Good on Paper
Rachel Cantor, 2016
Melville House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781612194707
Summary
Is a new life possible? Because Shira Greene’s life hasn’t quite turned out as planne
She’s a single mom living with her daughter and her gay friend, Ahmad. Her PhD on Dante’s Vita Nuova hasn’t gotten her a job, and her career as a translator hasn’t exactly taken off either.
But then she gets a call from a Nobel Prize-winning Italian poet who insists she’s the only one who can translate his newest book.
Stunned, Shira realizes that—just like that— her life can change. She sees a new beginning beckoning: academic glory, demand for her translations, and even love (her good luck has made her feel more open to the entreaties of a neighborhood indie bookstore owner).
There’s only one problem: It all hinges on the translation, and as Shira starts working on the exquisitely intricate passages of the poet’s book, she realizes that it may in fact be, well ... impossible to translate.
A deft, funny, and big-hearted novel about second chances, Good on Paper is a grand novel of family, friendship, and possibility. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1955-56
• Where—Hartford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.A., Johns Hopkins University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City
Rachel Cantor considers herself a native New Englander, but she spent her adolescence in Rome, Italy, and lived in various states along the Northeast coast. She has spent time in Africa, Asia and Eurasia, and now finds herself living in New York City, specifically the borough of Brooklyn where so many other authors have settled.
Cantor is the author of two novels—A Highly Unlikely Scenario (2013) and Good on Paper (2016)—as well as numerous short stories. In addition to writing fiction, she has spent years as a freelance writer for nonprofits that work in developing countries around the globe.
Her stories have appeared in magazines such as the Paris Review, One Story, Ninth Letter, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Fence, and Volume 1 Brooklyn. They have been anthologized, nominated for three Pushcart Prizes, short-listed by both the O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories, and awarded runner-up Bridport and Graywolf/SLS Prizes.
Along the way Cantor has been awarded numerous fellowships and scholarships, attending the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writing Conferences, among others. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Ms. Cantor is unafraid of asking big questions explicitly, like whether fidelity—to texts or to people—is possible. The complicated details of Romei's schemes and Shira's past start to pile up and will satisfy lovers of plot, but the novel is at its strongest when Shira's voice is loosely playful and ruminative.
John Williams - New York Times Book Review
Ms. Cantor ingeniously matches the dilemmas of poetics to personal matters..... In the novel’s final third, [her] deft juggling act collapses....and the book flattens into a soap opera. Good on Paper tantalizingly tinkers with storytelling novelties, but it ends up in old and familiar territory.
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal
It is not often that a novel comes along that is laugh-out-loud hilarious and thought-provokingly philosophical. Good on Paper is both.
Boston Globe
The comedy helps prevent the seriousness from shading into sentimentality. But what remains most powerful about this book is not the zaniness or the punning. Rather, it is how sincerely Cantor depicts what another poet, Wallace Stevens, called "This vif, this dizzle-dazzle of being new/ And of becoming."
San Francisco Chronicle
Rachel Cantor's debut...introduced her as an imaginative tour de force able to juggle the absurd with the poignant, the unbelievable with the necessary. With Good on Paper, Cantor does the same, and with just as much dexterity.
Toronto Star
An engrossing read and an invigorating subject of study.... Ultimately, this is a story about stories, about the power of art to redeem both creator and viewer.
Dallas Morning News
In this madcap novel...nothing is quite as it seems.... Good on Paper is well-suited to our global world: set in New York, with plot threads in Rome. Though at times a bit too tied to textual analysis of Dante's work, and a little too taken with wordplay, there is an absorbing story here, and affectionate character development.
Minneapolis Star Tribuneac
In Good on Paper, Cantor creates a compelling vision of what love is. It's not a feeling but —like translation—an act: a willful opening of one self to another.
NPR
As Cantor's playful and smart novel unfolds, it's hard not to fall in love with her characters. Above all, it's a book for language-lovers, so heads-up word fiends.
Elle
A dazzling book...With one-of-a-kind characters and brilliant insights on translation, this book will hit you in all your literary sweet spots.
Bustle
(Starred review.) Translation is a metaphor through which Cantor uses her considerable powers with language to refract larger questions about family bonds, storytelling, and letting go of fantasies of new life and waking up to the life that is yours. (Jan.)
Publishers Weekly
[N]othing is straightforward—neither the work Shira is translating, nor her private affairs.... Yet as the tragedies and comedies of her experiences begin to blend in with Romei's book, the possibility of a vita nuova (new life) for herself and her daughter...seems real. —Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Cantor clearly loves her characters, and she shows true mastery of their inner lives. Between endearingly wonky riffs about translation, she offers full access to Shira's roller coaster of emotions.... You'll want to reread the final chapters more than once, delighted anew each time by how well Cantor speaks our language.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add questions by the publisher if and when they're made available. In the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Good on Paper...and then take off on your own...
1. Translation as a motif undergirds this novel. What does it mean to translate—is it simply a matter of exchanging a word in one language for a word in another? Or is it something else? How does the act of translating function as a metaphor for living one's life; in particular, how should Shira translate the events and people in her own life?
2. How has Shira's past, especially her mother's abandonment, shaped her life?
3. Follow-up to Question 2: What kind of mother is Shira: what is her relationship with Andi and how does it change during the course of the novel? Is Ahmed justified in his criticism of Shira's mothering when her life begins to spiral out of control?
4. Wordplay is a prominent element in Good on Paper. Find some examples—Andi's Topeka/Eureka or, say, change is afoot/footwear prefrences (p. 59). Other than sheer fun, what might the author be suggesting about the ways we communicate and comprehend one another?
5. Romei asks Shira whether she believes in the possibility of new life. Do you agree with Shira or Dante in the passage below?
Dante believes we choose new life: if we're ready to walk the straight and narrow, we can leave our old life behind and achieve salvation. I don't think so. People get sick, they win the lottery. But they don't change.
What do you think: is new life possible—do we get second chances in life; are we capable of change?
6. Benny says to Shira at one point:
Exile is our [the Jews'] defining metaphor.... We do small acts of repair, we try to fix the brokeness, but our exile never ends, not until we are collectively redeemed at the End of Days.... [But] for all Christians, I suppose, individual pilgrimage is the defining metaphor explaining our life's journey...the straight-line narrative to salvation.
Would you agree that the metaphors of exile and pilgrimage explain some of the differences between Judaism and Christianity? Does either metaphor—or any others—define your life journey?
7. Talk about Ahmed. Talk about Benny.
8. Why doesn't Shira believe in forgiveness? Who does she need to forgive? Does that change during the course of the novel? Do you believe in forgiveness? Or do you think that what Shira says below makes sense?
[W]hat can forgiveness possibly mean? You pretend a thing didn't happen? You acknowledged that it happened but pretend it doesn't matter? If it matters, then forgiveness by definition isn't possible. If it doesn't matter, what's to forgive?
9. What is the vision of love that comes out of Good on Paper? What does Shira come to learn about the people in her life, how to love them, and how to feel loved in return?
10. SPOILER ALERT: At what point did you "figure it out"? Or were you taken by suprise?
(Questions by LitLoves. Feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)