A Year in Provence 
Peter Mayle (Ill., Judith Clancey), 1989
Knopf Doubleday
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400095698


In Brief 
1989 British Book Award, Best Travel Book

In this witty and warm-hearted account, Peter Mayle tells what it is like to realize a long-cherished dream and actually move into a 200-year-old stone farmhouse in the remote country of the Lubéron with his wife and two large dogs. He endures January's frosty mistral as it comes howling down the Rhône Valley, discovers the secrets of goat racing through the middle of town, and delights in the glorious regional cuisine.

A Year in Provence transports us into all the earthy pleasures of Provençal life and lets us live vicariously at a tempo governed by seasons, not by days. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—June 14, 1939
• Where—Brighton, England, UK
• Awards—British Book Award (Best Travel Book)
• Currently—lives in Luberon, Provence, France

Peter Mayle spent fifteen years in the advertising business, first as a copywriter and then as a reluctant executive, before escaping Madison Avenue in 1975 to write books. His work has been translated into seventeen languages, and he has contributed to the London Sunday Times, the Financial Times, and the Independent, as well as Gentlemen's Quarterly and Esquire. A Year in Provence won the British Book Awards "Best Travel Book of the Year." Peter Mayle and his wife live in Provence (From Barnes & Noble.)

Book Reviews
[Mayle] and his wife, Jenny, had vacationed often in the South of France, and finally decided to move there. "It's one of those areas that you can become addicted to quite quickly," he says. "Particularly the physical aspects: the light, the space, the beauty, the lack of crowds.... Mr. Mayle tells of his and his wife's encounters with the Provencal people, the countryside, the culture and the bureaucracy. There are the workers who tear apart and begin to renovate the house, arriving suddenly early one morning and departing just as unexpectedly, their return date unknown. There is the adventure of trying to move their new 1,200-pound stone table into the backyard. There is the truffle hunt, with dogs and even a pig; the smell of lavender and the solitude of the forests; the wine tasting, and tasting, and tasting; the chorus of toads; the pipes bursting in the freezing house in winter and the British tourists bursting into the now-famous writer's house in summer. And most of all, there is the food. Feast after Provencal feast, in restaurants small and large, fancy and cheap, and in the homes of neighbors and friends.
Mervyn Rothstein - New York Times

Stylish, witty, delightfully readable.
Sunday Times (London)

An account of the author's first frustrating but enlightening year in Provence opens with a memorable New Year's lunch and closes with an impromptu Christmas dinner. In nimble prose, Mayle...captures the humorous aspects of visits to markets, vineyards and goat races, and hunting for mushrooms.
Publishers Weekly

An amusing account of an English couple's first year as residents of rural Provence, from the unpleasantness of the winter mistral to the transgressions of summer tourists. Since the old farmhouse they purchased needed repairs, they were immediately beset with problems in dealing with the foibles of local craftspeople and officialdom, not to mention the neighbors—human and animal. Nowhere in France is the consumption of food and drink taken more seriously, and food preparation, dining, and wining anecdotes are prominent in virtually every chapter. A Francophile's delight, this is a highly entertaining book which also teaches a lesson in social life and customs. Recommended for most collections. Mayle is the author of such popular books for children as Where Did I Come From and What's Happening to Me. —Sondra Brunhumer, Western Michigan Univ. Libs., Kalamazoo
Library Journal

Discussion Questions 
1. How well did Mayle's frequent trips to Provence as a tourist prepare him for the reality of residing there? What were some of the initial surprises he and his wife encountered?

2. How does the form of the book--a month-by-month journal--enhance the immediacy of Mayle's observations and draw the reader into his experiences? How do the changing seasons mirror Mayle's own adjustment to his new environment?

3. Mayle writes that neighbors take on an importance in the country that they don't have in the city [p. 6]. How do his relationships with Faustin, Massot, Menicucci, and the other local workmen reflect this? Does the fact that Mayle is a foreigner influence the way he is treated? How do the men working on his house endear themselves to Mayle, despite his continuing frustrations with their casual attitude about completing the job?

4. Mayle notes there are "two areas of endeavor in which France leads the world-- bureaucracy and gastronomy" [p. 23]. What particular characteristics of the French does Mayle bring to light in stories about the bureaucracy involved in buying the house, a car, insurance, and other necessities?

5. The influx of tourists begins in May and reaches a high point in August. How does his status as a resident affect Mayle's attitudes about friends and acquaintances who, as he himself once did, try to take in everything Provence has to offer during a short holiday? Does he learn things about himself and the life he has chosen by looking through the eyes of visitors? To what extent are his own perceptions influenced by his English upbringing?

6. How does the Mayles' party for the workmen and their wives, as well as their own Christmas dinner at a local restaurant, put the events of the year into context and serve as a coda to the book as a whole?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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Shattered Dreams: My Life as a Polygamist's Wife
Irene Spencer, 2006
Center Street
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781599951584

Summary
Irene Spencer did as she felt God commanded in marrying her brother-in-law, Verlan LeBaron, becoming his second wife. Her dramatic story reveals how far religion can be stretched and abused and how one woman and her children found their way out, into truth and redemption. (From the publisher.)

More
Throughout her childhood, Irene Spencer was repeatedly told that polygamy was not only expected, but required in order to receive the rewards of heaven.  She was also taught that she should never question the leaders of her church and community.

Irene wanted to marry a non-believer, but the guilt of denying "God's call" troubled her.  She felt she couldn't let Him down. She believed God told her she must marry her brother-in-law Verlan LeBaron, and become his second wife—so, Irene did as she felt God commanded.  Then in July 1953, the government raided the fundamentalist polygamous Mormon village of Short Creek, Arizona, where many of Irene's friends and family had found a haven.  Fearful of additional crackdowns Verlan fled Utah with his two young wives and moved them to the LeBaron family ranch in Mexico.

Their years in the Mexican desert with Verlan's four brothers, his mentally ill sister, as well as his numerous wives and children were inconceivably hard.  Irene lived in broken-down adobe buildings with no electricity or running water.  An outdoor toilet, old tire treads for door hinges, dim oil lamps, and recycled old clothes, served as her only "creature comforts."  Little had Irene expected that this required path to Heaven would involve a detour through Hell.

Irene's escape from the clutches of this aberrant lifestyle is a monumental achievement.  With the obstacles of multiple children to support, impoverished living conditions, and lack of skills and education to equip her for independence, Irene's story becomes truly compelling and inspirational. (From the author's website.)

Author Bio
• Birth—February 1, 1937
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Currently—lives in Anchorage Alaska

During the 28 years of her first marriage to a polygamous husband, Irene gave birth to 13 children (all single births). She also adopted a newborn daughter, who became her ninth child. Irene has 121 grandchildren. She has 49 great-grandchildren.

Among her many talents, she is an accomplished seamstress who sews for family and friends, she's a great cook and bakes pastries and homemade bread, she speaks Spanish and English fluently and has traveled to 23 foreign countries and 23 states.

Irene Spencer currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her husband Hector Spencer. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Spencer writes grippingly...in this brave and honest book, [and] lays bare the secrets of her heart and of a devastating religious practice.
People Magazine

(Starred review.) Utterly engaging...jaw-dropping stuff as Irene provides a fascinating insight into Mormon life and polygamous marriage.
Marie Claire

I experienced great sadness and joy while reading this brave woman’s story. I rejoiced when she finally escaped from this maddening situation into a glorious new day and life. I encourage all who believe that dreams do come true, to read this fantastic story. I celebrate Irene’s courage to pick up the pieces of her Shattered Dreams and step into the promise of a brand new tomorrow.
Armchair Review

After fifty pages of establishing shots—explanations of terms like the "Celestial Law," the "Principle," and the history of the fundamentalists' banishment from the Mormon church at large —Spencer launches into a life story full of poverty, suffering and fear. The pain comes from within and without, as the small sect's communities are raided by the government and forced to flee to places like El Valle, Mexico, then overtaken by overzealous megalomaniacs within the family. Then there is internal pressure, as the women bound to oaths of plural marriage resent one another, their shared husband and their general lots in life. There's so much going against the fundamentalist faction that you wonder how it doesn't implode before the narrative is up. And then there is the ultimate relationship of mixed messages—that between Spencer and God. Overall, it's a good read, but it takes some patience to get through the countless pregnancies and home deliveries.
Anna McDonald - New York Post

Just as A Mormon Mother is the standout memoir of a 19th-century polygamous woman's life, this autobiography offers the compelling voice of a contemporary plural wife's experiences. Daughter of a second wife, Spencer was raised strictly in "the Principle" as it was lived secretly and illegally by fringe communities of Mormon "fundamentalists" groups that split off from the LDS Church when it abandoned polygamy more than a century ago. In spite of her mother's warnings and the devotion of a boyfriend with monogamist intentions, Spencer followed her religious convictions—that living in polygamy was essential for eternal salvation—and became a second wife herself at the age of 16 in 1953. It's hard to tell which is more devastating in this memoir: the strains of husband-sharing with ultimately nine other wives, or the unremitting poverty that came with maintaining so many households and 56 children. Spencer's writing is lively and full of engaging dialogue, and her life is nothing short of astonishing. After 28 years of polygamous marriage, Spencer has lived the last 19 years in monogamy. Her story will be emotional and shocking, but many readers will resonate with the universal question the memoir raises: how to reconcile inherited religious beliefs when they grate against social norms and the deepest desires of the heart.
Publishers Weekly

An engrossing, though flawed memoir about poverty, procreation and polygamy south of the border. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints banned the practice more than a century ago, but some communities of self-styled "Mormon fundamentalists" continue to practice "plural marriage." In 1953, when the author was 16, she became the second wife of Verlan LeBaron, who was already married to her half-sister Charlotte. LeBaron and his wives (he eventually acquired ten) lived in Mexico, which was less zealous than the U.S. in enforcing anti-polygamy laws. But the patriarch couldn't provide for all those spouses and their offspring. They lived hand-to-mouth; Spencer fashioned undergarments from flour sacks and learned to get by without toilet paper. She recounts not just the financial difficulties, but also the emotional struggles of LeBaron's wives, who competed with one another for his affection and attentions. He often provoked the women, as when he gave one wife's wedding dress to a new bride to wear. Nonetheless, the author notes, genuine friendship and love grew among some of the wives. Much of her narrative focuses on sex and childbirth; she enjoyed making love with her husband and tried to cajole him into more frequent romps in the sack. Spencer gave birth to 13 babies, and her descriptions of labor, as well as the pregnancies she attended as an ersatz midwife, become tedious. There are curious omissions here. The author seldom explores how growing up in a polygamous household affected her children. And she offers little detail about how she adjusted after LeBaron finally died. The epilogue tells us that Spencer later became a "born-again Christian" and entered a monogamous marriage, but that seems an insufficient coda to such an intense story. Gives the lie to the suburban cheer of HBO's Big Love.
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 Shattered Dreams:

1. Talk about the obvious—monogamy. What is your attitude toward its practice: are you neutral toward it? Offended by it? Do you support it—or its right to be practiced?

2. If a religious group truly believes that polygamy is a necessary path to salvation, does the government have a right to prohibit it? What is the state's legitimate interest in preventing polygamy?

3. Discuss "the Principle," by which Irene's and other fundamentalist families live.

4. Talk about the wives and their varying relationships to one another. How would you react, as one of nine wives?

5. Discuss Irene's statement:

All the books I had read on Mormon polygamy were vivid accounts of sacrificing women who upheld and emphatically stated they loved "the Principle." Yet, I was convinced that these committed women...had been forbidden to give way to their true feelings, so they smothered their own agony and wrenching pain, as I too had been emphatically instructed to do.

What is the price one pays for living against one's "true feelings" as Irene says of herself? Does relgion have the right to ask one to sacrifice one's "true feelings" for a higher purpose?

6. All religions ask us to live according to certain belief-based rules, but when at what point do those rules become unfair, excessive, or irrelevant? Think of Catholicism and the prohibition of birth control; Judaism and the prohibition of pork; Islam and the covering of women.

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

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A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers, 2000
Knopf Doubleday
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780375725784


Summary
Well, this was when Bill was sighing a lot. He had decided that after our parents died he just didn't want any more fighting between what was left of us. He was twenty-four, Beth was twenty-three, I was twenty-one, Toph was eight, and all of us were so tried already, from that winter.

So when something world come up, any little thing, some bill to pay or decision to make, he would just sigh, his eyes tired, his mouth in a sorry kind of smile. But Beth and I...Jesus, we were fighting with everyone, anyone, each other, with strangers at bars, anywhere — we were angry people wanting to exact revenge. We came to California and we wanted everything, would take what was ours, anything within reach. And I decided that little Toph and I, he with his backward hat and long hair, living together in our little house in Berkeley, would be world-destroyers.

We inherited each other and, we felt, a responsibility to reinvent everything, to scoff and re-create and drive fast while singing loudly and pounding the windows. It was a hopeless sort of exhilaration, a kind of arrogance born of fatalism, I guess, of the feeling that if you could lose a couple of parents in a month, then basically anything could happen, at any time — all bullets bear your name, all cars are there to crush you, any balcony could give way; more disaster seemed only logical. And then, as in Dorothy's dream, all these people I grew up with were there, too, some of them orphans also, most but not all of us believing that what we had been given was extraordinary, that it was time to tear or break down, ruin, remake, take and devour.

This was San Francisco, you know, and everyone had some dumb idea — I mean, wicca? — and no one there would tell you yours was doomed. Thus the public nudity, and this ridiculous magazine, and the Real World tryout, all this need, most of it disguised by sneering, but all driven by a hyper-awareness of this window, I guess, a few years when your muscles are taut, coiled up and vibrating. But what to do with the energy? I mean, when we drive, Toph and I, and we drive past people, standing on top of all these hills, part of me wants to stop the car and turn up the radio and have us all dance in formation, and part of me wants to run them all over. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—March 12, 1970
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Reared—Lake Forest, Illinois
• Education—University of Illinois
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California

Dave Eggers is the author of four books, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, You Shall Know Our Velocity!, How We Are Hungry, and What Is the What. He is the editor of McSweeney’s, a quarterly magazine and book-publishing company, and is cofounder of 826 Valencia, a network of nonprofit writing and tutoring centers for young people.

His interest in oral history led to his 2004 cofounding of Voice of Witness, a nonprofit series of books that use oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. As a journalist, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, and The Believer. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife and daughter. (From the publisher.)

More
Eggers was born in Boston, Massachusetts, grew up in suburban Lake Forest (where he was a high-school classmate of the actor Vince Vaughn), and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He lives in San Francisco and is married to the writer Vendela Vida. In October 2005, Vendela gave birth to a daughter, October Adelaide Eggers Vida.

Eggers's brother Bill is a researcher who has worked for several conservative think tanks, doing research on privatization. His sister, Beth, claimed that Eggers grossly understated her role in raising their brother Toph and made use of her journals in writing A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius without compensating her. She later recanted her claims in a posting on her brother's own website McSweeney's Internet Tendency, referring to the incident as "a really terrible LaToya Jackson moment". On March 1, 2002, the New York Post reported that Beth, then a lawyer in Modesto, California, had committed suicide. Eggers briefly spoke about his sister's death during a 2002 fan interview for McSweeney's.

Eggers was one of three 2008 TED Prize recipients. His TED Prize wish: for community members to personally engage with local public schools.

Eggers began writing as a Salon.com editor and founded Might magazine, while also writing a comic strip called Smarter Feller (originally Swell, then Smart Feller) for SF Weekly. His first book was a memoir (with fictional elements), A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000). It focuses on the author's struggle to raise his younger brother in San Francisco following the sudden deaths of their parents. The book quickly became a bestseller and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. The memoir was praised for its originality, idiosyncratic self-referencing, and for several innovative stylistic elements. Early printings of the 2001 trade-paperback edition were published with a lengthy, apologetic postscript entitled "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making."

In 2002, Eggers published his first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, a story about a frustrating attempt to give away money to deserving people while haphazardly traveling the globe. An expanded and revised version was released as Sacrament in 2003 and retitled You Shall Know Our Velocity! for its Vintage imprint distribution. He has since published a collection of short stories, How We Are Hungry, and three politically-themed serials for Salon.com. In November 2005, Eggers published Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated, compiling the book of interviews with exonerees once sentenced to death. The book was compiled with Lola Vollen, "a physician specializing in the aftermath of large-scale human rights abuses" and "a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of International Studies and a practicing clinician." Novelist Scott Turow wrote the introduction to Surviving Justice. Eggers's most recent novel, What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (McSweeney's, 2006), was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. Eggers is also the editor of the Best American Nonrequired Reading series, an annual anthology of short stories, essays, journalism, satire, and alternative comics.

Eggers is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house. McSweeney's produces a quarterly literary journal, McSweeney's, first published in 1998; a monthly journal, The Believer, which debuted in 2003 and is edited by wife Vida; and, beginning in 2005, a quarterly DVD magazine, Wholphin. Other works include The Future Dictionary of America, Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, and the "Dr. and Mr. Haggis-On-Whey" children's books of literary nonsense, which Eggers writes with his younger brother. Ahead of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, Eggers wrote an essay about the US national team and soccer in the United States for The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, a book published with aid of the journal Granta, that contained essays about each competing team in the tournament.

Eggers currently teaches writing in San Francisco at 826 Valencia, a nonprofit tutoring center and writing school for children that he cofounded in 2002. Eggers has recruited volunteers to operate similar programs in Los Angeles, New York City, Seattle, Chicago, and Ann Arbor, Michigan, all under the auspices of the nonprofit organization 826 National. In 2006, he appeared at a series of fundraising events, dubbed the Revenge of the Book–Eaters tour, to support these programs. The Chicago show, at the Park West theatre, featured Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard. Other performers on the tour included Sufjan Stevens, Jon Stewart and David Byrne. In September 2007, the Heinz Foundations awarded Eggers a $250,000 Heinz award given to recognize "extraordinary achievements by individuals". The award will be used to fund some of the 826 Valencia writing centers. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews 
Mr. Eggers demonstrates in this book that he can pretty much write about anything. He can turn a Frisbee game with his brother into an existential meditation on life. He can convey the wild, caffeinated joy he feels after seeing a friend wake up from a coma. And he can turn his efforts to scatter his mother's ashes in Lake Michigan into a story that's both a lyrical tribute to her passing and a crude, slapstick account of his ineptitude as a mourner, lugging about a canister of ashes that reminds him, creepily, of the Ark of the Covenant in the Spielberg movie.... A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius may start off sounding like one of those coy, solipsistic exercises that put everything in little ironic quote marks, but it quickly becomes a virtuosic piece of writing, a big, daring, manic-depressive stew of book that noisily announces the debut of a talented — yes, staggeringly talented new writer.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times

Literary self-consciousness and technical invention mix unexpectedly in this engaging memoir by Eggers, editor of the literary magazine McSweeney's and the creator of a satiric 'zine called Might, who subverts the conventions of the memoir by questioning his memory, motivations and interpretations so thoroughly that the form itself becomes comic. Despite the layers of ironic hesitation, the reader soon discerns that the emotions informing the book are raw and, more importantly, authentic. After presenting a self-effacing set of "Rules and Suggestions for the Enjoyment of this Book" ("Actually, you might want to skip much of the middle, namely pages 209-301") and an extended, hilarious set of acknowledgments (which include an itemized account of his gross and net book advance), Eggers describes his parents' horrific deaths from cancer within a few weeks of each other during his senior year of college, and his decision to move with his eight year-old brother, Toph, from the suburbs of Chicago to Berkeley, near where his sister, Beth, lives. In California, he manages to care for Toph, work at various jobs, found Might, and even take a star turn on MTV's The Real World. While his is an amazing story, Eggers, now 29, mainly focuses on the ethics of the memoir and of his behavior—his desire to be loved because he is an orphan and admired for caring for his brother versus his fear that he is attempting to profit from his terrible experiences and that he is only sharing his pain in an attempt to dilute it. Though the book is marred by its ending—an unsuccessful parody of teenage rage against the cruel world—it will still delight admirers of structural experimentation and Gen-Xers alike.
Publishers Weekly

It's a good guess that Jedediah Purdy—the author of For Common Things and righteous agitator against irony—would hate Eggers and his late satirical magazine, Might, right along with this masterly memoir. That is a shame because, despite Eggers's inability to take anything seriously on its surface, this meandering story rests on a foundation of sincerity that is part of Purdy's rallying cry. Amid countless digressions, Eggers relates two tales: his mostly successful, if unconventional attempt at raising his much younger brother following their parents' deaths and his years founding and then witnessing the slow demise of Might. Throughout, Eggers eschews any contrivance. The expected tales of emotional longing, political alienation, and creative struggle by a smart twentysomething are replaced by a stream of hilarious, how-it-happened anecdotes; often inane, how-we-really-talk dialog; and quick jabs at some of our society's bizarre conventions. In the end one is left with a surprisingly moving tale of family bonding and resilience as well as the nagging suspicion that maybe he made the whole thing up. In any case, as compared with the spate of recent reminiscences by earnest youngsters, Eggers delivers a worthwhile story told in perfect pitch to the material. Highly recommended for public and undergraduate libraries.
Library Journal

This fierce, funny memoir lives up to its tongue-in-cheek title. When Eggers was a senior in college, his parents both died of cancer, only five weeks apart, and he found that he had inherited his eight-year-old brother. He and young Toph (short for Christopher) leave Chicago for Berkley, California, to live near older siblings, but Eggers is the one who serves as chief surrogate parent. The two set up a slovenly bachelor household together, and Eggers attempts to start a career while taking care of his brother, undertaking both endeavors in a rather haphazard but energetic and deeply felt manner. The brothers play Frisbee endlessly and practice sock sliding in their various abodes, eating dishes like "The Mexican-Italian War" (ground beef sautéed in spaghetti sauce, served with tortillas), arriving late to everything but somehow, just barely, keeping it together. The first half of the book, relating the death of Eggers' mother and the move west, is particularly powerful. Wild black humor pops up at the oddest points, however, and Eggers is nothing if not self-conscious, as he keeps pointing out to the reader. Eggers and some friends started a magazine named Might, and much of the second half of the book has to do with keeping this venture afloat. The paperback edition includes a lengthy new appendix, "Mistakes We Knew We Were Making," correcting and annotating parts of the text, and the preface and acknowledgements sections—and even the information on the verso page—are quirky and funny. Eggers is a talented writer, and the story of his patched-together family and his forays into magazine publishing are well worth reading, but strap yourself in for a wild ride. Adult language.
KLIATT

"A memoir," says the book's cover, "based on a true story." Readers are advised in the preface that "many parts have been fictionalized," but it is not really clear how much is "real" here and how much is spoof.... Eggers voices the classic youthful assumption that the world belongs (or should belong) to him. From anyone else this might be incredibly annoying, but so much is tongue-in-cheek in this work.... This is a very entertaining, well-written book. —Grace Fill
Booklist

It isn't but its better than most novel-like objects created by our younger writers, and like them, this one is directly autobiographical, ironic, and self-referential, concluding with a tiny gesture of hope the author no doubt considers brave given the vicissitudes hes retailed in prose. It is a potpourri of young gestures: David Wallaces intricate cataloguing of smart trivia; Rick Moodys detached, incisive portraiture of white suburban America; Bret Elliss seen-it-all spiritual fatigue; and a dollop of Michael Chabons candy-coated, hope-flavored insight. After a relentless preface and introduction (in which readers are instructed they could profitably read only the first 109 pages, a nice length, a nice novella sort of length), Eggers duly produces his imaginations ripe fruit: the death of both parents, by cancer, a month apart, when he was in his 20s. With younger brother Toph in tow, Eggers takes flight to San Francisco, moves about, discovers mild poverty, and tries out for MTVs popular The Real World. His unsuccessful interview, reprinted here, discloses a hard shell of pre-emptive irony, intended, no doubt, to deflect authentic emotions and qualify him for the show. (Eggers doesnt believe in dignity or privacy, for starters.) He doesnt make it, but his unsated desire to demonstrate his grief/rage/detachment leads him, with friends, to found Might magazine, which has a modestly successful run. Mights staging of the death of Adam Rich (Nicholas from Eight Is Enough) is briefly amusing, but only Toph shares Eggers pleasure in mocking celebrities while appearing to valorize them, and as this self-approving account concludes, a frisbee game with the wise kid results in a pure moment of grace, curiously intertwined with a crucifixion-martyr motif, in which Eggers is the suffering truth-teller. It is evidently hard to have been Eggers, though few readers will be satisfied with this nugget of hard-won wisdom in return for their investment of time and good will.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. The material preceding the main text in this book—called "front matter" in the publishing business—has been entirely taken over by the author, including the usually very official copyright page. Why might the publisher have allowed Eggers to take this unconventional route? Why does Eggers work so extensively at disrupting the formality of publication and his status as an author?

2. On the copyright page we find the statement, "This is a work of fiction"; and at the beginning of the preface Eggers writes, "This is not, actually, a work of pure nonfiction." What point is Eggers making by casting all these doubts on the veracity of the book's contents? In his discussion about the current popularity of memoirs [pp. xxi-xxiii], Eggers admits that the book is a memoir but encourages his readers to think of it as fiction. What is the difference, in a work of literature, between fact and fiction, and does it matter?

3. In the remarkable acknowledgments section, which is a brilliant critique and discussion of the book as a whole, Eggers points out that "the success of a memoir...has a lot to do with how appealing its narrator is" [p. xxvii]. What is appealing about Eggers as a narrator?

4. Eggers notes that the first major theme of the book is "The Unspoken Magic of Parental Disappearance" [p. xxviii]. It is a psychological truism that most children occasionally fantasize about being orphans, because parents often stand in the way of their children's desires. Along these lines, Eggers admits that the loss of his parents is "accompanied by an undeniable but then of courseguilt-inducing sense of mobility, of infinite possibility" [p. xxix]. Does he ever find a way to resolve his conflicting emotions of grief and guilt?

5. If it is true, as Eggers points out, that he is not the first person whose parents died or who was left with the care of a sibling, what makes his story unique?

6. Eggers worries that because he is neither a woman nor a neat, well-organized person [pp. 81, 99], people assume that he can't take care of Toph. Which aspects of Eggers' parenting are most admirable? Which are most comic? What are the benefits and drawbacks of each aspect?

7. How do Eggers' memories of his father compare to those about his mother? To what degree are his feelings about his parents resolved, or at least assuaged, through the act of writing this book?

8. Much of the central part of the book relates to the business of launching and producing Might magazine. What does this section reveal about the concerns, desires, and frustrations of thoughtful, energetic twenty-somethings in contemporary America?

9. Eggers expresses ambivalence about having written this book because he feels guilty about exploiting his family's misfortune and exposing a private matter to the public. Among the epigraphs that Eggers considered, and then didn't use, for the book are "Why not just write what happened?" (R. Lowell) and "Ooh, look at me, I'm Dave, I'm writing a book! With all my thoughts in it! La la la!" (Christopher Eggers) [p. xvii]. How do these two epigraphs crystallize the memoir writer's dilemma?

10. Why does Eggers judge himself so harshly for returning to the family's old house in Lake Forest and for trying to retrieve his mother's ashes? Does the trip provide him and his story with a sense of closure, or just the opposite? Is there a central revelation to Eggers' narrative, a strong sense of change or a significant development? Or would you say, on the contrary, that the book has the haphazardness and lack of structure that we find in real life?

11. Eggers refers, half-jokingly, half-seriously, to himself and Toph as "God's tragic envoys" [p. 73]. Is it true, as Eggers suggests, that tragic occurrences give those to whom they happen the feeling of having been singled out for a special destiny? Is it common among those who have suffered intensely to expect some sort of recompense?

12. Recurring throughout the interview for MTV's The Real World [chapter VI] is the image of what Eggers calls "the lattice." What does he mean by this, and does it amount to a kind of spiritual belief on his part?

13. Mary Park, writing for Amazon. com, notes that "Eggers comes from the most media-saturated generation in history—so much so that he can't feel an emotion without the sense that it's already been felt for him.... Oddly enough, the effect is one of complete sincerity." How does Eggers manage to turn his generation's burdens of self-consciousness into strengths? What are the qualities that make his writing so vivid and memorable?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

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A Mighty Heart:  The Inside Story of the Al Qaeda and Kidnapping of Danny Pearl
Mariane Pearl with Sarah Crichton, 2003
Simon & Schuster
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743262378

Summary
For five weeks the world waited for news about Danny Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan.... And then came the broadcast of his shocking murder. The complete account of his abduction, the intense effort to rescue him, and the aftermath are told here—in astonishing detail, and with courage and insight—by his surviving wife, Mariane. 

A Mighty Heart is the unforgettable story of two journalists who fell in love with their work—and with each other. Together, Mariane and Danny Pearl traveled across the globe, dedicated to journalism that increases the understanding of international politics and of ethnic and religious conflict. In the end, Danny was caught in the dangerous fissure where warring cultures, politics, and ideologies collide. A Mighty Heart is both a portrait of a partnership built on the ideals of love, truth, and justice and a critical look at the methods and structure of the Al Qaeda network. (From the publisher.)

The book was adapted into a 2007 film, starring Angelina Jolie./p>

 Author Bio
• Birth—July 23, 1967
• Where—Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France

Mariane van Neyenhoff Pearl is a French freelance journalist and a reporter and columnist for Glamour magazine. She is the widow of Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and murdered by terrorists in Pakistan in early 2002.

Pearl was born in Clichy, Hauts-de-Seine, France being of Dutch-Jewish, Afro-Latino-Cuban and Chinese Cuban ancestry and raised in Paris, Van Neyenhoff met Daniel Pearl while he was on assignment in Paris.

They married in August 1999, lived for a time in Mumbai, India where Daniel was the South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, and later traveled to Karachi, Pakistan to cover aspects of the war on terrorism. Their son Adam Daniel was born in Paris three months after his father died.

Pearl's memoir, A Mighty Heart, which deals with the events surrounding her husband's kidnapping and assassination, was adapted for the film A Mighty Heart. Co-produced by Brad Pitt, Andrew Eaton and Dede Gardner and directed by Michael Winterbottom, the film stars Angelina Jolie and Dan Futterman as Mariane and Daniel Pearl.

Mariane Pearl is a practicing Nichiren Buddhist and a member of Soka Gakkai International. (From Wikipedia.)

Book Reviews
Deftly written with the help of Sarah Crichton, formerly an editor at Newsweek and publisher at Little, Brown, A Mighty Heart resists the obvious peril of falling into hackneyed sentimentality. Instead of playing the part of the helpless, hopeless weeping widow while "screaming inside," Mariane Pearl is both sharp-eyed and practical, and at some points even mordantly amusing.
Jane Mayer - Washington Post

Documentary film director and former French public radio and television journalist Pearl tenderly recounts the heartbreaking story behind the 2002 kidnapping and barbaric videotaped execution of her husband, Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl, in this candid and inspirational audio recording. There's no mistaking the steel beneath Mariane's lilting French accent as she explains why she wrote this book—to defy her husband's killers-and how she distrusted Karachi, a decadent city where anti-American and anti-Semitic sentiments abound, from the start. Her telling of her husb—and's abduction and the frantic attempts to save him is dramatic and disturbing, but she tempers it with choice memories of her and Danny's first meeting, courtship, marriage and excitement over their impending baby. Details about the historical, social and political background of the Middle East help illuminate the area and its inhabitants, but ultimately, this is a loving, illuminating and movingly recounted tale of love and courage.
Publishers Weekly

Danny and Mariane Pearl felt that good reporting is essential to a person's understanding of the complicated relationship between regional politics and religions around the globe. They both knew and understood the risks in their line of work. Believing he was taking all the necessary precautions, Danny went to Karachi, Pakistan, as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal to investigate terrorist activity there. The Pearls believed in the ideals of truth, justice, and love; they thought they would be able to contribute to world peace and/or world understanding. When the news came of her husband's abduction, the author put her reporter's instincts and the network of connections she had accumulated during her time in South Asia to work in the hopes of finding and saving him. A global effort to locate him and his captors was also going on, but culture, politics, and language separated the American rescuers from the Islamic terrorists. Tragically, it was impossible to save Danny despite the many kind and brave people who helped Pearl in her search. For five weeks, the world watched and waited with her, then pregnant with the couple's first child. This is a complex and moving story, offering an intimate glimpse of a marriage built on idealism. Recommended for public libraries. —Pam Kingsbury, Univ. of North Alabama
Library Journal

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

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

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