Frances and Bernard
Carlene Bauer, 2013
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
195 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544105171
Summary
A letter can spark a friendship. . . A friendship can change your life.
In the summer of 1957, Frances and Bernard meet at an artists’ colony. She finds him faintly ridiculous, but talented. He sees her as aloof, but intriguing. Afterward, he writes her a letter. Soon they are immersed in the kind of fast, deep friendship that can take over—and change the course of—our lives.
From points afar, they find their way to New York and, for a few whirling years, each other. The city is a wonderland for young people with dreams: cramped West Village kitchens, rowdy cocktail parties stocked with the sharp-witted and glamorous, taxis that can take you anywhere at all, long talks along the Hudson River as the lights of the Empire State Building blink on above.
Inspired by the lives of Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell, Frances and Bernard imagines, through new characters with charms entirely their own, what else might have happened. It explores the limits of faith, passion, sanity, what it means to be a true friend, and the nature of acceptable sacrifice. In the grandness of the fall, can we love another person so completely that we lose ourselves? How much should we give up for those we love? How do we honor the gifts our loved ones bring and still keep true to our dreams?
In witness to all the wonder of kindred spirits and bittersweet romance, Frances and Bernard is a tribute to the power of friendship and the people who help us discover who we are. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—state of New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Loyala College; M.A., Johns Hopkins University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Carlene Bauer was born in 1973 in New Jersey. She earned an M.A. in Nonfiction Writing from the Johns Hopkins University's Writing Seminars, and has worked in and around New York publishing for this last long while. Her work has been published in the Village Voice, Salon, Elle, New York Times Magazine, and on the website of n + 1. She lives and writes in Brooklyn, and hopes that you don't hold that against her. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
A story of conversion, shattered love and the loss of faith, recalling 20th century masters like Graham Greene and Walker Percy…Frances is refreshingly down-to-earth in her spiritual convictions…Bauer gets right… the shifting balance of literary ambition and emotional need, Yeats’s old choice between perfection of the life or of the work. Bauer is herself a distinctive stylist who can write about Simone Weil or Kierkegaard with wit and charm. A fresh voice thinking seriously about what a religiously committed life might have felt like and perhaps, in our own far-from tranquil period, might feel like again
Christopher Benfey - New York Times Book Review
As Frances and Bernard explore the big questions about faith and a life dedicated to others versus one’s art, their correspondence grows enervatingly self-involved.... The writing has moments of quietly bracing insight, as these two fiercely particular individuals attempt to navigate the other.... It seems a pity that having taken on such potentially rich literary personalities, Ms. Bauer so stringently limits her own scope. The book’s pleasures do not, in the end, compensate for its timidity. Frances and Bernard remains, unlike its protagonists, entirely well behaved.
Claudia La Rocco - New York Times
Bauer…writes with authority and gusto about issues of faith. The prose here is exquisite, winding between narrative momentum and lofty introspection. And she employs the epistolary form nimbly, providing an intimate, uncluttered space for her characters to develop. The most unexpected pleasure of this period love story is spending time in the company of people who are engaged in the edifying pursuit of living as Christians—a good reminder that, regardless of the current upheaval in the church, the big questions are still worth asking.
Teresa Link - Washington Post
Graceful and gem-like …. Through Bauer’s sharp, witty, and elegant prose , [Frances and Bernard] become vibrant and original characters …. These are not your typical lovebirds, but writers with fierce and fine intellects.… We are reminded of the power of correspondence — the flirtation of it, the nervousness, the delicious uncertainty of writing bold things and then waiting days, weeks, or even months for a reply. After finishing this sweet and somber novel, we might sigh and think, "It's a shame we don’t write love letters anymore"— before stopping for a moment to marvel at the subtlety of what Bauer has wrought out of history and a generous imagination, and being thankful that someone still is.
Boston Globe
(3 stars.) Bauer's first novel is a moving tale about kindred spirits… It showcases an era in which literature and intellect were celebrated; its epistolary form lends itself to a delightful exchange of ideas as the protagonists dance with the possibility of love—and face its disappointments.
People
(Starred review.) Frances and Bernard are writers. She’s a novelist who studied at Iowa, Catholic, a bit prim, but tart-tongued. He’s a poet, descended from Puritans but a convert to Catholicism, prone to fits of mania. They meet in the late 1950s in a writer’s colony and become friends. If this sounds like Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell, it should: Frances and Bernard are their fictionalized avatars.... Bauer’s debut novel (after her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl) is well written, engrossing, and succeeds in making Frances and Bernard’s shared interest in religion believable and their relationship funny, sweet, and sad. A lovely surprise.
Publishers Weekly
In the late 1950s, over the course of one long lunch at a writer's workshop, Frances and Bernard begin a journey of love and loss. They banter about writing and the workshop's limitations, and, while falling in love, they struggle with the meaning of religion and the nature of friendship. In the end, their relationship is tested to the limits when Bernard suffers a manic episode.... This remarkable method of storytelling provides snapshots of the events that shape the story. —Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Lib., Providence
Library Journal
[A] debut novel of stunning subtlety, grace, and depth...Bauer’s use of the epistolary form is masterful as she forges a passionately spiritual, creative, and romantic dialogue between characters based on two literary giants famous for their brilliant letters, Flannery O’Connor and Robert Lowell.... They begin as friends sharing their thoughts and feelings about the church and writing and gradually, cautiously on Frances’ part, venture into love.... Bauer is phenomenally fluent...composing dueling letters of breathtaking wit, seduction, and heartbreak.
Booklist
Debut novelist Bauer pens an epistolary novel whose protagonists lead insular, self-absorbed and very dull lives..... There's no doubt Bauer is well-educated and passionate about her religious views, her love of literature and her characters, but her attempts to create stimulating spiritual and intellectual dialogue feel forced. The characters are too wrapped up in themselves and totally ignore anything outside their narrow personal spheres. How can they not once mention one word about the space race, Elvis, the Beatles, JFK's assassination or Vietnam (just to name a few of the social and political events that occurred) during their 11 years of correspondence? Disappointing.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Authors often quote other authors to create a touchstone that hooks the reader. Bauer quotes Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov: “So, I have written you a love letter, oh, my God, what have I done!” What questions does this quotation cause you to ask? What have you ever done that would spark a similar reaction?
2. In an interview conducted by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Bauer explained why she chose to write Frances and Bernard in an epistolary format:
After a draft using the third person omniscient, I had the realization that if I wrote the novel in letters, the book would consist of two very strong voices in a struggle and you would feel the struggle more keenly, I hope, because of the intimacy of the form.
Do you agree with Bauer’s rationale? Are letters more personal?
3. While the novel transitions between Frances and Bernard’s letters, the author also develops other characters. What do these other letters allow Bauer to create? How would the story have been different if Bauer had provided only the letters between Frances and Bernard?
4. Bauer’s catalyst for this book was a “What if... ?” notion. Robert Lowell (Bernard) did meet Flannery O’Connor (Frances) at a writing conference; however, Bauer’s novel is fictional except for a few fleeting moments. Bauer has said she “borrowed quite a bit of their temperaments and views.” Knowing that these two authors actually met, does the extrapolation of their love story seem more real and plausible? How much truth did Bauer weave into the letters? Research the life of Lowell and O’Connor. Are there other moments in their lives that add verisimilitude to the fictional account?
5. After Francis and Bernard meet at a writers’ colony, they each tell a friend about their impression of the other. What do you think of Frances’s impression of Bernard? What is Bernard’s first impression of Frances? What do these first impressions foreshadow? How important are first impressions?
6. Bernard’s first letter to Frances is short, but he does ask one profound question: Who is the Holy Spirit to you?” If you had to pick a topic to discuss with someone you would like to know better, what topic would you choose? Why?
7 If this situation had occurred today instead of in the 1950s, how might the novel have been different? The same? What significant developments would alter the pace and mood?
8. In one of his early letters Bernard writes,
In January a man crawls into a cave of hopelessness; he hallucinates sympathies catching fire. Letters are glaciers, null frigates, trapping us where we are in the moment, unable to carry us on toward truth.
What do you think of Bernard’s thought? What paradox is created? How would technology today change this perspective?
9. Bernard and Frances begin an exchange comparing the literature they read as children. What do these titles reveal about them? Compare their lists with what you read as a child. How are the lists different? Why?
10. After seven and a half months, Bernard closes his letter with “Love (may I), Bernard.” Is his declaration made too soon? How long does it take Frances to express her love? What do the timing and format of the declarations say about each character?
11. “I can’t even teach! I had to, when I was at Iowa, but I was not very good at hiding my displeasure at mental sleepiness and mediocrity” (39). Compare past and present ideas about education, students, and learning. How has education changed? Are students better prepared today? Are students more or less interested in learning?
12. After a visit to Frances, Bernard writes a short letter with this final line: “Please do not ever disappear from me” (47). What do you think of Bernard’s plea? Is it sincere? Desperate?
13. Bernard writes,
I can’t stand mysteries. In the same way I can’t stand science fiction. Why pretend we’re somewhere else? Forensics is a feint. Why distract ourselves from the eternal questions with set dressing? Salad dressing (86).
Do you agree with Bernard’s assessment of these types of literature? What type of literature do you think is most rewarding? Why?
14. Bernard tells Francis,
Your face says so much in so little time, you let everything you’re thinking bloom upon your face, and I can’t think of anything else I’d rather watch than you pass through five moods in five minutes. What glorious weather (87).
Would you take these comments as a compliment or an insult? Explain.
15. Claire tells Frances she is the “last stanza of Keat’s ode—Cold Pastoral—when you should be lolling around at the first—Wild Ecstasy (121). Read “Ode to a Grecian Urn” by Keats. What do you think of Claire’s comparison? What is she telling Frances about love? Do you agree?.
16. Why does Frances doubt Bernard’s love for her? Is it something about Frances? Is she correct to be wary about Bernard’s love?
17. How is the theme of unrequited love relevant to the lives of Frances and Bernard? Are there other stories of unrequited love you could compare to Frances and Bernard? How are they similar? Different?
18. Perhaps nothing is more tragic than a love filled with regret. How is love like this for Frances? For Bernard? Is their inability to finally love each other just a matter of timing, or do you think they were never destined to be together?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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