelling illiberalism's spread across the globe, a movement united by a sense of disappointment, bewilderment and envy—the spiritual condition that Nietzsche diagnosed as ressentiment.… Liberalism has no choice but to sincerely wrestle with its discontents, to become reacquainted with its moral blind spots and political weaknesses. Technocracy—which defines so much of the modern liberal spirit—doesn't have a natural grasp of psychology and emotion. But if it hopes to stave off the dark forces, it needs to grow adept at understanding the less tangible roots of anger, the human experience uncaptured by data, the resentments that understandably fester. A decent liberalism would read sharp critics like Mishra and learn.
Franklin Foer - New York Times Book Review
Columnist and historian Pankaj Mishra has named a moment and an era: His brilliant new book Age of Anger looks at the rising tide of radical nationalism, racism, intolerance, misogyny, xenophobia, and fascism that's sweeping away calmer and more measured opposition all over the world, and he attempts to understand the phenomena before it engulfs everybody on the planet.… Fiercely literate and eloquent.
Steve Donoghue - Christian Science Monitor
In its literacy and literariness, [Age of Anger] has the feel of Edmund Wilson’s extraordinary dramas of modern ideas—books like To the Finland Station—but with a different endpoint and a more global canvas. Mishra reads like a brilliant autodidact, putting to shame the many students who dutifully did the reading for their classes but missed the incandescent fire and penetrating insight in canonical texts.
Samuel Moyn - New Republic
In probing for the wellspring of today’s anger [Pankaj Mishra] hits on something real. He traces our current mood back to the French Enlightenment of the 18th century. We revere its thinkers today for their devotion to reason, science, and the rights of man, but they were disdainful of their fellow citoyens, who clung to their muskets and their religion.… Along with quotations from Voltaire, Rousseau, and other familiar figures of Western Civ, Age of Anger includes observations from Iranian, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, and other nations’ scholars; their perspectives complement Mishra’s deep understanding of global tensions.
Peter Coy - Bloomberg Businessweek
Erudite …[In] Age of Anger, which was conceived before Brexit and Trump, the Indian nonfiction writer and novelist Pankaj Mishra argues that our current rage has deep historical roots.
Bryan Walsh - Time
(Starred review.) [A]n impressively probing and timely work.… This exploration of global unrest is dense, but it’s so well-written and informative that it manages to be highly engaging.
Publishers Weekly
How did the world get so fractious?… This complicated analysis of a complicated issue will appeal to readers with a background in political, economic, and philosophical history. —Laurie Unger Skinner, Coll. of Lake Cty., Waukegan, IL
Library Journal
A disturbing but imperatively urgent analysis. — Bryce Christensen
Booklist
(Starred review.) How the failures of capitalism have led to "fear, confusion, loneliness and loss"—and global anger.… A probing, well-informed investigation of global unrest calling for "truly transformative thinking" about humanity's future.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Age of Anger...then take off on your own:
m. Discuss the overall premise of Pankaj Mishra's book, Age of Anger. To what does he attribute the current divisiveness in our political and social arenas—what does he see as the psychic and emotional forces propelling nationalism?
m. Talk about the history Mishra traces—to where and in what historical figure he finds the roots of our current age of anger. Where else in history does he point to as similarly divisive?
m. What refers to ISIS "a broader and more apocalyptic mood that we have witnessed before." What else does Mishra have to say about ISIS?
m. The book was written before Brexit and before the election of Donald Trump. In what way, if at all, might that timing lend credibility to this work?
m. Mishra argues that the West is self-righteous in that it obscures its "own bloody extraordinarily brutal initiation into political and economic modernity" while, at the same time, it urges the rest of the world to undertake the same progression. What does he mean?
m. Consider Jean Jacques Rousseau and the ideas he championed? What does Mishra think of him? What do you think of him? How does Rousseau—and Mishra—view Voltaire? According to our author, what was Voltaire's influence on the development of Western thought?
m. The author finds few, if any, redeeming qualities in liberal democracy? Overall, do you agree with his anger about the economics and politics of the "Western model"? Does he offer a replacement?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Age of Desire
Jennie Fields, 2012
Penguin Group USA
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143123286
Summary
They say behind every great man is a woman. Behind Edith Wharton, there was Anna Bahlmann—her governess turned literary secretary, and her mothering, nurturing friend.
When at the age of forty-five, Edith falls passionately in love with a dashing younger journalist, Morton Fullerton, and is at last opened to the world of the sensual, it threatens everything certain in her life but especially her abiding friendship with Anna. As Edith’s marriage crumbles and Anna’s disapproval threatens to shatter their lifelong bond, the women must face the fragility at the heart of all friendships.
Told through the points of view of both women, The Age of Desire takes us on a vivid journey through Wharton’s early Gilded Age world: Paris with its glamorous literary salons and dark secret cafés, the Whartons’ elegant house in Lenox, Massachusetts, and Henry James’s manse in Rye, England.
Edith’s real letters and intimate diary entries are woven throughout the book. The Age of Desire brings to life one of literature’s most beloved writers, whose own story was as complex and nuanced as that of any of the heroines she created. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 25, 1953
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Illinois; M.F.A,
Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in Nashville, TN
Jennie Fields is an American novelist. Her fourth novel is The Age of Desire, based on the life of American writer Edith Wharton.
Fields had a successful career in advertising, starting as a copywriter in Chicago, and going on to become a creative director at several international advertising agencies in Chicago and New York. Her advertising credits include McDonald's jingles (while at DDB Needham), including "Menu Chant", which was sung by, among others, Carl Giammarese of The Buckinghams, the "We're All Connected" campaign for New York Telephone (while at Young & Rubicam), and the Lunesta Moth campaign (while at McCann Erickson) for which she won an Effie award.
Fields has published four novels: Lily Beach; Crossing Brooklyn Ferry; The Middle Ages; and The Age of Desire. Her first novel Lily Beach (1997), is the story of a young artist in the 1960s, struggling to find her place in a rapidly changing world. Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, (1997) is the story of six people who live on the same street in Brooklyn, and what happens to them over the course of a year. Her third novel, The Middle Ages (2002,) tells the story of an architect who only finds the life she's really seeking when she loses her job.
In 2012, Fields published The Age of Desire ( 2012) based on the life of American author Edith Wharton. The novel centers on Wharton's illicit affair with journalist William Morton Fullerton and that affair's effect on both her unstable husband, Edward R. "Teddy" Wharton, and her close friendship with her lifelong friend and confidant, her literary secretary Anna Bahlmann. Until recently, little had been known about Bahlmann but Fields was one of the first to have access to over 100 previously unknown letters from Wharton to Bahlmann that were auctioned in 2009. The letters are now in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University and form the basis of another 2012 publication, My Dear Governess: The Letters of Edith Wharton to Anna Bahlmann by Irene Goldman-Price.
Fields' books have been published in Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Somewhere between the repressiveness of Edith Wharton’s early-20th-century Age of Innocence and our own libertine "Shades of Grey" era lies the absorbingly sensuous world of Jennie Fields’s The Age of Desire.... Along with the overheated romance and the middle-age passion it so accurately describes, The Age of Desire also offers something simpler and quieter: a tribute to the enduring power of female friendship.
Boston Globe
Delicate and imaginative.... Fields’s love and respect for all her characters and her care in telling their stories shines through.
Publishers Weekly
Fields supplements the story with fascinating excerpts from Wharton’s actual letters and includes appearances by other authors of the period...to re-create the exciting literary landscape of Paris and New York in the first decade of the 20th century.... The novel should...appeal to those who enjoyed Paula McLain’s The Paris Wife.
Library Journal
Fields bases her perceptive novel on Wharton’s own diaries and letters.... The Age of Desire sheds welcome light on the little-known private life of a famous woman and her closest relationships in early-twentieth-century Europe and America.
Booklist
One doesn’t have to be an Edith Wharton fan to luxuriate in the Wharton-esque plotting and prose Fields so elegantly conjures..
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Have you read any of Edith Wharton’s books? How has reading this book altered your perception of her or her work? If you’ve not read any of her novels, has this book made you want to? Why or why not?
2. Lucretia Jones, Edith’s mother, is stern with her husband and her daughter. What aspects of Edith’s life and personality in this book might possibly be a result of Lucretia’s parenting? Does Edith put any effort into overcoming her mother’s influence?
3. How might it have been possible for Edith and Teddy to reach some sort of equilibrium in their marriage? Was it poisoned from the beginning? Why do you think so?
4. Edith ignores her friends’ warnings about Morton. Even as evidence mounts that he has a lot of skeletons in his closet, Edith continues to ignore the facts. What is the root of her denial? What are other aspects of her life that elicit denial? How else does denial wreak havoc in her life?
5. If you had been Edith’s friend, would you have warned her against getting involved with Morton? Would knowing her reaction toward Anna influence your decision? Would you try to intervene if one of your close friends today were to fall for someone he or she shouldn’t?
6. Why doesn’t Anna like Morton? What are some selfish reasons behind her dislike? What are the more justifiable reasons? What do you think of him?
7. What is Edith hoping to gain from the affair with Morton? Does she succeed? What about Morton? What do you think he’s after? In what ways did Edith benefit from the affair? In what ways did it have a negative impact?
8. At what point in the novel is the affair between Edith and Morton over? When does Edith finally realize it?
9. Fame is a recurring theme in the book. When Anna sails on the Amerika, she’s surprised that no one recognizes the name of her famous employer. When Edith hears any news of her books’ success, she is buoyed. But fame always comes at a price. What are the consequences of fame in this book?
10. Anna says that Edith mustn’t have had any choice, that the affair with Morton was inevitable. When looking back at unpleasant truths or impetuous behavior, it’s sometimes a comfort to believe we had no choice in the matter. What do you think of Anna’s assessment of Edith’s actions? What are some situations in the book where someone truly didn’t have a choice in his or her fate?
11. If Anna and Edith’s friendship were to dissolve, who has more to lose? Why? Which of the two would be more likely to thrive?
12. How do you think the story would have played out if communication were more instant, similar to the way it is today? What if, instead of waiting for a letter, Edith was anticipating a text message? How has modern communication affected romance?
13. There are several moments in the novel where characters could take charge of their own lives and pursue happiness. Edith could have left Teddy. Anna could have confessed her love to Teddy. What stopped them?
15. The quote at the beginning of the introduction suggests that the closest friendships are the ones most likely to be compromised. Do you agree? What are some experiences you’ve had with close friendships that were neglected?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton, 1920
~300 pp. (varies by publisher)
Summary
Winner of the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton’s masterful portrait of desire and betrayal during the sumptuous Golden Age of Old New York, a time when society people “dreaded scandal more than disease.”
This is Newland Archer’s world as he prepares to marry the beautiful but conventional May Welland. But when the mysterious Countess Ellen Olenska returns to New York after a disastrous marriage, Archer falls deeply in love with her. Torn between duty and passion, Archer struggles to make a decision that will either courageously define his life—or mercilessly destroy it. (From Barnes and Noble.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 24, 1862
• Where—New York, NY
• Death—August 11, 1937
• Where—Paris, France
• Education: Educated privately in New York and Europe
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize for The Age of Innocence, 1921,
French Legion of Honor, 1916
One of America's most important novelists, Edith Wharton was a refined, relentless chronicler of the Gilded Age and its social mores. Along with close friend Henry James, she helped define literature at the turn of the 20th century, even as she wrote classic nonfiction on travel, decorating and her own life.
More
Edith Newbold Jones was born January 24, 1862, into such wealth and privilege that her family inspired the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses." The youngest of three children, Edith spent her early years touring Europe with her parents and, upon the family's return to the United States, enjoyed a privileged childhood in New York and Newport, Rhode Island. Edith's creativity and talent soon became obvious: By the age of eighteen she had written a novella, and (as well as witty reviews of it) and published poetry in the Atlantic Monthly.
After a failed engagement, Edith married a wealthy sportsman, Edward Wharton. Despite similar backgrounds and a shared taste for travel, the marriage was not a success. Many of Wharton's novels chronicle unhappy marriages, in which the demands of love and vocation often conflict with the expectations of society. Wharton's first major novel, The House of Mirth, published in 1905, enjoyed considerable Literary Success. Ethan Frome appeared six years later, solidifying Wharton's reputation as an important novelist. Often in the company of her close friend, Henry James, Wharton mingled with some of the most famous writers and artists of the day, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, André Gide, Sinclair Lewis, Jean Cocteau, and Jack London.
In 1913 Edith divorced Edward. She lived mostly in France for the remainder of her life. When World War I broke out, she organized hostels for refugees, worked as a fund-raiser, and wrote for American publications from battlefield frontlines. She was awarded the French Legion of Honor for her courage and distinguished work.
The Age of Innocence, a novel about New York in the 1870s, earned Wharton the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1921 — the first time the award had been bestowed upon a woman. Wharton traveled throughout Europe to encourage young authors. She also continued to write, lying in her bed every morning, as she had always done, dropping each newly penned page on the floor to be collected and arranged when she was finished. Wharton suffered a stroke and died on August 11, 1937. She is buried in the American Cemetery in Versailles, France.
Extras
• Surprisingly, in addition to her career as a fiction writer, Wharton was also a well-known interior designer. Her book, The Decoration of Houses was widely read and is today considered the first modern manual of interior design.
• Upon the publication of The House of Mirth in 1905, Wharton became an instant celebrity, and the the book was an instant bestseller, with 80,000 copies ordered from Scribner's six weeks after its release.
• Wharton had a great fondness for dogs, and owned several throughout her life. (From Barnes and Noble.)
Book Reviews
(Older works have few, if any mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon or Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
The Age of Innocence is a title both ironic and poignant: ironic because the "age" or period of the novel, the late nineteenth century, teems with intolerance, collusion, and cynicism; poignant because the only innocence lost is that of Newland Archer, the resolute gentleman whose insight into the machinations of aristocratic life comes late. The novel proceeds from a working assumption that is best summed up by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay "Self-Reliance": "Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members." Edith Wharton advances this belief with a vengeance, and it gives tragic depth to the life of Newland Archer, a life that might otherwise seem pedestrian and unworthy of close examination....
Few things in a Wharton novel can be understood as strictly black or white, this or that. The demands and consequences of duty are laid out before Archer clearly enough, but how he should respond to them, and how we respond to him, is complicated by the possibilities of social conspiracy and romantic fulfillment. The decisions that Archer makes concerning his life with May Welland and a life with Countess Olenska speak to his sense of obdurate responsibility. Archer's son, recounting his mother's words, says to Archer, "she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most wanted" (p. 293). Must security be purchased with sacrifice? Is it moral and honorable to protect others at the expense of one's happiness? Or is Archer a puppet, incapable of claiming morality or honor because his actions are forced upon him by the designs of others? Is duty to one's community more important than duty to oneself? Can and should any society determine the right course of action for an individual? In the end, if we as readers feel safe with Newland Archer, it is because he upholds his obligations, his duty to wife, children, and society. He manages, through strength or resignation, to keep things in order. We pity him as well.
Penguin Group Publishers (cover image, top-right
Discussion Questions
1. Why does Archer neglect to tell Countess Olenska of his engagement to May Welland, despite the fact that May has instructed him to do so?
2. Why does Archer suddenly realize that marriage is "not the safe anchorage he had been taught to think, but a voyage on uncharted seas"? (p. 35)
3. Why does Archer feel "oppressed" when contemplating the "factitious purity" of his betrothed? (p. 37)
4. Why is Countess Olenska a threat to the social order that claims Archer as one of its kind?
5. Why is the neighborhood where Countess Olenska resides a "queer quarter for such a beauty to settle in"? (p. 99)
6. To what is Archer referring when he thinks about his peers that "over many of them the green mould of the perfunctory was already perceptibly spreading"? (p. 103)
7. What does Archer mean when he thinks that "it was wonderful that...such depths of feeling could coexist with such absence of imagination"? (p. 154)
8. How does Archer feel about May's talent with her bow and arrow? Why does he so often feel "cheated...into momentary well-being"? (p. 173)
9. When Archer, at the request of Mrs. Mingott, follows the path to the shore to fetch Countess Olenska, why does he say to himself, "If she doesn't turn before that sail crosses the Lime Rock light I'll go back"? (p. 177)
10. What kind of "code" exists between Archer and May? How does it work? What is its origin? (p. 219)
11. Why does May decide to host the farewell dinner for the Countess Olenska? Why does Archer think of the dinner guests as "a band of dumb conspirators"? (p. 276)
12. Why does Archer walk away from a potential reunion with Countess Olenska?
13. Must social and emotional security be purchased with the sacrifice of another individual or group?
14. Is it moral and honorable to protect others at the expense of one's happiness? Is duty to one's community more important than duty to oneself?
(Questions issued by Penguin Classics; cover image, top right.)
Also, check out LitLovers free online courses, especially LitCourse 8 on Irony: the course reading is Wharton's short story "Roman Fever."
The Age of Light
Whitney Scharer, 2019
Little, Brown and Co.
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316524087
Summary
She went to Paris to start over, to make art instead of being made into it.
A captivating debut novel by Whitney Scharer, The Age of Light tells the story of Vogue model turned renowned photographer Lee Miller, and her search to forge a new identity as an artist after a life spent as a muse.
"I'd rather take a photograph than be one," she declares after she arrives in Paris in 1929, where she soon catches the eye of the famous Surrealist Man Ray.
Though he wants to use her only as a model, Lee convinces him to take her on as his assistant and teach her everything he knows. But Man Ray turns out to be an egotistical, charismatic force, and as they work together in the darkroom, their personal and professional lives become intimately entwined, changing the course of Lee's life forever.
Lee's journey takes us from the cabarets of bohemian Paris to the battlefields of war-torn Europe during WWII, from discovering radical new photography techniques to documenting the liberation of the concentration camps as one of the first female war correspondents.
Through it all, Lee must grapple with the question of whether it's possible to reconcile romantic desire with artistic ambition-and what she will have to sacrifice to do so. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Whitney Scharer earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington, and her short fiction has appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Cimarron Review, and other journals.
Scharer received an Emerging Artist Award in Literature from the St. Botolph Club Foundation, a Somerville Arts Council Artists grant, and been awarded a residency at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. The Age of Light is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) [S]tellar debut chronicles the tumultuous working and romantic relationships of photographer Man Ray and model-turned-photographer Lee Miller in early 1930s Paris. This brilliant portrayal… [and] page-turning story… thrillingly depicts the artistic process.
Publishers Weekly
Scharer's debut is both engrossing and cinematic, a must for readers who enjoy a fictional peek into the lives of real-life artists.
Library Journal
(Starred review) Scharer's intoxicating first novel… bring[s] a stunning chiaroscuro effect to the saga of a woman transforming herself into an artist.
Booklist
(Starred review) A portrait of Lee Miller, the American cover girl and war photographer whose wild spirit captivated Picasso, Cocteau, and other eminences in 1930s Paris.… [W]hat a story!… [I]rresistible reading. Sexy and moving.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In many ways, Lee Miller is a strikingly modern heroine and she makes choices, particularly regarding her sexual and romantic relationships, that deviate from the social norms of the time. Were you surprised by her actions, and did Lee’s behavior change your understanding of women from this period in history
2. The settings in this story contrast romantic, bohemian Paris in the 1930s with scenes of war-torn Europe in WWII. In what ways did the contrast between these two places—as well as the different settings of the prologue and epilogue—affect your experience of the novel?
3. The expatriate, inter-War community in Paris is well known for producing numerous creative innovators—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Cole Porter to name a few recognizable personalities outside this novel. Why do you think Paris at this time was so inspiring to so many individuals?
4. The Age of Light opens with Lee Miller as a middle-aged woman in England. We know she’s married to Roland Penrose and is no longer working as a photographer. How did this foreshadowing impact your experience of the novel? How did this impact your feelings about Lee and Man’s relationship and Lee’s artistic journey as they developed over the course of the book?
5. Feelings of jealousy and paranoia play a huge role in this novel—especially with regard to romantic relationships. Given Surrealist artists’ rejection of hetero-normative culture, do you feel this envy was rightly earned? In Lee Miller and Man Ray’s relationship, did one person seem to have more traditional views of monogamy than the other?
6. The novel hints at Lee’s tumultuous past with her father, and his visit to Paris is exceptionally tense. How do you feel Lee’s childhood history of modelling for her father influenced the way she made her art, and her relationships with men?
7. The 1930s were a period of intense political, economic, and social change for Europe and the United States. The artists depicted in this novel created works inspired by pervasive feelings of anxiety and unease in the world around them. Do you feel these themes are relevant to today’s cultural climate? Which contemporary artists are challenging and interrogating our current events in the same way?
8. Lee Miller experienced trauma at many points in her life: during her childhood, in her relationship with Man Ray, and during WWII. How does the structure of this novel help us understand this trauma? How are we to feel about Lee by the end of the novel? Do you see her as a survivor or as someone ultimately undone by what she has experienced?
9. Ilse Bing and Claude Cahun are two other women artists depicted in this novel. They do not readily accept Lee into their social circle and are vocal about their distrust of her and her relationship with Man Ray. Did you empathize with Ilse and Claude? Do you think these women would have been more effective in overcoming patriarchal attitudes if they had worked together? In current professional environments, what forces or attitudes do you think work in favor of women overcoming patriarchal attitudes? What forces work against?
10. Lee ultimately decides to invite Man Ray to Bal Blanc under the guise of needing his help. What does it say about Lee that she chose to confront him in such a public way? Do you think Man Ray felt sincerely sorry for his actions regarding Lee’s career and their relationship? What would you have done in Lee Miller’s position?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Age of Miracles
Karen Thompson Walker, 2012
Random House
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812982947
Summary
With a voice as distinctive and original as that of The Lovely Bones, and for the fans of the speculative fiction of Margaret Atwood, Karen Thompson Walker’s The Age of Miracles is a luminous, haunting, and unforgettable debut novel about coming of age set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world.
It still amazes me how little we really knew.... Maybe everything that happened to me and my family had nothing at all to do with the slowing. It’s possible, I guess. But I doubt it. I doubt it very much.
On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow. The days and nights grow longer and longer, gravity is affected, the environment is thrown into disarray.
Yet as she struggles to navigate an ever-shifting landscape, Julia is also coping with the normal disasters of everyday life—the fissures in her parents’ marriage, the loss of old friends, the hopeful anguish of first love, the bizarre behavior of her grandfather who, convinced of a government conspiracy, spends his days obsessively cataloging his possessions. As Julia adjusts to the new normal, the slowing inexorably continues. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—San Diego, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California, Los Angeles; M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in Portland, Oregon
Karen Thompson Walker was born and raised in San Diego, California. She is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program. In 2011 she received Sirenland Fellowship, as well as a Bomb magazine fiction prize.
A former editor at Simon & Schuster, she wrote The Age of Miracles in the mornings before work. Her debut was published in 2012. Her second novel, The Dreamers came out in 2019.
Walker lives with her husband, the novelist Casey Walker, and their two daughters in Portland, Oregon. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Oregon. (Adapated from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] moving tale that mixes the real and surreal, the ordinary and the extraordinary with impressive fluency and flair.… Ms. Walker has an instinctive feel for narrative architecture, creating a story, in lapidary prose, that moves ahead with a sense of both the inevitable and the unexpected.… Ms. Walker maps [her characters’] inner lives with such sure-footedness that they become as recognizable to us as people we’ve grown up with or watched for years on television.… [A] precocious debut…one of this summer’s hot literary reads.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
If you begin this book, you'll be loath to set it down until you've reached its end.… The Age of Miracles reminds us that we never know when everything will change, when a single event will split our understanding of personal history and all history into a Before and an After.
San Francisco Chronicle
The perfect combination of the intimate and the pandemic.… Flawlessly written; it could be the most assured debut by an American writer since Jennifer Egan's Emerald City.
Denver Post
Simply told, skillfully crafted and filled with metaphorical unities, this resonant first novel [rings] with difficult truths both large and small.
Kansas City Star
Both utterly realistic and fantastically dystopian.… The big miracles, Walker seems to be saying, may doom the world at large, but the little ones keep life worth living.
Minnesota Herald Tribune
Walker’s tone can be properly [Harper] Lee-esque; both Julia and Scout grapple with the standard childhood difficulties as their societies crumble around them. But life prevails, and the stunning Miracles subtly conveys that adapting.
Time Out New York
Part speculative fiction, part coming-of-age story.… The Age of Miracles could turn Walker into American literature's next big thing.
NPR
Walker creates lovely, low-key scenes to dramatize her premise.… The spirit of Ray Bradbury hovers in the mixture of the portentous and quotidian.
The New Yorker
(Starred review) [Walker] matches the fierce creativity of her imagination with a lyrical and portentous understanding of the present.
People
Quietly explosive.… Walker describes global shifts with a sense of utter realism, but she treats Julia’s personal adolescent upheaval with equal care, delicacy, and poignancy.
O, The Oprah Magazine
This haunting and soul-stirring novel about the apocalypse is transformative and unforgettable.
Marie Claire
(Starred review.) [G]ripping…. [F]iercely grounded in the surreal and horrifying day-to-day and the personal decisions that persist even though no one knows wha. t to do. A triumph of vision, language, and terrifying momentum.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [S]tunning…. Walker captures each moment, intimate and universal, with magical precision. Riveting, heartbreaking, profoundly moving.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. As readers, why do you think we’re drawn to stories about the end of the world? What special pleasures do these kinds of narratives offer? And how do you think this element works in The Age of Miracles?
2. Julia is an only child. How does this fact affect who she is and how she sees the world? How would her experience of the slowing be different if she had a sibling? How would her experience of middle school be different?
3. How much do you think the slowing alters Julia’s experience of adolescence? If the slowing had never happened, in what ways would her childhood have been different? In what ways would it have been the same?
4. Julia’s parents’ marriage becomes increasingly strained over the course of the book. Why do you think they stay together? Do you think it’s the right choice? How much do you think Julia’s mother does or does not know about Sylvia?
5. Julia’s father tells several crucial lies. Discuss these lies and consider which ones, if any, are justified and which ones are not. Is lying ever the right thing to do? If so, when?
6. How would the book change if it were narrated by Julia’s mother? What if it were narrated by Julia’s father? Or her grandfather?
7. Why do you think Julia is so drawn to Seth? Why do you think he is drawn to her?
8. Did you identify more with the clock-timers or with the real-timers? Which would you be and why?
9. The slowing affects the whole planet, but the book is set in southern California. How does the setting affect the book? How important is it that the story takes place in California?
10. How do you feel about the way the book ends? What do you think lies ahead for Julia, for her parents and for the world?
11. The slowing throws the natural world into disarray. Plants and animals die and there are changes in the weather. Did this book make you think about the threats that face our own natural world? Do you think the book has something to say about climate change?
12. If you woke up tomorrow to the news that the rotation of the earth had significantly slowed, how do you think you would respond? What is the first thing you would do?
(Questions from the author's website.)
The Age of Orphans
Laleh Khadivi, 2008
Bloomsbury USA
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781608190423
Summary
Winner, 2008 Whiting Writers' Award
A Kurdish boy is forced to betray his people, in service of the new Iranian nation, with tragic consequences.
Reza had been like any other Kurdish boy; but after he is orphaned in a massacre by the armies of Iran’s new shah, everything changes. Later, as husband to a Tehrani woman, and as a military officer, his duties bring him face to face with his past.
Told with an evocative richness of language that recalls the work of Michael Ondaatje and Anita Desai, the story of Reza Khourdi is that of the twentieth-century Everyman who cannot help but yearn for the impossible dreams of love, land, and home. This is a universal story of the casualties of war by a stunning new voice. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1977
• Where—Esfahan, Iran
• Where—San Francisco area, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Reed College; M.F.A., Mills College
• Awards—Whiting Award
• Currently—teaches at Emory University, Georgia
Laleh Khadivi was born in Esfahan, Iran, in 1977 but fled with her family to the United States in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution. She was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She graduated from Reed College and from Mills College with an MFA. She has worked extensively as a documentary filmmaker. She teaches at Emory University.
In 2002 she began to research the Kurds, particularly their fate in the southwestern region of Iran under the first Shah.
The Age of Orphans is the first novel in a projected trilogy that will trace three generations of a Kurdish family—based loosely on her own—as they make their way to the United States and undergo the profound transformations of the immigrant experience. (Adapted from Wikipedia and the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Unflinchingly, Khadivi limns the emotional and physical brutality of the tribal-suppression campaign and Reza’s splintering psyche in language both fierce and poetic.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Khadivi... has a lyrical style reminiscent of The English Patient author Michael Ondaatje as she strings images of a bustling Tehran or the stillness of the Zagros Mountains... The Age of Orphans evocatively captures the desperate longing for home, family and a life erased. It's an affecting tale.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Ironic, beautifully written, brutal and ugly, Khadivi's ambitious debut novel follows a Kurdish boy who is tragically and violently conscripted into the shah's army after his own people are slaughtered in battle. Assigned the name Reza Pejman Khourdi-Reza after the first shah of Iran, Pejman meaning heartbroken and Khourdi to denote he's an ethnic Kurd-the boy suppresses all things Kurdish within him, fueled by a sense of self-preservation and self-loathing. Channeling fear and hate into brutal acts against the Kurds, Reza makes a quick climb up the military career ladder, eventually gaining an appointment to Kermanshah, a Kurdish region in the north of Iran. There, as overseer of his own people, Reza promotes Kurdish assimilation and the budding nation of Iran while mercilessly silencing voices of Kurdish independence. As he grows old with his Iranian wife, Meena, Reza's internal conflicts simmer, then boil over, with unexpected and terrible results. This difficult but powerful novel, the first of a trilogy, introduces a writer with a strong, unflinching voice and a penetrating vision.
Publishers Weekly
The 2008 recipient of a Whiting Writers' Award, Khadivi offers a remarkable first novel that does not shy away from harsh subject matter. This first installment in a trilogy about three generations of Kurdish men is set in Persia in the 1920s as Reza Shah Pahlari comes to power. The story tracks the life of a Kurdish boy who loses his family in a massacre and then is taken in by the very soldiers responsible for making him an orphan. Reborn as Reza Khourdi in honor of the shah, the youth is so well indoctrinated by the shah's military that his superior officers decide to reward his performance as a soldier by giving him a command post in his homeland. Reza returns to the region with his new wife to fight his own people, Kurdish rebels, and continue their brutal subjugation in pursuit of the shah's vision of a modernized Iran. Khadivi excels at capturing Reza's spiritual torture as he subdues his personal tribal history, often at the violent expense of others. With her eloquent portrayal of Reza, Khadivi has created an epitomic character representing so many 20th-century and current cultural, ethnic, and national identity clashes. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
In 1921 Persia, after a battlefield massacre, a Kurdish orphan is conscripted into the shah's army and given a new identity. Khadivi's debut spans almost six decades, during which the boy, renamed Reza Khourdi by the authorities, first proves his loyalty and his brutality and then-on the ground that his knowledge of Kurdish deviousness will be invaluable-is promoted to captain and sent to his hometown, Kermanshah. Reza's task is to be ruthless in stamping out revolts. The homecoming reignites old emotions, reminds Reza of the innocent falcon-loving mama's boy he once was but can never be again—and threatens to crack his facade and cost him the authority that is his dearest, almost his only, possession. Before his return, Reza marries a Tehrani woman, Meena. Their tragic, loveless marriage yields six children, until Reza-his wife is eight months pregnant with their seventh child-one day poisons her tea. When her brothers come up from the capital and confront him with the overwhelming evidence of his crime—Meena's blood contains cyanide, arsenic and bleach—Reza, in the book's most chilling scene, makes a ceremony of surrendering and has himself locked up by his adjutant, the jailer in the town's one cell, which has never before been used. The magistrate, another underling, takes down the brothers' evidence, laughing all the while. The next morning, Reza has himself released. The historical material has unmistakable power, but the book is somewhat marred by a false and overlush lyricism.
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 Age of Orphans:
1. Most readers point to the graphic nature of sex and violence in Khadivi's book. How difficult a read was this for you? Do you feel the brutality adds or detracts to the story? Is it too graphic and sensational? Or is the book's violence necessary to carry the story—and to depict conditions under the Shah's reign?
2. When captured, Reza becomes part of a group of boy soldiers in the Shah's army. What creates the initial bond among the boys? What happens when the Shah pays a visit to their ranks—how does his visit affect the group cohesiveness?
3. How does Reza's capture and mistreatment as a 7-year-old boy explain his later violence toward the Kurds? What are psychological underpinnings that lead to his actions in Kermanshah.
4. The story is told through shifting points of view. Why might the author have chosen to use this narrative technique rather than a single, straightforward narrator? Does the technique work for you?
5. Talk about Reza's marriage to Meena and the couple's relationship to one another.
6. Describe Reza's inner conflict, the increasing difficulty he experiences in denying his heritage.
7. An overarching theme of this book is the destruction of identity and its consequences. What happens when individuals or groups are denied the right to express their ethnic, cultural, or religious backgrounds? Can identities ever be completely wiped out? Can a person recreate a valid identity absent any historical ties to group/family/culture? What constitutes one's identity?
8. Tangential to Questions #7: how important is it for ethnic populations to be assimilated into a larger national culture? Why do national leaders of many (most?) countries prize "ethnic purity"? What is gained....or lost....through assimilation —by the group that assimilates and by the dominant culture?
9. Point to some passages in this work that you find especially lyrical. How are such passages are juxtaposed with the violent sections in the book? Why might Khadivi have used such stylized, poetic writing?
10. This book has particular relevance today, given the use of children as soldiers in conflicts around the world. Have you read other books on the same subject, such as Dave Eggers' What is the What ... or Ismael Beah's A Long Way Gone? If so, how do the books compare with one another? Consider doing some research on the issue of boy soldiers—the prevalence of their conscription and what, if any, efforts exist to prevent their exploitation.
11. The Age of Orphans is part of a planned trilogy. Does this book make you want to read the other books when they're published?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Ahab's Wife or The Star Gazer
Sena Jeter Naslund, 1999
HarperCollins
668 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060838744
Summary
Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last.
This is destined to be remembered as one of the most-recognized first sentences in literature—along with "Call me Ishmael." Sena Jeter Naslund has created an entirely new universe with a transcendent heroine at its center who will be every bit as memorable as Captain Ahab.
Ahab's Wife is a novel on a grand scale that can legitimately be called a masterpiece: beautifully written, filled with humanity and wisdom, rich in historical detail, authentic and evocative. Melville's spirit informs every page of her tour de force. Una Spenser's marriage to Captain Ahab is certainly a crucial element in the narrative of Ahab's Wife, but the story covers vastly more territory.
After a spellbinding opening scene, the tale flashes back to Una's childhood in Kentucky; her idyllic adolescence with her aunt and uncle's family at a lighthouse near New Bedford; her adventures disguised as a cabin boy on a whaling ship; her first marriage to a fellow survivor who descends into violent madness; courtship and marriage to Ahab; life as mother and a rich captain's wife in Nantucket; involvement with Frederick Douglass; and a man who is in Nantucket researching his novel about his adventures on her ex-husband's ship.
Ahab's Wife is a breathtaking, magnificent, and uplifting story of one woman's spiritual journey, informed by the spirit of the greatest American novel, but taking it beyond tragedy to redemptive triumph. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Birth—Birmingham, Alabama, USA
• Education—B.A., Birmingham-Souther College; Ph.D.
University of Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Awards—Harper Lee Award; Alabama Writer of the Year
• Currently—Louisville, Kentucky, USA
Sena Jeter Naslund grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, where she attended public schools and received a B.A. from Birmingham-Southern College. She has also lived in Louisiana, West Virginia, and California. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. In addition to two other novels and two collections of short stories, her short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, the Michigan Quarterly Review and many others.
For 12 years she directed the Creative Writing Program at the University of Louisville, where she teaches and holds the title Distinguished Teaching Professor. Concurrently, she is a member of the M.F.A. in Writing faculty of Vermont College. She is cofounder and editor of the literary magazine The Louisville Review and the Fleur-de-lis Press, housed at Spaulding University, and has taught at the University of Montana and Indiana University. She is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the Kentucky Arts Council. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky.
Extras
• Naslund is the recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Kentucky Foundation for Women, and the Kentucky Arts Council.
• She has taught literature since 1972, directing the creative writing program at University of Louisville, where she was awarded its first-ever Distinguished Teaching Professor honor. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Much of the book, though not all, I love. Mostly, I admire the creativity and courage of a writer to attempt such a work, especially a writer with a such a powerful sense of myth and elegant prose style. Overall, Naslund gives us a wide slice of 19th-century life, the great political, religious and philosophical conflicts of the time: abolition, women's suffrage, and religion versus reason. Una (a name symbolic of oneness with Ahab; Una is Ahab) has a 21st-century feminist sensibility, refusing to be tied down to the standard mores of her era...or this era, for that matter. Fulfillment is her pursuit, and she hunts it down with the single-mindedness of Ahab. The problem is that Una careens from one high adventure to another, which feels contrived, at times silly...
A LitLovers LitPick (Dec. '06)
"Captain Ahab was neither my first husband nor my last," says Una Spenser, the eponymous narrator, in the first sentence of this deliciously old-fashioned bildungsroman, adventure story and romance. Naslund's inspiration, based on one reference in Moby-Dick, may not satisfy aficonados of Melville's dense, richly symbolic masterpiece, but it should please most other readers with its suspenseful, affecting, historically accurate and seductive narrative. At age 12, Una escapes her religiously obsessed father in rural Kentucky to live with relatives in a lighthouse off New Bedford, Mass. When she is 16Adisguised as a boyAshe runs off to sea aboard a whaler, which sinks after being rammed by its quarry. Una and two young men who love her are the only survivors of a group set adrift in an open boat, but the dark secret of their cannibalism will leave its mark. Rescued, Una is wed to one of the young men by the captain of the Pequod, handsome, commanding Ahab, who has not as yet met the white whale that will be his destiny. These eventsArecounted in stately prose nicely dotted with literary allusionsAtake the reader only through the first quarter of the book. Una's later marriage to AhabAa passionate and intellectually satisfying relationshipAthe loss of her mother and her newborn son in one night, and her life as a rich woman in Nantucket are further developments in a plot teeming with arresting events and provocative ideas. Una is an enchanting protagonist: intellectually curious, sensitive, imaginative and kind. But Naslund also endows her with restlessness, rash impetuosity and a refreshing skepticism about traditional religion, qualities that humanize what verges on an idealized personality, and that motivate Una's search for spiritual sustenance. Unitarianism and Universalism are two of the religions she investigates; other "dark issues of our time" include slavery, and the position of women. Social and cultural details texture the lengthy, episodic, discursive narrative. Una's search for identity brings her friendship with such real life figures as writer Margaret Fuller and astronomer Maria Mitchell, and with such colorful fictional characters as an escaped slave and a dwarf bounty hunter. Even Halley's Comet makes an appearance. Provocatively, Naslund (The Disobedience of Water) suggests a new source of Ahab's demented rage to kill the whale who has "unmasted" him. Some elements of the novel jar, especially Naslund's tendency to pay rhapsodic tributes to Una's questing spirit; a surfeit of noble, large-souled and amazingly generous characters; and the symmetrical neatness of the plot. In the last third of the book, readers may become weary of Una's spiritual reflections and the minutiae of her daily routine. But these are small faults in a splendid novel that amply fulfills its ambitious purpose offering a sweeping, yet intimate picture of a remarkable woman who both typifies and transcends her times.
Publishers Weekly
At age 12, Una a nonconformist, is sent from Kentucky to Nantucket because she refuses to believe in Christianity. At age 16 she runs away to sea, posing as a cabin boy aboard a whaler. She enjoys her adventure until the first whale is killed and processed, and then one day her ship is rammed by one of them. After weeks in a lifeboat, she is rescued and taken back to Nantucket aboard the Pequod with Captain Ahab. Una and Ahab find they have much in common, from their passionate tempers to their stubborn tenacity, so they marry and have a son. When Ahab returns to sea, he becomes obsessed with the white whale, Moby Dick. News comes back that the Pequod sank, leaving a single survivor called Ishmael. When Una meets him, her life begins again. Masterfully read by Maryann Plunkett and beautifully written, this tale gives another possible perspective on the dour Captain Ahab and his family. Recommended. —Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island, Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Providence
Library Journal
Una...has the ability to rise and rise again after illness, destruction, and loss. And through it all she possesses a sense of wonder, the experience of divinity in all things. A complex and sophisticated book, brilliantly written, beautifully illustrated. —Grace Fill
Booklist
Nothing in Naslund's previous fiction prepares us for this extraordinary tale: a ravishingly detailed re-creation of the worlds of 19th-century antebellum America and of Melvilles seminal Moby Dick. The protagonist, and primary narrator, is Una Spenser (whose bookish mother named her after the heroine of The Faerie Queene), whom we first meet in her native Kentucky, where shes returned to give birth to her first childsired by her second husband: middle-aged Ahab, captain of the whaling ship Pequod. Naslund's flexible and fascinating narrative then leaps from Una's ordeal (both her baby and her beloved mother die) and an inspiring new friendshipbackward, to the story of her upbringing among relatives who tend a New England lighthouse, apprenticeship at sea disguised as a cabin boy, conflicted first marriage to an increasingly deranged husband, and eventual union with the brooding Ahab, whom even his young wife's resourceful love cannot deflect him from his vengeful pursuit of the white whale he imagines Evil Incarnate. Then Una returns to Kentucky, thence back east (Nantucket), where her restless intellect involves her with New England's ruling intellectual elite (including Transcendentalist icon Margaret Fuller) and the burgeoning abolitionist movement. The climactic pages, concentrated on Ahab's increasing monomania and Una's realization that hes lost to her, vibrate with tragic intensity. And the long meditative denouement, alive with echoes of Melville's cadences, memorably depicts Una's gradual fulfillment in a society poised on the cusp of civil war, her being saved by living testimony of (her surviving son, Justice) and by her gratifying, if belated, relationship with the Pequod's sole survivor) to the power of love and service to others, both neutralizing the fury that had consumed the doomed Ahab. Excepting a few inconsequential false steps, a genuine epic of America: an inspired homage to one of our greatest writers that brilliantly reinterprets, and in many ways rivals, his masterpiece.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Ahab's Wife takes place in the early nineteenth century. In what ways is Una's story a product of the times in which she lives? In what ways are her experiences timeless?
2. Early on in Una's life, her mother instructs her, "Accept the world, Una. It is what it is" (p. 29). Does she?
3. In many ways, Ahab's Wife is a spiritual journey. What are the forces that guide Una? What is her notion of her placein the universe and how does it evolve over the course of her lifetime?
4. Una writes, "Let me assure you and tell you that I know you, even something of your pain and joy, for you are much like me. The contract of writing and reading requires that we know each other. Did you know that I try on your mask from time to time? I become a reader, too" (p. 148). Several times throughout this book, Una addresses the reader directly. What is the effect of this interchange? How do you participate and become a character in this novel?
5. Discuss Una's relationship to the sea.
6. At the most painful time in her life, when she has lost her child and her mother, Una befriends Susan. Why is this relationship so important to Una? What is it that Susan teaches her? Compare and contrast their friendship to Una's friendship with Margaret Fuller.
7. How do you react to Una's cannibalism? Was she justified in doing what she does to survive? Is Giles more culpable because he himself makes the decision and executes the other shipmates? Or is he the most courageous of all because he takes it on himself to make a terrible decision and save those he loved?
8. Throughout Ahab's Wife, Una makes reference to the works of great writers such as William Shakespeare, John Keats, and Homer. What is the effect of drawing on all these other books? How does it enhance, deepen, and expand Ahab's Wife?
9. How does Una reconcile "the inevitable animal within" (p. 256) with her spiritual aspirations?
10. Why do you think that three out of Una's four loves (Giles, Kit, and Ahab (go mad? Is this merely coincidence?
11. Throughout her life, Una explores the art of sewing. Although Maria Mitchell considers sewing to be an act and a skill that confines rather than liberates women, at one point Una supports herself with a needle and thread. Discuss the numerous ways in which images of mending, binding, and sewing inform the telling of this novel.
12. When Una is looking for icebergs on Ahab's ship, she returns his trust "with silence on the subject of a white whale and all his massive innocence" (p. 280). Has she betrayed Ahab? Why does she see the whale as innocent? After Ahab loses his leg and then his life, do you think she continues to see Moby-Dick as innocent?
13. "Beware the treachery of words, Mrs. Sparrow. They mean one thing to one person and the opposite to another" (p. 297), Ahab tells Una. Why do you think Una finally finds her vocation to be working with words?
14. "Wondering what Margaret Fuller would say to such a distinction between spiritual and moral matters, I asked the judge if he thought there was a difference" (p. 383). Do you think there is a difference?
15. Una's narrative plunges back in time, leaps ahead, and loops over itself again. Different sections are told through other characters' perspectives and through their letters. How does the narrative structure itself enact some of Una's beliefs about the world?
16. The alternate title of this book is The Star-Gazer. Why do you think Ms. Naslund chose to have an alternate title at all? What meanings does it hold?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Air You Breathe
Frances de Pontes Peebles, 2018
Penguin Publishing
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780735210998
Summary
The story of an intense female friendship fueled by affection, envy and pride—and each woman's fear that she would be nothing without the other.
Some friendships, like romance, have the feeling of fate.
Skinny, nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graca, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved.
Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graca quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper level, over music.
One has a voice like a songbird; the other feels melodies in her soul and composes lyrics to match. Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and for each, the only way out of the life to which each was born.
But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes—and haunt their memories.
Traveling from Brazil's inland sugar plantations to the rowdy streets of Rio de Janeiro's famous Lapa neighborhood, from Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood back to the irresistible drumbeat of home, The Air You Breathe unfurls a moving portrait of a lifelong friendship—its unparalleled rewards and lasting losses—and considers what we owe to the relationships that shape our lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Pernambuco, Brazil
• Education—Iowa's Workshop
• Awards—Elle Grand Prix (see below)
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois, USA
Frances de Pontes Peebles is the author of the novel The Seamstress (2008), which was translated into nine languages and won the Elle Grand Prix for fiction, the Friends of American Writers Award, and the James Michener-Copernicus Society of America Fellowship. She followed her debut ten years later with The Air You Breathe (2018).
The decade between those two books was the result of Peebles' move back to Brazil with her husband to manage her family's coffee farm.
We helped them build a business of selling gourmet coffee to Brazilians. Farming was 24/7, so I didn't write during that time. Then we had a daughter. Motherhood changed my brain and how I worked. I had to sneak writing in when my daughter napped. I had to fight for this book in a way I didn't with the first.
Born in Pernambuco, Brazil, Peebles is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. (From Amazon and Maimi New Times. Retrieved 9/11/2018.)
Book Reviews
Echoes of Elena Ferrante resound in this sumptuous saga.
Oprah Magazine
A glorious, glittery saga of friendship and loss… [offering] murder, extortion, Hollywood glamor, the entire story of samba, and, of course, sexual longing and an exceptional cast of characters.… I read The Air You Breathe in two nights. (One might say I inhaled it.)… [G]enuinely exciting.
NPR
Enveloping…Peebles understands the shifting currents of female friendship, and she writes so vividly about samba that you close the book certain its heroine’s voices must exist beyond the page.
People
A poor orphan and a wealthy heiress whose roller-coaster friendship is a welcome reminder that time can make any relationship stronger.
Glamour
Frances de Pontes Peebles’ tender novel follows this unlikely friendship and the jealousy and rivalry that come with their pursuit of fame.
Real Simple
A soaring fusion of emotion, intense drama,… The Air You Breathe belongs to the special category of historical novels that chronicle entire lives—and it does so in enthralling fashion.… [I]ntoxicating … not to be missed by anyone wanting to be wrapped up in a well-told story.
Historical Novel Society
[A] captivating if occasionally overstuffed portrait of friendship.… [Yet] Dores’s reflections on love, music, envy, and loyalty ache with feeling, and a hint of mystery surrounding the central relationship …will keepreaders intrigued.
Publishers Weekly
In the 1930s, two girls—have-it-all Graca, the daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, and orphaned kitchen maid Dores—bond over a love of music and end up traveling together to Rio de Janeiro and finally Golden Age Hollywood in a quest for stardom.
Library Journal
Peebles does a marvelous job of evoking the world of samba, which forms the backdrop to the complicated relationship the two women share. Readers …will be rewarded with complex characters and a well-realized setting.
Booklist
(Starred review) Dores' recounting of the duo's experiences is steeped in melancholy but also alludes to the unreliability of memory…. Peebles' detailed and atmospheric story is cinematic in scope, panoramic in view, and lyrical in tone.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In The Air You Breathe, Dores grows up under the watchful eye of Nena, the head of the kitchen on the Riacho Doce plantation, while enduring gossip about her birth mother. Graaa’s mother does everything she can to expose her absent-minded daughter to the arts and education. In what ways do Dores’s and Graca’s relationships with their mothers or mother figures affect the way they lead their lives in Rio and beyond?
2. Throughout the novel, Graca comes across as spoiled and selfish; however, Dores is forced to reevaluate her intentions when Graca accuses her of only ever looking out for herself. To what extent is this true and what might have prompted Graca to make such a comment?
3. Music is a pivotal part of each of the characters’ lives. In what ways does music act as an escape and a burden for Dores, Graca, Vinicius, and the Blue Moon boys?
4. Dores’s love for Graca can become dangerously unconditional and we see that any attention from Graca is enough to make Dores want to abandon the work they’ve put into the Sofia Salvador act to run away with her. Are there instances when Dores seems to have had enough? What pulls her back into Graca’s influence? Was Dores, in a sense, liberated by Graca’s death?
5. Why, when Senhor Pimentel reappears in the girls’ lives, is Graca so willing to let him back in? Is Graca’s love for her father similar to Dores’s love for Graca in that both are willing to settle for minor displays of affection?
6. Madame Lucifer and the Lion fought to get to their positions of power, and both show their respect for Dores’s perseverance. How is Graca treated in comparison to the way Dores is? Are there instances when Graca, rather than Dores, is invisible or in the shadows?
7. Vinicius is a grounded character who cares about the integrity of his music first. How does Vinicius, and his relationship with music, change when Sofia Salvador and the Blue Moon boys gain fame, first in Rio then in Los Angeles? When Graca wants to abandon ship, Vinicius wants to convince her to stay and finish filming for their movies. Is this a practical decision or one that reflects how he feels about fame?
8. Graca and Dores want what the other has. Dores wants Graca’s voice and her command on stage while Graca wants Dores’s ability to write music and her relationship with Vinicius. In what ways would our opinion of Dores change if the story had been written from Graca’s point of view?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Airframe
Michael Crichton, 1996
Ballantine Books
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345526779
Summary
Three passengers are dead. Fifty-six are injured. The interior cabin virtually destroyed. But the pilot manages to land the plane. . . .
At a moment when the issue of safety and death in the skies is paramount in the public mind, a lethal midair disaster aboard a commercial twin-jet airliner bound from Hong Kong to Denver triggers a pressured and frantic investigation.
Airframe is nonstop listening: the extraordinary mixture of super suspense and authentic information on a subject of compelling interest that has been a Crichton landmark since The Andromeda Strain. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 23, 1942
• Raised—Roslyn (Long Island), New York, USA
• Death—November 4, 2008
• Where—Los Angeles, California
• Education—A.B., M.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Edgar Award for Best Novel (1969)
John Michael Crichton—the American best-selling author, producer, director, and screenwriter—is best known for his work in the science fiction, medical fiction, and thriller genres. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and many have been adapted into films. In 1994, Crichton became the only creative artist ever to have works simultaneously charting at #1 in television, film, and book sales (with ER, Jurassic Park, and Disclosure, respectively).
Crichton's literary works are usually based on the action genre and heavily feature technology. His novels epitomize the techno-thriller genre of literature, often exploring technology and failures of human interaction with it, especially resulting in catastrophes with biotechnology. Many of his future history novels have medical or scientific underpinnings, reflecting his medical training and science background. He was the author of, among others, Jurassic Park, The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Travels, Sphere, Rising Sun, Disclosure, The Lost World, Airframe, Timeline, Prey, State of Fear, Next (the final book published before his death), Pirate Latitudes (published November 24, 2009), and a final unfinished techno-thriller, Micro, which was published in November 2011
Background
John Michael Crichton was born in Chicago, Illinois, but raised on Long Island, in Roslyn, New York. He showed a keen interest in writing from a young age and at the age of 14 had a column related to travel published in The New York Times. Crichton had always planned on becoming a writer and began his studies at Harvard College in 1960. During his undergraduate study in literature, he conducted an experiment to expose a professor whom he believed to be giving him abnormally low marks and criticizing his literary style. Informing another professor of his suspicions, Crichton plagiarized a work by George Orwell and submitted it as his own. The paper was returned by his unwitting professor with a mark of B-minus.
His issues with the English department led Crichton to switch his concentration to biological anthropology as an undergraduate, obtaining his A.B. summa cum laude in 1964. He was also initiated into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He went on to become the Henry Russell Shaw Traveling Fellow from 1964 to 1965 and Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Cambridge in the UK in 1965.
Crichton later enrolled at Harvard Medical School, when he began publishing work. By this time he had become exceptionally tall. By his own account, he was approximately 6 feet 9 inches (2.06 m) tall in 1997. In reference to his height, while in medical school, he began writing novels under the pen names "John Lange" and "Jeffrey Hudson" ("Lange" is a surname in Germany, meaning "long", and Sir Jeffrey Hudson was a famous 17th-century dwarf in the court of Queen Consort Henrietta Maria of England). In Travels, he recalls overhearing doctors who were unaware that he was the author of The Andromeda Strain, discussing the flaws in his book. A Case of Need, written under the Hudson pseudonym, won him his first Edgar Award for Best Novel in 1969. He also co-authored Dealing with his younger brother Douglas under the shared pen name "Michael Douglas." The back cover of that book carried a picture, taken by their mother, of Michael and Douglas when very young.
During his clinical rotations at the Boston City Hospital, Crichton grew disenchanted with the culture there, which appeared to emphasize the interests and reputations of doctors over the interests of patients. Crichton graduated from Harvard, obtaining an M.D. in 1969, and undertook a post-doctoral fellowship study at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, from 1969 to 1970. He never obtained a license to practice medicine, devoting himself to his writing career instead.
Reflecting on his career in medicine years later, Crichton concluded that patients too often shunned responsibility for their own health, relying on doctors as miracle workers rather than advisors. He experimented with astral projection, aura viewing, and clairvoyance, coming to believe that these included real phenomena that scientists had too eagerly dismissed as paranormal.
In 1988, Crichton was a visiting writer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Personal life
Crichton was a diest.
As an adolescent Crichton felt isolated because of his height (at 6'9"). As an adult he was acutely aware of his intellect, which often left him feeling alienated from the people around him. During the 1970s and 1980s he consulted psychics and enlightenment gurus to make him feel more socially acceptable and to improve his karma. As a result of these experiences, Crichton practiced meditation throughout much of his life.
Crichton was a workaholic. When drafting a novel, which would typically take him six or seven weeks, he withdrew completely to follow what he called "a structured approach" of ritualistic self-denial. As he neared writing the end of each book, he would rise increasingly early each day, meaning that he would sleep for less than four hours by going to bed at 10 pm and waking at 2 am. In 1992, Crichton was ranked among People magazine's 50 most beautiful people.
He married five times; four of the marriages ended in divorce. He was married to Suzanna Childs, Joan Radam (1965–1970), Kathleen St. Johns (1978–1980), and actress Anne-Marie Martin (1987–2003), the mother of his daughter Taylor Anne (born 1989). At the time of his death, Crichton was married to Sherri Alexander, who was six months pregnant with their son. John Michael Todd Crichton was born on February 12, 2009.
Death
In accordance with the private way in which Crichton lived his life, his throat cancer was not made public until his death. According to Crichton's brother Douglas, Crichton was diagnosed with lymphoma in early 2008. He was undergoing chemotherapy treatment at the time of his death, and Crichton's physicians and family members had been expecting him to make a recovery. He unexpectedly died of the disease on November 4, 2008 at the age of 66.
Michael's talent outscaled even his own dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. He was the greatest at blending science with big theatrical concepts, which is what gave credibility to dinosaurs again walking the earth. In the early days, Michael had just sold The Andromeda Strain to Robert Wise at Universal and I had recently signed on as a contract TV director there. My first assignment was to show Michael Crichton around the Universal lot. We became friends and professionally. Jurassic Park, ER, and Twister followed. Michael was a gentle soul who reserved his flamboyant side for his novels. There is no one in the wings that will ever take his place. —Steven Spielberg at Michael Crichton's death.
Crichton had an impressive collection of 20th century American art, which was auctioned by Christie's in May 2010. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Dramatically vivid.
New York Times
A one-sitting read that will cause a lifetime of white-nuckled nightmares.
Philadelphia Inquirer
The pacing is fast, the suspense nonstop.
People
[S]light, enjoyable thriller.... [The] suspense rises, peaking high above the earth in an exciting re-creation of the flight. It's possible that Crichton has invented a new subgenre here—the industrial thriller.... [B]estselling, cinema-ready entertainment.
Publishers Weekly
Crichton's talent lies in making arcane sciences fascinating to even the most spirited Luddite, and fans won't be disappointed by his descriptions of the technology employed in the making of passenger planes and, in particular, the precision with which the aircraft's wings are designed. —Mark Annichiarico
Library Journal
[b]illed as a "technical thriller" but the technology seems to outweigh the thrills.... Crichton incorporates enough suspense to keep readers going but a degree in engineering would be helpful in understanding this novel. —Katherine Fitch, Lake Braddock Middle School, Burke, VA
School Library Journal
Loading it with interesting detail on airliner construction, aerodynamics, the international trade in commercial aircraft, and air safety, Crichton produces a taut, absorbing suspenser. —Ray Olson
Booklist
Discussion Questions
Our thanks to Rena DeBerry of Salem, Virginia, for submitting these terrific discussion questions to LitLovers.
1. Did the book description meet your expectations?
2. Pages 286-291 - The book reveals that television media is not liablefor sharing only parts of truth or responsible for providing fairnessdoctrine when covering new story. In addition, there is no recourse for erroneous view and can only proceed reckless disregard which is very difficult to approve. What is your opinion of the practice?
3. Why is a personal video with a child in it from the airplane to be made a public not a privacy issue? What about the passenger’s rights? Was it violated with the video?
4. Some version of the excuse "you don’t understand" is used by Casey throughout the book. Do you agree or think it is an opt out for responsibility?
5. Let’s discuss Union. Throughout the book there is Union unrest and "accidents". Are they believable? Are they justified? How does this translate to modern times? In real life, do you think the Union Representative would have really warned Casey? Why do you think Don warned Casey?
6. Knowing you were on the Union’s "hitlist" would you have been as reckless as Casey in her search for the truth?
7. Throughout the book "company gossip" was the main form of communication. How have you been affected by company gossip, both true and untrue?
8. Would you have gone on the test flight?
9. Pages 412-417 -Were the "finding of 545" believable? Do you really believe that a major airline (foreign or domestic) would be so irresponsible in letting a noncertified pilot (familial or not) fly the plane?
10. Page 416-417 - Let’s discuss naivety as Casey described. Does it apply to just the pilot and Jennifer or also other characters?
Casey shrugged, "He loves his son. We believe he’s allowed him to fly on other occasions. But there’s a reason why commercial pilots are required to train extensively on specific equipment, to be certified. He didn’t know what he was doing, and he got caught."
Casey closed the door, and thought: And so did you.
11. Did you know Richman and Marder were the saboteurs of Casey’s investigation? If so, what tipped you off?
12.Greed is an underlying them throughout the book. Hal for the China sale. Marder for the Korea sale. How did greed influence the aircraft report? The Union? Media appearance? Was it justified? Was it believable?
13.With all the issues Norton faced, would the deal with China actually have gone through?
14.Because of Marder’s deception, what do you think the downfall of the Korea sale would have been for Norton? Marder?
15.Were you satisfied with the neat tied up endings for everyone? Casey? Norton? Marder? Richman? Malone?
16.On a scale of 1 to 5, how would you rate Airframe? Would you recommend Airframe? Why or why not?
(Questions courtesy of Rena DeBerry. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution to both LitLovers and Rena. Thanks.)
The Alchemist
Paulo Coelho, 1996
HarperCollin
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062315007
Summary
25th Anniversary Edition
Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its simplicity and wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of treasure buried in the Pyramids.
Santiago has a dream about finding a treasure in the pyramids of Egypt. A gypsy woman and an old man claiming to be a mysterious king advise him to pursue it. "To realize one's destiny is a person's only obligation," the old man tells him. "And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."
With the courage of an adventurer, Santiago sells his sheep and travels to Tangiers in Africa. After a thief steals his money, Santiago takes a job with a crystal merchant who unwittingly teaches Santiago important lessons for his long journey ahead. After working at the crystal shop for a year, Santiago earns enough money to cover his losses and return home. But then something unexpected happens.
On a desert caravan, Santiago meets an intriguing Englishman. The Englishman's passion for knowledge and his relentless quest to uncover the secrets of alchemy inspire Santiago to pursue his own dream of finding the treasure. As the Englishman searches for the two hundred year old alchemist who resides in the desert oasis, Santiago falls in love with a young woman, Fatima. Exposed to the greatest and eternal alchemy of all—love—Santiago thinks he has found the treasure.
But the greatest test of all is yet to come. With the help of the alchemist, Santiago completes the last leg of his journey—dangerous and infused with discoveries of the most profound kind - to find that the treasure he was looking for was waiting for him in the place where he least expected.
This story, timeless and entertaining, exotic yet simple, breaks down the journey we all take to find the most meaningful treasures in our lives into steps that are at once natural and magical. It is about the faith, power, and courage we all have within us to pursue the intricate path of a Personal Legend, a path charted by the mysterious magnet of destiny but obscured by distractions.
Santiago shows how along the way we learn to trust our hearts, read the seemingly inconspicuous signs, and understand that as we look to fulfill a dream, it looks to find us just the same, if we let it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1947
• Where—Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Education—Left law school in second year
• Awards—Crystal Award (Switzerland), 1999; Rio Branco
Order (Brazil), 2000; Legion d’Honneur (France), 2001;
Brazilian Academy of Letters (Brazil), 2002
• Currently—lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Paulo Coelho's books have been translated into 56 languages, topped bestseller lists throughout the world, and scored him such celebrity fans as Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton, and Madonna; yet for Brazilian publishing phenom Paulo Colho, the road to success has been strewn with a number of obstacles, many of them rooted in his troubled past.
Personal life
As a youth, Coelho was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father, a professional engineer. When he rebelled, expressing his intentions to become a writer, his parents had him committed to a psychiatric hospital where he was subjected to electro-shock therapy. He left home to join the 1970s countercultural revolution, experimenting with drugs, dabbling in black magic, and getting involved in Brazil's bohemian art and music scene. He teamed with rock musician Raul Seixas for an extremely successful songwriting partnership that changed the face of Brazilian pop—and put a lot of money in Coelho's pockets. He also joined an anti-capitalist organization called the Alternative Society which attracted the attention of Brazil's military dictatorship. Marked down as a subversive, he was imprisoned and tortured.
Amazingly, Coelho survived these horrific experiences. He left the hippie lifestyle behind, went to work in the record industry, and began to write, but without much success. Then, in the mid-1980s, during a trip to Europe, he met a man, an unnamed mentor he refers to only as "J," who inducted him into Regnum Agnus Mundi, a secret society that blends Catholicism with a sort of New Age mysticism. At J's urging, Coelho journeyed across el Camino de Santiago, the legendary Spanish road traversed by pilgrims since the Middle Ages. He chronicled this life-changing, 500-mile journey—the culmination of decades of soul-searching—in The Pilgrimage, published in 1987.
Writings
The following year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist, the inspirational fable for which he is best known. The first edition sold so poorly the publisher decided not to reprint it. Undaunted, Coelho moved to a larger publishing house that seemed more interested in his work. When his third novel, 1990's Brida, proved successful, the resulting media buzz carried The Alchemist all the way to the top of the charts. Released in the U.S. by HarperCollins in 1993, The Alchemist became a word-of-mouth sensation, turning Coelho into a cult hero.
Since then, he has gone on to create his own distinct literary brand—an amalgam of allegory and self-help filled with spiritual themes and symbols. In his novels, memoirs, and aphoristic nonfiction, he returns time and again to the concepts of quest and transformation and has often said that writing has helped connect him to his soul.
While his books have not always been reviewed favorably and have often become the subject of strong cultural and philosophical debate, there is no doubt that this self-described "pilgrim writer" has struck a chord in readers everywhere. In the 2009 edition of the Guiness Book of World Records, Coelho was named the most translated living author—with William Shakespeare the most translated of all time!
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Few writers are able to accomplish what Coelho can in just two to four weeks—which is how long it takes for him to write an entire novel.
• Before become a bestselling novelist, Coelho was a writer of a different sort. He co-wrote more than 60 songs with Brazilian musician Raul Seixas.
• Coelho is the founder of the Paulo Coelho Institute, a non-profit organization funded by his royalties that raises money for underprivileged children and the elderly in his homeland of Brazil.
• Coelho has practiced archery for a long time; a bow and arrow helps him to unwind.
• In writing, Coelho says "I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation."
• Coelho loves almost everything about his work, except conferences. "I am too shy in front of an audience. But I love signings and having eye contact with a reader who already knows my soul."
• When asked what book most influenced his life, he answered:
The Bible, which contains all the stories and all the guidance humankind needs.
(Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Spiritual inspiration doesn't guarantee luminous prose. One of the few authors whose writing draws praise in reviews is the Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho, the international best-selling author of The Alchemist and The Valkyries: An Encounter With Angels.
Doreen Carvajal - The New York Times
This inspirational fable by Brazilian author and translator Coelho has been a runaway bestseller throughout Latin America and seems poised to achieve the same prominence here. The charming tale of Santiago, a shepherd boy, who dreams of seeing the world, is compelling in its own right, but gains resonance through the many lessons Santiago learns during his adventures. He journeys from Spain to Morocco in search of worldly success, and eventually to Egypt, where a fateful encounter with an alchemist brings him at last to self-understanding and spiritual enlightenment. The story has the comic charm, dramatic tension and psychological intensity of a fairy tale, but it's full of specific wisdom as well, about becoming self-empowered, overcoming depression, and believing in dreams. The cumulative effect is like hearing a wonderful bedtime story from an inspirational psychiatrist. Comparisons to The Little Prince are appropriate; this is a sweetly exotic tale for young and old alike.
Publishers Weekly
This simple, yet eloquent parable celebrates the richness of the human spirit. A young Spanish shepherd seeking his destiny travels to Egypt where he learns many lessons, particularly from a wise old alchemist. The real alchemy here, however, is the transmuting of youthful idealism into mature wisdom. The blending of conventional ideas with an exotic setting makes old truths seem new again. This shepherd takes the advice Hamlet did not heed, learning to trust his heart and commune with it as a treasured friend. Enjoyable and easy to read, this timeless fantasy validates the aspirations and dreams of youth.
—Sabrina Fraunfelter, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Library Journal
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind. The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart." A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint-Exupry's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility. Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. At the start of his journey, when Santiago asks a gypsy woman to interpret his dream about a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids, she asks for one tenth of the treasure in return. When Santiago asks the old man to show him the path to the treasure, the old man requests one tenth of his flock as "payment." Both payments represent a different price we have to pay to fulfill a dream; however, only one will yield a true result. Which payment represents false hope? Can you think of examples from your own life when you had to give up something to meet a goal and found the price too high?
2. Paulo Coelho once said that alchemy is all about pursuing our spiritual quest in the physical world as it was given to us. It is the art of transmuting the reality into something sacred, of mixing the sacred and the profane. With this in mind, can you define your Personal Legend? At what time in your life were you first able to act on it? What was your "beginner's luck"? Did anything prevent you from following it to conclusion? Having read The Alchemist, do you know what inner resources you need to continue the journey?
3. One of the first major diversions from Santiago's journey was the theft of his money in Tangiers, which forced him into taking a menial job with the crystal merchant. There, Santiago learned many lessons on everything from the art of business to the art of patience. Of all these, which lessons were the most crucial to the pursuit of his Personal Legend?
4. When he talked about the pilgrimage to Mecca, the crystal merchant argued that having a dream is more important than fulfilling it, which is what Santiago was trying to do. Do you agree with Santiago's rationale or crystal merchant's?
5. The Englishman, whom Santiago meets when he joins the caravan to the Egyptian pyramids, is searching for "a universal language, understood by everybody." What is that language? According to the Englishman, what are the parallels between reading and alchemy? How does the Englishman's search for the alchemist compares to Santiago's search for a treasure? How did the Englishman and Santiago feel about each other?
6. The alchemist tells Santiago "you don't have to understand the desert: all you have to do is contemplate a simple grain of sand, and you will see in it all the marvels of creation." With this in mind, why do you think the alchemist chose to befriend Santiago, though he knew that the Englishman was the one looking for him? What is the meaning of two dead hawks and the falcon in the oasis? At one point the alchemist explains to Santiago the secret of successfully turning metal into gold. How does this process compare to finding a Personal Legend?
7. Why did Santiago have to go through the dangers of tribal wars on the outskirts of the oasis in order to reach the pyramids? At the very end of the journey, why did the alchemist leave Santiago alone to complete it?
8.Earlier in the story, the alchemist told Santiago "when you possess great treasures within you, and try to tell others of them, seldom are you believed." At the end of the story, how did this simple lesson save Santiago's life? How did it lead him back to the treasure he was looking for?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
top of page (summary)
Aleph
Paulo Coehlo, 2011
Knopf Doubleday
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307700186
Summary
In his most personal novel to date, internationally best-selling author Paulo Coelho returns with a remarkable journey of self-discovery. Like the main character in his much-beloved The Alchemist, Paulo is facing a grave crisis of faith. As he seeks a path of spiritual renewal and growth, he decides to begin again: to travel, to experiment, to reconnect with people and the landscapes around him.
Setting off to Africa, and then to Europe and Asia via the Trans-Siberian Railway, he initiates a journey to revitalize his energy and passion. Even so, he never expects to meet Hilal. A gifted young violinist, she is the woman Paulo loved five hundred years before—and the woman he betrayed in an act of cowardice so far-reaching that it prevents him from finding real happiness in this life. Together they will initiate a mystical voyage through time and space, traveling a path that teaches love, forgiveness, and the courage to overcome life’s inevitable challenges.
Beautiful and inspiring, Aleph invites us to consider the meaning of our own personal journeys: Are we where we want to be, doing what we want to do? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1947
• Where—Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Education—Left law school in second year
• Awards—Crystal Award (Switzerland), 1999; Rio Branco
Order (Brazil), 2000; Legion d’Honneur (France), 2001;
Brazilian Academy of Letters (Brazil), 2002
• Currently—lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Paulo Coelho's books have been translated into 56 languages, topped bestseller lists throughout the world, and scored him such celebrity fans as Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton, and Madonna; yet for Brazilian publishing phenom Paulo Colho, the road to success has been strewn with a number of obstacles, many of them rooted in his troubled past.
Personal life
As a youth, Coelho was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father, a professional engineer. When he rebelled, expressing his intentions to become a writer, his parents had him committed to a psychiatric hospital where he was subjected to electro-shock therapy. He left home to join the 1970s countercultural revolution, experimenting with drugs, dabbling in black magic, and getting involved in Brazil's bohemian art and music scene. He teamed with rock musician Raul Seixas for an extremely successful songwriting partnership that changed the face of Brazilian pop—and put a lot of money in Coelho's pockets. He also joined an anti-capitalist organization called the Alternative Society which attracted the attention of Brazil's military dictatorship. Marked down as a subversive, he was imprisoned and tortured.
Amazingly, Coelho survived these horrific experiences. He left the hippie lifestyle behind, went to work in the record industry, and began to write, but without much success. Then, in the mid-1980s, during a trip to Europe, he met a man, an unnamed mentor he refers to only as "J," who inducted him into Regnum Agnus Mundi, a secret society that blends Catholicism with a sort of New Age mysticism. At J's urging, Coelho journeyed across el Camino de Santiago, the legendary Spanish road traversed by pilgrims since the Middle Ages. He chronicled this life-changing, 500-mile journey—the culmination of decades of soul-searching—in The Pilgrimage, published in 1987.
Writings
The following year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist, the inspirational fable for which he is best known. The first edition sold so poorly the publisher decided not to reprint it. Undaunted, Coelho moved to a larger publishing house that seemed more interested in his work. When his third novel, 1990's Brida, proved successful, the resulting media buzz carried The Alchemist all the way to the top of the charts. Released in the U.S. by HarperCollins in 1993, The Alchemist became a word-of-mouth sensation, turning Coelho into a cult hero.
Since then, he has gone on to create his own distinct literary brand—an amalgam of allegory and self-help filled with spiritual themes and symbols. In his novels, memoirs, and aphoristic nonfiction, he returns time and again to the concepts of quest and transformation and has often said that writing has helped connect him to his soul.
While his books have not always been reviewed favorably and have often become the subject of strong cultural and philosophical debate, there is no doubt that this self-described "pilgrim writer" has struck a chord in readers everywhere. In the 2009 edition of the Guiness Book of World Records, Coelho was named the most translated living author—with William Shakespeare the most translated of all time!
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Few writers are able to accomplish what Coelho can in just two to four weeks—which is how long it takes for him to write an entire novel.
• Before become a bestselling novelist, Coelho was a writer of a different sort. He co-wrote more than 60 songs with Brazilian musician Raul Seixas.
• Coelho is the founder of the Paulo Coelho Institute, a non-profit organization funded by his royalties that raises money for underprivileged children and the elderly in his homeland of Brazil.
• Coelho has practiced archery for a long time; a bow and arrow helps him to unwind.
• In writing, Coelho says "I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation."
• Coelho loves almost everything about his work, except conferences. "I am too shy in front of an audience. But I love signings and having eye contact with a reader who already knows my soul."
• When asked what book most influenced his life, he answered:
The Bible, which contains all the stories and all the guidance humankind needs. (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
In this chimerical tale, protagonist Paolo embarks on a journey to remedy his dissatisfaction with life, a frustration he feels despite enjoying the accoutrements of success. Given that his world includes clairvoyance, Divine Energy, and time-travel, Paolo's is not the usual existential crisis. His present-day troubles, in fact, can be traced to betrayals during a previous incarnation that took place during the Inquisition. When he encounters Hilal, a woman he wronged, complications arise from their shared experience in The Aleph: "the point at which everything is in the same place at the same time." Given the couple's history, Paolo's response is curiously practical and distant: "reopening old wounds is neither easy nor particularly important. The only justification is that the knowledge acquired might help me to gain a better understanding of the present." Although the novel requires ample suspension of disbelief, there's no better author to serve such a work than Coelho (The Alchemist)—his main character bears the weight of the sometimes ambiguous and wandering narrative with pithy reflections.
Publishers Weekly
Best-selling inspirational author Coelho was having a crisis of faith, so he did what we all do in that situation: he traveled through Europe, Africa, and Asia and met again with a woman he loved 500 years ago.
Library Journal
The latest spirituality-lite novel from Coelho.... For readers who admire books filled with goofy yet endearing spiritual clichés such as, "Death is just a door into another dimension."
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Aleph is a novel full of rituals, starting with Paulo and J.’s opening invocation around the sacred oak. However, Paulo’s reaction to them varies wildly; sometimes they frustrate him (the oak), sometimes he embraces them (the shaman’s midnight chant on the edges of Lake Baikal), and other times he criticizes them for being empty (Hilal’s offering at the church in Novosibirsk). Why do you think this is? Do you think this has to do with the rituals themselves or is Coelho trying to express something deeper about the nature and purpose of ritual? What value can ritual have in your own life?
2. During his initial argument with J., Paulo says: “We human beings have enormous difficulty in focusing on the present; we’re always thinking about what we did, about how we could have done it better, about the consequences of our actions, and about why we didn’t act as we should have. Or else we think about the future, about what we’re going to do tomorrow, what precautions we should take, what dangers await us around the next corner, how to avoid what we don’t want and how to get what we have always dreamed of” [p. 9]. Do you agree? Why do you think J. prescribes travel as a way for Paulo to better focus on the present instead of his past or future?
3. While he’s waiting for a sign that he should embark on the journey J. suggests, Paulo thinks about the nature of tragedy. “Tragedy always brings about radical change in our lives, a change that is associated with the same principle: loss. When faced by any loss, there’s no point in trying to recover what has been; it’s best to take advantage of the large space that opens up before us and fill it with something new. In theory, every loss is for our own good; in practice, though, that is when we question the existence of God and ask ourselves: What did I do to deserve this?” [p. 15]. Many of Aleph’s characters are dealing with extreme personal tragedy, from Hilal and her history of sexual abuse to Yao and the death of his wife. Do their experiences and struggles to move forward support or contradict Paulo’s statements?
4. Paulo frequently refers to Chinese bamboo after reading an article about its growth process: “Once the seed has been sown, you see nothing for about five years, apart from a tiny shoot. All the growth takes place underground, where a complex root system reaching upward and outward is being established. Then, at the end of the fifth year, the bamboo suddenly shoots up to a height of twenty-five meters” [p. 22]. How does this function as an important metaphor for spiritual growth? What do you think are the best ways to build a “complex root system” of your own?
5. Coelho writes, “To live is to experience things, not sit around pondering the meaning of life” and offers examples of people who have experienced revelations in various ways [p. 62]. Do you agree? What people or writings are you familiar with that support (or disprove) his point of view?
6. In “The Aleph,” Borges’s narrator asks, “How, then, can I translate into words the limitless Aleph, which my floundering mind can scarcely encompass? Mystics, faced with the same problem, fall back on symbols:.... one Persian speaks of a bird that somehow is all birds; Alanus de Insulis, of a sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference is nowhere; Ezekiel, of a four-faced angel who at one and the same time moves east and west, north and south.” How does Coelho attempt to explain the Aleph? Why do you think Coelho has Paulo and Hilal discover it on a train car? Do you think its location has a larger significance for the story?
7. What images, memories, and emotions most powerfully capture the mystery and the magic of the Aleph that Paulo and Hilal experience on the train [pp. 73–75]? How do they affect them each as individuals? In what ways does it change and deepen their relationship?
8. What role does Yao serve in Paulo’s quest? Are there similarities between Yao, Paulo, and the answers they seek? What does each learn from the other?
9. When Yao suggests that Paulo beg for money with him, he explains, “Some Zen Buddhist monks in Japan told me about takuhatsu, the begging pilgrimage.... This is because, according to Zen philosophy, the giver, the beggar, and the alms money itself all form part of an important chain of equilibrium. The person doing the begging does so because he’s needy, but the person doing the giving also does so out of need. The alms money serves as a link between those two needs” [pp. 89–90]. How does this relationship apply to the balance of power between Paulo and Hilal? Between Paulo and his readers?
10. The origin of Paulo’s deep-seated sense of guilt comes stunningly to life in his description of the Inquisition and his participation as a priest [pp. 153–167]. What insight does this vignette offer into horrors and injustices committed in the name of religious beliefs? Compare and contrast the religious attitudes here with those portrayed in the present-day sections of Aleph. What do Paulo’s references to the Koran [p. 39], the Bible [pp. 40, 107], Ueshiba, the founder of the Japanese martial art of aikido [pp. 132, 137, and 193], and shamanism [pp. 220–29] demonstrate about human beliefs and aspirations across cultures and time?
11. Discuss the erotic and romantic elements of the encounters between Paulo and Hilal—both real and imagined—leading up to his final gift of roses at the airport. Would you classify theirs as a love story? Why or why not? What different types of love does Coelho explore?
12. Were you familiar with the concept of past lives before reading Aleph? Is it necessary to believe in past lives to grasp the book’s message and meaning?
13. What do you think Coelho means when he writes, “Life is the train, not the station” [p. 112]? What about when he says, “What we call ‘life’ is a train with many carriages. Sometimes we’re in one, sometimes we’re in another, and sometimes we cross between them, when we dream or allow ourselves to be swept away by the extraordinary” [p. 117–118].
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Alexander Hamilton
Ron Chernow, 2004
Penguin Publishing
832 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143034759
Summary
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Chernow presents a landmark biography of Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father who galvanized, inspired, scandalized, and shaped the newborn nation.
In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Ron Chernow tells the riveting story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America.
According to historian Joseph Ellis, Alexander Hamilton is “a robust full-length portrait, in my view the best ever written, of the most brilliant, charismatic and dangerous founder of them all.”
Chernow’s biography is not just a portrait of Hamilton, but the story of America’s birth seen through its most central figure. At a critical time to look back to our roots, Alexander Hamilton will remind readers of the purpose of our institutions and our heritage as Americans. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 3, 1949
• Where—Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Yalae University; Cambridge University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize, Biography; American History Book Prize; National Book
Award, Nonfiction
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City
Ron Chernow was born in 1949 in Brooklyn, New York. After graduating with honors from Yale College and Cambridge University with degrees in English Literature, he began a prolific career as a freelance journalist.
Between 1973 and 1982, Chernow published over sixty articles in national publications, including numerous cover stories. In the mid-80s Chernow went to work at the Twentieth Century Fund, a prestigious New York think tank, where he served as director of financial policy studies and received what he described as “a crash course in economics and financial history.”
Chernow’s journalistic talents combined with his experience studying financial policy culminated in the writing of his extraordinary first book, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (1990). Winner of the 1990 National Book Award for Nonfiction, The House of Morgan traces the amazing history of four generations of the J.P. Morgan empire. The New York Times Book Review wrote, “As a portrait of finance, politics and the world of avarice and ambition on Wall Street, the book has the movement and tension of an epic novel. It is, quite simply, a tour de force.”
Chernow continued his exploration of famous financial dynasties with his second book, The Warburgs (1994), the story of a remarkable Jewish family. The book traces Hamburg’s most influential banking family of the 18th century from their successful beginnings to when Hitler’s Third Reich forced them to give up their business, and ultimately to their regained prosperity in America on Wall Street.
Described by Time as “one of the great American biographies,” Chernow’s Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. (1998) brilliantly reveals the complexities of America’s first billionaire. Rockefeller was known as a Robber Baron, whose Standard Oil Company monopolized an entire industry before it was broken up by the famous Supreme Court anti-trust decision in 1911. At the same time, Rockefeller was one of the century’s greatest philanthropists donating enormous sums to universities and medical institutions.
His 2005 book, a biography of Alexander Hamilton, was widely praised and inspired Hamilton, the highly successful 2016 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
In addition to writing biographies, Chernow is a book reviewer, essayist, and radio commentator. His book reviews and op-ed articles appear frequently in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. He comments regularly on business and finance for National Public Radio and for many shows on CNBC, CNN, and the Fox News Channel. In addition, he served as the principal expert on the A&E biography of J.P. Morgan and has been featured as the key Rockefeller expert on a CNBC documentary.
Chernow is the Secretary of PEN American Center, the country’s most prominent writers’ organization. He lives in Brooklyn Heights, New York.
Book Reviews
Mr. Chernow sets himself a compelling task: to add a third dimension to conventional views of Hamilton while reaching beyond the limits of a personal portrait. If Alexander Hamilton reflects its subject's far from charismatic nature, it also provides a serious, far-reaching measure of his place in history. And Mr. Chernow has done a splendid job of capturing the backbiting political climate of Hamilton's times, to the point that no cow is sacred here. The "golden age of literary assassination in American politics," featuring Thomas Jefferson as a particularly self-serving schemer, sounds astonishingly familiar today.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
In Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow, the author of The House of Morgan, The Warburgs and Titan, a biography of John D. Rockefeller, has brought to life the Founding Father who did more than any other to create the modern United States.… In this magisterial biography, Chernow tells the story not only of Hamilton but also of his wife, Eliza, a remarkable woman who died at the age of 97 in 1854.
Washington Post
Chernow's achievement is to give us a biography commensurate with Hamilton's character.… This is a fine work that captures Hamilton's life with judiciousness and verve.… [This biography] could make Alexander Hamilton as popular with readers as Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.
Publishers Weekly
Although quite sympathetic to Hamilton, Chernow attempts to present both sides of his many controversies, including Hamilton's momentous philosophical battles with Jefferson.… A first-rate life and excellent addition to the ongoing debate about Hamilton's importance in the shaping of America. —Robert Flatley, Kutztown Univ. Lib., PA
Library Journal
A splendid life of an enlightened reactionary and forgotten Founding Father.… Literate and full of engaging historical asides. By far the best of the many lives of Hamilton now in print, and a model of the biographer's art.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
These excellent questions have been graciously proviced by our "Associate," Jennifer Johnsnon, MA, MLIS, the Reference Librarian at the Springdale (Arkansas) Public Library. Thank you—again—Jennifer!
1. Consider what you knew before reading Alexander Hamilton. Did the author do justice to the historical figure of Alexander Hamilton and his legacy? How did this tome change what you knew and thought of the man, Alexander Hamilton?
2. According to Hamilton, when discussing his mother and her marriages:
'Tis a very good thing when their stars unite two people who are fit for each other, who have souls capable of relishing the sweets of friendship and sensibilities… but it’s a dog of [a] life when two dissonant tempers meet.
Looking back at his lineage, what lessons did Hamilton learn from his family? Despite his intellect, did he follow a similar star-crossed path as his parents?
3. Chernow identifies that Hamilton was the blockade in Aaron Burr’s professional career. Describe the relationship between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton? What actions or events ultimately fated them to their ends?
4. Sometimes, children from single parent homes or homes with difficult parentage can result in the child consciously or subconsciously seeking a “father” figure throughout their lives. Do you think that this is true in the case of Hamilton’s life? Can we identify any possible “father” or guardianship figures in his life?
4. Consider the relationship between Hamilton and the Schuyler sisters. In his popular Broadway play, Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda describes a complicated and often blurred relationship between Hamilton, Eliza, and Angelica. Consider the below lyrics –
[Hamilton sings]
Eliza, I don’t have a dollar to my name
An acre of land, a troop to command, a dollop of fame
All I have’s my honor, a tolerance for pain
A couple of college credits and my top-notch brain
Insane, your family brings out a different side of me
Peggy confides in my, Angelica tried to take a bite of me
No stress, my love for you is never in doubt.
[Angelica sings]
In a letter I received from you two weeks ago
I noticed a comma in the middle of a phrase
It changed the meaning. Did you intend this?
One stroke and you’ve consumed my waking days
It says:
My dearest Angelica
With a comma after “dearest.” You’ve written
My dearest, Angelica.
Do you think the portrayal of Hamilton as a lover, cheater, and scoundrel are an accurate portrayal?
5. Time and time again, we read how Hamilton was starved for knowledge, education, and self-improvement while also writing like he was literally running out of time. What could have caused this inability to be satisfied with one’s class, rank, etc.?
6. Chernow explains that…
In all probability, Alexander Hamilton is the foremost political figure in American history who never attained the presidency, yet he probably had a much deeper and more lasting impact than many who did.
Do you agree with Chernow’s conclusion? Please explain.
7. What did you think of the relationship between Alexander Hamilton and James Madison? How did they, after being party affiliated and co-authoring The Federalists Papers, become enemies?
8. Historians are often reviewing the relationship between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Why do you think this relationship was so difficult, combative, and rebellious? How did the relationship, do you think, change after Hamilton gave his nomination of Jefferson in the 1801 election?
9. According to Chernow, Eliza tasked her decedents – “justice shall be done to the memory of my Hamilton.” Why did she want justice for him and how did she prove that she was, according to Hamilton, the “best of wives and best of women”?
10. Do you consider Ron Chernow to be a good biographer? Why or why not?
11. What are the successes of Alexander Hamilton as a man, politician / government official, and “man of letters”?
12. What are the failures of Alexander Hamilton? How have those failures marked him in the historical record?
14. What parallels can we identify between the political environment of the 1790s and early 1800s to our current political environment?
15. What was Hamilton’s view of slavery and how is it depicted in the book?
16. While Eliza preserved every possible item that Alexander wrote and document associated with him, how well did Eliza preserve her story? What do you think are the causes that gap the written record?
17. In the 1790s, Alexander faced political decline and withdrew from society. What do you think are the causes for that quietness and withdrawal?
18. Throughout the book, Hamilton is constantly fighting and taking every possible opportunity he could to rise higher in station. While he obviously faced many hardships throughout his life, who do you think were his champions – those who saw the potential in who he would / could become?
19. Do you think the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton could have been avoided? What factors / events led to the duel?
20. What similarities can you identify between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton? What differences can you identify between the two men?
(Questions submitted to LitLovers by Jennifer Johnson, MA, MLIS, Reference Librarian, Springdale Public Library. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Alias Grace
Margaret Atwood, 1996
Knopf Doubleday
460 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385490443
Summary
In this astonishing tour de force, Margaret Atwood takes the reader back in time and into the life and mind of one of the most enigmatic and notorious women of the nineteenth century. In 1843, at the age of sixteen, servant girl Grace Marks was convicted for her part in the vicious murders of her employer and his mistress. Some believe Grace is innocent; others think her evil or insane. Grace herself claims to have no memory of the murders.
As Dr. Simon Jordan—an expert in the burgeoning field of mental illness—tries to unlock her memory, what will he find? Was Grace a femme fatale—or a weak and unwilling victim of circumstances?
Taut and compelling, penetrating and wise, Alias Grace is a beautifully crafted work of the imagination that vividly evokes time and place. The novel and its characters will continue to haunt the reader long after the final page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 18, 1939
• Where—Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., University of Toronto; M.A. Radcliffe; Ph.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Governor General's Award; Booker Prize; Giller Award
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Canada
Early life
Born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Atwood is the second of three children of Margaret Dorothy (nee Killam), a former dietitian and nutritionist, and Carl Edmund Atwood, an entomologist. Due to her father’s ongoing research in forest entomology, Atwood spent much of her childhood in the backwoods of Northern Quebec and traveling back and forth between Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie, and Toronto. She did not attend school full-time until she was in grade 8. She became a voracious reader of literature, Dell pocketbook mysteries, Grimm's Fairy Tales, Canadian animal stories, and comic books. She attended Leaside High School in Leaside, Toronto, and graduated in 1957.
Atwood began writing at the age of six and realized she wanted to write professionally when she was 16. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where she published poems and articles in Acta Victoriana, the college literary journal. Her professors included Jay Macpherson and Northrop Frye. She graduated in 1961 with a Bachelor of Arts in English (honours) and a minor in philosophy and French.
In late 1961, after winning the E.J. Pratt Medal for her privately printed book of poems, Double Persephone, she began graduate studies at Harvard's Radcliffe College with a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. She obtained a master's degree (MA) from Radcliffe in 1962 and pursued further graduate studies at Harvard University for two years but did not finish her dissertation, “The English Metaphysical Romance." She has taught at the University of British Columbia (1965), Sir George Williams University in Montreal (1967–68), the University of Alberta (1969–70), York University in Toronto (1971–72), the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa (1985), where she was visiting M.F.A. Chair, and New York University, where she was Berg Professor of English.
Personal life
In 1968, Atwood married Jim Polk; they were divorced in 1973. She formed a relationship with fellow novelist Graeme Gibson soon after and moved to a farm near Alliston, Ontario, north of Toronto, where their daughter was born in 1976. The family returned to Toronto in 1980.
Other genres
While she is best known for her work as a novelist, she has also published fifteen books of poetry. Many of her poems have been inspired by myths and fairy tales, which have been interests of hers from an early age. Atwood has published short stories in Tamarack Review, Alphabet, Harper's, CBC Anthology, Ms., Saturday Night, and many other magazines. She has also published four collections of stories and three collections of unclassifiable short prose works.
Atwood has also produced several children's books, including Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut (1995) and Rude Ramsay and the Roaring Radishes (2003)—delicious alliterative delights that introduce a wealth of new vocabulary to young readers
Speculative fiction vs. sci-fic
The Handmaid's Tale received the first Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. The award is given for the best science fiction novel that was first published in the United Kingdom during the previous year. It was also nominated for the 1986 Nebula Award, and the 1987 Prometheus Award, both science fiction awards.
Atwood was at one time offended at the suggestion that The Handmaid's Tale or Oryx and Crake were science fiction, insisting to the UK's Guardian that they were speculative fiction instead: "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen." She told the Book of the Month Club: "Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. It contains no intergalactic space travel, no teleportation, no Martians."
She clarified her meaning on the difference between speculative and science fiction, admitting that others use the terms interchangeably: "For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do.... [S]peculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand and that takes place on Planet Earth." She said that science fiction narratives give a writer the ability to explore themes in ways that realistic fiction cannot.
Environmentalism
Although Atwood's politics are commonly described as being left-wing, she has indicated in interviews that she considers herself a Red Tory in the historical sense of the term. Atwood, along with her partner Graeme Gibson, is a member of the Green Party of Canada (GPC) and has strong views on environmental issues. She and Gibson are the joint honorary presidents of the Rare Bird Club within BirdLife International. She has been chair of the Writers' Union of Canada and president of PEN Canada, and is currently a vice president of PEN International. In a Globe and Mail editorial, she urged Canadians to vote for any other party to stop a Conservative majority.
During the debate in 1987 over a free trade agreement between Canada and the United States, Atwood spoke out against the deal, and wrote an essay opposing the agreement.
Atwood celebrated her 70th birthday at a gala dinner at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, marking the final stop of her international tour to promote The Year of the Flood. She stated that she had chosen to attend the event because the city has been home to one of Canada's most ambitious environmental reclamation programs: "When people ask if there's hope (for the environment), I say, if Sudbury can do it, so can you. Having been a symbol of desolation, it's become a symbol of hope." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/17/2013.)
Book Reviews
If Grace manages to keep several people in her life simultaneously at bay and attracted to her, the reader, too, is part of her fascinated audience. For her narrative powers are what draw one through the intricate maze of Ms. Atwood's story and lead to the heart of its complex vision of human motive and self-awareness.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New York Times
The murders were shocking, and the accused parties became the subjects of obsession in 19th-century Canada. Could an "uncommonly pretty" servant girl named Grace Marks really have participated in the murders of her wealthy employer and his paramour housekeeper in 1843? Or did the stable hand act alone? The true story of Grace Marks has been told and retold over the years, but never as powerfully as in Margaret Atwood's new novel, Alias Grace, recently shortlisted for Britain's Booker Prize. The prolific Canadian writer weaves poems, newspaper accounts, book excerpts and letters into a narrative so vivid and engrossing you can smell the English shaving soap, see clean sheets flapping in the breeze.
Convicted of murder at 16, Grace is imprisoned for life. The story begins as Dr. Simon Jordan of Massachusetts comes to interview her in an attempt to understand the criminally insane. "Gone mad is what they say," Grace says, "and sometimes run mad, as if mad is a direction, like west." The earnest doctor is dominated by a mother who urges him to give up on helping lunatics, invest in sewing machines and marry a well-born woman. Grace — working class girl, murderess — comes to fascinate him.
Simon visits her regularly at the governor's house, where she works as a trustee. The story revolves around these meetings: Grace tells her story in her coy, perfunctory manner, and he scribbles notes, occasionally pulling out objects — a fresh apple, a candlestick — that might trigger a memory and reveal the truth. "What he wants is certainty." But Grace claims partial memory loss. Her story runs in and out of shadows, but never smack into what satisfies the doctor as truth. "It's as if I never existed, because no trace of me remains, I have left no marks," Grace says. "And that way I cannot be followed. It is almost the same as being innocent."
Both Grace and Simon are looking for their own truth, which, we ultimately discover, is ghostly, elusive — nothing the doctor can write neatly in his little ledger for himself or for her, or for posterity. Atwood makes their search a story for the ages.
Paige Willimas - Salon
Basing her new work on a sensational double murder that occurred in Canada in 1843, poet/novelist Atwood has crafted a forceful tale that probes deep into the psychology of accused murderess Grace Marks even as it exposes the social conditions that made such a murder possible. Less caustically feminist than in some previous works but still concerned with the forces that have subjugated women throughout history, Atwood follows Grace from Ireland, which her feckless father is finally forced to depart; through the family's ocean voyage, on which her mother dies; to Canada, where she starts working as a servant at age 12 and befriends Mary Whitney, whose subsequent death from a botched abortion comes, perhaps quite literally, to haunt her. Grace ends up at the Kinnear household, where the master and his housekeeper-mistress are murdered by the stableman McDermott—supposedly with Grace's help. Grace herself has no recollection of the events, and young American doctor Simon Jordan works ceaselessly to uncover her memories and solve the puzzle of her guilt or innocence. That solution, when it finally arrives, is not wholly satisfying, and attentive readers will have surmised it well beforehand, but Atwood's compelling prose, fine attention to historical detail, and firm guidance of her story make the long trip to the book's end entirely worth the trouble.
Library Journal
In 1843, at the age of 16, Grace Marks, a recent Irish immigrant to Canada, was sentenced to life in prison as an accomplice in the murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery. The teen confessed to the crime early and later claimed no memory of the events. She was arrested in upstate New York, having run from her employer's house with the handyman, who was hanged for the crimes. Atwood became interested in the case, a true story, and added the involvement of Dr. Simon Jordan. This novel is set 16 years after the crime took place when Jordan, who is interested in the fledgling science of psychology, is recruited by a local Methodist minister intent on proving Grace's innocence to examine her and determine the "truth." Readers are made privy to innumerable details of daily life in that time and place. The concept is intriguing, and while YAs never actually learn the truth, they certainly become involved in Grace's history as well as Simon's bumbling attempts at independence from a domineering mother. Atwood may be playing a game with her readers, but it is one in which many will willingly participate for the fun and mystery while learning about life in colonial Canada. While long, this story reads quickly and all of the characters are compelling, different, and well developed.
School Library Journal
A fascinating elaboration—and somewhat of a departure for Atwood of the life of Grace Marks, one of Canada's more infamous killers.
As notorious as our own Lizzy Borden, Grace Marks was barely 16 when she and James McDermott were arrested in 1843 for the brutal murder of their employer Thomas Kinnear and his pregnant mistress/housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. The trial was a titillating sensation; McDermott was hanged, and Grace was given the dubious mercy of life imprisonment. Some felt her an innocent dupe, others thought her a cold-blooded murderer; the truth remains elusive. Atwood reimagines Grace's story, and with delicate skill all but replaces history with her chronicle of events.
Anchoring the narrative is the arrival of Dr. Simon Jordan, who has come to investigate the sanity of Grace after some 16 years of incarceration. A convert to the new field of psychiatry, Jordan is hoping to help Grace recover her memory of the murders, which she claims no recollection of. He begins by asking for her life story. Grace tells him of her first commission as a laundry maid in a grand house, and of her dear friend Mary, dead at 16 from a botched abortion. On she goes until she calmly relates the events that led up to the murders, and her attempted escape with McDermott afterward. Hypnotism finally "restores" her memory (or is Grace misleading Jordan?), with results that are both shocking and ambiguous.
Employing a variety of narratives—Grace's own, Dr. Jordan's, letters, newspaper accounts from the time, poems from the period, and the published confessions of the accused—a complex story is pieced together. The image of the patchwork quilt, used repeatedly in the novel, is a fitting metaphor for the multiplicity of truths that Grace exemplifies.
Through characteristically elegant prose and a mix of narrative techniques, Atwood not only crafts an eerie, unsettling tale of murder and obsession, but also a stunning portrait of the lives of women in another time.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. This novel is rooted in physical reality, on one hand, and floats free of it on the other, as Atwood describes physical things in either organic, raw terms (the "tongue-colored settee") or with otherworldly, more ephemeral images (the laundry like "angels rejoicing, although without any heads"). How do such descriptions deepen and reinforce the themes in the novel?
2. The daily and seasonal rhythm of household work is described in detail. What role does this play in the novel in regard to its pace?
3. Atwood employs two main points of view and voices in the novel. Do you trust one more than the other? As the story progresses, does Grace's voice (in dialogue) in Simon's part of the story change? If so, how and why?
4. Grace's and Simon's stories are linked and they have a kinship on surface and deeper levels. For instance, they both eavesdrop or spy as children, and later, each stays in a house that would have been better left sooner or not entered at all. Discuss other similarities or differences in the twinning of their stories and their psyches.
5. Atwood offers a vision of the dual nature of people, houses, appearances, and more. How does she make use of darkness and light, and to what purpose?
6. In a letter to his friend Dr. Edward Murchie, Simon Jordan writes, "Not to know—to snatch at hints and portents, at intimations, at tantalizing whispers—it is as bad as being haunted." How are the characters in this story affected by the things they don't know?
7. How and why does Atwood conceal Grace's innocence or guilt throughout the novel? At what points does one become clearer than the other and at what points does it become unclear?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Alice & Oliver
Charles Bock, 2016
Random House
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400068388
Summary
An unflinching yet deeply humane portrait of a young family’s journey through a medical crisis, laying bare a couple’s love and fears as they fight for everything that’s important to them.
New York, 1993. Alice Culvert is a caring wife, a doting new mother, a loyal friend, and a soulful artist—a fashion designer who wears a baby carrier and haute couture with equal aplomb.
In their loft in Manhattan’s gritty Meatpacking District, Alice and her husband, Oliver, are raising their infant daughter, Doe, delighting in the wonders of early parenthood.
Their life together feels so vital and full of promise, which makes Alice’s sudden cancer diagnosis especially staggering. In the span of a single day, the couple’s focus narrows to the basic question of her survival.
Though they do their best to remain brave, each faces enormous pressure: Oliver tries to navigate a labyrinthine healthcare system and handle their mounting medical bills; Alice tries to be hopeful as her body turns against her. Bracing themselves for the unthinkable, they must confront the new realities of their marriage, their strengths as partners and flaws as people, how to nourish love against all odds, and what it means to truly care for another person.
Inspired by the author’s life, Alice & Oliver is a deeply affecting novel written with stunning reserves of compassion, humor, and wisdom. Alice Culvert is an extraordinary character—a woman of incredible heart and spirit—who will remain in memory long after the final page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1969
• Where—Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Bennington College
• Awards—Sue Kaufman Award; Silver Pen Award
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Charles Bock is an American writer whose debut 2008 novel Beautiful Children was selected by the New York Times as a Notable Book of the Year for 2008. The book also won the 2009 Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His second novel, Alice & Oliver was published in 2016. He lives with his wife, Leslie Jamison, and daughter in New York City.
Bock was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, which served as the setting for Beautiful Children. He comes from a family of pawnbrokers who've operated pawn shops in Downtown Las Vegas for more than thirty years. On his website, he reflects upon his upbringing as a source of inspiration for the novel:
Sometimes, when my siblings and I were little, my parents, for various reasons, used to have us stay in the back of the shop..... I’d sometimes stare out of the back of the store and watch the people in line and take in their faces. Lots of times my parents would be put in the position of having to tell these people that their wedding ring was only worth a fraction of what they’d paid for it, or that, say, the diamonds in that ring were brown and flawed. From the back of the store, I’d watch as the customers exploded and called my parents dirty Jews and cursed at them and threatened them at the top of their lungs. It’s impossible in situations like that not to feel for everybody involved—to be horrified, sure, but more than that, to be saddened by the spectacle, to want so much more than that out of life for everyone.
Bock earned a Master's of Fine Arts in fiction and literature from Bennington College and has taught fiction at the Gotham Writers Workshop in New York City.
Novels
Bock's first novel Beautiful Children, published in 2008, is about the interwoven lives of homeless teenage runaways, whose lives intersect in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is an unflinching tale of lost innocence.
Bock's second novel Alice & Oliver, published in 2016, was inspired by the death of his first wife, Diana Colbert, who was diagnosed with leukemia in 2009. Following a pair of bone marrow transplants, Diana died in December 2011, three days before their daughter's third birthday. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/5/2016.)
See the author's interview with Tom Perrotta.
Book Reviews
Alice & Oliver conveys the experience of cancer treatment with such grim immediacy that some readers may wonder whether they want to subject themselves to it.... Alice and Oliver are also skillfully portrayed, but we are held at emotional arm’s length from them and discouraged from wallowing in voyeuristic grief. [Bock's]...restraint is commendable, even if, at times, it gives the novel a slightly abstract air.... Alice & Oliver has flaws considerably less important than its tough-minded commitment to truth-telling and to honoring the complexities, contradictions and even the cruelties of people under extreme duress.
Wendy Smith - Washington Post
Even more than the meticulous details of drugs, treatments and side effects, Bock’s tender portrayal of [his characters] in all their desolation gives [Alice & Oliver] its ring of truth.... I loved this novel.
Marion Winik - Newsday
Alice & Oliver shows that, even in a situation that’s about as terrible as it can be, there can still exist happiness, surprise, and life, that strange strong spirit that’s with us until the end.
Boston Globe
Alice & Oliver is the most honest, unsentimentally powerful novel about cancer that I’ve ever read.
Michael Christie - Toronto Globe & Mail
The novel’s power is in its two characters’ messy negotiation of their fears, errors and shifting affections.... [Charles] Bock offers a forceful reminder that there are plenty of roiling emotions underneath that till-death-do-us-part.
Los Angeles Times
A rewarding reading experience...a testament to the resilience of humans and our willingness to forgive.
San Francisco Chronicle
This hauntingly powerful novel follows a family’s fight for survival in the face of illness. A stirring elegy to a marriage.
Oprah Magazine
[A] heart-wrenching story of a young couple whose lives change when Alice gets diagnosed with cancer...a refreshingly unsentimental look at the vicious disease.
Entertainment Weekly
[An] articulate excavation of the emotional, physical, and intellectual effects of terminal illness.... Though it could have been worthwhile, [the case history] device peters out before it can add much depth. But overall, this book overcomes the standard clichés to provide a beautiful, complex portrait of a family in crisis.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Informed by his own wife's illness and death, Bock's novel is a searingly honest, wryly funny, deeply loving tribute to those facing mortality and struggling through the maze of health insurance and treatment options while trying to hold on to their humanity. —Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL
Library Journal
(Starred review.) The illness doesn't interrupt humanity; humanity grows from the illness, which is a narrative strategy that makes the book one of the most moving in recent memory. A stunning book about Alice and Oliver, yes, but also about the way illness shatters us all.
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 Alice and Oliver … then take off on your own:
1. Alice and Oliver is based on events in Charles Bock's own life. Does that knowledge affect how you experienced the novel? (See Bock's interview with Tom Perrotta.)
2. Talk about Alice and Oliver's life in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan before cancer disrupted everything. How would you describe it — charmed, perhaps? What else …?
3. Follow-up to Question 2: How does the couple's life change after Alice's diagnosis. Talk about their battles with chemotherapy, the frustrations with the healthcare bureaucracy, even the strange reactions of friends.
4. How does cancer affect the couple's relationship? How do the two adjust to the falling away of the very things that attracted them to one another? How might you adjust (or how have you had to adjust) to the tragedy of a loved one with a life-threatening disease?
5. Follow-up to Question 4: Once the cancer takes over, who suffers more — Alice or Oliver?
6. Of the various case studies included in the novel—the man whose jaw is surgically removed, for instance, or the 2nd-grader who falls out of remission—which one most affects you?
7. Does the wealth of specific details regarding chemotherapy and the logistics of bone-marrow transplants feel overdone in the novel … or appropriate?
8. No one in Alice's orbit is left unchanged once her disease strikes. Talk about how her battle with cancer reshapes those closest to her.
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks)
Alice I Have Been
Melanie Benjamin, 2010
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385344142
Summary
Part love story, part literary mystery, Melanie Benjamin’s spellbinding historical novel leads readers on an unforgettable journey down the rabbit hole, to tell the story of a woman whose own life became the stuff of legend.
Her name is Alice Liddell Hargreaves, but to the world she’ll always be known simply as “Alice,” the girl who followed the White Rabbit into a wonderland of Mad Hatters, Queens of Hearts, and Cheshire Cats. Now, nearing her eighty-first birthday, she looks back on a life of intense passion, great privilege, and greater tragedy. First as a young woman, then as a wife, mother, and widow, she’ll experience adventures the likes of which not even her fictional counterpart could have imagined.
Yet from glittering balls and royal romances to a world plunged into war, she’ll always be the same determined, undaunted Alice who, at ten years old, urged a shy, stuttering Oxford professor to write down one of his fanciful stories, thus changing her life forever. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Melanie Hauser
• Birth—November 24. 1962
• Where—Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
• Education—Indiana University (Purdue University at
Indianapolis)
• Currently—lives near Chicago, Illinois
Melanie Benjamin is the pen name of American writer, Melanie Hauser (nee Miller). Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Melanie is one of three children. Her brother Michael Miller is a published non-fiction author and musician. Melanie attended Indiana University—Purdue University at Indianapolis then married Dennis Hauser in 1988; they presently reside in the Chicago, Illinois area with their two sons.
Early writing
As Melanie Hauser, she published short stories in the In Posse Review and The Adirondack Review. Her short story "Prodigy on Ice" won the 2001 "Now Hear This" short story competition that was part of a WBEZ (Chicago Public Radio) program called Stories on Stage, where short stories were performed and broadcast.
When Melanie sold her first of two contemporary novels, she had to add Lynne to her name (Melanie Lynne Hauser) to distinguish her from the published sports journalist Melanie Hauser.
The first of Melanie's contemporary novels, Confessions of Super Mom was published in 2005; the sequel Super Mom Saves the World came out in 2007. In addition to her two contemporary novels, Melanie also contributed an essay to the anthology IT'S A BOY and maintained a popular mom blog called The Refrigerator Door.
Fictional biographies
Under the pen name Melanie Benjamin (a combination of her first name and her son's first name), she shifted genres to historical fiction. Her third novel, Alice I Have Been, was inspired by Alice Liddell Hargreaves's life (the real-life Alice of Alice in Wonderland). Published in 2010, Alice I Have Been was a national bestseller and reached the extended list of The New York Times Best Seller list.
In 2011, Benjamin fictionalized another historical female. Her novel The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb focuses on the life of Lavinia Warren Bump, a proportionate dwarf featured in P.T. Barnum's shows.
Her third fictionalized biography, The Aviator's Wife, was released in 2013 and centers on Anne Morrow Lindbergh, wife of famed aviator, Charles Lindberg. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Benjamin draws on one of the most enduring relationships in children's literature in her excellent debut, spinning out the heartbreaking story of Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Her research into the lives of Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) and the family of Alice Liddell is apparent as she takes circumstances shrouded in mystery and colors in the spaces to reveal a vibrant and passionate Alice. Born into a Victorian family of privilege, free-spirited Alice catches the attention of family friend Dodgson and serves as the muse for both his photography and writing. Their bond, however, is misunderstood by Alice's family, and though she is forced to sever their friendship, she is forever haunted by their connection as her life becomes something of a chain of heartbreaks. As an adult, Alice tries to escape her past, but it is only when she finally embraces it that she truly finds the happiness that eluded her. Focusing on three eras in Alice's life, Benjamin offers a finely wrought portrait of Alice that seamlessly blends fact with fiction. This is book club gold.
Publishers Weekly
In this historical novel about the real-life Alice in Alice in Wonderland, 80-year-old Alice Hargreaves looks back on three periods of her life: her Victorian childhood as the daughter of an Oxford don and the special friend of mathematics tutor Charles Dodgson, later known as Lewis Carroll; her young adult romance with Prince Leopold and its painful conclusion; and her marriage to country gentleman Reginald Hargreaves and the raising of their three sons, who eventually face the horrors of World War I. Throughout it all, Alice is burdened by her fictional identity and by having captivated the odd, stuttering Mr. Dodgson as a child. The jealousy and rumors caused by his intense fondness for Alice besmirch both their reputations for years to come. Verdict: Benjamin's novel imagines the truth behind the mystery of Lewis Carroll's relationship with his child muse, Alice Liddell. Although the shadow of inappropriateness always lingers, this is truly a love story, albeit one that could happily exist only in a fairy tale. This novel will have wide appeal as it includes history, romance, literature, and a great deal of suspense. —Joy Humphrey, Pepperdine Univ. Law Lib., Malibu, CA
Library Journal
Benjamin's debut imagines Alice Liddell's experiences before and particularly after Lewis Carroll immortalized her. She was born in 1852, daughter of the dean of Christ Church College, Oxford; she died in 1934, at the height of the Great Depression. But Alice's life reached its literary apex in 1862, when on a summer afternoon Oxford mathematics don Charles Dodgson entertained the Liddell sisters with a tale of Alice falling down the rabbit's hole, later to be the inaugural event in his hugely successful book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This well-documented afternoon and the girl's charged relationship with Dodgson are described by the author as defining experiences for Alice, both magical and traumatic, overshadowing the subsequent 70 years. Benjamin's adult Alice grapples with a repressed memory; her one-dimensional Dodgson is a daydreaming, stuttering loser. The relationship offered here, that of a pedophile and his victim, is too predictable and simplistic; the sexual mores of Victorian England and of Dodgson himself were more complicated. The novel becomes richer and increasingly assured after the "break," when Dodgson is forbidden to see Alice again. She grows to maturity in Oxford's culturally privileged enclave, is wooed by Queen Victoria's son, Prince Leopold (barred from marrying her in part because of the unspoken, lingering scandal concerning Dodgson), then finally marries and bears three boys, two of them killed in World War I. In the end, this rigid Victorian lady, at a loss in the 20th century, recovers her memory and finally finds what her life has lacked—acceptance and self-love. Historical fiction hampered by a 21st-century perspective on Victorian values.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What social forces motivate each of the characters to deny Dodgson's inappropriate attention to Alice?
2. Alice became famous through no fault of her own. Can you come up with a modern day version of Alice? How do their lives compare?
3. Alice refuses to read Alice in Wonderland until she is well into her eighties. Why do you think she avoids reading the story she inspired?
4. The relationships between Alice and her sisters Ina and Edith range from rivalry to a life-long bond. What effects do these have on Alice, and what are the consequences?
5. What part of the book speaks to you and your experiences in life?
6. How does Benjamin take both the reader and Alice from ignorance and denial to the self-realization of her complicity in the ruptured friendship with Rev. Dodgson? Is this believable?
7. While Alice's sister lies dying, Mama asks Alice "Why couldn't it be you? You've never brought me anything but pain, while she has brought me nothing but joy." What kind of effect do you think this has on Alice for the rest of her life? Did it affect the way Alice thought of her own children?
8. The photos Lewis Carroll (or the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) took of Alice Liddell capture a look that can be described as wise beyond her years—what do you think is behind that look?
9. How much did the Victorian setting play a role in this book?
10. Before reading Benjamin's novel, had you already read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? If so, does it make you want to read it again? Why or why not?
11. What do you think of an author writing a biographical novel using only notes and references and filling in the gaps with intelligent supposition?
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The Alice Network
Kate Quinn, 2017
HarperCollins
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062654199
Summary
In an enthralling new historical novel, two women—a female spy recruited to the real-life Alice Network in France during World War I and an unconventional American socialite searching for her cousin in 1947—are brought together in a mesmerizing story of courage and redemption.
1947
In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.
So when Charlie's parents banish her to Europe to have her "little problem" taken care of, she breaks free and heads to London. She is determined to find out what happened to the cousin she loves like a sister.
1915
A year into the Great War, Eve Gardiner burns to join the fight against the Germans and unexpectedly gets her chance when she's recruited to work as a spy. Sent into enemy-occupied France, she's trained by the mesmerizing Lili, the "Queen of Spies", who manages a vast network of secret agents right under the enemy's nose.
Thirty years later, haunted by the betrayal that ultimately tore apart the Alice Network, Eve spends her days drunk and secluded in her crumbling London house. Until a young American barges in uttering a name Eve hasn't heard in decades, and launches them both on a mission to find the truth…no matter where it leads. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 9, 1975
• Where—southern California, USA
• Education—B.A., M.Mus., Boston University
• Currently—lives in the state of Maryland
Kate Quinn is the author of historical novels. Several, set in ancient Rome, are known as the Empress of Rome Saga. Another series, The Borgia Chronicles, is set during the Italian Renaissance. With her novels, The Alice Network (2017) and The Huntress (2019), Quinn switched centuries, setting her stories during the eras of World War I and World War II, respectively.
Quinn has also joined 10 or so other authors in a collaborative series called Songs of Blood and Gold. The three books, now collected in a single volume, span the era of ancient Greece into the Roman empire.
As she writes on her website, Quinn has always loved history. She tells us why she enjoys writing about her favorite subject:
Too often we grow up thinking history is boring, dull, nothing but flat lists of dates and places. In my books I hope to show the life, the laughter, and the humanity that runs through our common past.
The author is a native of Southern California. She attended Boston University, where she earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in classical voice. Today she lives in Maryland with her husband and two dogs. She still loves opera, as well as action movies, cooking, and baseball. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
In The Alice Network, the lives of two indomitable women intertwine in a plot crackling with suspense. We root for Charlie and Eve, and cheer when they triumph.
NPR.org
Amazing historical fiction.… [A] must read!
Historical Novel Society
Lovingly crafted and brimming with details, readers are sure to be held in Quinn’s grip watching as the characters evolve. Powerful reading you can’t put down!
Romantic Times
(Starred review.) Allowing Charlie to describe present events, while Eve shares her experience as an English spy for the real-life Alice Network during World War I, creates a fascinating tension that intensifies as the finale approaches.… A compelling blend of historical fiction, mystery, and women's fiction. —Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH
Library Journal
Kate Quinn announces herself as one of the best artists of the genre. The plotting is seamless, the pace breathtaking, and the prose is both vivid and laced with just the right amount of details. Fans of historical fiction, spy fiction and thrilling drama will love every moment.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
1. Female friendship is a constant theme throughout The Alice Network. Charlie St. Clair and Eve Gardiner begin as antagonists, whereas Eve and Louise de Bettignies (Lili) are friends from the start. How does each friendship grow and change over the course of events?
2. The young Eve introduced in 1915 is very different from the older Eve seen through Charlie’s eyes in 1947. How and when did you see the young Eve begin to change into her older self? What was the catalyst of those changes?
3. Lili tells Eve "To tell the truth, much of this special work we do is quite boring." Did the realities of spywork surprise you, compared to the more glamorous version presented by Hollywood? How do you think you would have fared, working for the historical Alice Network?
4. Rene Bordelon is denigrated by his peers as a war profiteer and an informer. He sees himself as a practical businessman, pointing out that he is not to blame making money off the invaders, or for tragedies like Oradours-sur-Glane which happened on German orders. Did you see him as a villain or an opportunist? Do you think he earned his final fate?
5. Eve loves Captain Cameron and hates Rene Bordelon—but her relationship with Rene is longer, darker, and more emotional. How is her hatred for him complicated by intimacy? How does his realization of Eve’s true identity change him? How do you think they continued to think and feel about each other during their thirty years separation, and how did that effect their eventual climax?
6. Finn Kilgore and Captain Cameron are parallels for each other: both Scotsmen and soldiers with war wounds and prison terms in their pasts, acting as support systems for the women they love who go into danger. How are the two men different as well as alike? How does Finn succeed where Cameron fails?
7. Rose’s disappearance provides the story’s driving search. Did her eventual fate surprise you? Had you ever heard of Oradours-sur-Glane? How did Rose’s fate change the goal of the search?
8. Everyone in The Alice Network suffers some form of emotional damage from war: Charlie’s depression after losing her Marine brother to suicide, Eve’s torture-induced nightmares, Finn’s concentration-camp memories and resulting anger issues, Cameron’s guilt over losing his recruits. How do they each cope with their war wounds? How do they help each other heal? How is PTSD handled in Eve’s day as compared to Charlie’s day—and as compared to now?
9. Charlie dreads the stigma of being a "bad girl" pregnant out of wedlock, and Eve fears shame and dismissal as a horizontale if it is learned she slept with a source for information. Discuss the sexual double-standards each woman faced. How have our sexual standards for women changed since 1915 and 1947?
10. Charlie decides to keep her baby, and Eve decides to have an abortion. Why did each woman make the choice she did?
11. Charlie argues that Rene should be brought to legal justice, and Eve argues for vigilante justice. Who do you think is right? How did it affect the ending? How do you think the outcome will bind Eve and Charlie and Finn in future, since they cannot share their adventure with anyone else?
12. "There are two kinds of flowers when it comes to women. The kind that sit safe in a beautiful vase, or the kind that survive in any conditions … even in evil." The theme of the fleurs du mal carries from Lili to Eve — how does Eve pass it on to Charlie? When do you see Charlie becoming a fleur du mal in her own right? How has knowing Eve changed Charlie’s life, and vice versa?
(Questions from the author's website.)
Alif the Unseen
G. Willow Wilson, 2012
Grove Press
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802121226
Summary
In an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, a young Arab-Indian hacker shields his clients—dissidents, outlaws, Islamists, and other watched groups—from surveillance and tries to stay out of trouble.
He goes by Alif—the first letter of the Arabic alphabet, and a convenient handle to hide behind.
The aristocratic woman Alif loves has jilted him for a prince chosen by her parents, and his computer has just been breached by the state’s electronic security force, putting his clients and his own neck on the line. Then it turns out his lover’s new fiance is the "Hand of God," as they call the head of state security, and his henchmen come after Alif, driving him underground.
When Alif discovers The Thousand and One Days, the secret book of the jinn, which both he and the Hand suspect may unleash a new level of information technology, the stakes are raised and Alif must struggle for life or death, aided by forces seen and unseen.
With shades of Neal Stephenson, Philip Pullman, and The Thousand and One Nights, Alif the Unseen is a tour de force debut—a sophisticated melting pot of ideas, philosophy, technology, and spirituality smuggled inside an irresistible page-turner. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 31, 1982
• Where—Morris County, New Jersey
• Raised—Boulder, Colorado, USA
• Education—B.A., Boston University
• Awards—World Fantasy Award for Best Novel (see below)
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Washington, and Cairo, Egypt
Gwendolyn Willow Wilson, known professionally as G. Willow Wilson, is an American comics writer, memoirist, novelist, essayist, and journalist. She is best known for relaunching the Ms. Marvel title for Marvel Comics (which stars a 16-year-old Muslim superhero named Kamala Khan). But she has also received praise for her memoir and novels.
Early life
Wilson was born in Morris County, New Jersey, where she spent the first ten years of her life. She was introduced to comics in the fifth grade while reading an anti-smoking pamphlet featuring the X-Men. Hooked by the characters and their magical stories, she began watching the X-Men cartoons every Saturday.
Two years later she and her family moved to Boulder, Colorado where Wilson continued to pursue her interest in comics and other forms of popular culture such as tabletop role-playing games.
When she turned 27, Wilson decided to leave Colorado and to pursue a degree in history at Boston University. During her sophomore year, while experiencing adrenal problems, she took up the study of world religions, including Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Having grown up in an unreligious household, Wilson felt drawn to Judaism's belief in an "indivisible God who is one and whole." Yet, although Judaism "was a near perfect fit," she explained in a 2017 interview, "it was created for a single tribe of people."
Wislon then turned her focus to Islam, which she saw as "a sort of a deal between you and God." The 9/11 terrorist attack set back her religious studies—fearing she had misjudged the religion—but she later resumed her studies. After graduation, on the way to Cairo where she had taken a job to teach English, Wilson experienced a converstion to Islam: "I made peace with God. I called him Allah."
Living in Egypt, and struggling to negotiate a new culture, Wilson met Omar, a young physics teacher, who offered to serve as a cultural guide, and within a matter of months, the two became engaged. Later, the couple moved to the United States where Wilson returned to her writing career, and Omar worked as a legal advocate for refugees.
Jouralism
During her time in Cairo, Wilson began contributing articles to the Atlantic Monthly, New York Times Magazine and National Post. She was also a regular contributor to the now-defunct Egyptian opposition weekly Cairo Magazine. Wilson was the first Western journalist to be granted a private interview with Ali Gomaa after his promotion to the position of Grand Mufti of Egypt.
In 2007, Wilson wrote her first graphic novel, Cairo, with art by M.K. Perker; it was named one of the best graphic novels of 2007 by Publishers Weekly, The Edmonton Journal/CanWest News, and Comics Worth Reading. In 2008 the paperback edition was named one of Best Graphic Novels for High School Students in 2008 by School Library Journal, and one of 2009's Top Ten Graphic Novels for Teens by the American Library Association.
Comics
A year later, in 2008, Wilson launched her first ongoing comic series, "Air." Reunited with her Cairo graphic artist M.K. Perker, "Air" received the Eisner Award for Best New Series of 2009, while NPR named it one of the top comics of 2009.
Wilson also wrote "Superman" fill-in issues #704 and 706 of Superman, the five-issue mini-series "Vixen: Return of the Lion." and "The Outsiders." She then revived "Mystic,"a four-issue miniseries for Marvel Comics (with art by David Lopez)—although a CrossGen revival, Willow's version of "Mystic" bears little resemblance to its previous incarnation.
In 2014, Marvel debuted a new "Ms. Marvel" series written by Wilson. The book stars Kamala Khan, a Muslim teenager living in Jersey City, New Jersey, who takes up the mantle—now that the previous Ms. Marvel, Carol Danvers, has taken the name Captain Marvel.
Although worried about criticism, Wilson did not believe Kamala should wear a hijab because the majority of teenage Muslim Americans do not cover their heads. Despite their initial concern, Kamala was received positively—some seeing her as a symbol for equality and religious diversity.
In 2018, Wilson began writing "Wonder Woman" from DC Comics. The character will battle Ares in an arc entitled "The Just War."
Books
Wilson's experiences in Egypt became the subject of her 2010 memoir, The Butterfly Mosque: A Young American Woman's Journey to Love and Islam. The book was named a Seattle Times Best Book the same year.
Three years later, Wilson turned to novels: 2013 saw the release of her debut, Alif the Unseen. The book won the 2013 World Fantasy Award for best novel.
Wilson's next fantasy novel came out in 2019 —The Bird King, the story of a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain before the new Christian monarchy began its rule. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/18/2019 .)
Book Reviews
[Ms. Wilson] has her own fertile imagination and fanciful narrative style… as an American convert to Islam who divides her time between the United States and Egypt, she has an unusual ability to see the best of both worlds. In Alif the Unseen she spins her insights into an exuberant fable that has thrills, chills and—even more remarkably—universal appeal.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Wilson's fast-paced, imaginative first novel… defies easy categorization. Is it literary fiction? A fantasy novel? A dystopian techno-thriller? An exemplar of Islamic mysticism, with ties to the work of the Sufi poets? Wilson seems to delight in establishing, then confounding, any expectations readers may have…For those who view American fiction as provincial, or dominated by competent but safe work, Wilson's novel offers a resounding, heterodox alternative.
Pauls Toutonghi - New York Times Book Review
G. Willow Wilson's marvelous first novel… takes events similar to those of the Arab Spring, adds a runaway computer virus, an unconventional love story and the odd genie to create an intoxicating, politicized amalgam of science fiction and fantasy… Alif the Unseen confronts some of the most pressing concerns of our young century, but it's also hugely entertaining. Wilson has a Dickensian gift for summoning a city and peopling it with memorable characters.
Elizabeth Hand - Washington Post
Written just before the Arab Spring, this wild adventure mixes the digital derring-do of Neal Stephenson with the magic of The Thousand and One Nights.… Alif the Unseen is a rich blend of storytelling magic.
San Francisco Chronicle
Outstanding.… Wilson’s novel delights in bending genres and confounding expectations: It’s both a literary techno-thriller and a fantasy that takes religion very seriously.… Alif the Unseen… is one of the most inventive, invigorating novels of the year.
Christian Science Monitor
A fantasy thriller that takes modern Islamic computer hackers fighting against State-based repression and entangles that with the fantastical Djinn-riddled world of One Thousand and One Nights.… Like a novelization of one of Joss Whedon’s best Buffy episodes crossed with a Pathe newsreel of the Arab Spring uprisings. It’s a page-turner.
Austin Chronicle
A magical book. The supernatural and sociopolitical thriller Alif the Unseen is timely literary alchemy, a smart, spirited swirl of current events and history; religion and mysticism; reality and myth; computer science and metaphysics.… Alif the Unseen richly rewards believers in the power of the written word.
Seattle Times
Outrageously enjoyable.… The energetic plotting of Philip Pullman, the nimble imagery of Neil Gaiman and the intellectual ambition of Neal Stephenson are three comparisons that come to mind.
Salon.com
[An] excellent modern fairytale.… [Wilson] surpasses the early work of Stephenson and Gaiman, with whom comparisons have already been made.… Alif the Unseen will find many fans in both West and East. They will appreciate it for being just the fine story it is and as a seed for potent ideas yet to come.
io9.com
[I]intriguing, colorful…. Wilson provocatively juxtaposes ancient Arab lore and equally esoteric computer theory, highlighting the many facets of the East-West conflict while offering few insights, to some readers’ regret, into possible resolutions of that conflict.
Publishers Weekly
[I]maginative…. Wilson skillfully weaves … modern-day technologies and computer languages to the folklore and religion of the Middle East. [O]riginal storytelling, this excellent novel supersedes genres as easily as its characters jump from one reality to another. —Catherine Lantz, Morton College Lib., Cicero, Il
Library Journal
The novel is timely…. But though Wilson… displays a savvy knowledge of Muslim arcana, the story is overstuffed with left turns… and bogs down in jargon.… [Still] Wilson displays an admirable Neil Gaiman-esque ambition that isn't quite matched by this oft-plodding tale.
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 ALIF THE UNSEEN … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the world created by G. Willow Wilson. Do you find it absorbing, realistic yet touched with magic? Or is it silly and overdone? Which characters do you find most interesting, humorous, endearing … or less than endearing?
2. What are the ways in which the author juxtaposes the modern world of computing with the traditional Arab world of Islam?
3. Follow-up to Question 2: Consider the issue of sin: if a sin is committed in virtual reality, is it still a sin? What are your thoughts?
4. What do you make of Alif's character? What of his observation that "the few Americans he had encountered in his lifetime had all seemed flat to him, as if freedom weakened one's capacity for intense emotion by demanding too little of it"?
5. When Alif looks into the eyes of Vikram the Vampire, he sees a "predatory, unnerving humor, like the musing of a leopard in a pen of goats." Care to unpack that description of Vikram … what it might reveal (or not reveal) about his character? How do you come to see Vikram as the novel unfolds?
6. When Vikram lectures Alif about cyberspace invisibility, he says, "Now you are more interested in the veil between man and photon than the one between man and jinn." What is he getting at?
7. How do the genies Alif and Dina encounter in the Empty Quarter upend your expectations of the typical genies of myth?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Alive at 5
Linda Bond, 2014
CreateSpace
298 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781500408190
Summary
TV news reporter Samantha Steele is one panic attack away from losing her job. Future on the line, she sets up an easy feature story—following her mentor on an exhilarating adventure vacation. When her mentor dies while skydiving, Samantha suspects he was murdered, and her investigative instincts lead her to gorgeous thrill-seeker Zack Hunter.
Zack is an undercover police officer investigating his uncle’s death through the same adventure vacation. Zack doesn't want Samantha investigating alongside him. The emotionally wounded loner is afraid of being responsible for a partner again, especially a journalist whose goal is to splash evidence all over the evening news. But the striking reporter’s persistence is quite a turn-on, and Zack’s overpowering desire makes it harder for him to push her away.
When the killer turns his attention to Zack, Samantha could be the only one who can save him, forcing the anxiety-riddled correspondent to finally face her greatest fear. (From the publisher.)
Watch the video.
Author Bio
• Birth—December 29. 1966
• Where—San Francisco, California, USA
• Raised—Greenville, South Carolina
• Education—B.A., University of Georgia
• Currently—lives in Lutz, Florida
Author Linda Bond was born in San Francisco, California but spent most of her life in the south, attending middle and high school in Greenville, South Carolina and college at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.
She’s worked as a television news reporter and anchor in Fort Myers, Orlando and Tampa Florida. For the past fifteen years, she’s been a health reporter in Tampa, sharing important information with viewers on the latest medical breakthroughs and writing emotional, human-interest stories on those who have the courage and spirit to fight for their lives.
She writes every day, under deadline, but has always loved losing herself in a good fiction story. Her love for writing fiction actually started in high school, but a thriving, busy professional life, along with five kids kept her busy for many years.
Entangled Publishing has released her debut romantic adventure, Alive at 5, on July 2014.
She has received numerous writing awards in Romance Writer’s of America chapter contests for Alive at 5 and her other manuscripts Cuba Undercover and Glory, Glory the Majorettes are 40.
She has also won 12 Emmy awards, numerous Society of Professional Journalist, and Associated Press awards, as well as a Florida Bar award and Edward R. Murrow award.
This former baton-twirling beauty queen from the Deep South, now lives in Tampa Florida with her husband, adopted son from Cuba, two daughters and one stubborn Bulldog named Sanford. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Linda on Facebook.
Book Reviews
Alive at 5 is a thrilling, can't-get-enough story that kept me glued to my Kindle screen on holiday. (Five stars.)
Bookalot
Fast Paced and Kept Me Guessing!” (Five stars.)
Rochelle Weber – Editor, Romance Writer’s Newsletter
Alive at 5 grabbed me on the first page and held my attention all the way through. I truly did not know who did it or why until Sam and Zack figured it out, and regular readers know how rarely that happens.
Em & M Books
I highly recommend this one to any romantic suspense fans. The writing was a bit edgy and enhanced the feel of the story—you could actually feel yourself in the news story that was being investigated. All in all a great read!
Ramblings from This Chick
Samantha and Zach have an incredible chemistry. The mystery part of the story was fantastic. Truth was I had absolutely no idea who it was until the big reveal. None.
She Hearts Books
A must read. Perfect for the beach. Was hooked after the first chapter. Looking forward to more great reads by Linda Bond! (Five stars.)
Susan H. - Amazon customer review
There are actually points in the book where it’s so realistic that you can picture yourself doing or feeling what the characters are doing or feeling. (Five stars.)
Becky S. Andrade - Amazon customer review:
Discussion Questions
1. Samantha Steele is a TV reporter suffering panic attacks and freezing up whenever she has to go live on TV. When a friend, whose adventure vacation she is covering as an easy assignment, dies, she has to put her emotions aside and try to report his death live on the news. How do you feel about that emotional and professional conflict? What would you have done?
2. At first, Samantha sees Zack Hunter as a cocky, thrill-seeking playboy, exactly the kind of man she promised herself she’d stay away from. What changes her mind about Zack?
3. Both main characters are running from themselves and their own personal issues. Samantha is trying to survive by holding on tight and controlling everything around her. Zack is trying to expel his guilt by chasing death and doing high-risk, life endangering adventures. Which are you more like? The control freak or the reckless adventurer? And why?
4. The theme of this book is “you have to face your fears to move on and grow both in life and in love.” Share one example of how you had to do that in your life.
5. Do you read for the happy ending of a romance novel, whether it’s romantic suspense like Alive at 5 or a young adult novel or a novel with paranormal elements like Twilight? Why or why not?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
All Adults Here
Emma Straub, 2020
Penguin Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594634697
Summary
A warm, funny, and keenly perceptive novel about the life cycle of one family—as the kids become parents, grandchildren become teenagers, and a matriarch confronts the legacy of her mistakes.
When Astrid Strick witnesses a school bus accident in the center of town, it jostles loose a repressed memory from her young parenting days decades earlier.
Suddenly, Astrid realizes she was not quite the parent she thought she'd been to her three, now-grown children. But to what consequence?
Astrid's youngest son is drifting and unfocused, making parenting mistakes of his own. Her daughter is pregnant yet struggling to give up her own adolescence. And her eldest seems to measure his adult life according to standards no one else shares.
But who gets to decide, so many years later, which long-ago lapses were the ones that mattered? Who decides which apologies really count?
It might be that only Astrid's thirteen-year-old granddaughter and her new friend really understand the courage it takes to tell the truth to the people you love the most.
In All Adults Here, Emma Straub's unique alchemy of wisdom, humor, and insight come together in a deeply satisfying story about adult siblings, aging parents, high school boyfriends, middle school mean girls, the lifelong effects of birth order, and all the other things that follow us into adulthood, whether we like them to or not. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1979-80
• Raised—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City
Emma Straub is an American author three novels and a short story collection. Raised on Manhattan's Upper West side, she now lives with her husband and two young sons in Brooklyn.
Emma comes by writing naturally: her father is Peter Straub, an award winning writer of horror fiction, a fact which makes even Emma admit to a belief in a writing gene. Here's what she told Michele Filgate of Book Slut:
I believe the writing gene is located just behind the gene for enjoying red wine and just in front of the gene for watching soap operas, both of which I also inherited from my father. What I do know for sure is that I watched my father write for a living my entire childhood, and I understood that it was a job like any other, that one had to do all day, every day. I think a lot of people have the fantasy that a writer sits around in coffee shops all day, waiting for the muse to appear.
So while genes may play a role, so does hard work and grit: determined to become a writer, she pushed on even after her first four books were turned down. As she told Alexandra Alter of the New York Times,
They all got rejected by every single person in publishing, in the world. It’s still true that I will go to a publishing party or event, and the first thing I will think of is, "I know who you are, you rejected novels 2 and 4."
It's nice to think that today Straub is having the last laugh.
Attending Oberlin College, Straub received her B.A. in 2002. She went on to earn her M.F.A. at the University of Wisconsin where she studied with author Lorrie Moore. Returning to New York, she worked for a number of years at the independent Book Court bookstore in Brooklyn.
Her novels include Modern Lovers (2016), The Vacationers (2014), and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures (2012). Her story collection is titled Other People We Married (2011). Straub's fiction and nonfiction have been published in Vogue, New York Magazine, Tin House, New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and Paris Review Daily. She is also a contributing writer to Rookie. (LitLovers.)
Book Reviews
There’s refuge to be found in stories of everyday people going about their lives.… Emma Straub has become adept at finding amusement in the mundane, and her newest, All Adults Here, might just be her best yet.
Oprah Magazine
The queen of the summer novel…. [W]e have turned to [Emma Straub] to bring us highly enjoyable, yet still thought-provoking, tales about witty protagonists in the throes of life changes.
Entertainment Weekly
All Adults Here is a master class on the small-scale American drama…. [T]his warm, optimistic novel argues that one should keep trying, regardless. All Adults Here affirms the value of community and family, no matter the strife that may rise up within them.
Vogue
In her witty new novel, All Adults Here, Emma Straub examine adolescence, aging, gender, and sexuality through the nuanced experiences of three generations of a New York family.
Harper’s Bazaar
[At] its core about family in all its loving, messy glory…. It’s a page-turner that will make you think about what binds families together and drives them apart.
Good Morning America
This book has it all: conflicted characters, teenagers learning who they are, a single mom having a steamy affair, and goats. Yep, goats.
Good Housekeeping
The perfect book to read during quarantine if your family is driving you crazy…. [A] layered love story that examines, and ultimately celebrates, the modern, multigenerational family dynamic.
Parade
(Starred review) As per usual, Straub’s writing is heartfelt and earnest, without tipping over the edge. There are a lot of issues at play here (abortion, bullying,…) that Straub easily juggles, and her strong and flawed characters carry the day. This affecting family saga packs plenty of punch.
Publishers Weekly
The title is ironic in that 13-year-old Cecelia often seems to be more adult than her parents or her aunt and uncle.… In this engaging novel, Straub explores the ups and downs of a somewhat disaffected 21st-century family with warmth, sympathy, and humor. —Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA
Library Journal
(Starred review) [C]omforting, often funny truths readers love [Straub] for. Like us, her characters are always getting older but never feeling quite old enough to do the right thing, to be the people they want to be…. [T]his might be her best yet.
Booklist
As always, Straub… draws her characters warmly, making them appealing in their self-centeredness and generosity, their insecurity and hope… Straub has a sharp eye for her characters' foibles…. With humor and insight, Straub creates a family worth rooting for.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the examples you see in this particular multi-generational family, or in your own life, of the ways that children can repeat or mutate the strengths and the mistakes that their parents handed down to them.
2. Astrid thinks about the role that birth order has played in the personalities of her three children, and how their own individual childhood experiences have helped to shape the adults they have become. To what degree do you think she is correct in her conclusions about the forces that shaped her children? In what ways are the choices they have made as adults reflective of their younger selves? How much do you think birth order plays a role?
3. Why does Astrid choose to tell her children about her relationship with Birdie when she does? What results from that conversation? Why does she keep this relationship from her kids for as long as she does? Do you think Birdie becomes part of the Strick family over the course of the novel?
4. Compare and contrast Nicky and Juliette’s marriage with Elliot and Wendy’s. How are these two couples portrayed?
5. In what ways does Rachel provide Porter with certain aspects of partnership? How does Porter value her relationship with Rachel and how do her feeling change over the course of the book?
6. What do Cecelia and August understand about forgiveness that the older characters do not? How do they provide the adults with a model for how to be true to yourself and what you believe?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)
All Fall Down
Jennifer Weiner, 2014
Atria Books
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451617788
Summary
Has your drinking or drug use become a problem?
Allison Weiss got her happy ending—a handsome husband, an adorable little girl, a job she loves, and a big house in the suburbs. But when she’s in the pediatrician’s office with her daughter and a magazine flips open to a quiz about addiction, she starts to wonder whether her use of prescription pills is becoming a problem.
On the one hand, it’s just prescription medication, the stuff her doctors give her. Is a Percocet at the end of a hard day really different than a glass of wine? Is it such a bad thing to pop a Vicodin after a brutal Jump & Pump class…or after your husband ignores you?
Back in the car, with her daughter safely buckled behind her, Allison opens the Altoid tin in her purse and slips a chalky white oval underneath her tongue. The pill unties her knotted muscles, erases the grime and ugliness of the city, soothes her as she frets about the truth of her looking-good life: that her husband’s becoming distant, that her daughter is acting out, that her father’s early Alzheimer’s is worsening and her mother’s barely managing to cope. She tells herself that the pills let her make it through her days…but what if her ever-increasing drug use, a habit that’s becoming expensive and hard to hide, is turning into her biggest problem of all?
All Fall Down is the story of a woman’s slide into addiction and struggle to find her way back up again. With a sparkling comedic touch and tender, true-to-life characterizations, this tale of empowerment and redemption is Jennifer Weiner’s most poignant, timely, and triumphant story yet. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 28, 1970
• Where—De Ridder, Louisiana, USA
• Raised—Simsbury, Connecticut
• Education—B.A., Princeton University
• Currently—lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Jennifer Weiner is an American writer, television producer, and former journalist. She is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Background
Weiner was born in DeRidder, Louisiana, where her father was stationed as an army physician. The next year, her family (including a younger sister and two brothers) moved to Simsbury, Connecticut, where Weiner spent her childhood.
Weiner's parents divorced when she was 16, and her mother came out as a lesbian at age 55. Weiner has said that she was "one of only nine Jewish kids in her high school class of 400" at Simsbury High School. She entered Princeton University at the age of 17 and received her bachelor of arts summa cum laude in English in 1991, having studied with J. D. McClatchy, Ann Lauterbach, John McPhee, Toni Morrison, and Joyce Carol Oates. Her first published story, "Tour of Duty," appeared in Seventeen magazine in 1992.
After graduating from college, Weiner joined the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pennsylvania, where she managed the education beat and wrote a regular column called "Generation XIII" (referring to the 13th generation following the American Revolution), aka "Generation X." From there, she moved on to Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader, still penning her "Generation XIII" column, before finding a job with the Philadelphia Inquirer as a features reporter.
Novels and TV
Weiner continued to write for the Inquirer, freelancing on the side for Mademoiselle, Seventeen, and other publications, until after her first novel, Good in Bed, was published in 2001.
In 2005, her second novel, In Her Shoes (2002), was made into a feature film starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette and Shirley MacLaine by 20th Century Fox. Her sixth novel, Best Friends Forever, was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller and made Publishers Weekly's list of the longest-running bestsellers of the year. To date, she is the author of 10 bestselling books, including nine novels and a collection of short stories, with a reported 11 million copies in print in 36 countries.
In addition to writing fiction, Weiner is a co-creator and executive producer of the (now-cancelled) ABC Family sitcom State of Georgia, and she is known for "live-tweeting" episodes of the reality dating shows The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. In 2011, Time magazine named her to its list of the Top 140 Twitter Feeds "shaping the conversation." She is a self-described feminist.
Personal
Weiner married attorney Adam Bonin in October of 2001. They have two children and separated amicably in 2010. As of 2014 she lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with her partner Bill Syken.
Gender bias in the media
Weiner has been a vocal critic of what she sees as the male bias in the publishing industry and the media, alleging that books by male authors are better received than those written by women, that is, reviewed more often and more highly praised by critics. In 2010, she told Huffington Post,
I think it's a very old and deep-seated double standard that holds that when a man writes about family and feelings, it's literature with a capital L, but when a woman considers the same topics, it's romance, or a beach book—in short, it's something unworthy of a serious critic's attention.... I think it's irrefutable that when it comes to picking favorites—those lucky few writers who get the double reviews AND the fawning magazine profile AND the back-page essay space AND the op-ed...the Times tends to pick white guys.
In a 2011 interview with the Wall Street Journal blog Speakeasy, she said, "There are gatekeepers who say chick lit doesn’t deserve attention but then they review Stephen King." When Jonathan Franzen's novel Freedom was published in 2010 to critical acclaim and extensive media coverage (including a cover story in Time), Weiner criticized what she saw as the ensuing "overcoverage," igniting a debate over whether the media's adulation of Franzen was an example of entrenched sexism within the literary establishment.
Though Weiner received some backlash from other female writers for her criticisms, a 2011 study by the organization VIDA bore out many of her claims, and Franzen himself, in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, agreed with her:
To a considerable extent, I agree. When a male writer simply writes adequately about family, his book gets reviewed seriously, because: "Wow, a man has actually taken some interest in the emotional texture of daily life," whereas with a woman it’s liable to be labelled chick-lit. There is a long-standing gender imbalance in what goes into the canon, however you want to define the canon.
As for the label "chick lit", Weiner has expressed ambivalence towards it, embracing the genre it stands for while criticizing its use as a pejorative term for commercial women's fiction.
I’m not crazy about the label because I think it comes with a built-in assumption that you’ve written nothing more meaningful or substantial than a mouthful of cotton candy. As a result, critics react a certain way without ever reading the books.
In 2008, Weiner published a critique on her blog of a review by Curtis Sittenfeld of a Melissa Bank novel. Weiner deconstructs Sittenfeld's review, writing,
The more I think about the review, the more I think about the increasingly angry divide between ladies who write literature and chicks who write chick lit, the more it seems like a grown-up version of the smart versus pretty games of years ago; like so much jockeying for position in the cafeteria and mocking the girls who are nerdier/sluttier/stupider than you to make yourself feel more secure about your own place in the pecking order.
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/21/2014.)
Book Reviews
The everymom heroine in this novel becomes a hard-core pill addict–and it’s impossible to look away.
Glamour
Weiner’s sly portrayal of family, entitlement and recovery culture is a romp—with an edge.
Good Housekeeping
[A] page-turning saga about a working mom, Allison Weiss, who uses pills to deal with recurrent pain, not to mention life’s increasing challenges.... Although the ultimate explanation for Allison’s problems is cliched, Weiner...convincingly shows that addiction can, indeed, be overcome, but only with genuine commitment and hard, hard work.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) An absolutely heartbreaking read that will leave readers haunted. Great for book clubs or for anyone trying to understand a loved one's addiction.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Weiner, who is a master at creating realistic characters, is at her best here, handling a delicate situation with witty dialogue and true-to-life scenes. Readers will be nodding their heads in sympathy as Allison struggles to balance being a mother, a daughter, and a wife while desperately just wanting to be herself.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Why does Allison initially turn to painkillers as a way to solve her problems, or at least to make her feel better for a few hours? How do her answers to the magazine quiz she takes at Ellie’s doctor’s office make her feel, and how does she justify taking a pill in the car just moments after she completes the quiz? How would Allison’s story have been different if she had sought help immediately after taking the quiz?
2. From her work and her marriage to her role as primary caretaker for her daughter and parents, how do the pressures on Allison contribute to her addiction? Do you think that the pressures that Allison faces justify her addiction, or does she use the challenges in her life as an excuse to take more pills? How are the pressures facing Allison unique to her role as a mother and a wife, and what is the author saying about the pressures on women in society in general?
3. After Dave’s book deal falls through and Allison’s blogging becomes their primary source of income, how does their relationship change? Why do you think the author chose to have Allison write for a website specifically geared toward women and women’s issues?
4. As Allison sinks deeper into her addiction, her relationships with her parents, husband, daughter, friends, and boss change as everyone adapts to an Allison who is less reliable, stable, and emotionally present. How do Allison’s addiction and her subsequent efforts at recovery impact the people around her for better and for worse? How does Allison handle the changes she observes in the people she loves? What surprises her about her family’s and friends’ reactions and responses to her addiction, and what surprised you as a reader?
5. How does Allison’s definition of self change when she and Dave move to the suburbs, and why? How do Allison’s hopes for life in the suburbs compare to the reality of her new situation, and what does she give up to fit into the new life that Dave chose for them? Does living in the suburbs contribute to Allison’s addiction, or do you think she would have faced the same issues had she stayed in the city?
6. How does Allison’s ability to anonymously order pills through Penny Lane facilitate her addiction? Do you think her addiction would have reached such an extreme place if she didn’t have the knowledge and resources to order pills over the Internet? What does Allison’s reliance on ordering drugs online say about technology and the future of addiction?
7. When he finally confronts Allison about her addiction, Dave is extremely angry that she has put their daughter’s life in jeopardy. Could Dave have interfered with his wife’s addiction sooner? If you think Dave suspected that Allison was abusing drugs, why did he choose to wait so long to act? Do you think that Dave feels any responsibility for Allison’s addiction?
8. At Meadowcrest, Allison meets a range of women who are addicts, including a heroin-addicted teenage mother and a devout Christian alcoholic grandmother. Did the depiction of Allison’s friends at the rehab center change your perception of what an addict looks like? Which of the characters introduced at Meadowcrest did you sympathize or identify with most, and why?
9. From lying to Mrs. Dale about how impaired she was behind the wheel to her reluctance to share her full story with the women at Meadowcrest, Allison continually fabricates stories that hide the depth of her addiction. Why do you think Allison seems to be addicted to lying, and why is it so impossible for her to face the truth about her addiction? When do you think she finally realizes that she will never fully recover unless she is honest about her addiction with herself and others?
10. Compared to the women who wind up at Meadowcrest after committing felonies or losing custody of their children, Allison feels her story is “boring, bare-bones, drama-free,” but Mary points out that Allison just has a “high bottom” as opposed to a “rock bottom.” Discuss the concept of “high bottom” versus “rock bottom.” How does Allison’s view of her addiction and her “high bottom” make her feel different from the other women in rehab whose situations appear more dire?
11. Despite the intense subject matter of the book, the author manages to infuse humor into Allison’s journey, such as when she coaxes details about The Bachelor from Wanda the aide, or when she hatches her plan to escape by staging a musical about addiction and life in rehab. As a reader, how did you feel when you read these humorous scenes? Were you surprised that the author was able to bring some light to such a dark situation?
12. Even in the depths of her addiction, Allison strives to be a better mother than her own mother was to her, even sneaking out of Meadowcrest to attend Ellie’s sixth birthday party. What does Allison do differently from her own mother, and in what ways are they the same? Were you surprised when Allison’s mother revealed her secret toward the end of the book? How, if at all, would Allison’s life have changed if she had known the truth about her mother sooner?
13. Aubrey’s phone call at the end of the book reminds Allison how quickly addiction can consume a person. Why is it so important to Allison that she refuse Aubrey’s request to come stay with her? What do you think the future holds for both of them? In a year, where do you think Allison will be in terms of her relationships with her family and her work? In five years?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
All Grown Up
Jami Atttenberg, 2017
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544824249
Summary
A wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection.
Who is Andrea Bern? When her therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister.
But it’s what she leaves unsaid—she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh—that feels the most true.
Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult: her best friend, Indigo, is getting married; her brother—who miraculously seems unscathed by their shared tumultuous childhood—and sister-in-law are having a hoped-for baby; and her friend Matthew continues to wholly devote himself to making dark paintings at the cost of being flat broke.
But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart?
Told in gut-wrenchingly honest, mordantly comic vignettes, All Grown Up is a breathtaking display of Jami Attenberg’s power as a storyteller, a whip-smart examination of one woman’s life, lived entirely on her own terms.(From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1971
• Raised—Buffalo Grove, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., John Hopkins University
• Currently—lives in New Orleans, Louisiana
Jami Attenberg is an American writer of fiction and essays. She grew up in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, and is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Writing.
Her early works were published in numerous zines and in a 2003 chapbook called Deli Life. Her first book, Instant Love, a collection of interconnected short stories, was published in 2006. That work has been followed by a series of novels:
2008 - The Kept Man
2010 - The Melting Season
2012 - The Middlesteins
2015 - Saint Mazie
2017 - All Grown Up
2019 - All This Could Be Yours
Attenberg's work has appeared in a number of anthologies and magazines, including Nerve and The New York Times. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Adapted from Wikipedia. First retrieved 10/28/2012.)
Book Reviews
All Grown Up is a smart, funny-sad portrait of contemporary urban life in which basic human values seem to have gone awry…. Jami Attenberg is a gifted writer, full of insight and wit, and while her observations are sometimes stark, there’s almost always a comic lift around the corner. She’s created a winning, vulnerable heroine in Andrea although at times you’d like to throttle her. But Andrea’s emotions are always meditated through kindness, and her actions, though at times misdirected, are never cruel. So we root for Andrea to change and grow and find happiness.
Molly Lundqist - LitLovers
[F]or all her foibles and missteps, the grown-up Andrea is primarily sympathetic: funny, honest about her warts-and-all character, dry, all too human, often kind (her treatment of her sister-in-law notwithstanding) and stuck in a place that is far better than the one she came from. To my way of thinking, an unmet opportunity to grow has always equaled tragedy, but here status quo is the goal. It's no easy task to build a novel around a character who doesn't necessarily evolve, or perhaps evolves quietly, with baby steps, on tiptoe, close to the finish line, and maybe, please God, it's not too late. But for all the dark clouds coasting overhead, Attenberg, with her wry sense of humor, manages to entertain and move us nonetheless. Whatever Andrea's objectives are, we're rooting for her.
Helen Schulman - New York Times
All Grown Up is a smart, addictive, hilarious and relevant novel.
Meredith Maran - Washington Post
All Grown Up [is] a smart, funny/sad and unflinchingly honest novel about a single New Yorker.… In sparkling prose, [Attenberg] brings this wonderful character so fully to life that after the book ended, I found myself wishing Andrea well as if she were a good friend and wondering what she would do next.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Andrea, 39, is totally single. No kids, no men, nothing keeping her from living her life to its full potential, which she does. Until her niece is born with a tragic illness, and Andrea's whole family is forced to confront their values, their lifestyles, and their choices. Told in vignettes, All Grown Up asks what happens after you've got the whole "adult" thing under control (Best Books to Read in 2017).
Glamour
Attenberg captures the kaleidoscopic flow of Andrea’s life in spare and witty vignettes that build to a surprising and moving conclusion.
Jane Ciabattari - BBC.com
Bravo to Attenberg, who, with hilarity and honesty, tells the story of an adult woman who wants what she wants, not what she’s supposed to want.
Marie Claire
Thank you, Jami Attenberg, for pushing back against society’s assumptions about what is allowed to matter in our lives. For giving us a different kind of narrative. All Grown Up is not all fluffy and lovely. It turns out that we have other stories—we single people. We human beings.
Bustle
Revolutionary…. [A] perceptive study of love, sacrifice, and what it really means to be an adult.
Tablet
Jami Attenberg deftly travels inside the head of a 39-year-old woman who has no interest in doing what she’s supposed to do and follows her heart instead of her mind—a story that’s sexy, charming, and impossible to put down.
Newsweek
Powerful.… All Grown Up is so intimately [and] sharply observed.
Vogue
Jami Attenberg will have you laughing, cursing, and ranting right along with her book's vibrant main character, Andrea — a 39-year-old single New Yorker trying to figure out how hold her life together. (And trying to figure out what 'having your life together' even means.) This book has got serious spunk.
Bustle
With a satirical voice and astounding pathos, Attenberg’s latest protagonist draws readers into the enthralling and thought-provoking world she inhabits, against the backdrop of an important social conversation about contemporary gender roles.
Harpers Bazaar
[A] bildungsroman with a twist.… The novel’s darkly comic voice is a delight to read, capturing Andrea’s sharp insights as well as her self-destructiveness, while brief chapters that shift back and forth in time effectively convey both the chaos and the stasis of her personal landscape.
Publishers Weekly
Not all the supporting characters are fleshed out, an ailing child is less than a Macguffin, but …Attenberg's novel is layered and deceptive, as is her heroine. You'll enter Andrea's world for the throwaway lines and sardonic humor, but stay for the poignancy and depth. —Liz French
Library Journal
Attenberg's latest novel follows Andrea Bern: on the cusp of 40, single, child-free by choice, and reasonably content, she's living a life that still, even now, bucks societal conventions.… Wry, sharp, and profoundly kind; a necessary pleasure.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available: in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for All Grown Up…then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Andrea Bern and, especially, her life as a single woman in New York? Some 50 years after first-wave feminism, is she a throw-back to those early days; in other words, is her choice of being single and childless still "defying convention"?
2. What role has art played in Andrea's life? Why has she forsaken it? What do you think of her fascination, maybe even compulsion, to draw the Empire State Building over and over. Can you think of any symbolic significance her repeated drawing might have?
3. Talk about her relationships to her family. How would describe her upbringing in New York? In what way have those earlier years shaped her present life, left her adrift?
4. Can a case be made for her to abandon her brother and wife when they need her most? Why does it take a year-and-a-half for her to visit them in New Hampshire?
5. Talk about Greta's outpouring of misery when she and Andrea have lunch together at Balthazar. What do you think of Andrea's response? Is she capable of empathy? She reaches out to help a stranger that day but not Greta, who has been always kind to her.
6. Andrea seems to live life on her own terms, unapologetically. Is that something to admire, something to strive for?
7. Read and comment on the passage below: Why does Andrea have a "problem" with what other people accept as a normal, even desirable, outcome in life?
Other people you know have no problem at all with succeeding at their careers and buying apartments and moving to other cities and falling in love and getting married and hyphenating their names and adopting rescue cats and, finally, having children.
8. Does Andrea evolve toward the end of the novel? Does she grow, learn, mature? Do you end up rooting for her…or not?
9. Jami Attenberg's novel is akin to a series of linked stories. Does that structure appeal to you?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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All He Ever Wanted
Anita Shreve, 2003
Little, Brown & Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781615568635
Summary
In the wake of such acclaimed #1 bestsellers as The Pilot's Wife, The Last Time They Met, and Sea Glass, Anita Shreve gives us a brilliant new novel about love, jealousy, and loss. It is the story of a man whose obsession with a young woman begins when he meets her fleetingly—as he helps her escape from a fire in a restaurant—and culminates in a marriage doomed by secrets and betrayal.
Written with the intelligence and grace that are Anita Shreve's hallmarks, this gripping tale is peopled by unforgettable characters as real as the emotions that bring them together. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1946
• Raised—Dedham, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A. Tufts University
• Awards—PEN/L.L. Winship Award; O. Henry Prize
• Currently—lives in Longmeadow, Massachusetts
Anita Shreve is the acclaimed author of nearly 20 books—including two works of nonfiction and 17 of fiction. Her novels include, most recently, Stella Bain (2013), as well as The Weight of Water (1997), a finalist for England's Orange prize; The Pilot's Wife (1998), a selection of Oprah's Book Club; All He Even Wanted (2003), Body Surfing (2007); Testimony (2008); A Change in Altitude (2010). She lives in Massachusetts. (From the publisher.)
More
For many readers, the appeal of Anita Shreve’s novels is their ability to combine all of the escapist elements of a good beach read with the kind of thoughtful complexity not generally associated with romantic fiction. Shreve’s books are loaded with enough adultery, eroticism, and passion to make anyone keep flipping the pages, but the writer whom People magazine once dubbed a “master storyteller” is also concerned with the complexities of her characters’ motivations, relationships, and lives.
Shreve’s novels draw on her diverse experiences as a teacher and journalist: she began writing fiction while teaching high school, and was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1975 for her story, "Past the Island, Drifting." She then spent several years working as a journalist in Africa, and later returned to the States to raise her children. In the 1980s, she wrote about women’s issues, which resulted in two nonfiction books—Remaking Motherhood and Women Together, Women Alone—before breaking into mainstream fiction with Eden Close in 1989.
This interest in women’s lives—their struggles and success, families and friendships—informs all of Shreve’s fiction. The combination of her journalist’s eye for detail and her literary ear for the telling turn of phrase mean that Shreve can spin a story that is dense, atmospheric, and believable. Shreve incorporates the pull of the sea—the inexorable tides, the unpredictable surf—into her characters’ lives the way Willa Cather worked the beauty and wildness of the Midwestern plains into her fiction. In Fortune’s Rocks and The Weight of Water, the sea becomes a character itself, evocative and ultimately consuming. In Sea Glass, Shreve takes the metaphor as far as she can, where characters are tested again and again, only to emerge stronger by surviving the ravages of life.
A domestic sensualist, Shreve makes use of the emblems of household life to a high degree, letting a home tell its stories just as much as its inhabitants do, and even recycling the same house through different books and periods of time, giving it a sort of palimpsest effect, in which old stories burn through the newer ones, creating a historical montage. "A house with any kind of age will have dozens of stories to tell," she says. "I suppose if a novelist could live long enough, one could base an entire oeuvre on the lives that weave in and out of an antique house."
Shreve’s work is sometimes categorized as "women’s fiction," because of her focus on women’s sensibilties and plights. But her evocative and precise language and imagery take her beyond category fiction, and moderate the vein of sentimen-tality which threads through her books. Moreover, her kaleidoscopic view of history, her iron grip on the details and detritus of 19th-century life (which she sometimes inter-sperses with a 20th-century story), and her uncanny ability to replicate 19th-century dialogue without sounding fusty or fussy, make for novels that that are always absorbing and often riveting. If she has a flaw, it is that her imagery is sometimes too cinematic, but one can hardly fault her for that: after all, the call of Hollywood is surely as strong as the call of the sea for a writer as talented as Shreve. (Adapted from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Anita Shreve knows something about narrative momentum. Whether you line up at the library to reserve her latest novel or roll your eyes at the melodrama that heats up her pages, once they are turning you will not be bored. All He Ever Wanted is no exception. It may not be particularly memorable, but it is artful entertainment, with the occasional neat turn of phrase as an added bonus.
Janice P. Nimura - Washington Post
Shreve is by far one of the finest novelists of her time.
Boston Globe
In bestsellers such as Fortune's Rocks, Shreve has revealed an impeccably sharp eye and a generous emotional sensitivity in describing the moment when a man and a woman become infatuated with each. She is less successful this time out, perhaps because the epiphany is one-sided. Escaping from a New Hampshire hotel fire at the turn of the 20th century, Prof. Nicholas Van Tassel catches sight of Etna Bliss and is instantly smitten. She does not reciprocate his feeling, for she has her own unrequited lust, for freedom and independence. That they marry guarantees tragedy. Nicholas tells the story in retrospect, writing feverishly on a train trip in 1933 to his sister's funeral in Florida. His pedantic style is full of parenthetical asides, portentous foreshadowing and rhetorical throat. His erotic swoon commands sympathy, until it carries him past any definition of decency. He will do anything to bring down Philip Asher, his academic rival and the brother of Etna's true love, Samuel. He plays on prevailing anti-Semitism (the Ashers are Jewish), and he persuades his daughter, Clara, to claim that Philip touched her improperly, which besmirches not only Philip's reputation but Clara's as well. We see Etna herself only secondhand, except for some correspondence with Philip reproduced toward the end of the tale. Credit the author for making the point that Etna and her sisters had too little autonomy even to tell their own stories, but filtering Etna's experience through Nicholas's sensibility deprives the novel of intimacy and immediacy.
Publishers Weekly
At the turn of the 20th century, Nicholas Van Tassel, an English literature professor at a small New Hampshire college, manages to escapes from a hotel fire. As he stands in the dark among the other souls lucky enough not to have perished, he sees Etna Bliss. Though she is not beautiful, he is immediately drawn to her. The result of that first fateful meeting is an obsession from which he is unable to escape. Nicholas courts Etna and eventually marries her, though she admits that she does not love him and never can. The jealousy that begins to simmer on their wedding night eventually leads to Nicholas's demise. Their marriage, though filled with companionship, mutual respect, and concern about their two children during the daylight hours, grows ever more precarious as evening draws near. Ultimately, a betrayal occurs. Shreve's prose is as compelling as the story itself, and her characters are all too human in their weaknesses. The author asks whether we can really possesses another person and reminds us of our tendency to cling to the past. Readers who loved Shreve's portrayal of human relationships and her building of tension, particularly in The Pilot's Wife, will find it again here. For most public libraries. —Nanci Milone Hill, Lucius Beebe Memorial Lib., Wakefield, MA
Library Journal
Shreve daringly makes the bad guy her narrator in a creepy tale of relentless love. Nicholas Van Tassel may not seem so awful at first, as he describes the hotel fire in the winter of 1899 that introduced him to Etna Bliss. We quickly see that this 30-year-old English professor at Thrupp College in New Hampshire is pompous, ambitious, and something of a hypocrite, as well as a minor plagiarist, but we're inclined to sympathy thanks to Nicholas's immediate passion for Etna. Her mother has recently died, she's living temporarily with her uncle, and the future seems to promise little more to this regal and mysterious woman than life as an unpaid governess to her sister's children. Unless she marries Nicholas, that is, who isn't above pressing his suit on those grounds. She accepts, making sure he knows that "I don't think that I could...love you...in the way that a wife must love a husband." (Their sex life, in fact, proves a disaster.) We already know through Nicholas's framing narration, from September 1933, that this marriage has turned out badly-but the story's central section, from fall 1914 through spring 1915, reveals just how badly-and just how far Nicholas is prepared to go to assert his desires. As he campaigns to be named dean of Thrupp's faculty, he learns that Etna has a secret independent life. It's entirely innocent, but that doesn't stem Nicholas's rage, especially when he learns that his wife had a lover before they were married. Shreve lets her narrator damn himself by his own sanctimonious words as he stoops to Jew-baiting, marital rape, and persuading his teenaged daughter to tell a catastrophic lie-all to further his ambitions, which, it becomes increasingly plain, are not just selfish but scarily obsessive. Still, since Nicholas is our window into the events, we feel his humanity even as he performs a series of despicable acts. Full-bodied storytelling with an unflinching moral backbone: one of Shreve's best.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How would you describe the voice of the novel's narrator? What does the manner in which Nicholas Van Tassel tells the story suggest to you about his character? How reliable a narrator is he?
2. We learn about Etna only through Nicholas. Do you think we see her clearly? What role do the "letters" play? What about Nicholas's comments and asides on these letters? Do they shed more light on Nicholas or on Etna?
3. Some readers have seen Nicholas as a monster; others have been moved by his humanity. How do you feel about him? Do you think he knows himself?
4. Do you agree with Nicholas's own assessment that "we design our own fate, to suit our circumstances" (page 45)?
5. Do you agree with his idea about "the necessity of having extraordinary love returned in order to have achieved true greatness" (page 127)?
6. When Nicholas begins to court Etna, he makes the distinction between the qualities of a woman and the qualities of a wife. What does he imply with his musings? How does he define Etna?
7. After Nicholas and Etna's wedding, the narrator jumps ahead fourteen years. Why do you think he chooses to do this? What is the benefit of sweeping past those first years of the marriage?
8. Nicholas has a tense relationship with one of his students, Edward Ferald. Why does Nicholas feel such animosity toward Edward? How does this color Nicholas's future at Thrupp?
9. Etna accepts Nicholas's proposal but promises that she can never love him. Why does Etna agree to marry Nicholas? What does she hope to achieve with this marriage? And after finding herself trapped in a restrictive role as Nicholas's wife, why does she remain in the marriage for so long?
10. After her uncle's death, Etna informs Nicholas, "It is a treasure. To be able to love someone in that way. So thoroughly. So freely" (page 159). Discuss the significance of this statement.
11. Discuss Nicholas's relationship with his children.
12. Etna is an enigmatic figure. Analyze her means of escape within her marriage.
13. After Nicholas discovers Etna's house, she insists that she must have her own space in order to claim her independence. Does Etna achieve her goal in the end? How much power does she have in her relationship with her husband?
14. In his wife's absence, Nicholas wonders whether he was set free as well (page 304). Can Nicholas fully escape his obsession? What are his feelings for Etna thirty years later? Despite his lengthy journal, does Nicholas ever truly understand Etna?
15. What do the parenthetical asides woven throughout the narrative reveal about Nicholas's character? Do you think these devices are effective?
16. Why do you think Nicholas chooses to tell the story when he is in his sixties? How might the story be different if told without the benefit of Nicholas's hindsight?
17. The story's frame is a train ride that Nicholas takes en route to his sister's funeral. How does Nicholas's account of the events that transpired on this journey resonate with the story of Nicholas and Etna's relationship?
18. How does Nicholas change, if at all, in the course of this novel? What has he learned from his time with Etna?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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All Is Not Forgotten
Wendy Walker, 2016
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250097910
Summary
It begins in the small, affluent town of Fairview, Connecticut, where everything seems picture perfect.
Until one night when young Jenny Kramer is attacked at a local party. In the hours immediately after, she is given a controversial drug to medically erase her memory of the violent assault.
But, in the weeks and months that follow, as she heals from her physical wounds, and with no factual recall of the attack, Jenny struggles with her raging emotional memory. Her father, Tom, becomes obsessed with his inability to find her attacker and seek justice while her mother, Charlotte, struggles to pretend this horrific event did not touch her carefully constructed world.
As Tom and Charlotte seek help for their daughter, the fault lines within their marriage and their close-knit community emerge from the shadows where they have been hidden for years, and the relentless quest to find the monster who invaded their town—or perhaps lives among them—drive this psychological thriller to a shocking and unexpected conclusion. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1966-67
• Where—Fairfield County, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; J.D., Georgetown University
• Currently—lives in Fairfield County, Connecticut
Wendy Walker was born and raised in Fairfield County, Connecticut, where she still lives, practicing law and and writing novels.
She earned her undergraduate degree from Brown Univeristy, spending a year abroad at the London School of Economics, then heading to Georgetown University for her law degree. She has been a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs and is now a family lawyer.
Divorced and the mother of three sons, Walker recalled writing her first novel "on the fly in her minivan," as The New York Times put it—a la J.K. Rowling, without the welfare check."
That first novel was Four Wives (2008), set in the fictional town of Hunting Ridge in wealthy Fairfield County. Walker's next two novels, Social Lives (2009) and All is Not Forgotten (2016), a thriller, are also set in her native Fairfield County. Emma in the Night (2017) is Walker's fourth novel. (Adapted from the author's website and various online sources. Retrieved 7/19/2016.)
Book Reviews
Because we are kept in a constant guessing game about the ending (I, personally, had three possible conclusions), we go from back and forth from sympathetic to suspicious about each character. It’s a wonderful ride—a fast-paced read that delivers an ending that makes you wish you had been savvy enough to guess. It’s no wonder that Warner Bros. has optioned the rights to the book and is collaborating with Reese Witherspoon in development. You definitely want to read this book before you run to the theater to see it! READ MORE …
Kathy Aspden, AUTHOR - LitLovers
(Starred review.) The rape of 15-year-old Jenny Kramer in the well-to-do town of Fairview, Conn., propels this exceptional psychological thriller.... While secret after secret...add to the suspense, Forrester’s secrets may be the most stunning of all.
Publishers Weekly
The traumatic memories of a teenager's rape are medically erased, but lingering thoughts of the attack remain.... [A] busy story whose resolution is anything but satisfying... makes it difficult to focus on the true victim...of this ridiculous plot.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our generic mystery questions for All Is Not Forgotten...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.)
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All Our Wrong Todays
Elan Mastai, 2017
Penguin Publishing
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101985137
Summary
You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened.
In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed...because it wasn't necessary.
Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that's before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world.
For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland.
But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and—maybe, just maybe—his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality?
Tom's search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future—our future—is supposed to be.
All Our Wrong Todays is about the versions of ourselves that we shed and grow into over time. It is a story of friendship and family, of unexpected journeys and alternate paths, and of love in its multitude of forms.
Filled with humor and heart, and saturated with insight and intelligence and a mind-bending talent for invention, this novel signals the arrival of a major talent. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1974-75
• Where—Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• Education—Queens University; Concordia University
• Awards—Canadian Screen Award
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Elan Mastai is a Canadian screenwriter and novelist. He is best known for The F Word, for which he won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 2nd Canadian Screen Awards in 2014. His debut novel, All the Wrong Todays was published in 2017 and is rumored to have fetched a seven figure advance. A time-travel-goes-awry tale, the book's breezy, humorous style has been compared to Adam Douglas's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Mastai was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, to a Canadian mother and an Israeli immigrant father. He studied film at Queen's University and Concordia University. He lives with his wife and children and an Australian Shepherd named Ruby Slippers in Toronto. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/9/2017.)
Book Reviews
Elan Mastai’s debut is a sci-fi tour de force—whip smart, imaginative, thoughtful, and funny. The novel is set in 2016, not our 2016 but a techno-utopian 2016—the result of a perpetual energy machine invented in 1965. That new, endless source of clean, cheap energy led to a burst of innovation, accelerated beyond anything we know of in this 2016. Mastai has obvious fun drawing comparisons between his "futuristic" 2016 and ours. One has airborne cars, digital clothing, interactive novels, and worldwide prosperity. The other doesn’t. READ MORE.
P.J. Adler - LitLovers
[An] amazing debut novel.… Dazzling and complex.… Fearlessly funny storytelling... In the alternative reality of our own day when many long for the chance to turn back time, some solace might be found in the masochistic pleasures of this trippy and ultimately touching novel.
Washington Post
All Our Wrong Todays is an incredibly creative work. It’s as if Mastai time traveled and took copious notes of what a future utopian world would be. The science is as engaging as the romance. Mastai has mastered the art of endearing himself to an audience through both knowledge and entertainment. It’s definitely out of this world — or an alternate universe.
Associated Press
Shades of sci-fi, but also an endearing comedy about family and friendship.
New York Post
[All Our Wrong Todays] earns the case it makes for the messiness, heartbreak and imperfections of our world, and in doing so helped reconnect me to my fellow humans, whom, at the moment, I find inscrutable and frightening in equal measure.
Ron Currie - Chicago Tribune
A time-travel tale that works.… A multiverse trans-timeline love story… All storytelling is time travel, but not all time travel stories are worth telling, and though I don't have the word count to properly place All Our Wrong Todays in the pantheon of chrono adventures (somewhere between Voyagers! and Ken Grimwood's Replay), it more than deserves to be on readers' shelves in any timeline.
Dallas Morning News
On top of this brilliant philosophical premise of parallel versions of one’s life and the people in it—of what might have been had history unfolded different—Mastai’s language is also rife with an infectious humor you won’t be able to stop reading.
HarpersBazaar.com
You don't have to be a sci-fi fan to become totally enthralled with this fresh, time-travel novel by screenwriter Mastai . [A]n utterly clever, entertaining love story.
RealSimple.com
With humor, grace and dizzying skill, Mastai crafts a time-traveling novel that challenges every convention of the trope, and succeeds brilliantly. His droll, unassuming writing style couches a number of razor-sharp critiques while the endless array of...possibilities give the story its drive and irresistible exuberance heartrending, funny, smart, and stunningly, almost brazenly hopeful (a Top Pick).
Romance Times Book Reviews
[I]maginative . [T]he story takes several startling turns as Tom tries to change the future of this timeline. Mastai has fun with all the usual conventions of time travel . and the cherry on top is his dialogue, reminiscent of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Mastai creates a fascinating tapestry of interconnected alternate realities . A potent mixture of sincere introspection and a riveting examination of time travel and alternate realities, this highly recommended novel is reminiscent of Jo Walton's My Real Children with the breeziness of Robin Sloan's Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.
Library Journal
Mastai's utopian worldbuilding is complex and imaginative . An entertaining rom-com of errors, All Our Wrong Todays backflips through paradoxes while exploring provocative questions of grief and the multitudes we contain within ourselves. Ultimately, it's a story about love—and the stupid things we'll do for it.
BookPage
(Starred review.) [T]he story of the world's first and, unfortunately for us all, most unqualified time traveler. Mastai considers not only the workings, but the consequences (and there are many) of time travel, packing so much into the last 100 pages it feels as if there's a literal weight pressing on your mind. [E]ntertaining.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion question for All the Wrong Todays...then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the ways in which All Our Wrong Todays' alternate 2016 is similar or dissimilar to the 2016 we know. Which reality do you prefer? How do you view the level of advanced technology in the first 2016? Consider the improvements it makes to life, as well as the ways in which it detracts from life? Overall, how would you characterize the hyper-technological world—as utopian or dystopian?
2. What could possibly go wrong? Tom Barren travels back to 1965, the year the Goettreider Engine (get the play on the name?) was invented. Why does his presence cause the machine to go haywire?
3. What light does Elan Mastai's book shine of the problems and paradoxes of time travel?
4. How do the "Tom Barrens" differ from one another in the alternate timelines?
5. And then there's Penelope. What do you think of her?
6. What does Tom learn by the end of the book? What insights does he gain? How about you? What insights have you gained—regarding what it means to be human, the importance of family, and the power of love?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque, 1929
Random House
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780449213940
Summary
Considered by many the greatest war novel of all time, All Quiet on the Western Front is Erich Maria Remarque’s masterpiece of the German experience during World War I.
I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . .
This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.
Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive.
In-depth (Spoiler alert)
More than fifty years after its jolting prose, haunting poetry, and powerful truths slashed their way into the consciousness of a worldwide readership, All Quiet on the Western Front still stands at the forefront of a host of novels on that most tragic recurrence in the history of human experience: war.
Through the observations of Paul Baumer, a 19-year-old volunteer to the German army during World War I, readers taste war in all its horror. Baumer and his classmates charge fresh out of high school into military service, egged on by parents, teachers, and other one-track-minded adults who are unable to foresee or unwilling to consider the hell into which they are cheering their "Iron Youth."
But war soon transforms Paul and his comrades into "old folk" and "wild beasts." Thrust into an open-air asylum reeking of sulfur, excreta, and clotting blood, emblazoned by colorful fireworks that kill, teeming with flesh-eating vermin, these battered, weary, famished friends struggle to make sense of their plight, capturing some measure of peace only when they accept the fact that their reality makes no sense, has no reason.
For these soldiers, there is no thrill of victory, only the certainty of one onslaught after another. To look to the future brings them no comfort: they envision no careers, no use for their pre-war education, no romance, no life beyond the battlefield. What lies before them is "the abyss."
War strips away ideals these boy-men once valued. Their respect for authority is eroded by their disillusionment with the schoolteacher Kantorek who pressed them into service—a laughingstock when forced to don a uniform himself—and is shattered by the contemptible tactics their superior officer Himmelstoss perpetrates in the name of discipline. Even their belief in the sanctity of human life must be compromised every time they kill; this is best illustrated by Paul's journey from anguish to rationalization of his dispatch of Gerard Duval, the printer turned enemy who leaps into the shell-hole already occupied by Paul.
War destroys these men—even those who survive the bombings, the bullets and bayonets. Yet unless their bodies are annihilated by physical attacks or their sanity exploded by the weight of one too many atrocities, some soldiers manage to maintain vestiges of humanness: their caring for animals (Detering, the farmer turned warrior, rails against the army for its "vilest baseness" in exposing innocent horses to slaughter; the group shares its once-in-a-wartime feast with a little grey cat); compassion for each other (Baumer, little more than a child himself, comforts a terrified, crying recruit and literally covers his behind); their sense of fun (Baumer and Kropp ride high atop a tuck on a canopied, four-poster bed; the Second Company risks their lives amid a shower of explosives for two roast pigs and a platter of potato pancakes); a flair for the romantic (ailing soldiers band together to allow Lewandowski, his wife, and child an intimate reunion in the infirmary); defiance of the near-inevitability of an ugly death (Peter, young and lung-damaged, triumphs over the spectral aura of the Dying Room).
Their hope in a seemingly hopeless situation attests to the endurance of the human spirit. That ghost of a chance that they would return home someday inspires them to think and fight like murderous automatons, to thump along on bleeding stumps where feet used to be until they could reach relative safety from a barrage.
But as the war wears on and the western battlefront soaks up the blood of Kemmerich, then Haie Westhus, then Muller, Paul's hope ebbs. His trip home on leave whets his appetite for family life, civilian clothes, and a civilian job and at the same time tortures him with the knowledge that should he succeed at fighting his way back home he can no more fit into the life he led at peacetime than he can fit into his old dress suit.
After the deaths or dismemberment of his classmates, other comrades, and finally his most cherished fired Katczinsky, Paul speaks of being "broken, burnt out, rootless." When, on the eve of the resolution of World War I, Paul's own end arrives, the expression on his corpse indicates that he has welcomed it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 22, 1898
• Where—Osnabruck, Lower Saxony, Germany
• Death—September 25, 1970
• Where—Loccarno, Switzerland
• Education—University of Munster
Erich Maria Remarque (pronounced Ray-mark; born Erich Paul Remark) was a German author, best known for his novel All Quiet on the Western Front. He was born into a working class family in the German city of Osnabrück to Peter Franz Remark and Anna Maria (née Stallknecht).
First World War
During World War I, Remarque was conscripted into the army at the age of 18. On 12 June 1917, he was transferred to the Western Front and stationed between Torhout and Houthulst. On 31 July, he was wounded by shrapnel in the left leg, right arm and neck, and was repatriated to an army hospital in Germany where he spent the rest of the war.
Jobs
After the war he continued his teacher training and worked as a primary school teacher from 1919-1920. After teaching he worked at a number of other jobs, including librarian, businessman, journalist and editor. His first paid writing job was as a technical writer for the Continental Rubber Company, a German tire manufacturer.
Novelist
Remarque had made his first attempts at writing at the age of 16. This included essays, poems, and the beginnings of a novel that was finished later and published in 1920 as The Dream Room (Die Traumbude).
He made a second literary start in 1927 with the novel Station at the Horizon (Station am Horizont), which was serialised in the sports journal Sport im Bild for which Remarque was working. It was published in book form only in 1998.
His best known work, All Quiet on the Western Front (Im Westen nichts Neues), was written in a few months in 1927. Unable to find a publisher the work wasn't published until 1929. The novel describes the experiences of German soldiers during World War I. A number of similar works followed; in simple, emotive language they described wartime and the postwar years.
At the time he published All Quiet, Remarque changed his middle name in memory of his mother and reverted to the earlier spelling of the family name to dissociate himself from his novel Die Traumbude. (The original family name, Remarque, had been changed to Remark by his grandfather in the 19th century.)
In 1931, after finishing The Road Back (Der Weg Zurück), Remarque bought a villa in Porto Ronco, Switzerland, planning to live both there and in France.
His next novel, Three Comrades (Drei Kameraden), spans the years of the Weimar Republic, from the hyperinflation of 1923 to the end of the decade. Remarque's fourth novel, Flotsam (in German titled Liebe deinen Nächsten, or Love Thy Neighbor), first appeared in a serial version in English translation in Collier's magazine in 1939, and Remarque spent another year revising the text for its book publication in 1941. His next novel, Arch of Triumph (Arc de Triomphe)first published in 1945 in English, and the next year in German. It was another instant best-seller, reaching worldwide sales of nearly five million.
Nazi era
On 10 May 1933, the German government, on the initiative of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, banned and publicly burned Remarque's works. Remarque finally left Germany to live at his villa in Switzerland. The Nazis continued to decry his writings, claiming he was a descendant of French Jews and that his real surname name was Kramer, a Jewish-sounding name, and his original name spelled backwards. This is still cited in some biographies despite the complete lack of evidence. The Nazis also claimed, falsely, that Remarque had not seen active service during World War I. In 1938, Remarque's German citizenship was revoked, and then in 1939, after he and his ex-wife were remarried to prevent her repatriation to Germany, they left Porto Ronco, Switzerland, for the United States where they became naturalized citizens in 1947.
In 1943, the German government arrested his sister, Elfriede Scholz with her husband and two children. After a short trial in the "Volksgerichtshof" (Hitler's extra-constitutional "People's Court"), she was found guilty of "undermining morale" for stating that she considered the war lost. Court President Roland Freisler declared, "Your brother is unfortunately beyond our reach—you, however, will not escape us." Scholz was beheaded on 16 December 1943, and the cost of her prosecution, imprisonment and execution—495,80 Reichsmark—was billed to her sister Erna.
Switzerland
In 1948, Remarque returned to Switzerland, where he spent the rest of his life. A gap of seven years—a long silence for Remarque—separated Arch of Triumph and his next work, Spark of Life (Der Funke Leben) in 1952. While writing The Spark of Life, Remarque was also working on Time to Live and Time to Die (Zeit zu leben und Zeit zu sterben), which was published in 1954. In 1958 Douglas Sirk directed a film adaptation in Germany with Remarque making a cameo appearance as the Professor.
In 1955, Remarque wrote the screenplay for an Austrian film, The Last Act (Der letzte Akt), about Hitler's final days in the bunker of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, which was based on the book Ten Days to Die (1950) by Michael Musmanno. In 1956, Remarque wrote a drama for the stage, Full Circle (Die letzte Station), which played successfully in both Germany and on Broadway. An English translation was published in 1974. Heaven Has No Favorites was serialized (as Borrowed Life) in 1959 before appearing as a book in 1961 and was made into the 1977 film Bobby Deerfield. The Night in Lisbon (Die Nacht von Lissabon), published in 1962, Remarque's last finished work. The novel sold some 900,000 copies in Germany and was a modest best-seller abroad as well.
Marriages
His first marriage was to the actress Ilse Jutta Zambona in 1925. Their marriage was stormy and unfaithful on both sides. The two divorced in 1930 but fled together to his home in Porto Ronco, Switzerland, when the Nazis took over Germany in 1933; in May 1933, his novel All Quiet on the Western Front was burned in one of the first of the Nazi book burnings and it became clear that neither Remarque nor Zambona could return to Germany.
During the 1930s, Remarque had relationships with Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr and then with Marlene Dietrich. The love affair with Dietrich began in September 1937 when they met on the Lido while in Venice for the film festival and continued through at least 1940, maintained mostly by way of letters, cables and telephone calls. A selection of their letters were published in 2003 in the book Tell Me That You Love Me (Sag Mir, Dass Du Mich Liebst) and then in the 2011 play Puma.
In 1938, Remarque and his ex-wife Zambona remarried each other in Switzerland as a protection to prevent her being forced to return to Germany. In 1939 they emigrated to the United States where they both became naturalized citizens in 1947. They divorced again in 1957, this time for good. Ilse Remarque died on 25 June 1975.
Remarque married actress Paulette Goddard in 1958, and they remained married until his death in Locarno in 1970 at the age of 72. Remarque was interred in the Ronco Cemetery in Ronco, Ticino, Switzerland.
Goddard died in 1990 and was interred next to her husband. She left a bequest of $20 million to New York University to fund an institute for European studies, which is named in honour of Remarque. Tony Judt was the first Director of The Remarque Institute. Remarque's papers are housed at NYU's Fales Library. NYU also named an undergraduate dormitory building after her: Paulette Goddard Hall. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/09/2013.)
Book Reviews
(Classic works have few, if any, mainstream press reivews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
The world has a great writer in Erich Maria Remarque. He is a craftsman of unquestionably first trank, a man who can bend language to his will. Whether he writes of men or of inanimate nature, his touch is sensitive, firm, and sure.
New York Times Book Review
Discussion Questions
1. Baumer paints a grim, sadistic picture of Corporal Himmelstoss, yet credits the training period under him with supplying the recruits with attributes they lacked. Is it possible that Himmelstoss purposely employed his methods to "toughen up" the recruits and inspire esprit de corps in them? Consider Himmelstoss' encounters with his troops.
2. Why does Kat say "we are losing the war because we can salute too well"?
3. What does Haie Westhus mean when, after the recruits ambush Himmelstoss, he comments that "Revenge is black-pudding"?
4. A certain matter-of-fact quality pervades the descriptions of the wounds inflicted and received by soldiers; the face-to-face attacks with rifle butts, spades, and grenades; the sounds, smells, and colors of death and dying in this book. Why do the soldiers regard war in such an indifferent manner? Point out dialogue and events that lead you to believe that Paul and his fellows are not as nonchalant as they sometimes sound.
5. Paul says in Chapter Six, "I wonder whether, when I am twenty, I shall have experienced the bewildering emotions of love." Trace the comments and episodes throughout the book that seem to indicate that Paul does indeed experience love, in one form or another.
6. While on the front Paul daydreams about his lovely, tranquil home; when he finally makes it home on leave, he fights back visions of his comrades in the war. Why does he regret having made the trip home? In what ways does his experience there support Albert Kropp's assertion that "The war has ruined us for everything"?
7. As Paul stands guard over the Russian prisoners, he ponders how commands from higher-ups have transformed men so like his own countrymen into enemies and could just as swiftly turn them into friends. But his thoughts frighten him. What is "the abyss" to which he fears such thoughts will lead?
8. Why does Paul feel a "strange attachment" to the soldiers in his outfit once he returns from leave?
9. While on an especially risky patrol, Paul promises himself that, should some soldier hop into his shell-hole, Paul will be the first to strike. Once he carries out this strategy, why does he try to save the French soldier he has mortally wounded? Why does he later make promises to the dead man that he soon realizes, or decides, that he will not keep?
10. All Quiet on the Western Front abounds with reports of inadequate medical supplies and care, slipshod or shady procedures, and outright malpractice (refer to Chapters One and Ten). How could the government and army allow this problem to go unrectified? How could the soldiers tolerate it? Why didn't more of them report, if not revolt against, the treatment they received?
11. Why do you think the author timed Paul's death in October 1918, just before the long-rumored armistice? (Germany signed The Treaty of Versailles on November 11, 1918.)
12. When All Quiet on the Western Front debuted in the United States it drew tremendous reviews from critics. Even so, one critic tempered admiration of the book's realism with this comment: "It is not a great book; it has not the depth, the spiritual insight, the magnitude of interests which make up a great book" (The New York Times Book Review, June 2, 1929). Do you agree or disagree with this assessment? What ingredients are essential to the making of a great book?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
All Stories Are Love Stories
Elizabeth Percer, 2016
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062275950
Summary
In this thoughtful, mesmerizing tale, a group of survivors are thrown together in the aftermath of two major earthquakes that strike San Francisco within an hour of each other—an achingly beautiful and lyrical novel about the power of nature, the resilience of the human spirit, and the enduring strength of love.
On Valentine’s Day, two major earthquakes strike San Francisco within the same hour, devastating the city and its primary entry points, sparking fires throughout, and leaving its residents without power, gas, or water.
Among the disparate survivors whose fates will become intertwined are Max, a man who began the day with birthday celebrations tinged with regret; Vashti, a young woman who has already buried three of the people she loved most... but cannot forgot Max, the one man who got away; and Gene, a Stanford geologist who knows far too much about the terrifying earthquakes that have damaged this beautiful city and irrevocably changed the course of their lives.
As day turns to night and fires burn across the city, Max and Vashti—trapped beneath the rubble of the collapsed Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium—must confront each other and face the truth about their past, while Gene embarks on a frantic search through the realization of his worst nightmares to find his way back to his ailing lover and their home. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1974
• Where—Brookline, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Wellesley College; Ph.D., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Redwood Shores, California
Elizabeth Percer is an American novelist and poet. She has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and has twice been honored by the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Foundation.
Her second novel, All Stories Are Love Stories, was published in 2016; her first, An Uncommon Education, came out in 2012. Ultrasound, a collection of poems was released in 2013.
Percer received a BA in English from Wellesley and a PhD in arts education from Stanford University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship for the National Writing Project at UC Berkeley. She lives in California with her husband and three children. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A]n unconventional love letter to San Francisco.... [The city’s] unique architecture, diverse neighborhoods, and colorful residents are vividly brought to life. The intertwined love stories in this remarkably drawn setting will keep readers absorbed until the final, tear-jerking moments.
Publishers Weekly
Percer imagine[s] a society suddenly upended. When two huge earthquakes hit San Francisco, Vashti finds herself trapped under the flattened Nob Hill Masonic Auditorium with Max, the man she couldn't have.
Library Journal
[T]the focus remains on character, in particular reassessment, repentance, forgiveness, and realignment. This intelligently written tale falls between genres, neither heart-racing disaster drama nor wrenching emotional excavation.
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 All Stories Are Love Stories:
1. Consider the significance of the date of the earth quake—a seismic event taking place on Valentine's Day.
2. What does the statement mean that San Francisco is "the best city America ever had the accidental luck to create." In what way is it "accidental luck"?
3. Talk about the title? Are all stories love stories? What does this novel have to say about the nature of love? What roles do redemption and forgiveness play in love?
4. What do we learn about the previous relationship between Max and Vashti? What happened 14 years ago, what has happened since, and what happens while the two are trapped during the quake? Do you sympathize with one more than the other?
5. How much to blame is Gene for failing to predict the quake?
6. What roles do families play in these love stories? How does family affect the relationships between Max and Vashti and between Gene and Franklin?
7. Was the novel's ending predictable? Are you satisfied with the way it ended?
8. Reviewers also see Percer's novel as a love story about San Francisco itself. Would you agree? Does All Stories Are Love Stories make you long for a trip to the city? Of if you live in the Bay Area, do the descriptions resonate with your own feelings about the city?
(Questions by LitLovers Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
All That I Have
Castle Freeman, Jr., 2009
Steerforth Press
176 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781586421519
Summary
In this gripping, wise, and darkly funny tale of suspense, Sheriff Lucian Wing confronts a series of trials that test his work, his marriage, and the settled order of his life.
Wing is an experienced, practical man who enforces the law in his corner of Vermont with a steady hand and a generous tolerance. Things are not as they should be, however, in the sheriff’s small, protected domain. The outside world draws near, and threats multiply: the arrival in the district of a band of exotic, major league criminals; an ambitious and aggressive deputy; the self-destructive exploits of a local bad boy; Wing’s discovery of a domestic crisis.
The sheriff’s response to these diverse challenges calls on all the personal resources he has cultivated during his working life: patience, tact, and (especially) humor. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Castle Freeman Jr. is the award-winning author of five previous books, including most recently the novel Go With Me. He has been a regular essayist for The Old Farmer’s Almanac since 1982 and is also a contributor to Vermont Life magazine. He lives in Newfane, Vermont. (From .)
Book Reviews
Serving of Vermont wit and wisdom, with a modicum of crime solving on the side. . . . though it's not the suspense but the sly, country-cousin charm of Freeman's storytelling that is the main attraction.
Boston Globe
An "absorbing yarn from a writer shrewd with the delayed reveal and deft with his lean, tidy sentences. The novel's 20 short chapters fit as snugly as Lincoln logs, and its dialogue zings with a sly Elmore Leonard lilt.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
The wit, humor and keen ear for dialogue Freeman's fans have come to relish...an absorbing, suspenseful gem of a novel.
Portsmouth Herald
An original voice... I had no idea what I was missing. Sean Duke, the Cossacks and the Sweetheart of Sigma Chi are just part of the pack barking at the end of the drive. Their voices, and Freeman's, illuminate a marvelous novel.
Oregonian
Sheriff Lucian Wing, the narrator of Freeman's wonderfully wry fourth novel, is a laconic, old-fashioned lawman who discovers an outpost of nefarious Russians in his sleepy Vermont county. Wing's Fargo-esque delivery is hysterical, but what makes this spare tale a standout is Freeman's keen ear for dialogue and his affection for the quietly complex characters of small-town life.
People
(Starred review.)Freeman's pleasantly wicked fourth novel (after Go with Me), set in smalltown rural Vermont, explores the moral choices of a good-hearted, meek sheriff. The laconic and gently self-deprecating sheriff, Lucian Wing, a middle-aged ex-navyman married to a prominent lawyer's daughter, has to decide whether to arrest a young ne'er do well who has broken into an opulent home owned by mysterious Russians and stolen a safe. The problem is that Wing feels for the young criminal, Sean Duke, who works as a laborer, has a winning way with the ladies and is known for his wild behavior. The childless sheriff regards the kid as a kind of bad-boy substitute son and knows that if he doesn't spirit Duke out of town, the Russians will get him first. Meanwhile, Sean makes inroads into the sheriff's chilly marriage, bringing Wing to a crisis of conscience. Freeman sets an intertwined network of provincial egos on a collision course and pulls it off through the wonderfully satisfying point of view of his deadpan sheriff.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to at help get a discussion started for All That I Have:
1. What are the domestic tensions between Wing and his wife, Clemmie? Would you imagine they're typical of a law officer's marriage? How do the two negotiate their way through their marital problems? Did you enjoy their bantering... find it humorous, tiresome, realistic... wish-I-could-say-that?
2. At one point Wing says, "In sheriffing you don't stop things from happening. You know you can't do that mostly, so you don't try. People are going to do what they're going to do. You let things happen." How effective is that as a philosophy of law & order? Doesn't it risk a certain fatalism or passivity?
3. Talk about Wingate, Wing's mentor, who appeared in the Castle's previous novel, Go With Me, and although older, also figures in this work as well. What are some of the things Wing learns or learned from him?
4. If you've read, Go With Me, by the way, how do you compare the two books?
5. What about Sean Duke? How fitting a nickname is Superboy and how did he earn it. Uh, how super is he?
6. Castle Freeman has an eye and ear for swagger and hypocrisy—not suffering fools gladly. Who are his targets as hypocrits in All That I Have?
7. Freeman is playing here with a favorite fictional trope: the slow-to-move, slow-to-burn, dead-pan law-officer, who seems "out-gunned" by his opponents—but who ends up getting the best of smarter, well-organized, vicious criminals. First—trace Wing's steps as he gradually unwinds the clues, then winds his way to victory. Second—can you think of other books, movies, and TV serials that have played on this irony?
8. This book has often been compared to Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. If you've read that work, what comparisons/contrasts do you see?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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All That Is
James Salter, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
304 p.
ISBN-13: 9781400078424
Summary
An extraordinary literary event, a major new novel by the PEN/Faulkner winner and acclaimed master: a sweeping, seductive, deeply moving story set in the years after World War II.
From his experiences as a young naval officer in battles off Okinawa, Philip Bowman returns to America and finds a position as a book editor. It is a time when publishing is still largely a private affair—a scattered family of small houses here and in Europe—a time of gatherings in fabled apartments and conversations that continue long into the night.
In this world of dinners, deals, and literary careers, Bowman finds that he fits in perfectly. But despite his success, what eludes him is love. His first marriage goes bad, another fails to happen, and finally he meets a woman who enthralls him—before setting him on a course he could never have imagined for himself.
Romantic and haunting, All That Is explores a life unfolding in a world on the brink of change. It is a dazzling, sometimes devastating labyrinth of love and ambition, a fiercely intimate account of the great shocks and grand pleasures of being alive. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 10, 1925
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—West Point Military Academy;
M.A., Georgetown University
• Awards—PEN/Faulkner Award; PEN/Malmud Award;
Rea Award for the Short Story
• Currently—lives in New York and Colorado
James Salter is an American novelist and short-story writer. Once a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, he abandoned the military profession in 1957 after successful publication of his first novel, The Hunters.
After a brief career at film writing and film directing, Salter became a "writer's writer" in 1979 with publication of the novel Solo Faces. He has won numerous literary awards for his works, including belated recognition of works originally rejected at the time of their publication.
Salter was born James Arnold Horowitz, the son of a moderately wealthy New Jersey real estate consultant/economist, on June 10, 1925. He attended the Horace Mann School, and among his classmates were Julian Beck and William F. Buckley, Jr., while Jack Kerouac attended during the 1939-40 academic year.
Military
He is alternately said to have favored Stanford University or MIT as his choice of college, but entered West Point on July 15, 1942, at the urging of his alumnus father, Col. Louis G. Horowitz, who had gone back into the Corps of Engineers in July 1941 in anticipation of the war. Like his father, Horowitz attended West Point during a world war, when classes sizes were greatly increased and the curriculum drastically shortened. Horowitz graduated in 1945 after just three years, ranked 49th in general merit in his class of 852. He was known among classmates as "Horrible" Horowitz.
He completed flight training during his first class year, with primary flight training at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and advanced training at Stewart Field, New York. On a cross-country navigation flight in May 1945, his flight became scattered, and low on fuel, he mistook a railroad trestle for a runway, crashlanding his T-6 Texan training craft into a house in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Possibly as a result, he was assigned to multi-engine training in B-25s until February 1946, and received his first unit assignment with the 6th Troop Carrier Squadron, stationed at Nielson Field, the Philippines; Naha Air Base, Okinawa; and Tachikawa Air Base, Japan. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant in January 1947.
Horowitz was transferred in September 1947 at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, then entered post-graduate studies at Georgetown University in August 1948, receiving his master's degree in January 1950. He was assigned to the headquarters of the Tactical Air Command at Langley AFB, Virginia, in March, where he remained until volunteering for assignment in the Korean War.
He arrived in Korea in February 1952 after transition training in the F-86 Sabre with the 75th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Presque Isle Air Force Base, Maine. Horowitz was assigned to the 335th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, a renowned MiG-hunting unit. He flew more than 100 combat missions between February 12 and August 6, 1952, and was credited with a MiG-15 victory July 4, 1952.
Military books
Horowitz was subsequently stationed in Germany and France, promoted to major, assigned to lead an aerial demonstration team, and became a squadron operations officer, in line to become a squadron commander. In his off-duty time he worked on his fiction, completing a manuscript rejected by publishers and another, which, in 1956, eventually became The Hunters. It was based on his Korean experience.
Despite the responsibilities of a spouse and two small children, he abruptly left active duty with the Air Force in 1957 to pursue his writing. It was a decision he found difficult because of his passion for flying.
In 1958 The Hunters was adapted to film and starred Robert Mitchum. The movie version achieved acclaim for its powerful performances, moving plot, and realistic portrayal of the Korean War. It was, however, was very different from the novel, which dealt with the slow self-destruction of a 31-year-old fighter pilot, was once thought to be a "hot shot" but who found nothing but frustration in his first combat experience. Others around him achieved glory, some of it perhaps invented.
His 1961 novel The Arm of Flesh drew on his experiences flying with the 36th Fighter-Day Wing at Bitburg Air Base, Germany, between 1954 and 1957. An extensively revised version of the novel was reissued in 2000 as Cassada. However, Salter himself later disdained both of his "Air Force" novels as products of youth "not meriting much attention."
After several years in the Air Force Reserve, in 1961 Salter completely severed his connection, resigning his commission after his unit was called to active duty for the Berlin Crisis. He moved back to New York with his family, which included twins born in 1962, and legally changed his name to Salter.
All told, Salter had served twelve years in the U.S. Air Force, the last six as a fighter pilot. His fiction, based on his Air Force experiences, has a fatalistic tone: his protagonists, after struggling with conflicts between their reputations and self-perceptions, are killed in the performance of duties while inept antagonists ranks soldier on.
Later writing career
Salter took up film writing, first as a writer of independent documentary films, winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival in collaboration with television writer Lane Slate (Team, Team, Team). Though disdainful of it, he also wrote for Hollywood. His last script, commissioned and then rejected by Robert Redford, became his novel, Solo Faces.
Widely regarded as one of the most artistic writers of modern American fiction, Salter himself is critical of his own work, having said that only his 1967 novel A Sport and a Pastime comes close to living up to his standards. Set in post-war France, it is a piece of erotica involving an American student and a young French girl, told as flashbacks in the present tense by an unnamed narrator who barely knows the student, who himself yearns for the girl, and who freely admits that most of his narration is fantasy. Many characters in Salter's short stories and novels reflect his passion for European culture and, in particular, France, which he describes as a "secular holy land."
Although some critics see the apparent influence of both Ernest Hemingway and Henry Miller, in interviews with his biographer William Dowie, Salter claims to be influenced by Andre Gide and Thomas Wolfe. His writing is often described by reviewers as "succinct" or "compressed." His prose contains short sentences and sentence fragments, alternating points-of-view, and shifting tenses between past and present. His dialogue is attributed only enough to keep clear who is speaking but otherwise allows the reader to draw inferences from tone and motivation. Salter exhibits this prose style in his memoir Burning the Days.
Salter published a collection of short stories, Dusk and Other Stories in 1988. The collection received the PEN/Faulkner Award, and one of its stories ("Twenty Minutes") became the basis for the 1996 film Boys. He was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000. In 2012, PEN/Faulkner Foundation selected him for the 25th PEN/Malamud Award as his works show the readers "how to work with fire, flame, the laser, all the forces of life at the service of creating sentences that spark and make stories burn."
Salter's writings—correspondence, manuscripts, and typescript drafts of short stories and screenplays—are archived at The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas.
Salter and his first wife Ann divorced during his screen-writing period, after which he lived with journalist and playwright Kay Eldredge beginning in 1976. They had a son, Theo Salter, born in 1985, and married in Paris in 1998. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
“I’m a frotteur,” the multiple award-winning Mr. Salter once told The Paris Review, “someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible.” In this book, he has rubbed them to a high sheen indeed.
Stevie Godson - New York Journal of Books
[Salter] is a master of the sentence so vivid [that] it stuns. His sweeping new All That Is will refresh the canon of one of America’s best living writers.
Chelsea Allison - Vogue
Salter is one of the most celebrated living American writers, and after a seven-year hiatus he returns with possibly his best work yet.” Steph Opitz - Marie Claire
Highly decorated literary hero James Salter burnishes his reputation with All That Is.
Elissa Schappell - Vanity Fair
The 87-year-old PEN/Faulkner Award–winner’s first full-length novel in more than three decades spans some 40 years and follows the accidental life, career, and loves of book editor Philip Bowman....[whose] career is merely a vehicle for his loves and losses, connections made and missed. The women in his life somehow never suit....since Bowman fails to connect with anyone. The number of characters who parade through the book can frustrate...but Salter measures his words carefully, occasionally punctuating his elegant prose with sharp, erotic punches.
Publishers Weekly
PEN/Faulkner winner Salter publishes rarely—this is his first fiction in seven years—but when he does, it's choice. This novel features World War II veteran Philip Bowman, now a book editor, who enjoys the charged and intimate environment of the era's publishing world yet suffers in his emotional life. A real in-house favorite; don't miss.
Library Journal
For decades, Salter has been an artistic standard-bearer.... Naval officer Philip Bowman, virginal and close to his mother, makes it safely home [after World War II], moves to New York, and finds professional contentment as an editor at a small publisher. Even though he falls hard for Vivian, a wealthy southerner, he remains hermetically sealed. Their marriage fizzles quickly, and Bowman is smitten again, but he never gets it right.... Resonant passages bloom, including the one that captures the book’s subdued spirit: "The landscape was beautiful but passive. The emptiness of things rose like the sound of a choir making the sky bluer and more vast." —Donna Seamen
Booklist
[A]cclaimed veteran author chronicles the life and loves of a Manhattan book editor over a 40-year period. Okinawa, 1945. The Americans and Japanese are preparing for the climactic battle of the Pacific. Salter's sweep is panoramic but his eye, God-like, is also on the sparrow, a 20-year-old officer in the U.S. Navy, Philip Bowman. It's a stunning opening, displaying a mastery of scale that will not be repeated.... After Harvard, Bowman is hired by the high-principled owner of a small literary publishing house. He meets Vivian at a bar... Bowman believes the unlettered Vivian, now his bride, is educable; she's not.... In London on a business trip, Bowman meets a married woman...; their affair will fizzle out, like his marriage to Vivian.... Bowman floats above all that....to make matters worse, this thoughtful man fails to examine his conduct. Without his self-knowledge, there is nothing to knit the novel together. There are incidental pleasures here but, overall, a disappointing return.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. All That Is is preceded by an epigraph: “There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.” In what ways does this enigmatic statement illuminate the story that follows? Why would it be that only things preserved in writing are “real”?
2. James Salter has been called “a writer’s writer” and praised for the artistry of his sentences. What are the most appealing qualities of Salter’s prose style? In what ways does his writing differ from that of most contemporary novelists?
3. The novel is told primarily from Bowman’s point of view, but the narrative shifts perspectives, and the narrator reveals things that Bowman can’t know about. What is the effect of Salter switching between viewpoints and keeping a fair authorial distance from his characters?
4. What kind of man is Philip Bowman? What are his most striking attributes? What drives him? In what ways is he both flawed and honorable? Does he change in any essential way over the course of the novel?
5. In All That Is Salter eschews a conventional plot in favor of a more episodic, impressionistic, associative structure. What are the pleasures of reading such a narrative? In what ways does it feel closer to the way life actually happens, or is remembered, than a more tightly structured narrative might seem?
6. Bowman’s proposal to Vivian, which takes place in a crowded bar, is decidedly awkward. “What would you think,” he asks, “about living here [in New York City]? I mean, we’d be married, of course.” Vivian replies: “There’s so much noise in here,” and then asks, “Was that a proposal?” Bowman says, “It was pitiful, wasn’t it? Yes, it’s a proposal. I love you. I need you. I’d do anything for you.” Vivian never directly accepts. Instead, she says, “We’ll have to get Daddy’s permission” [p. 59]. What does Salter suggest in this scene, simply through dialogue, about Bowman and Vivian’s relationship and its chances for success?
7. Why does Bowman’s marriage to Vivian fail? Why is he blind to their incompatibilities?
8. In the chapter titled “Forgiveness,” Bowman has a brief, intense affair with Christine’s daughter, Anet, and then abandons her in Paris. “He had forgiven her mother. Come and get your daughter” [p. 311]. Why does Bowman exact his revenge on Christine through her daughter? Is his cruelty justified given how Christine treated him? What are the consequences of his actions?
9. Enid tells Bowman during their second conversation, “I don’t think you ever really know anybody” [p. 123]. Does the novel itself seem to endorse that view? What instances in the book demonstrate the inability of one person to fully know another?
10. All That Is begins with the final, harrowing battles of WWII, the kamikaze attacks, the bloody invasion of Okinawa. How does his experience of the war affect Bowman? In what ways does the war provide the defining context for the rest of his life?
11. The novel is filled with vivid portraits of minor characters—Bowman’s war buddies, friends in publishing, lovers, in-laws, publishers, etc. What do these minor characters add to the texture of the narrative? Who are some of the most memorable among them?
12. How does Bowman regard women? Is he a romantic? What does erotic experience represent for him? What does he love about Vivian, Enid, Christine?
13. In an interview with the Paris Review, Salter said “I believe there’s a right way to live and to die. The people who can do that are interesting to me. I haven’t dismissed heroes or heroism.” Does All That Is present an ethos or right way of living? Is Philip Bowman heroic?
14. All That Is concludes with Bowman and Ann planning a trip to Venice. “We’ll have a great time,” Bowman says. What is the effect of this open-ended ending? Are there any signs that Bowman’s relationship with Ann will be any more lasting than his others have been?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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All That's Left to Tell
Daniel Lowe, 2017
Flatiron Books
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250085559
Summary
All That's Left to Tell "celebrates not just the power of storytelling but the deeply human need for it in even the most dire situations. Alternately gripping and dreamy, Daniel Lowe’s debut imagines what the stories we tell reveal about ourselves, and how they may save us.”
—Stewart O’Nan, author of West of Sunset
Every night, Marc Laurent, an American taken hostage in Pakistan, is bound and blindfolded. And every night, a woman he knows only as Josephine visits his cell.
At first, her questions are mercenary: is there anyone back home who will pay the ransom? But when Marc can offer no name, she asks him a question about his daughter that is even more terrifying than his captivity. And so begins a strange yet increasingly comforting ritual, in which Josephine and Marc tell each other stories.
As these stories build upon one another, a father and daughter start to find their way toward understanding each other again. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—rural Michigan, USA
• Education—M.F.A., University of Pittsburgh
• Currently—lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Daniel Lowe is an author and professor of creative writing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was raised in rural Michigan and received his MFA in fiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh.
His fiction and poetry have appeared in West Branch, Nebraska Review, Montana Review, Wisconsin Review, Writing Room, The Bridge, Paterson Literary Review, Ellipsis, Blue Stem, Midway Journal, and The Madison Review. All That’s Left to Tell is his debut. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The spirit of Scheherazade animates this first novel…. [A] dramatic case for the importance of stories as a way to deal with life’s tragic events. Despite one too many meta-games with the reader, the characters here remain real and memorable, a credit to Lowe’s storytelling skill.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Luscious…. Compelling. Lowe’s elaborate tapestry showcases humankind’s reliance on the power of stories to comfort, correct, and clarify both our hidden feelings and exposed fears. With its shifting points of view and emotional authenticity, Lowe’s masterfully crafted first novel will be a surefire hit with book discussion groups.
Booklist
[H]aunting…. captivating…. Lowe's prose is evocative, the plot gripping, and the attachment that reaches across the alienation between these characters reaches out to the reader as well. A story about storytelling, stirring and effective.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for All That's Left to Tell...and then take off on your own:
1. Marc Laurent is hardly the lucrative executive that captives would hope for in a kidnapping—it's unclear that anyone would ransom him. What in Marc's life or his personality has led to this estrangement? How would you describe him?
2. Who is Josephine and what is her function in the novel?
3. In reading this, is it possible to untangle what's true from what is not? Which story, or whose story, can you believe in?
4Follow-up to Question 3: Daniel Lowe's novel is about storytelling. In what way does the author turn the conventional novel and the reader's need for, or expectations of, verisimilitude on its head...and why?
5. Talk about the alternative lives that Marc and his daughter Claire have in this novel. How do those stories provide comfort? In what ways does the novel suggest we use the stories that we tell ourselves and others to find comfort in life?
6. What is the significance of the book's title?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
All the Birds in the Sky
Charlie Jane Anders, 2016
Tor Books.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780765379948
Summary
A stunning novel about the end of the world—and the beginning of our future.
Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again, after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during middle school.
After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families.
But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them.
Laurence is an engineering genius who's working with a group that aims to avert catastrophic breakdown through technological intervention. Patricia is a graduate of Eltisley Maze, the hidden academy for the world's magically gifted, and works with a small band of other magicians to secretly repair the world's every-growing ailments.
Little do they realize that something bigger than either of them, something begun years ago in their youth, is determined to bring them together—to either save the world, or plunge it into a new dark ages.
A deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love, and the apocalypse. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Manchester, Connecticut, USA
• Education—Cambridge University
• Awards—Nebula Award, Hugo Award
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California
Charlie Jane Anders is a website co-creator and editor, a short story writer, and author of sci-fi / fantasy novels—All the Birds in the Sky (2016) and The City in the Middle of the Night (2019).
Anders was raised in Mansfield, Connecticut. She went to Cambridge University in England where she studied English and Asian literature, prompting her to study abroad in China. Following college, she spent time in Hong Kong and Boston and now makes her home in San Francisco, California.
Career
In 2007, along with Annalee Newitz, Anders helped co-found the popular Gawker Media site, io9—a blog devoted to science fiction and fantasy. She worked as editor-in-chief until 2016 when she left to concentrate on her writing.
In 2016 Anders published her debut sci-fi / fantasy novel, All the Birds in the Sky. The book earned her the 2017 Nebula Awards for Best Novel, was a finalist for the year's Hugo Best Novel category, and climbed to the number five spot on Time magazine's top 10 novels list. An earlier novelette, "Six Months, Three Days," published in 2013 on Tor.com, also won a Hugo Award.
Anders has been publishing short stories since 1999—more than 100—in a variety of genres. Her fiction has been published by McSweeney's, Lightspeed, and ZYZZYVA. Her journalism has appeared in Salon, Wall Street Journal, Mother Jones, Atlantic Monthly, and other outlets.
Events
In addition to writing, Anders has spent years as an event organizer. She organized a "ballerina pie fight" in 2005 for other magazine; co-organized the "Cross-Gender Caravan," a national transgender and genderqueer author tour; and a "Bookstore and Chocolate Crawl" in San Francisco. Anders also emcees an award-winning monthly reading series "Writers with Drinks," a San Francisco-based event begun in 2001 that features authors from a wide range of genres.
Personal
Since 2000, Anders has been partnered with Annalee Newitz. In addition to the io9 blog, the couple co-founded other magazine and hosted the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.
Anders is transgender. In 2007, she brought attention to a discriminatory policy of San Francisco bisexual women's organization, The Chasing Amy Social Club, that specifically barred pre-operative transgender women from membership. (Adapted from Wikipedia and other online sources. Retrieved 2/26/2019.)
Book Reviews
Into each generation of science fiction/fantasydom a master absurdist must fall, and it’s quite possible that with All the Birds in the Sky, Charlie Jane Anders has established herself as the one for the Millennials…. As hopeful as it is hilarious, and highly recommended.
New York Times Book Review
A fairy tale and an adventure rolled into one, All the Birds in the Sky is a captivating novel that shows how science and magic can be two sides of the same coin.
Washington Post
Like the work of other 21st century writers—Kelly Link and Lev Grossman come immediately to mind—All the Birds in the Sky serves as both a celebration of and corrective to the standard tropes of genre fiction.... Anders' humor elevates this marvelous book above the morass of dystopian novels that have flooded the literary landscape. The result feels like one of William Gibson's baroquely complex worlds, aerated by lighter-than-air dialogue and an engaging, diverse cast of supporting characters you'd love to meet at your next end-of-the-world party.
Los Angeles Times
Anders smoothly pivots from horror to humor to heartbreak and back again, and she keeps readers guessing as to the fate of her two protagonists—and the world. Talking animals and a sentient computer searching for love and understanding tighten the narrative strings.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) At turns darkly funny and deeply melancholy, this is a polished gem of a novel.... Her depiction of near-future San Francisco shows a native's understanding (and love) of the city, while gently skewering it at the same time. —MM
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Will science or magic save our world and all the living beings on it? That's the question posed in this science fantasy love story.... Anders clearly has an intimate understanding of how hard it is to find friends when you're perceived as "different" as well as a sweeping sense of how nice it would be to solve large problems with a single solution..
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.)
All the Birds, Singing
Evie Wyld, 2013 (UK), 2014 (US)
Knopf Doubleday
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307907769
Summary
A stunningly insightful, emotionally powerful new novel about an outsider haunted by an inescapable past: a story of loneliness and survival, guilt and loss, and the power of forgiveness.
Jake Whyte is living on her own in an old farmhouse on a craggy British island, a place of ceaseless rain and battering wind. Her disobedient collie, Dog, and a flock of sheep are her sole companions, which is how she wants it to be.
But every few nights something—or someone—picks off one of the sheep and sounds a new deep pulse of terror. There are foxes in the woods, a strange boy and a strange man, and rumors of an obscure, formidable beast.
And there is also Jake’s past, hidden thousands of miles away and years ago, held in the silences about her family and the scars that stripe her back—a past that threatens to break into the present. With exceptional artistry and empathy, All the Birds, Singing reveals an isolated life in all its struggles and stubborn hopes, unexpected beauty, and hard-won redemption. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1980
• Where—New South Wales, Australia
• Raised—Peckham, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Bath Spa University; M.A., University of London
• Awards—John Llewellyn-Rhys Prize, Betty Trask Award
• Currently—lives in Brixton (London), England
Born in 1980, Evie Wyld grew up on her grandparents' Sugar Cane farm in New South Wales although spent most of her grown-up life in Peckham, England. At two she suffered from a near fatal bout of viral encephalitis and recounts the story in The Guardian.
She obtained a B.A. from Bath Spa University and an M.A. from Goldsmiths, University of London, both in Creative Writing.
Wyld is the author of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and Betty Trask Award winning novel After the Fire, A Still Small Voice (2009) and All the Birds, Singing (2013), which has been short-listed for the Costa Awards.
In 2010 she was listed by the Daily Telegraph as one of the twenty best British authors under the age of 40. In 2011 she was listed by the BBC's Culture Show as one of the 12 Best New British Writers. And in 2013 she was included on the once a decade Granta Best of Young British Novelists List.
Her novels have been shortlisted for the The Costa Novel Prize, The Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Orange Award for New Writers, the Dublin International IMPAC Prize, The Sky Arts Breakthrough Award, The James Tait Black Prize, and The Author's Club Prize. She was long listed for the Stella Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
She took over from Nii Parkes as Booktrust's online 'Writer in Residence' in 2010 before passing the baton on to Polly Dunbar.
Wyld now lives in Brixton (South West London) and works at an independent bookshop in Peckham.
(From Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/14/2014 .)
Book Reviews
If the novel sounds forbiddingly dark, it’s not. It’s swift and assured and emotionally wrenching. You won’t only root for Jake, you’ll see the world, hard facts and all, more clearly through her telling. There’s hope at the end, and wit, and friendship.
Maile Meloys - New York Times Book Review
Wyld teasingly leads readers to the mysterious incident Jake is trying to escape.... Pungent with menace.
Wall Street Journal
Daring and fierce, this is a book that makes you feel the need to look over your shoulder in case something dark and hulking might be gaining on you.... Brilliantly unsettling.
Boston Globe
Gloriously gruesome.... Half of you wants to race through to find out what happens, half wants to pause over the dark, clotted sentences. And then the state of suspense becomes almost unbearable, and you rush through, feeling like you are sprinting through a museum of sinister curiosities, too frightened to linger.... The final revelation, when it comes, is explosive.
NPR
A tremendous achievement.... A dark, powerfully disturbing and beautifully observed story...almost Nabokovian in its structural intricacy.
William Boyd - New Statesman
Outstanding.... Evie Wyld is the real thing.... She reconfigures the conventions of storytelling with a sure-footedness and ambition which belie her age.... Quite as good as Ian McEwan’s early fiction.
Spectator (UK)
Extraordinarily accomplished, one of those books that tears around in your cerebellum like a dark firework, and which, upon finishing, you immediately want to pick up again.
Financial Times (UK)
In the searing second novel from Wyld, the past takes real and imagined forms, all terrifying, in its protagonist’s life.... It is a testament to Wyld’s vivid storytelling that readers will feel determined to drag themselves through her tale’s more unsavory moments to its final revelation.
Publishers Weekly
Wyld has masterfully created a novel with an unusual structure that nevertheless feels natural, a dark, eerie undertone that delivers gripping suspense, and subject matter that can get grim and even hard to read yet never makes the story feel depressing.... [T]rust Wyld, she will quickly draw you in; a true pleasure to read. —Shaunna E. Hunter, Hampden-Sydney Coll. Lib., VA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) The tricky narrative strategy has given Jake a past but not developed a full character.... Wyld has ordained a permanently dark life for her protagonist, a stubborn fate that offsets the surprises and the reader's enjoyment.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The story opens with Jake’s present life. We learn about her past in a backwards progression. How does this affect your reading of the book?
2. Jake lives alone and away from others in a self-imposed hermitage: from fear, for protection, out of habit. What is the difference between being alone and being lonely? Do you think Jake is lonely?
3. Jake has run away from home, family, and safety to escape something terrible she has done. What do you think the consequences would have been if she had stayed?
4. Have you ever kept an experience in your past a secret from people you know? What does keeping secrets do to a person?
5. Is Jake’s terror of being caught in proportion to what she has done? Does the fear get bigger the farther away she goes? Will it ever go away?
6. The crows calling over the mangled sheep on the island, the carrier pigeon that Jake squeezes just a bit too hard, and, of course, the birds from the final passage of Jake’s revealed past: within this work, birds are often associated with death. What other symbols do you find in this story?
7. Describe Jake’s relationship with Karen. Who is stronger? Who is saving whom?
8. How did Jake end up with Otto? When/why/how does he change?
9. Why does Jake stay with Otto for so long? What do you think would happen if he ever did find her, and do you think he’s actively looking?
10. While at the sheep ranch, Jake finds temporary safety with Greg. What makes him different from the men she’s known to that point? Why does she leave him?
11. On the island, Jake visits some of the local places. There’s the small shop to buy oranges, the teahouse for a Devon cream: What does Jake get from these places? Do you think it makes a difference that these shopkeepers are women?
12. While Jake is on the ranch in Australia, one of the rams is killed by an animal, and Jake later sees a dark shape dart into her room. It is doglike, and she immediately thinks of Otto’s dog, Kelly. How does this fear follow her to England?
13. While Jake is in England, something is killing her sheep. The reader never finds out what it is, but in the end, Lloyd sees it, too. Is it real? What do you think it is?
14. One of the shearers kills a dying ram: “One second horribly wounded, feeling flies lay their eggs in your flesh and watching the currawong circle, and the next, in a flash, all is safe. I will learn to fire a gun, I think, they are the answer” (p. 25). In what other ways does Jake try to find safety?
15. Discuss the character of Lloyd. Who is he and what does he want? How does he affect Jake?
16. Why does Jake let Lloyd stay with her?
17. The hammer under the bed, the axe by the refrigerator, the gun in the cupboard, the walking stick by the door. Can these things protect Jake from what she fears?
18. When all is revealed at the end, from the truth behind her scars to her own responsibility in the affair, how does that fit in with the Jake you know already?
19. What is Jake most afraid of? The past? Otto? Guilt? Herself?
20. What do you think Jake is ultimately looking for?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr, 2014
Scribner
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501173219
Summary
Winner, 2014 Pulitzer Prize
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Natural History Museum, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home.
When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer, says the Los Angeles Times, "whose sentences never fail to thrill." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—Cleveland, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Bowdoin College; M.F.A., Bowling Green State University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize; Story Award; Rome Prize from American Academy of Arts & Letters
Guggenheim Fellowship; Young Lions Award from NY Public Library
• Currently—lives in Boise, Idaho
Anthony Doerr is an American fiction writer. Born and raised in Ohio, he attended Bowdoin College, where he majored in history. He later earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University.
Many of the stories in his 2002 Shell Collector, take place in Africa and New Zealand, where he has worked and lived. In a 2004 online interview for the Washington Post, Doerr mentioned that his next work would involve occupied France during World War II and their subversive use of radios against the Nazis. The struggles in writing this book are documented in his 2007 book, a non-fiction memoir entitled Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World. His next novel, All the Light We Cannot See, came out in 2014.
Doerr also writes a column on science books for the Boston Globe and is a contributor to The Morning News.
Doerr is married with twin sons and lives in Boise, Idaho. From 2007–2010 he was considered Writer-in-Residence for the state of Idaho. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/15/2014.)
Book Reviews
[O]nce I started reading...All the Light We Cannot See, there was no putting it down.... The fact is [it] falls shortest when it tries to deal with Nazism.... Most preposterous of all is a certain Sgt. Maj. Reinhold von Rumpel, whose wickedness and physical loathsomeness are offset by nothing that could make him into a rounded character. His unbelievability exemplifies a mistake writers often make when describing monsters..... All the Light We Cannot See is more than a thriller and less than great literature... “a good read.” Maybe Doerr could write great literature if he really tried. I would be happy if he did.
William T. Vollmann - New York Times Book Review
Incandescent…Mellifluous and unhurried…Characters as noble as they are enthralling. Doerr looms myriad strains into a luminous work of strife and transcendence.
Hamilton Cain - Oprah Magazine
Intricately structured…All the Light We Cannot See is a work of art and of preservation.
Jane Ciabattari - BBC
(Starred review.) If a book’s success can be measured by its ability to move readers and the number of memorable characters it has, Story Prize–winner Doerr’s novel triumphs on both counts. Along the way, he convinces readers that new stories can still be told about this well-trod period, and that war—despite its desperation, cruelty, and harrowing moral choices—cannot negate the pleasures of the world.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Shifting among multiple viewpoints but focusing mostly on blind French teenager Marie-Laure and Werner, a brilliant German soldier..., this novel has the physical and emotional heft of a masterpiece. The main protagonists are brave, sensitive, and intellectually curious, and in another time they might have been a couple.... [H]ighly recommended. —Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC
Library Journal
Endlessly bold and equally delicate…An intricate miracle of invention, narrative verve, and deep research lightly held, but above all a miracle of humanity….Anthony Doerr’s novel celebrates—and also accomplishes—what only the finest art can: the power to create, reveal, and augment experience in all its horror and wonder, heartbreak and rapture.
Shelf Awareness
(Starred review.) A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr’s magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed.... Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably recreates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.... Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book opens with two epigraphs. How do these quotes set the scene for the rest of the book? Discuss how the radio plays a major part in the story and the time period. How do you think the impact of the radio back then compares with the impact of the Internet on today’s society?
2. The narration moves back and forth both in time and between different characters. How did this affect your reading experience? How do you think the experience would have been different if the story had been told entirely in chronological order?
3. Whose story did you enjoy the most? Was there any character you wanted more insight into?
4. When Werner and Jutta first hear the Frenchman on the radio, he concludes his broadcast by saying “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever” (pages 48–49), and Werner recalls these words throughout the book (pages 86, 264, and 409). How do you think this phrase relates to the overall message of the story? How does it relate to Madame Manec’s question: “Don’t you want to be alive before you die?” (page 270)?
5. On page 160, Marie-Laure realizes “This...is the basis of his fear, all fear. That a light you are powerless to stop will turn on you and usher a bullet to its mark.” How does this image constitute the most general basis of all fear? Do you agree?
6. Reread Madame Manec’s boiling frog analogy on page 284. Etienne later asks Marie-Laure, “Who was supposed to be the frog? Her? Or the Germans?” (page 328) Who did you think Madame Manec meant? Could it have been someone other than herself or the Germans? What does it say about Etienne that he doesn’t consider himself to be the frog?
7. On page 368, Werner thinks, “That is how things are...with everybody in this unit, in this army, in this world, they do as they’re told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind. Name me someone who does not.” But in fact many of the characters show great courage and selflessness throughout the story in some way, big or small. Talk about the different ways they put themselves at risk in order to do what they think is right. What do you think were some shining moments? Who did you admire most?
8. On page 390, the author writes, “To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness.” What did you learn or realize about blindness through Marie-Laure’s perspective? Do you think her being blind gave her any advantages?
9. One of Werner’s bravest moments is when he confronts von Rumpel: “All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?” (page 465) Have you ever had a moment like that? Were you ready? What would you say that moment is for some of the other characters?
10. Why do you think Marie-Laure gave Werner the little iron key? Why might Werner have gone back for the wooden house but left the Sea of Flames?
11. Von Rumpel seemed to believe in the power of the Sea of Flames, but was it truly a supernatural object or was it merely a gemstone at the center of coincidence? Do you think it brought any protection to Marie-Laure and/or bad luck to those she loved?
12. When Werner and Marie-Laure discuss the unknown fate of Captain Nemo at the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Marie-Laure suggests the open-endedness is intentional and meant to make us wonder (page 472). Are there any unanswered questions from this story that you think are meant to make us wonder?
13. The 1970s image of Jutta is one of a woman deeply guilt-ridden and self-conscious about her identity as a German. Why do you think she feels so much guilt over the crimes of others? Can you relate to this? Do you think she should feel any shame about her identity?
14. What do you think of the author’s decision to flash forward at the end of the book? Did you like getting a peek into the future of some of these characters? Did anything surprise you?
15. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” All the Light We Cannot See is filled with examples of human nature at its best and worst. Discuss the themes of good versus evil throughout the story. How do they drive each other? What do you think are the ultimate lessons that these characters and the resolution of their stories teach us?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
All the Missing Girls
Megan Miranda, 2016
Simon & Schuster
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501107962
Summary
A nail-biting, breathtaking story about the disappearances of two young women—a decade apart—told in reverse.
It’s been ten years since Nicolette Farrell left her rural hometown after her best friend, Corinne, disappeared from Cooley Ridge without a trace.
Back again to tie up loose ends and care for her ailing father, Nic is soon plunged into a shocking drama that reawakens Corinne’s case and breaks open old wounds long since stitched.
The decade-old investigation focused on Nic, her brother Daniel, boyfriend Tyler, and Corinne’s boyfriend Jackson. Since then, only Nic has left Cooley Ridge. Daniel and his wife, Laura, are expecting a baby; Jackson works at the town bar; and Tyler is dating Annaleise Carter, Nic’s younger neighbor and the group’s alibi the night Corinne disappeared. Then, within days of Nic’s return, Annaleise goes missing.
Told backwards—Day 15 to Day 1—from the time Annaleise goes missing, Nic works to unravel the truth about her younger neighbor’s disappearance, revealing shocking truths about her friends, her family, and what really happened to Corinne that night ten years ago.
Like nothing you’ve ever read before, All the Missing Girls delivers in all the right ways. With twists and turns that lead down dark alleys and dead ends, you may think you’re walking a familiar path, but then Megan Miranda turns it all upside down and inside out and leaves us wondering just how far we would be willing to go to protect those we love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Megan Miranda is the author of several books for young adults, including Fracture, Hysteria, Vengeance, and Soulprint. She grew up in New Jersey, attended MIT, and lives in North Carolina with her husband and two children.
All the Missing Girls is her first novel for adults. Follow @MeganLMiranda on Twitter, or visit MeganMiranda.com. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Intricately plotted…. Ms. Miranda brings heightened suspense and a twist to this familiar scenario by telling the story, which unfolds over 15 days, in reverse chronological order.
New York Times
Are you paying attention? You'll need to be; this thriller will test your brain with its reverse chronological structure, and it's a page-turner to boot.
Elle
Looking for the next Gone Girl? All the Missing Girls is heir apparent…a book that you can't help but whip through, and Miranda is a master of leaving just enough tantalizing clues to keep you from pausing between chapters. Particularly as you get toward the end and realize the role that Nic and her brother may have played in the disappearances of both young women—and how sometimes accidents and malevolent intent collide—it becomes increasingly difficult to tear your eyes from the page.
Refinery 29
(Starred review.) [A] fiendishly plotted thriller.... Miranda convincingly conjures a haunted setting..., but what really makes this roller-coaster so memorable is her inspired use of reverse chronology, so that each chapter steps further back in time, dramatically shifting the reader’s perspective.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [A] carefully crafted and riveting thriller that is narrated in reverse chronological order, a tense and unusual reading experience that both disorients and intrigues. Readers will obsessively read backward day by day to uncover gradually the surprise ending. —Mary Todd Chesnut, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights
Library Journal
Darkly nostalgic.... Miranda takes a risk by telling the story backward, but it pays off with an undroppable thriller, plenty of romantic suspense, and a fresh take on the decades-old teenage-murder theme.
Booklist
Miranda's thriller, told backward over a two-week period.... The chronology is frustrating, the characters are bland, and the plotting is sloppy. Feel free to give these missing girls a miss.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Consider the epigraphs printed ahead of each part of the story. Why do you think the author chose these epigraphs? What do they reveal about the major themes of the book, and how do they help to unify the various sections?
2. Who narrates the story? Is he or she a reliable narrator? Why or why not? How do the choices in narration support a dialogue about how we come to understand or believe the stories we are told and how we determine what is or is not the truth? For instance, how might our understanding of the story be different if the author had chosen to employ more than one narrator or a different narrator?
3. Why does Nicolette Farrell return to Cooley Ridge? What is her experience of homecoming like? What seems to be the same about the town and the people in it and what seems to be different? How has Nicolette changed or not changed since her time growing up in Cooley Ridge?
4. Consider the motifs of myth and superstition in the story. Who is the monster in the woods? What does the story seem to suggest about how myth and superstition shape our fears and sense of what is—and is not—menacing?
5. Who is responsible for the disappearance of Corinne Prescott? Explain. How are the victims of each disappearance treated? How do the people in town react to their disappearances? What roles do reputation, gossip, opinion seem to play in the investigations?
6. Why do you think the author chose to tell the story in reverse? How did the reverse telling of the story affect your interpretation of the situation and your assessment of the characters therein?
7. Evaluate the theme of truth in the story. What lies do the characters tell, and why do they tell them? Do you feel that any of the lies were justified? What role does perspective seem to play in the determination of what is true and what is not?
8. Everett says that people can change, but Nicolette seems to believe that people do not change in any substantial way. Does the book ultimately suggest who is right? Do you agree? Explain.
9. How would you characterize the relationship that Corinne had with the other characters? How did each of the characters seem to feel about Corinne? How do we know this? What does Nicolette reveal about Corinne that gives us insight we might not otherwise have? How does this point of view—and the point of view of the other characters—shape or influence your assessment of Corinne’s fate?
10. Evaluate the themes of morality and the dual nature of humans. Can readers distinguish who is a "good" or "bad" character as the story unravels or at the book’s conclusion, or is a more complex view of morality presented? Explain. What motivates the characters to make the moral choices they each make? Do you feel that they made the right choices? Discuss.
11. What does the book seem to suggest about how well we can know others? What does the story indicate about the way we come to "know" another person? What influences our assessments of others and what prevents us from knowing other people—and ourselves—better?
12. What does Nicolette say is most necessary and essential to our survival? Do you agree with her? Why or why not?
13. At the conclusion of the story, what does Nicolette say defines home? Is her concept of what makes a home surprising? Do you agree with her definition? Explain.
14. Evaluate the theme of memory in the book. Are the memories of the characters reliable? Why or why not? What does this suggest about the way that time influences our perspective and how the past affects our future?
15. Since the majority of the action takes place in Nicolette’s memory, how does the author create suspense and tension? What are some of the most surprising elements of plot and character and why are they surprising? Were you surprised by the conclusion of the book? Why or why not? How did your opinion of each of the characters change by the story’s end?
(Questions isssued by the publisher.)
All the Old Knives
Olen Steinhauer, 2015
Macmillan : Picador
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250045430
Summary
Six years ago in Vienna, terrorists took over a hundred hostages, and the rescue attempt went terribly wrong. The CIA's Vienna station gathered intel during those tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and from an agent on the inside.
So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how?
Two of the CIA's case officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, were lovers at the time, and on the night of the hostage crisis Celia decided she'd had enough. She left the agency, married and had children, and now lives in idyllic Carmel-by-the-Sea. Henry is still a case officer in Vienna, and has traveled to California to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all.
But neither of them can forget that long-ago question: Had their agent been compromised? If so, how? Each also wonders what role tonight's dinner companion might have played in the way the tragedy unfolded six years ago.
All the Old Knives is New York Times bestseller Olen Steinhauer's most intimate, most cerebral, and most shocking novel to date. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 21, 1970
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Education—University of Pennsylvania, Lock Haven; University of Texas, Austin;
M.F.A. Emerson College
• Awards—Dashiell Hammett Award
• Currently—lives in New York City and Budapest, Hungary
Olen Steinhauer is an American writer of spy fiction novels, including The Tourist, the Milo Weaver Trilogy, and the Yalta Boulevard Sequence.
Early life
Steinhauer was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in Virginia. He attended the University of Pennsylvania at Lock Haven, and the University of Texas at Austin. He received an MFA in creative writing at Emerson College in Boston.
Career
After graduation, Steinhauer received a year-long Fulbright grant to write a novel in Romania about the Romanian Revolution. It was called Tzara's Monocle, and when he moved to New York City afterward, he used that manuscript to secure a literary agent. However, it was with another book, the historical mystery set in Eastern Europe, The Bridge of Sighs, that Steinhauer first found publication.
His 2009 CIA novel, The Tourist, received positive reviews and is being developed for film by Sony Pictures.
During the winter of 2009-10, Steinhauer was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.
The Yalta Boulevard Sequence
A five-book series of thrillers chronicling the evolution of a fictional Eastern European country situated in the historical location of Ruthenia (now part of the Ukraine) during the Cold War, with one book for each decade. Each book also focuses on a different main character.
2003 - The Bridge of Sighs (Emil Brod, 1948; nominated for five awards)
2004 - The Confession (Ferenc Kolyeszar, 1956)
2005 - 36 Yalta Boulevard (Brano Sev, 1966–1967)
2006 - Liberation Movements (Brano Sev, et al., 1968 & 1975; nominated for the Edgar Award)
2007 - Victory Square (2007) (Emil Brod, 1989, the end of communism)
The Milo Weaver Trilogy
Spy tales focused on international deception in the post 9/11 world.
2009 - The Tourist
2010 - The Nearest Exit
2012 - An American Spy
Standalone novels
2014 - The Cairo Affair
2015 - All the Old Knives
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/18/2015.)
Book Reviews
Olen Steinhauer's unusually short and wily spy novel…[is a] sneaky little gem…Mr. Steinhauer finds ways to work many different perspectives—even those of the wait staff, very briefly—into the seemingly simple story of one little amorous evening for old times' sake…Mr. Steinhauer sustains the difficult balancing act of melding a heart-racing espionage plot with credible dinner table conversation. He never violates the book's basic premise, not even when his characters begin to have the darkest suspicions about each other.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
[A] sneaky little gem.... Sustains the difficult balancing act of melding a heart-racing espionage plot with credible dinner table conversation.... Mr. Steinhauer specializes in tough showdowns. And the more innocently they begin, the more devastatingly they end.
New York Times Book Review
A splendid tour de force.... Without neglecting the turmoil of the geopolitical landscape, the novel focuses more intensely on the equally treacherous landscapes of the human heart.
Washington Post
It's not news that Olen Steinhauer is among the best contemporary espionage writers, and All the Old Knives confirms it. If you're a fan of intelligent spy novels that don't need much bang-bang, details about ordnance, or people who save the world single-handedly, this one's for you.
Seattle Times
Most of All the Old Knives revolves around Pelham and Favreau's dinner, and the fact that the book moves so swiftly and alluringly is a testament to Steinhauer's skills as an entertainer. He stretches considerable tension across an entire book, rather than a handful of swift scenes, and it's gratifying to watch him do something so daringly retro and contrary to what we've come to expect in a thriller.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Starred review.) A quiet dinner for two...unfolds into something much more dramatic.... There’s great narrative energy in the thrust and counterthrust of the dinner conversation.... Steinhauer is a very fine writer and an excellent observer of human nature, shrewd about the pleasures and perils of spying.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This genre-bending spy novel takes Hitchcockian suspense to new heights. Over the course of a meal with flashbacks, the eternal questions of trust, loyalty, and authentic love are deftly dissected. Readers...will be thrilled to follow Henry and Celia's tortured pas de deux. —Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [M]asterfully plotted and suspenseful.... Steinhauer expertly shifts perspectives between the two spies in both their present and past lives.... It's an understatement to say that nothing is as it seems, but even readers well-versed in espionage fiction will be pleasantly surprised by Steinhauer's plot twists and double backs.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What did you think about the title, All the Old Knives, inspired by this famous Phaedrus quote: “All the old knives that have rusted in my back, I drive into yours”?
2. Famous novels such as Catcher in the Rye and Gone Girl have the theme of the lying narrator. How did the main characters’ narrations affect your understanding of what was reality and what was fiction?
3. Both Henry and Celia seem to make a good claim for themselves. Did you feel more sympathetic towards one over the other? If so, why?
4. Perspective plays an interesting role in the novel. Why did Henry and Celia feel so differently about their relationship?
5. What do you think the next 2 pages would reveal if added on to the ending of the book?
6. The entirety of the novel takes place over the course of one meal. What do you think was gained by this restriction? Do you think anything was lost?
All the Pretty Horses (Border Trilogy #1)
Cormac McCarthy
Knopf Doubleday
301 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679744399
Summary
Winner, 1992 National Book Award and National Book Critics's Circle Award
A critical triumph, this is the story of John Grady Cole, who at 16 finds himself at the dying end of a long line of Texas ranchers, cut off from the only life he has ever imagined for himself.
To escape a society moving in all the wrong directions, Cole and two companions decide to seek their future in Mexico, a land at once beautiful and desolate, rugged and cruelly civilized. But what begins as an idyllic, sometimes comic adventure, leads, in fact, to a place where dreams are paid for in blood. Within months, one of the boys is dead, and the other two aged beyond their years.
A story about childhood passing, innocence and an American age, here is a grand story and an education in responsibility, revenge, and survival. All the Pretty Horses is truly a masterpiece. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 20, 1933
• Where—Providence, Rhode Island, USA
• Education—University of Tennessee, US Air Force
• Awards— Ingram-Merrill Aware, 1959 and 1960; Faulkner
Prize, 1965; Traveling Fellowship from American Academy
of Arts and Letters, 1965; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1969;
MacArthur Fellowship, 1981; National Book Award, 1992;
National Book Critics Circle Award, 1992; James Tait Black
Memorial Prize UK, 2006; Pulitzer Prize, 2007 for The Road.
• Currently—lives in Tesuque, New Mexico (Santa Fe area)
Cormac McCarthy (born Charles McCarthy) is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, ranging from the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres. He has also written plays and screenplays.
He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. He received a National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award for his 1992 novel, All the Pretty Horses.
His previous novel, Blood Meridian, (1985) was among Time Magazine's poll of the best English-language books published between 1923 and 2005 and he placed joint runner-up in a poll taken in 2006 by the New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years.
Literary critic Harold Bloom named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth. In 2010 the London Times ranked The Road no.1 on its list of the 100 best fiction and non-fiction books of the past 10 years. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner.
Early years
McCarthy was born in Providence, Rhode Island on July 20, 1933, and moved with his family to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1937. He is the third of six children, with three sisters and two brothers. In Knoxville, he attended Knoxville Catholic High School. His father was a successful lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority from 1934 to 1967.
McCarthy entered the University of Tennessee in 1951-1952 and was a liberal arts major. In 1953, he joined the United States Air Force for four years, two of which he spent in Alaska, where he hosted a radio show. In 1957, he returned to the University of Tennessee. During this time in college, he published two stories in a student paper and won awards from the Ingram Merrill Foundation in 1959 and 1960. In 1961, he and fellow university student Lee Holleman were married and had their son Cullen. He left school without earning a degree and moved with his family to Chicago where he wrote his first novel. He returned to Sevier County, Tennessee, and his marriage to Lee Holleman ended.
Writing
McCarthy's first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published by Random House in 1965. He decided to send the manuscript to Random House because "it was the only publisher [he] had heard of." At Random House, the manuscript found its way to Albert Erskine, who was William Faulkner's editor until Faulkner's death in 1962. Erskine continued to edit McCarthy for the next twenty years.
In the summer of 1965, using a Traveling Fellowship award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, McCarthy shipped out aboard the liner Sylvania, hoping to visit Ireland. While on the ship, he met Anne DeLisle, who was working on the ship as a singer. In 1966, they were married in England. Also in 1966, McCarthy received a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, which he used to travel around Southern Europe before landing in Ibiza, where he wrote his second novel, Outer Dark. Afterward he returned to America with his wife, and Outer Dark was published in 1968 to generally favorable reviews.
In 1969, McCarthy and his wife moved to Louisville, Tennessee, and purchased a barn, which McCarthy renovated, even doing the stonework himself. Here he wrote his next book, Child of God, based on actual events. Child of God was published in 1973. Like Outer Dark before it, Child of God was set in southern Appalachia. In 1976, McCarthy separated from Anne DeLisle and moved to El Paso, Texas. In 1979, his novel Suttree, which he had been writing on and off for twenty years, was finally published.
Supporting himself with the money from his 1981 MacArthur Fellowship, he wrote his next novel, Blood Meridian, which was published in 1985. The book has grown appreciably in stature in literary circles. In a 2006 poll of authors and publishers conducted by The New York Times Magazine to list the greatest American novels of the previous quarter-century, Blood Meridian placed third, behind only Toni Morrison's Beloved and Don DeLillo's Underworld.
McCarthy finally received widespread recognition in 1992 with the publication of All the Pretty Horses, which won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was followed by The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, completing a Western trilogy. In the midst of this trilogy came The Stonemason, McCarthy's second dramatic work. He had previously written a film for PBS in the 1970s, The Gardener's Son.
McCarthy's next book, 2005's No Country for Old Men, stayed with the western setting and themes, yet moved to a more contemporary period. It was adapted into a film of the same name by the Coen Brothers, winning four Academy Awards and more than 75 film awards globally. McCarthy's latest book, The Road, was published in 2006 and won international acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for literature. A film adaptation starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee was released on November 25, 2009. Also in 2006, McCarthy published a play entitled The Sunset Limited.
Extras
• According to Wired magazine in December, 2009, McCarthy's Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter was put up for auction at Christie's. The Olivetti Lettera 32 has been in his care for 46 years, since 1963. He picked up the used machine for $50 from a pawn shop in Knoxville, Tennessee. McCarthy reckons he has typed around five million words on the machine, and maintenance consisted of “blowing out the dust with a service station hose”. The typewriter was auctioned on Friday, December 4 and the auction house, Christie’s, estimated it would fetch between $15,000 and $20,000; it sold for $254,500. The Olivetti’s replacement for McCarthy to use is another Olivetti, bought by McCarthy’s friend John Miller for $11. The proceeds of the auction are to be donated to the Santa Fe Institute, a nonprofit interdisciplinary scientific research organization.
• McCarthy now lives in the Tesuque, New Mexico, area, north of Santa Fe, with his wife, Jennifer Winkley, and their son, John. He guards his privacy. In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy reveals that he is not a fan of authors who do not "deal with issues of life and death," citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples. "I don't understand them," he said. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange." McCarthy remains active in the academic community of Santa Fe and spends much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute, which was founded by his friend, physicist Murray Gell-Mann.
• Talk show host Oprah Winfrey chose McCarthy's 2006 novel The Road as the April 2007 selection for her Book Club. As a result, McCarthy agreed to his first television interview, which aired on The Oprah Winfrey Show on June 5, 2007. The interview took place in the library of the Santa Fe Institute; McCarthy told Winfrey that he does not know any writers and much prefers the company of scientists.
• During the interview he related several stories illustrating the degree of outright poverty he has endured at times during his career as a writer. He also spoke about the experience of fathering a child at an advanced age, and how his now-eight-year-old son was the inspiration for The Road. Cormac noted to Oprah that he prefers "simple declarative sentences" and that he uses capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, a colon for setting off a list, but "never a semicolon." He does not use quotation marks for dialogue and believes there is no reason to "block the page up with weird little marks." (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
McCarthy puts most other American writers to shame. [His] work itself repays the tight focus of his attention with its finely wrought craftsmanship and its ferocious energy.
New York Times Book Review
[The Border Trilogy is] an American classic to stand with the finest literary achievements of the century.
San Francisco Chronicle
[All the Pretty Horses's] elegiac rhythm captures the badlands of Texas and northern Mexico with a passion most writers either couldn't muster or wouldn't dare.
Boston Globe
This is a novel so exuberant in its prose, so offbeat in its setting and so mordant and profound in its deliberations that one searches in vain for comparisons in American literature. None of McCarthy's previous works, not even the award-winning The Orchard Keeper (1965) or the much-admired Blood Meridian (1985), quite prepares the reader for the singular achievement of this first installment in the projected Border Trilogy.
This is a novel so exuberant in its prose, so offbeat in its setting and so mordant and profound in its deliberations that one searches in vain for comparisons in American literature. None of McCarthy's previous works, not even the award-winning The Orchard Keeper (1965) or the much-admired Blood Meridian (1985), quite prepares the reader for the singular achievement of this first installment in the projected Border Trilogy.
John Grady Cole is a 16-year-old boy who leaves his Texas home when his grandfather dies. With his parents already split up and his mother working in theater out of town, there is no longer reason for him to stay. He and his friend Lacey Rawlins ride their horses south into Mexico; they are joined by another boy, the mysterious Jimmy Blevins, a 14-year-old sharpshooter.
Although the year is 1949, the landscape—at some moments parched and unforgiving, at others verdant and gentled by rain—seems out of time, somewhere before history or after it. These likable boys affect the cowboy's taciturnity—they roll cigarettes and say what they mean—and yet amongst themselves are given to terse, comic exchanges about life and death.
In McCarthy's unblinking imagination the boys suffer truly harrowing encounters with corrupt Mexican officials, enigmatic bandits and a desert weather that roils like an angry god. Though some readers may grow impatient with the wild prairie rhythms of McCarthy's language, others will find his voice completely transporting. In what is perhaps the book's most spectacular feat, horses and men are joined in a philosophical union made manifest in the muscular pulse of the prose and the brute dignity of the characters. "What he loved in horses was what he loved in men, the blood and the heat of the blood that ran them," the narrator says of John Grady.
Publishers Weekly
Before this beautifully written novel, McCarthy's sixth and most accessible, won last year's National Book Award and became a best seller, its author was one of the least known of great American novelists. It is a simple story (the first in a trilogy) of three Texas youths whose flight to Mexico on horseback in 1949 traverses far more than geographical borders, marking a descent into the deeper forces of friendship, love, and cruelty. Its style owes an enormous debt to Hemingway, but it pays that debt with interest. That its laconic hero, John Grady Cole, proves resourceful beyond his years (and almost beyond belief) places the novel in the tradition of classic Westerns, but never has any Western been so well told. The novel's moral logic and McCarthy's mystique of "blood'' are questionable, but there is poignancy in Cole's yearning to touch something in horses that has passed from the race of men, to find a depth of wisdom that can only come with age, and, like most of McCarthy's people, to escape what is deadly in modern American life. The unabridged version is one of the best recorded books to date, for Frank Muller's narration is such a perfect model of balance and control that it deserves an award in itself. In the Random House abridgment, film actor Brad Pitt simply doesn't compare. With a superb complete version on the market, there is no reason to settle for anything less. —Peter Josyph, New York.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. All the Pretty Horses opens with one death—that of John Grady'sgrandfather--and ends with the death of the family servant called Abuela, "grandmother." (At the novel's end, John Grady also learns that his father has died.) How do these deaths impel the novel's plot? What larger meanings do they suggest?
2. What other events in this novel occur more than once? How does McCarthy use repetition as a structuring device?
3. How does the author establish John Grady's character? How has he changed by the novel's end? At what points in the book do we see him change?
4. What attributes does McCarthy seem to value in his characters, and how can you tell he does so? Do these traits always serve them well, or are the boys in All the Pretty Horses victims of their own virtues?
5. On the hacienda an old man named Luis tells the boys that "the horse shares a common soul and its separate life only forms it out of all horses and makes it mortal... that if a person understood the soul of a horse then he would understand all the horses that ever were" (p. 111). "Among men, " Luis continues, "there was no such communion as among horses and the notion that men could be understood at all was probably an illusion." How are these statements borne out or contradicted within the novel? To what extent does the author allow us to "understand" his horses, while keeping his human characters psychologically opaque? What sort of contrasts does McCarthy draw between the communal soul of horses (see especially pages 103-107) and the profound solitude of men? What role, generally, do horses play in this book?
6. On page 89 Rawlins says: "A goodlookin horse is likea goodlookin woman... They're always more trouble than what they're worth." How does this statement foreshadow events to come? Where else in the novel do casual statements serve as portents?
7. How does the author establish the differences between the United States and Mexico? How do their respective inhabitants seem to view each other?
8. Alejandra's aunt offers two alternative metaphors for the workings of destiny, comparing it both to a coiner in the moment he places a slug in the die and to a puppet show in which the strings are always held by other puppets (pages 230-231). Which of these metaphors seems more apt to the narrative as a whole? Is what happens to the boys in the course of the novel the result of character or fate?
9. Do the boys' journey and subsequent ordeals ever seem foolish, futile, or anachronistic? If so, how does McCarthy suggest this?
10. All the Pretty Horses is spare in exposition (note the economy with which McCarthy establishes John Grady's situation at the book's beginning) yet lavish in the attention it devotes to scenes and details whose significance is not immediately clear (note the description of the cantina on page 49 and the scene in which John Grady and Rawlins buy new clothes on pages 117-121). Why do you think the author has chosen to weight his narrative in this way?
11. Although John Grady and Rawlins are innocent of stealing horses, McCarthy suggests that they are culpable of other crimes. At different points in the book he compares them to "young thieves in a glowing orchard" (p. 31) and "a party of marauders" (p. 45). When John Grady makes love to Alejandra, we are told that it is "sweeter for the larceny of time and flesh" (p. 141). What kinds of theft might McCarthy be writing about? Might the boys' suffering be seen as warranted by earlier transgressions? What sort of moral system applies within the universe of this book?
12. Is All the Pretty Horses a violent book? How do the novel's characters feel about the deaths they cause? At a time when graphic and gratuitous descriptions of mayhem are standard in much popular fiction for purposes of mere shock and titillation, does McCarthy succeed in restoring to violence its ancient qualities of pity and terror? How does he accomplish this?
13. What role does history play in McCarthy's narrative? To what extent are his characters products of a particular era?
14. Although the occurrences in All the Pretty Horses are, strictly speaking, plausible and its human voices, in particular, are nothing if not realistic, the book also contains a strong mythic component. How, and where, does McCarthy introduce this? What specific myths and fairy tales does the book suggest?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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All the Stars in the Heavens
Adriana Trigiani, 2015
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062319203
Summary
A Tale of the golden age of Hollywood, All the Stars in Heaven captures the luster, drama, power, and secrets that could only thrive in the studio system—viewed through the lives of an unforgettable cast of players creating magic on the screen and behind the scenes.
In this spectacular saga as radiant, thrilling, and beguiling as Hollywood itself, Adriana Trigiani takes us back to Tinsel Town's golden age—an era as brutal as it was resplendent—and into the complex and glamorous world of a young actress hungry for fame and success.
With meticulous, beautiful detail, Trigiani paints a rich, historical landscape of 1930s Los Angeles, where European and American artisans flocked to pursue the ultimate dream: to tell stories on the silver screen.
The movie business is booming in 1935 when twenty-one-year-old Loretta Young meets thirty-four-year-old Clark Gable on the set of The Call of the Wild. Though he's already married, Gable falls for the stunning and vivacious young actress instantly.
Far from the glittering lights of Hollywood, Sister Alda Ducci has been forced to leave her convent and begin a new journey that leads her to Loretta. Becoming Miss Young's secretary, the innocent and pious young Alda must navigate the wild terrain of Hollywood with fierce determination and a moral code that derives from her Italian roots.
Over the course of decades, she and Loretta encounter scandal and adventure, choose love and passion, and forge an enduring bond of love and loyalty that will be put to the test when they eventually face the greatest obstacle of their lives.
Anchored by Trigiani's masterful storytelling that takes you on a worldwide ride of adventure from Hollywood to the shores of southern Italy, this mesmerizing epic is, at its heart, a luminous tale of the most cherished ties that bind.
Brimming with larger-than-life characters both real and fictional—including stars Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, David Niven, Hattie McDaniel and more—it is it is the unforgettable story of one of cinema's greatest love affairs during the golden age of American movie making. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Big Stone Gap, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., St. Mary’s College, Indiana
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
As her squadrons of fans already know, Adriana Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, a coal-mining town in southwest Virginia that became the setting for her first three novels. The "Big Stone Gap" books feature Southern storytelling with a twist: a heroine of Italian descent, like Trigiani, who attended St. Mary's College of Notre Dame, like Trigiani. But the series isn't autobiographical—the narrator, Ave Maria Mulligan, is a generation older than Trigiani and, as the first book opens, has settled into small-town spinsterhood as the local pharmacist.
The author, by contrast, has lived most of her adult life in New York City. After graduating from college with a theater degree, she moved to the city and began writing and directing plays (her day jobs included cook, nanny, house cleaner and office temp). In 1988, she was tapped to write for the Cosby Show spinoff A Different World, and spent the following decade working in television and film. When she presented her friend and agent Suzanne Gluck with a screenplay about Big Stone Gap, Gluck suggested she turn it into a novel.
The result was an instant bestseller that won praise from fellow writers along with kudos from celebrities (Whoopi Goldberg is a fan). It was followed by Big Cherry Holler and Milk Glass Moon, which chronicle the further adventures of Ave Maria through marriage and motherhood. People magazine called them "Delightfully quirky... chock full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."
Critics sometimes reach for food imagery to describe Trigiani's books, which have been called "mouthwatering as fried chicken and biscuits" (USA Today) and "comforting as a mug of tea on a rainy Sunday" (New York Times Book Review). Food and cooking play a big role in the lives of Trigiani's heroines and their families: Lucia, Lucia, about a seamstress in Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and The Queen of the Big Time, set in an Italian-American community in Pennsylvania, both feature recipes from Trigiani's grandmothers. She and her sisters have even co-written a cookbook called, appropriately enough, Cooking With My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes, from Bari to Big Stone Gap. It's peppered with anecdotes, photos and family history. What it doesn't have: low-carb recipes. "An Italian girl can only go so long without pasta," Trigiani quipped in an interview on GoTriCities.com.
Her heroines are also ardent readers, so it comes as no surprise that book groups love Adriana Trigiani. And she loves them right back. She's chatted with scores of them on the phone, and her Web site includes photos of women gathered together in living rooms and restaurants across the country, waving Italian flags and copies of Lucia, Lucia.
Trigiani, a disciplined writer whose schedule for writing her first novel included stints from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. each morning, is determined not to disappoint her fans. So far, she's produced a new novel each year since the publication of Big Stone Gap.I don't take any of it for granted, not for one second, because I know how hard this is to catch with your public," she said in an interview with The Independent. "I don't look at my public as a group; I look at them like individuals, so if a reader writes and says, 'I don't like this,' or, 'This bit stinks,' I take it to heart.
Extras
From a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:
• I appeared on the game show Kiddie Kollege on WCYB-TV in Bristol, Virginia, when I was in the third grade. I missed every question. It was humiliating.
• I have held the following jobs: office temp, ticket seller in movie theatre, cook in restaurant, nanny, and phone installer at the Super Bowl in New Orleans. In the writing world, I have been a playwright, television writer/producer, documentary writer/director, and now novelist.
• I love rhinestones, faux jewelry. I bought a pair of pearl studded clip on earrings from a blanket on the street when I first moved to New York for a dollar. They turned out to be a pair designed by Elsa Schiaparelli. Now, they are costume, but they are still Schiaps! Always shop in the street—treasures aplenty.
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, here is what she said:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. When I was a girl growing up in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, I was in the middle of a large Italian family, but I related to the lonely orphan girl Jane, who with calm and focus, put one foot in front of the other to make a life for herself after the death of her parents and her terrible tenure with her mean relatives. She survived the horrors of the orphanage Lowood, losing her best friend to consumption, became a teacher and then a nanny. The love story with the complicated Rochester was interesting to me, but what moved me the most was Jane's character, in particular her sterling moral code. Here was a girl who had no reason to do the right thing, she was born poor and had no connections and yet, somehow she was instinctively good and decent. It's a story of personal triumph and the beauty of human strength. I also find the book a total page turner- and it's one of those stories that you become engrossed in, unable to put it down. Imagine the beauty of the line: "I loved and was loved." It doesn't get any better than that! (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Trigiani’s newest fictionalizes Loretta Young’s life, both through her eyes and those of an invented personal secretary, whose closeness with the actress ties the narrative threads together.... [I]mpeccable research and lush writing.
Publishers Weekly
Trigiani re-creates the golden age of Hollywood...[in] rich, sumptuous detail.... Her ability to breathe life into the luminous cast of characters, which includes Spencer Tracy, Myrna Loy, David Niven, and Carole Lombard, will captivate readers, then have them scouring Netflix for film classics of the 1930s. —Jeanne Bogino, New Lebanon Lib., NY
Library Journal
A novice nun suddenly finds herself dismissed from her convent and swept up into the heady world of Hollywood's golden age.... Trigiani...spins a tale of star-crossed lovers, yet the rather flat prose dims the glow of the silver screen. A heartwarming tale of women's lives behind the movies.
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.)
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
Bryn Greenwood, 2016
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250074133
Summary
A beautiful and provocative love story between two unlikely people and the hard-won relationship that elevates them above the Midwestern meth lab backdrop of their lives.
As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight.
Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident.
After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold.
By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy's family apart, a well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the scrutiny of the outside world.
A powerful novel you won’t soon forget, Bryn Greenwood's All the Ugly and Wonderful Things challenges all we know and believe about love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1970-71
• Where—Hugoton, Kansas, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., Kansas State University
• Currently—lives in Lawrence, Kansas
Bryn Greenwood is an American writer of essays, short stories, and novels. The latter includes, Last Will (2012), Lie Lay Lain (2014), and All the Ugly and Wonderful Things (2016).
Like her heroine Wavy in her 2016 novel, Greenwood grew up in Kansas. One of seven sisters (the result of a blended family), her mother was a teetotaler, and her father a meth dealer, who ran one of the largest meth production and distribution businesses in the Midwest. Had meth been legal, she told KCUR Radio in Kansas City, he would haven been a billionaire. In another interview, she recalled...
He had a private plane and pilot, and there was always money except when there wasn’t. The money is like a faucet that’s turned on full blast for 10 minutes and then it’s turned off. And you wait for the next time the faucet is turned on.
When you have that kind of business, you have just hordes of hangers-on, an endless rotation of people going through your existence because they want to use you or they want to benefit from you or they’re just there for the drugs. So yeah, [my father's] life was a little crazy. (Kansas City Star).
Her parents divorced when Bryn was two; she lived mostly with her mother and with her fraternal grandparents. In the summers she spent time with her father—but that ended when she was 14, and he was sent to jail.
Also, like her heroine Wavy, Greenwood had a much older boyfriend: she was 13 and he 28. Because the novel's depiction of Wavy and Kellen's romance, Greenwood has received a fair amount of criticism from readers—even those who haven't read her book. When comparisons are made to Lolita, she noted that while Nabokov's book was written to make readers uncomfortable, that was not her purpose:
I didn’t intend at all for my book to shock or titillate. I’m more of the mind that: There are people who’ve lived this life, I have lived portions of this life, and they don’t see it in fiction (KCUR radio).
Greenwood discovered books early on and knew she wanted to write. Her first story came when she was four: she had to dictate it to one of her sisters. Years later, Greenwood went on to college and, eventually, to grad school where she earned an M.A. in Creative Writing from Kansas State University. She taught English in Japan for a while, returned to the U.S., and finally landed in Lawrence, Kansas, where she is now a college teacher and administrator.
She married, got divorced, bought a house (a work in progress), and lives with her hairless cats and adopted dogs. (Author bio by LitLovers.)
Book Reviews
Captivating and smartly written from the first page, Greenwood's work is instantly absorbing. Pithy characters saunter, charge or stumble into each scene via raw, gripping narrative. Greenwood slow-drips descriptions, never giving away everything at once. Rather, she tells her story as if lifting a cloth thread by thread, revealing heartbreaking landscapes and riveting dialogue in perfect timing. This book won't pull at heartstrings but instead yank out the entire organ and shake it about before lodging it back in an unfamiliar position.
Christina Ledbetter - Associated Press
Greenwood's haunting novel...is a story that will stay with readers long after the book is finished.
Lisa McLendon - Wichita Eagle
Bryn Greenwood has handed readers a strange—but strangely grabbing—tale.
Harry Levins - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
[A] strong debut...about a young girl’s triumph over the sordid life she might have led as the daughter of drug addicts, one of whom is a meth dealer.... This is a memorable coming-of-age tale about loyalty, defiance, and the power of love under the most improbable circumstances.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [P]owerful, provocative debut chronicles a desolate childhood and a discomfiting love affair.... [T]he novel closes on a note of hard-won serenity, with people who deserve a second chance gathered together. Intelligent, honest, and unsentimental.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. From the first moment we meet Wavy, her life is filled with rules. Most are her mother's rules, but some are hers. What rules are holding Wavy back and which ones does she use to construct a sense of safety? How do the rules change as she grows up?
2. Wavy's fears and her efforts to resist fear are major themes in the story. How does the refrain "nothing left to be afraid of" guide Wavy's life?
3. More than once, it's remarked that the kitchen door of the farmhouse is unlocked, and Wavy points out that there isn't even a key to that door. On a practical level, what does it say about Wavy and the people around her that this door is never locked? As a metaphor, what does it tell us?
4. Kellen is a murderer and Wavy knows this from an early point in her relationship with him. How is she able to know this while still considering him a good person? What things in her life have prepared her to accept two seemingly contradictory ideas? How do you feel about this paradox?a
5. The book provides multiple points of view of Wavy and Kellen, including their own. How are your impressions of them altered by a narrator's biases? Who seems like the most reliable narrator? Who seems the least reliable? How do you decide whose opinion to trust?
6. Aunt Brenda's perspective is the one that most clearly correlates to our current social attitudes toward relationships like Wavy and Kellen's, but is she the hero of this story? To what degree do you sympathize with her?
7. Compared to Wavy, her cousins and her college roommate are ostensibly the product of "normal" upbringings. In what ways are they more emotionally healthy than Wavy? In what ways do they have similar emotional issues?
8. Until 2006, the state of Kansas had no law requiring a minimum age for marriage, as long as the underage bride or groom had parental or judicial consent. On occasion this produced child brides far younger than Wavy would have been. The law now sets the minimum age at 15, a year younger than the age of consent. How does marriage change our views of what would otherwise be statutory rape? What if Kellen's wish had come true, and he and Wavy had married after her 14th birthday? How would we view that relationship once it was sealed by law?
9. When we talk about "consent" we have a bad habit of restricting it to the question of sex, but what other types of consent are at play in the story? Stress is placed on Wavy's capacity to consent to a sexual relationship with Kellen, but what about her capacity to consent or refuse consent to other things?
10. Of the female role models in Wavy's life, which has the greatest effect on her? How do these role models color her views about herself and her relationships?
11. As much as we may wish for Wavy and Kellen's relationship to remain platonic, what do you feel contributes to its steady shift toward becoming first romantic and then sexual? What might have happened if it had remained platonic?
12. Amy narrates a large portion of Wavy's life, while only revealing parts of her own. How does she choose what to reveal and what to hide? And why might she prefer to tell Wavy's story over her own?
13. What is the dynamic between Wavy and Kellen as husband and wife at the end? Who do you see as the decision maker? The moral compass? What other roles have they taken on, and how comfortable are they in those roles? Considering their backgrounds, how likely are they to succeed in creating a healthy relationship and a "normal" family?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
All Things Cease to Appear
Elizabeth Brundage, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101875599
Summary
A dark, riveting, beautifully written book that combines noir and the gothic in a story about two families entwined in their own unhappiness, with, at its heart, a gruesome and unsolved murder.
Late one winter afternoon in upstate New York, George Clare comes home to find his wife killed and their three-year-old daughter alone—for how many hours?—in her room across the hall.
He had recently, begrudgingly, taken a position at a nearby private college (far too expensive for local kids to attend) teaching art history, and moved his family into a tight-knit, impoverished town that has lately been discovered by wealthy outsiders in search of a rural idyll.
George is of course the immediate suspect—the question of his guilt echoing in a story shot through with secrets both personal and professional. While his parents rescue him from suspicion, a persistent cop is stymied at every turn in proving Clare a heartless murderer.
And three teenage brothers (orphaned by tragic circumstances) find themselves entangled in this mystery, not least because the Clares had moved into their childhood home, a once-thriving dairy farm. The pall of death is ongoing, and relentless; behind one crime there are others, and more than twenty years will pass before a hard kind of justice is finally served.
A rich and complex portrait of a psychopath and a marriage, this is also an astute study of the various taints that can scar very different families, and even an entire community. Elizabeth Brundage is an essential talent who has given us a true modern classic. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1959-60
• Rasied—Maplewood, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Hampshire College; M.F.A. Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives near Albany, New York
Elizabeth Brundage graduated from Hampshire College, attended the NYU film school, was a screenwriting fellow at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, and received an MFA as well as a James Michener Award from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She has taught at a variety of colleges and universities, most recently at Skidmore College, where she was visiting writer-in-residence. She lives near Albany in upstate New York. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Slightly Gothic, socially perceptive, and briskly written…. Set in a seemingly haunted farmhouse is a rapidly gentrifying Hudson Valley town, the complex literary thriller ranges across generations of traumatized, interwoven families.
Boris Kachka - New York
Superb…think a more literary, and feminist, Gone Girl. As the seemingly perfect marriage at its core reminds us, the most lethal deceptions are the stories we tell ourselves.
Megan O’Grady - Vogue
(Starred review.) [Brundage's] searing, intricate novel epitomizes the best of the literary thriller, marrying gripping drama with impeccably crafted prose, characterizations, and imagery.... Succeeding as murder mystery, ghost tale, family drama, and love story, [this] novel is both tragic and transcendent.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Instead of the traditional whodunit path...Brundage takes the reader back in time to reveal what led to...[the killing].... [A] piercing new novel. Part mystery, part ghost story, and entirely brilliant.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A dynamic portrait of a young woman coming into her own [and] of a marriage in free fall.... It rises to [great] literary heights and promises a soaring mix of mysticism.
Booklist
(Starred review.) You get in your car, drive to work...back at home, someone is chopping your wife to bits.... Brundage carries the arc of her story into the future, where the children of the nightmare, scarred by poverty, worry, meth, Iraq, are bound up in its consequences.... [T]his is a book that you won't want to read alone late at night.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The issue of class differences weighs heavily throughout All Things Cease to Appear. Discuss the faltering farm economy in the area and how that affects morale. Which characters seem to represent the "old guard" of the town? How does distrust of the wealthy Manhattan set factor into the town’s perception of George?
2. Discuss the role of otherworldly influences. How does Brundage use voice and character to create a foreboding, eerie feeling throughout the novel? Discuss George’s hesitance to believe in these spirits. How does this create a gulf between him and Catherine? When, if ever, does Catherine feel validated for believing in the presence of these spirits?
3. Discuss the idea of "lost mothers." as explored throughout. How do the Hale brothers each cope with the loss of their beloved mother? How does Catherine become a mother figure for the Hales? Which brother does she have the greatest influence on over time?
4. How does Uncle Rainer help to shape Cole’s understanding of the world? Describe Rainer’s emphasis on education. How does Cole take this to heart?
5. Discuss Willis’s trajectory throughout the novel. How would you describe her disposition as a teenager? What has shaped her worldview? How does her relationship with George affect her later choices in lifestyle and career?
6. How is the concept of motherhood explored throughout the novel? How would you define motherhood for Catherine? Mary? How do the obligations of motherhood tie into wifely obligations? Which characters represent a backlash to the established 1970s ideals of womanhood?
7. Discuss the evolution of Catherine’s personality. In the months before she is murdered, how does Catherine begin to defy the expectations of her role as wife? How is her discovery of poetry via Adrienne Rich significant to her development as a character? What other influences shape her?
8. Discuss the scene in which George cuts Willis’s hair during an intimate encounter. Why do you think he chose to do that? Explore the power dynamic in their relationship.
9. Describe the early stages of George’s relationship with Catherine. Do you think they ever shared genuine feelings for each other, or was their relationship borne out of obligation? How do Catherine’s Catholic upbringing and religious beliefs tether her to the confines of their relationship?
10. As the Clare case unfolds, Travis Lawton is determined to bring Catherine’s killer to justice. How does this affect his relationship with his own wife? Do you think that the case contributed to their marital discord?
11. Justine is a defining character in All Things Cease to Appear. How does her perspective offer insight into George and Catherine’s relationship? Discuss the relationship between Justine and her husband, Bram. How do they defy the conventional expectations for marriage and couplehood?
12. Discuss Franny’s reentry into Chosen. At what moment does she become witness to her mother’s happiness? Who gives her the best insight into her mother’s character?
13. The section "Exile" gives significant perspective into Catherine’s attitudes on motherhood, her new home in Chosen, and her relationship with George. How did you interpret her tone over the course of the letters? Do you think she ever sent any true updates to her family members, or did she use these hidden letters as a means of conveying her emotions? Why do you think Brundage chose to include this section at that point in the novel?
14. Consider how George changes over the course of the novel. When were you first convinced of his guilt? Which moments in All Things Cease to Appear did you find to be most disturbing?
15. Discuss the conclusion of the novel. Were you satisfied with how George met his end? Do we actually know that he has died? How did you interpret Franny’s last conversation with her father?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
All This Could Be Yours
Jami Attenberg, 2019
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH Books)
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544824256
Summary
A novel of family secrets: think the drama of Big Little Lies set in the heat of a New Orleans summer.
“If I know why they are the way they are, then maybe I can learn why I am the way I am,” says Alex Tuchman of her parents.
Now that her father is on his deathbed, Alex—a strong-headed lawyer, devoted mother, and loving sister—feels she can finally unearth the secrets of who Victor is and what he did over the course of his life and career. (A power-hungry real estate developer, he is, by all accounts, a bad man.)
She travels to New Orleans to be with her family, but mostly to interrogate her tightlipped mother, Barbra.
As Barbra fends off Alex’s unrelenting questions, she reflects on her tumultuous life with Victor. Meanwhile Gary, Alex’s brother, is incommunicado, trying to get his movie career off the ground in Los Angeles. And Gary’s wife, Twyla, is having a nervous breakdown, buying up all the lipstick in drug stores around New Orleans and bursting into crying fits.
Dysfunction is at its peak. As each family member grapples with Victor’s history, they must figure out a way to move forward—with one another, for themselves, and for the sake of their children.
All This Could Be Yours is a timely, piercing exploration of what it means to be caught in the web of a toxic man who abused his power; it shows how those webs can tangle a family for generations and what it takes to—maybe, hopefully—break free.
With her signature "sparkling prose" (Marie Claire) and incisive wit, Jami Attenberg deftly explores one of the most important subjects of our age. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1971
• Raised—Buffalo Grove, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., John Hopkins University
• Currently—lives in New Orleans, Louisiana
Jami Attenberg is an American writer of fiction and essays. She grew up in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, and is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Writing.
Her early works were published in numerous zines and in a 2003 chapbook called Deli Life. Her first book, Instant Love, a collection of interconnected short stories, was published in 2006. That work has been followed by a series of novels:
2008 - The Kept Man
2010 - The Melting Season
2012 - The Middlesteins
2015 - Saint Mazie
2017 - All Grown Up
2019 - All This Could Be Yours
Attenberg's work has appeared in a number of anthologies and magazines, including Nerve and The New York Times. She lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Adapted from Wikipedia. First retrieved 10/28/2012.)
Book Reviews
Attenberg gets so deep into the psyches of her characters that the story ends up seeming electric with ruin, and with possible resurrection…. This is how you write a very good novel about a very bad man…. All This Could Be Yours is full of hope… [but] most powerful when it’s honest… [about how difficult hope is] in the first place.
New York Times
With her sixth novel, Jami Attenberg… ecures her place as an oddly sparkling master of warped family sagas…. All This Could Be Yours is orchestrated with the precision of an opera on a revolving stage.
NPR
Attenberg is a master at excavating the good, the bad and the ugly truths about families, and in this short but potent novel, her richly human characters populate a witty narrative studded with surprises.
People
Told from multiple perspectives, All This Could Be Yours illustrates the heartbreak, isolation and chaos that comes from really getting to know your family.
Time
Attenberg… doesn’t flinch from digging into life’s messiness…. [Her] medium… is familial dysfunction. And the Tuchman family is a matryoshka stacking doll of dysfunction. [This is] an emotionally messy novel, but precise in craft. The narrative voice is complex and profound.
USA Today
Attenberg is on a roll…. Like a little chili pepper in the chocolate, that particular kind of dark laughter is Attenberg’s secret ingredient.
Newsday
(Starred review) A patriarch’s death strains a family’s already fraught relationships in this dazzling novel…. Attenberg excels at revealing rich interior lives—in her main cast and cameo characters—in direct, lucid prose. This is a delectable family saga.
Publishers Weekly
[A] whirling dervish of a novel.… Attenberg is a master of subtlety as she divulges everyone's thoughts…. The unusual twist here is that readers learn all their stories while the characters do not. Contemporary family sagas don't get much better. —Stacy Alesi, Eugene M. & Christine E. Lynn Lib., Lynn Univ., Boca Raton,
Library Journal
(Starred review) Weaving together a riotous assortment of threads, Attenberg tenderly mines [the Tuchmans’] family history and massive dysfunction…. Her characters… inner lives coalesce beautifully into a funny and heart-stirring tribute to the nutty inscrutability of belonging to a family.
Booklist
(Starred review) Prickly and unsentimental, but never quite hopeless, Attenberg, poet laureate of difficult families, captures the relentlessly lonely beauty of being alive. Not a gentle novel but a deeply tender one.
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 ALL THIS COULD BE YOURS … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the damage Victor Tuchman has inflicted on his family. The details are parceled out, piece by piece, character by character: why might Jami Attenberg have used this particular narrative technique rather than reveal the damage outright?
2. What kind of person is Victor? How would you describe him? Even more important, what kind of people has his cruelty created?
3. Consider each of the family members: Barbara, Victor's wife; Gary, the son, who remains in Los Angeles; and Alex, the daughter. What are your thoughts about each of the characters: do they elicit your sympathy, pity, admiration, dislike, impatience?
4. Alex, on the treadmill in her hotel (unpack that symbol!) "loathed herself, forgave herself. She loathed them, she did not forgive them. She ran." But then the scene ends with Alex raising her arms in supposed "victory." Why "victory"?
5. Barbara accepted a devil's bargain: She'd keep [Victor's] secrets and ask for nothing but objects." Why had she remained with Victor over the years? To what extent is she culpable, or not, in Victor's behavior?
6. Gary, in L.A., is receiving a massage for his troublesome neck pain, which he labels Twyla, in his wife's honor. He thinks, "I'm garbage." Why?
7. Speaking of Twyla, how would you describe her … and the couple's marriage? Why is Twyla so unnerved? Why has her in-laws' move to New Orleans disrupted her contented life with Gary and their daughter Avery?
8. Do you have hope for Alex, Barbara, Gary, and Twyla? Are they capable of change—can they become different people once he dies? All of which brings up a question posed by the novel: if you can't forget, can you forgive? (What's the difference… is there a difference?)
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
All We Ever Wanted
Emily Giffin, 2018
Random House
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399178924
Summary
A woman is forced to choose between her family and her most deeply held values.
Nina Browning is living the good life after marrying into Nashville’s elite. Her husband’s tech business is booming, and her adored son, Finch, is bound for Princeton.
Tom Volpe is a single dad working multiple jobs. His adored daughter, Lyla, attends Nashville’s most prestigious private high school on a scholarship. But amid the wealth and privilege, Lyla doesn’t always fit in.
Then one devastating photo changes everything.
Finch snaps a picture of Lyla passed out at a party, adds a provocative caption, and sends it to a few friends. The photo spreads like wildfire, and before long an already divided community is buzzing with scandal and assigning blame.
In the middle of it all, Nina finds herself relating more to Tom’s reaction than to her own husband’s—and facing an impossible choice. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 20, 1979
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Raised—Naperville, Illinois
• Education—B.A., Wake Forest University; J.D., University of Virginia
• Currenbtly—lives in Atlanta, Georgia
Emily Giffin is the bestselling American author of eight novels commonly categorized as "chick lit." More specifically, Giffin writes stories about relationships and the full array of emotions experienced within them.
Giffin earned her undergraduate degree at Wake Forest University, where she also served as manager of the basketball team, the Demon Deacons. She then attended law school at the University of Virginia. After graduating in 1997, she moved to Manhattan and worked in the litigation department of Winston & Strawn. But Giffin soon determined to seriously pursue her writing.
In 2001, she moved to London and began writing full time. Her first young adult novel, Lily Holding True, was rejected by eight publishers, but Giffin was undaunted. She began a new novel, then titled Rolling the Dice, which became the bestselling novel Something Borrowed.
2002 was a big year for Emily Giffin. She married, found an agent, and signed a two-book deal with St. Martin's Press. While doing revisions on Something Borrowed, she found the inspiration for a sequel, Something Blue.
In 2003, Giffin and her husband left England for Atlanta, Georgia. A few months later, on New Year's Eve, she gave birth to identical twin boys, Edward and George.
Something Borrowed was released spring 2004. It received unanimously positive reviews and made the extended New York Times bestsellers list. Something Blue followed in 2005, and in 2006, her third, Baby Proof, made its debut. No new hardcover accompanied the paperback release of in 2007. Instead, Giffin spent the year finishing her fourth novel and enlarging her family. Her daughter, Harriet, was born May 24, 2007.
More novels:
2008 - Love the One You're With
2010 - Heart of the Matter
2012 - Where We Belong
2014 - The One & Only
2016 - First Comes Love
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Follow Emily on Twitter.
Book Reviews
Giffin’s novel has style and substance.… Truly excellent.
Washington Post
Giffin is a worldwide best-selling author because she gets under your skin—by creating relatable characters wrestling within believable situations.… Giffin crafts an unpredictable page-turner that unfolds in the voices of three superbly distinct characters.… Her latest …is destined for greatness.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re looking for a book club selection, All We Ever Wanted is bound to spark meaningful and meaty discussions.
Augusta Chronicle
Page-turning.… Timely and thought-provoking, it’s Giffin’s best yet.
People
Nina Browning has it all: the handsome husband, the Ivy-League-bound teenage son, and the big house in the Nashville suburbs. But with one unthinkable social media post from her beloved child, could it all fall apart? Dealing with issues of class, money, and race, All We Ever Wanted is the book everyone will be talking about.
PopSugar
This thought-provoking novel follows two Nashville families as they struggle with the fallout from a horrible incident. Their wealthy community quickly becomes divided, with people eager to assign blame and take sides as the families struggle with loyalty and staying true to their values. It's one of Giffin's most topical, gripping books yet.
Good Housekeeping
A page-turning exploration of wealth and privilege.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review) [S]tellar…. Giffin’s plot touches on social class and misogyny while delivering an excellent page-turning story. This satisfying novel will appeal to readers looking for a nuanced, thoughtful take on family and social dynamics.
Publishers Weekly
[T]he story delves further into sexual assault as well as issues of class and how much privilege accrues to the extremely wealthy. Verdict: A compelling family story that brings up plenty of issues ripe for book group discussions. —Jan Marry, Lanexa, VA
Library Journal
Giffin draws the reader in like few storytellers can…. She effortlessly captures the voices of a struggling single father, a strong yet vulnerable teenage girl and a mother desperate to know the truth about her own child. All We Ever Wanted is a deeply moving cautionary tale about the perils of privilege.
Booklist
The day after Nina Browning's son, Finch, is accepted to Princeton, he makes a terrible decision, and Nina's perfect life comes crashing down.… A compelling portrait of a woman facing the difficult limits of love.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the title, "All We Ever Wanted." How do you think it relates to the overall story? How does it apply to each of the characters in the book?
2. Both Nina and Kirk have very different ideas about what the "right path" is for Finch. How do you think each parent justifies their actions?
3. Tom is furious about the transgression against his daughter, and believes she deserves justice. How do Tom’s responsibilities as a parent come into conflict with the ethics of respecting Lyla’s wishes?
4. As the book progresses, Nina finds herself siding with Tom’s values rather thanher husband’s. Do you feel that Nina is betraying her family by aligning with Tom? Is she betraying herself if she does not stick to her beliefs? Whom does she owe her loyalty to more?
5. In chapter eleven, Melanie tells Nina that it’s a mother’s responsibility to stand by her child "no matter what." Do you agree with this assertion?
6. Why do you think Lyla is so willing to trust and even begin dating Finch? As you were reading, did you believe Finch’s claim that Polly stole his phone and took the picture of Lyla? If so, was there a point at which you began to doubt Finch?
7. Discuss the ways in which Tom’s and Nina’s pasts inform the way they live their lives in the present. Do you believe they were/are living their best lives?
8. This book poses the question of what lengths one should go to in order to protect one’s family versus preserve one’s values. What would you have done in Nina’s position? In Tom’s?
9. In the epilogue, Lyla tells Finch that Nina "saved" them both. What do you think she means? Do you believe this is an accurate statement?
10. If you could write subsequent chapters for this book, how do you imagine the relationship between Tom, Nina, Lyla, Finch, and Kirk playing out?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)
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