The Map of True Places
Brunonia Barry, 2010
HarperCollins
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061624810
Summary
Brunonia Barry, author of the beloved New York Times and international bestseller The Lace Reader is back with an emotionally resonant novel of tragedy, secrets, identity, and love.
This is a moving and remarkable tale of a psychotherapist who discovers the strands of her own life in the death of a troubled patient.
The Map of True Places is another glorious display of the unique storytelling prowess that inspired Toronto’s Globe and Mail to exclaim, “Brunonia Barry can write. Boy can she write.” (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Born—1950
• Where— Massachusettes, USA
• Education—Green Mountain College; Uiversity of New Hampshire
• Awards— Baccante Award-Woman’s International Fiction Festival
• Currently—lives in Salem, Massachusetts.
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Brunonia Barry studied literature and creative writing at Green Mountain college in Vermont and at the University of New Hampshire and was one of the founding members of the Portland Stage Company. While still an undergraduate at UNH, Barry spent a year living in Dublin and auditing Trinity College classes on James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Barry’s love of theater led to a first job in Chicago where she ran promotional campaigns for Second City, Ivanhoe, and Studebaker theaters. After a brief stint in Manhattan, where she studied screenwriting at NYU, Barry relocated to California because she had landed an agent and had an original script optioned. Working on a variety of projects for several studios, she continued to study screenwriting and story structure with Hollywood icon Robert McKee, becoming one of the nine writers in his Development Group.
Brunonia’s love for writing and storytelling has taken her all across the country but after nearly a decade in Hollywood, Barry returned to Massachusetts where, along with her husband, she co-founded an innovative company that creates award-winning word, visual and logic puzzles. In recent years, she has written books for the "Beacon Street Girls", a fictional series for ‘tweens. Happily married, Barry lives with her husband and her only child that just happens to be a 12-year-old Golden Retriever named Byzantium. The Lace Reader was her first original novel.
Barry is the first American Writer to win the Woman’s International Fiction Festival’s 2009 Baccante Award (for The Lace Reader). Her second novel, The Map of True Places, was published in 2010. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[C]onsiderable if overplotted.... This is a lovingly told story with many well-drawn characters, who sooner or later reconsider the courses charted by personal decisions and circumstance. But there is almost too much story here, and Barry...compromises the third act with a weak subplot...[in] an otherwise well-told tale.
Publishers Weekly
Zee’s a vulnerable, likable character, and the dramatic narrative brings her experience to life...readers will be perched on the edge of their seats while consuming this mesmerizing, suspenseful tale.
Library Journal
Like her hit debut, The Lace Reader (2008), Barry’s second novel features an involving, intricately woven story and vivid descriptions of historic Salem.
Booklist
Gripping and emotionally taut, this is a novel brimming with both the messy and the lovely parts of life. A provocative examination of family, aging, and finding your true place in the world, The Map of True Places is sure to smoothly sail up the bestseller list.
BookPage
(Starred review.) Although marred by unnecessary "come-to-realize" moments, this woman-in-jeopardy thriller retooled with gothic elements—shifting identities, secrets and portents, a deserted cottage and a missing suicide note—manages to transcend its component cliches.... [H]ighly readable.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. At the beginning of the novel, Brunonia Barry includes a quote from Herman Melville. "It is not down in any map; true places never are." Why do you think the author chose this quote to begin her story? Is the epigraph contradictory or complementary to the book's title?
2. Three women play a nurturing role in Zee's life'her mother, Maureen; her boss, Liz, and her mother's friend, Ann. Describe Zee's relationship to all three and explore what she learned from each.
3. At the beginning of The Map of True Places we are introduced to a psychological theory propounded by Zee's boss. According to Liz, "a daughter will always live out the unfulfilled dreams of the mother," especially if "those dreams were never expressed." Does this theory hold validity for you? Was Zee living out the unfulfilled dreams of her dead mother, Maureen? What dreams? Explain.
4. Another of Mattie's old adages was that everybody lies, to other people, but most importantly to themselves. What lies did the characters in the book tell themselves? How did they shape their relationships to one another?
5. Why did the death of Zee's patient, Lilly, upset her so deeply? Could Lilly have been saved? What bout Zee's mother? Were Lilly and Maureen alike? Why did Zee blame herself for both tragedies? How can we learn to let go of regrets, to get beyond the "what ifs" in life? Did Zee eventually learn to do so?
6. When she was a girl, Zee had a strong sense of herself, yet as a grown woman, she is unsure of who she is and what she wants from life. How do we lose that sense of certainty we often have as children? How did Zee lose it? Can we retain it, or does the process of maturing overshadow our youthful notions? How do the events of the story transform Zee? Does she find clarity by the novel's end?
7. The loss of self is also evident as Zee's father, Finch, succumbs to Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's. What did caring for Finch offer the young woman? Did her father's decline offer clarity or just confuse her more in her struggle to understand herself?
8. Talk about Zee's relationship to her father, Finch, and his significant other Melville. Was she closer to one than the other? What impact did Finch have on Zee's development? What about Melville?
9. Do you agree with Melville's actions concerning the book of Yeats's poetry at the novel's end? What propelled him to do this? Did he ever have anything to be sorry for?
10. How did Maureen's story The Once color Zee's perceptions of love? What impact did it have on how she viewed Hawke? Who did Zee think Maureen was writing about? Maureen never finished The Once. How do you think it should end?
11. Celestial navigation is a theme interwoven throughout the book. What is the significance to the story? Did reading The Map of True Places make you interested in learning more about this lost art? Do you have a constant in your life that helps guide you to safety?
12. Home is another touchstone of The Map of True Places. What is home? What impact does "home" and the idea of home have on our lives and who we are? In Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolfe wrote, "you can't go home again." Do you agree with this?
13. The author skillfully interweaves literature and history into The Map of True Places. Choose any of these elements, such as Zee's full name, Hephzibah, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, the Friendship, and talk about its significance to the story and the characters.
14. What did you take away from reading The Map of True Places? If you read Brunonia Barry's first novel, The Lace Reader, how do the works compare and relate to each other?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)