The Arrangement
Ashley Warlick, 2016
Penguin Publising
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525429661
Summary
She’d made it sound as though her husband would be joining them for dinner. She’d made it sound that way on purpose, and then she arrived alone.
Los Angeles, 1934. Mary Frances is young, restlessly married, and returning from her first sojourn in France.
She is hungry, and not just for food: she wants Tim, her husband Al’s charming friend, who encourages her writing and seems to understand her better than anyone.
After a night’s transgression, it’s only a matter of time before Mary Frances claims what she truly desires, plunging all three of them into a tangled triangle of affection that will have far-reaching effects on their families, their careers, and their lives.
Set in California, France, and the Swiss Alps, The Arrangement is a sparkling, sensual novel that explores the complexities of a marriage and the many different ways in which we love.
Writing at the top of her game, Ashley Warlick gives us a completely mesmerizing story about a woman well ahead of her time, who would go on to become the legendary food writer M. F. K. Fisher. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1972
• Where—Salt Lake City, Utah, USA
• Education—B.A., Dickinson College
• Currently—lives in Greenville, South Carolina
Ashley Warlick is the author of four novels. The recipient of an NEA Fellowship and the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship, her work has appeared in The Oxford American, McSweeney’s, Redbook, and Garden and Gun, among others.
She teaches fiction in the MFA program at Queens University in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is the editor of the South Carolina food magazine edibleUpcountry. Warlick is also the buyer at M. Judson, Booksellers and Storytellers in Greenville, SC, where she lives with her family. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
If you love historical fiction, you'll fall hard for this one.... Filled with food and passion, this is the perfect book to accompany a candlelit dinner.
Bustle.com
If you occasionally partake in culinary pleasures, you'll probably enjoy digging into Ashley Warlick's novelization of beloved food writer M. F. K. Fisher's life.
InStyle
[Warlick's] writing is smooth and elegant. The love and anguish experienced as marriages unravel is palpable and painful to the reader.
Historical Novel Society
(Starred review.) This stellar novel...fictionalizes the beginnings of the seminal food writer M.F.K. Fisher...amid the triangle of her professor husband, Al, and their friend Tim Parrish in 1930s Los Angeles.... It’s a treat to find such a beautifully written treatment of love in its different forms.
Publishers Weekly
This reimagining of the life of legendary food writer M.F.K. Fisher deals with appetites of all kinds. Mary Frances, as she is called as the novel opens, is married to uncommunicative Al and eager for a passionate interlude with Al's friend Tim. You can imagine what happens when she acts on her desires.
Library Journal
Blending fact and fiction, this historical novel covers nine eventful years in the life of legendary food writer M.F.K. Fisher...: a beautiful, talented protagonist; lush settings; illicit sex; mouthwatering food. But the novel falls flat...it never makes us care about its star-crossed trio.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the first chapter, Mary Frances thinks of her night with Tim: "It wasn’t love, but rather an appetite’s demand: direct, imperative, true as love perhaps, but far more dangerous" (p. 13). What impact does Mary Frances’s appetite—for sex, for food, for success in her writing—have on her life? Do you see it as a dangerous force, or a more positive one?
2. M.F.K. Fisher is one of the most admired food writers of all time. Did the fact that the book is based on events from her life influence the way you read it? Why or why not?
3. What types of struggles does Mary Frances face as a woman, both in her career as a writer and in her personal life? How does she deal with them? Do you think she fully overcomes them? Which of these issues do you see as a product of the time, and which do you think she might still face today?
4. The book’s descriptions of food are just as sensual as its descriptions of desire. What role does hunger play in the book? In your opinion, does Mary Frances seek pleasure or sustenance?
5. How does his divorce from Gigi affect Tim? Do you think he would have given himself over to Mary Frances if Gigi hadn’t wanted a divorce? Discuss how marriage is viewed by each of the book’s main characters.
6. Mary Frances and Tim’s journey to France begins in the middle of the book. How does this section act as a turning point? What is different before and after this trip? How does travel change Mary Frances’s perspective?
7. Mary Frances and Al have a very complicated relationship. Do they really love each other? Who do you think holds more power in the relationship? How does each of their writing concern their relationship? What about their childlessness? Why do you think they stay married so long?
8. The characters live in several unconventional "arrangements" in the book—Al and Mary Frances living with Gigi; Mary Frances traveling with Tim and his mother; then Mary Frances, Al, and Tim all living together in Switzerland. Are these arrangements a good idea? How do they affect the characters? How would they be viewed today?
9. The novel is set between two major historical events—the Great Depression and World War II. What effect do these events have on the story? The characters?
10. What do you make of the book’s ending? Is Mary Frances happy? Is she satisfied?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)