Lookaway, Lookaway
Wilton Bernhardt, 2013
St. Martin's Press
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250020833
Summary
Jerene Jarvis Johnston and her husband Duke are exemplars of Charlotte, North Carolina’s high society, where old Southern money—and older Southern secrets—meet the new wealth of bankers, boom-era speculators, and carpetbagging social climbers.
Steely and implacable, Jerene presides over her family’s legacy of paintings at the Mint Museum; Duke, the one-time college golden boy and descendant of a Confederate general, whose promising political career was mysteriously short-circuited, has settled into a comfortable semi-senescence as a Civil War re-enactor. Jerene’s brother Gaston is an infamously dissolute bestselling historical novelist who has never managed to begin his long-dreamed-of literary masterpiece, while their sister Dillard is a prisoner of unfortunate life decisions that have made her a near-recluse.
And the four Johnston children wander perpetually toward scandal and mishap. Annie, the smart but matrimonially reckless real estate maven; Bo, a minister at war with his congregation; Joshua, prone to a series of gay misadventures, and Jerilyn, damaged but dutiful to her expected role as debutante and eventual society bride. Jerene must prove tireless in preserving the family's legacy, Duke’s fragile honor, and what's left of the dwindling family fortune. She will stop at nothing to keep what she has—but is it too much to ask for one ounce of cooperation from her heedless family?
In Lookaway, Lookaway, Wilton Barnhardt has written a headlong, hilarious narrative of a family coming apart, a society changing beyond recognition, and an unforgettable woman striving to pull it all together. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., Michigan State University; M.Phil,
Oxford University
• Currently—lives in Raleigh, North Carolina
Wilton Barnhardt is a former reporter for Sports Illustrated and is the author of Emma Who Saved My Life (1989), Gospel (1993), Show World (1999), and Lookaway, Lookaway (2013).
Barnhardt took his B.A. at Michigan State University, and was a graduate student at Brasenose College, University of Oxford, where he read for an M.Phil. in English. He teaches fiction-writing to undergraduate and graduate students at the North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he is a faculty member in the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/18/2013.)
For a longer and much funnier version of his bio, visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
A dishier array of secrets animates Lookaway, Lookaway, Wilton Barnhardt’s big, enveloping novel about a status-conscious North Carolina family.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Lacerating but affectionate, as exuberant as it is shrewd, Lookaway, Lookaway is a Southern novel so sure-footed the only real question for Barnhardt is, "What took you so long?"…Southern literature is full of humor but strangely short on satire. Barnhardt gleefully leaps into this gap like a man with a very long to-do list, eviscerating rituals and rascals ranging from sorority rush and Civil War re-enactments to back-stabbing church ladies…. Lookaway, Lookaway is that rare thing: an excellent long novel that's not long enough.
Malcolm Jones - New York Times Book Review
Sprawling, generous, delightful.... I didn't want it to end. Lookaway is both dishy an dliterary, but like all good novels, there's a nourishing quality as well.
Charlotte Observer
Scathing yet touching, this is a delicious saga of Old South meets New, a story of America lurching toward the future.
People
One helluva barn burner.
Elle
North Carolina native Barnhardt’s frothy, satirical latest is Southern gothic at its most decadent and dysfunctional.... [T]he sprawling saga of an esteemed clan’s fall from grace and fortune spools out in fits and starts.... As the scandals pile up...this mess of a family has nowhere left to go but up—well, not if they can help it.
Publishers Weekly
Told with great humor and precision, Barnhardt's fourth novel (after Show World) is a searing look at the new South, with all its contradictions. Verdict: Fans of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections will appreciate this satisfying, multigenerational tale. A fresh take on the family saga told with both Southern charm and pathos. —Jennifer B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll., Northeast
Library Journal
Dixieland was never so dishy nor dysfunctional as in Barnhardt’s ribald send-up of the conflagration that ensues when Old South tradition confronts New South tackiness…. Barnhardt’s satirical scorching of southern culture comes in second only to Sherman’s fiery march.
Booklist
(Starred review.) [A] revelation: witty, savage and bighearted all at once, it is the Southern novel for the 21st century. The Jarvis-Johnston clan is a Charlotte, N.C., family of distinction; they have all that matters to society.... But, as each family member is revealed...the ruin of the family becomes imminent.... Barnhardt masterfully reimagines the Southern gothic: There is every kind of sordid deed committed, but there is also an abundance of humanity and grace.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Lookaway, Lookaway is filled with memorable characters: indomitable Jerene, wounded but charismatic Duke, savagely funny Gaston, the adult Johnston children. Who is your favorite and why?
2. Though contemporary, this is definitely a “Southern” novel. Could this take place in another part of the country? What does it mean to be Southern anymore? Is it a nostalgia kept alive by a few old Civil war-enthusiasts and deluded High Society matrons, or is there really such a thing as “Southern”?
3. What is Jerene Johnston doing five years from the end of the novel? She’s a survivor, of course, but what will her life look like?
4. Self-destructive doesn’t even begin to describe the Johnstons. Who do you think is responsible for the family’s dysfunction? Is Duke’s failure to live up to his promise the start of it or does it go back even farther?
5. Bo and Kate once thought they would form a model Christian couple, with Bo emphasizing the institutional church life and Kate always hankering for the mission fields and the active, even radical faith. At the end of the book, have they gone their separate ways for good? How much did their differing views of religion contribute to their break-up?
6. What happens to Jerene’s family art collection? Who inherits it?
7. None of the Johnston children should write a romantic advice column. But who will end up the happiest? Is it improbably possible that Nonso and Joshua will have the best chance of living happily ever after? Despite Duke and Jerene’s solid union, none of the children seems to have figured out how to make a good match or marriage. Is there a reason for that?
8. Gaston adds himself to the pile of badly behaving, flagrantly drunken/unhappy Southern male writers (Faulkner, Wolfe, Dickey, Penn Warren, Capote, Tennessee Williams, et al). Is Norma correct—do these men just play at “Southern writer” or is there something especially destructive that lurks in the Southern literary profession?
9. What will Annie’s relationship with her mother be like after her father passes away? Will they be estranged or make some kind of détente? At the end of the book, Annie is free of the South and the pressures of the family? Will she be happier?
10. Race. Most chapters brush against (or take head-on) the inescapable topic of race in the South. The bad old days of Jim Crow may be gone, but how does the ever-changing mechanics of race-awareness and racism, overt as well as passive, limit and influence the white characters’ lives?
11. Class. Mrs. Johnston swears a couple can hail from different countries, different races or religions, but providing they share their class in common it might work out. Annie insists “class” is dead as a concept in America and that love will overcome all. Is Jerene right?
12. The Civil War—still alive, in some mutated fashion, in the South. (Maybe even still being fought.) Does anyone care about the war anywhere else in the country? Has a defeat for a lost and inglorious cause 150+ years ago truly cast that long and lasting a shadow over the American South?
13. Lookaway, Lookaway pokes a lot of fun at the Old Confederacy’s concepts of honor and the glorious gesture. Is Gaston and Duke’s final such gesture, their “honorable” solution to the inevitable decay and indignity that awaits them, merely ludicrous or is it actually chivalrous, a last romantic gesture and quest for a kind of nobility?
14. Humor is central to Barnhardt’s telling of the story. While the characters are strong and dominant, they are also really funny—intentionally or otherwise. Why is a sense of humor so important when reading this book? Which character do you think is the funniest and why?
15. Dorrie and Kate are the book’s outsiders, the eyes and thoughts of the reader. Are they changed for the better by entangling themselves with the Johnstons, or damaged? Does Kate depart the South for the mission fields mostly to escape the Johnstons and their values? Will Dorrie continue to be a faithful friend to Joshua and to Jerene?
16. Granted, Jerene is adept at fraud and petty criminality (particularly where shaking people down for money is concerned) and could probably kill detractors with her bare hands, but aren’t her sins in the service of her family? Or is she motivated by the false god of Society’s opinion and outward appearances? Is she admirable, or at least likable? Every family has a Jerene to some degree…in your family, is it you?
(Questions issued by publisher.)