How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky
Lydia Netzer, 2014
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250047021
Summary
Lydia Netzer, the award-winning author of Shine Shine Shine, weaves a mind-bending, heart-shattering love story that asks, “Can true love exist if it’s been planned from birth?”
Like a jewel shimmering in a Midwest skyline, the Toledo Institute of Astronomy is the nation's premier center of astronomical discovery and a beacon of scientific learning for astronomers far and wide. Here, dreamy cosmologist George Dermont mines the stars to prove the existence of God. Here, Irene Sparks, an unsentimental scientist, creates black holes in captivity.
George and Irene are on a collision course with love, destiny and fate. They have everything in common: both are ambitious, both passionate about science, both lonely and yearning for connection. The air seems to hum when they’re together. But George and Irene’s attraction was not written in the stars. In fact their mothers, friends since childhood, raised them separately to become each other's soulmates.
When that long-secret plan triggers unintended consequences, the two astronomers must discover the truth about their destinies, and unravel the mystery of what Toledo holds for them—together or, perhaps, apart.
Lydia Netzer combines a gift for character and big-hearted storytelling, with a sure hand for science and a vision of a city transformed by its unique celestial position, exploring the conflicts of fate and determinism, and asking how much of life is under our control and what is pre-ordained in the heavens. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1971-72
• Where—Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A. Bowling Green State University
• Currently—lives in Norfolk, Virginia
In her words:
I was born in Detroit and raised by two public school teachers. We lived in Michigan during the school year, and at an old farm in the hills of western Pennsylvania during school vacations. My world revolved around horses, music, and books. I went to college and grad school in the midwest, met my husband and got married in Chicago, and then moved to Norfolk when we decided to have kids. We have two: a boy and a girl. I homeschool them and taxi them to orchestra rehearsal, the karate dojo, the pony farm, and many music lessons. At our homeschool co-op I teach literature, and I love to travel, knit, play my electric guitar, and of course read. (From the author's website.)
How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky is Lydia's second book; her first is Shine, Shine, Shine (2012).
Book Reviews
Antically inventive, often outrageously funny…Netzer excels at comedy.... [B]ecause we know what will happen to [the characters], some of the suspense and momentum ebbs away. Ultimately, though, Netzer’s fans are likely to be quite entertained by this second charmingly weird novel of hers that grapples with big questions. Is love written in the stars? Where does inspiration come from? Who decides our fates?
Alena Graedon - New York Times Book Review
You’re pulled into the drama through the incredible natural beauty of her writing … deftly and wittily done … people say her style reminds them of Anne Tyler, but she reminded me a little bit more of Don DeLillo.
Liesl Schillinger - New York Times Book Review Podcast
Two star-crossed stargazers twinkle in Lydia Netzer’s spritely How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky.
Wall Street Journal
[A] winning second novel…two flawed souls whose love is as quarky as it is quirky…showing us the redemptive power of love as a truly cosmic force.
Boston Globe
With a title that reads like a line of verse, the novel’s mesmerizing cadence is little surprise. There is a deeper poetry to Netzer’s writing, as well. Netzer exposes the magic in the mundane, the enchantment of the earthbound. Her characters, like us, share space with the stars. Perhaps the most breathtaking revelation of Netzer’s novel is that the world is more dazzling on our side of the atmosphere.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
It’s a lovely summer valentine.
Entertainment Weekly
Netzer’s sophomore effort may be even stronger than her excellent debut. Readers will be unable to stop thinking about this book, stunning in its poignancy, long after the last page has been read. (Top pick-4.5 stars)
Romance Times
Netzer’s star burst into existence with Shine Shine Shine and flares even more brightly in How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky. Watch her work for further illumination, and pity lesser writers who settle for the commonplace light of ordinary days.
Richmond Times Dispatch
Just the kind of touchingly offbeat stuff you could expect from the author of Shine Shine Shine, a big debut that was a New York Times Notable Book, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist, and more.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A diverting romp through two generations of well-intentioned friends and lovers...much-anticipated, fabulous second novel.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. The mothers in the story plan for their children to grow up to be soulmates. Is this a natural impulse best friends have for their children? Could arranged marriages like this really work in our society?
2. How do you define love? Is it a mystical connection based solely on emotion, or is it a rational decision based on compatibility? A combination of the two? Which is more important?
3. In the book, sleep is a practice for death, and dreaming is compared to the afterlife. Do you believe this? How does dreaming affect the characters’ waking behavior?
4. Characters in the novel can manipulate their dreams after they become aware that they're dreaming. Have you ever been able to control your dreams? Change the course of your dreams?
5. Irene stands on "suicide bridges" as a way to come to grips with her mortality. Is this a morbid behavior? Or is this a positive gesture, a way to come to grips with her mortality in a healthy, life-affirming way? If someone you knew had this habit, would you feel an intervention was needed?
6. What do you know about Toledo, Ohio? What makes Toledo a good setting for this story?
7. Do you think that the ending, for Bernice, is fair? What about for Sally? Does either get what she deserves?
8. How did the way Bernice and Sally raised them affect George and Irene’s career choices and paths? Do mothers have any control over what their kids choose to do later in life? Do you think that's a good thing or a bad thing? What responsibility does a mother have to her children and their happiness?
9. Are you more comfortable believing in astronomy or astrology? Given that astronomers have often been wrong, do you think it's fair to say that science is more trustworthy than faith?
10. Will these two fields of science and belief always be at odds with each other, or is there a way for faith and science to coexist peacefully, in the same Toledo, in the same mind?
11. How is this novel like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet? Consider the balcony scene with Kate Oakenshield and Belion, the sunrise sex scene in the super collider, the swordplay, and the scene at the hospital at the end. Would you say Bernice and Sally's storyline was a comedy or a tragedy? Would you say George and Irene's storyline was a comedy or a tragedy?
12. What do you think happened to George and Irene in the end? Do you think there are multiple ways to read this ending?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)