Never Coming Back
Alison McGhee, 2017
Houghlin MIfflin Harcourt
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781328767561
Summary
When Clara Winter left her rural Adirondacks town for college, she never looked back. Her mother, Tamar, a loving but fiercely independent woman who raised Clara on her own, all but pushed her out the door, and so Clara built a new life for herself, far from her roots and the world she had always known.
Now more than a decade has passed, and Clara, a successful writer, has been summoned home. Tamar has become increasingly forgetful, and can no longer live on her own. But just as her mother’s memory is declining, Clara’s questions are building. Why was Tamar so insistent that Clara leave, all those years ago? Just what secrets was she hiding?
The surprising answers Clara uncovers are rooted in her mother’s love for her, and the sacrifices Tamar made to protect her. And in being released from her past—though now surrounded by friends from it—Clara can finally look forward to the future.
Never Coming Back is a brilliant and piercing story of a young woman finding her way in life, determined to know her mother — and by extension herself — before it's too late. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 8, 1960
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—Middlebury College
• Awards—Great Lakes College Association National Fiction Award
• Currently—lives in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota
Alison McGhee is an American author, who has published several picture books, books for children's books, and adult novels, the most recent of which is Never Coming Home (2017). She is a New York Times bestselling author, the winner of numerous awards. Her most recent adult novel is Never Coming Back (2017).
McGhee's first novel, Rainlight (1998), follows the characters left behind after the sudden and accidental death of Starr Williams. It received positive reviews and won both the Great Lakes College Association National Fiction Award and the Minnesota Book Award in 1999.
Her second adult book, Shadow Baby (2000), is witnessed through the eyes of a young girl who befriends an old man as part of a school project. It was a Pulitzer Prize nominee. McGhee continued her adult themes with Was It Beautiful?
McGhee then began publishing children's picture books. Countdown to Kindergarten (2002) and Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth (2004), both share the same main character who begins the first story as she enters kindergarten and is in first grade by the second book.
Turning her hand to young adult novels, McGhee introduced Snap (2004) and All Rivers Flow to the Sea (2005)
Poetry came next. In Only a Witch Can Fly McGhee a little girl dreams about flying on her broom. The book is a "story-poem," written in sestina form — six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a three-line stanza at the end.
All told, McGhee has published more than 20 books in five different genres: adult, children's prose, children's poetry, children's picture, and young adult books. McGhee is also a professor of creative writing at Metropolitan State University in Saint Paul, Minnesota and is the mother of three children. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/25/2017.)
Book Reviews
This sensitive novel…offers readers an intimate and painfully aware portrait of the debilitating effects of Alzheimer's on its victims as well as the people who must watch their tormented loved ones tumble into the disease's terrible abyss … Never Coming Back [is] a novel about profound sadness, insurmountable loss and the possibility of allowing new people into your life.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
[A] poignant meditation on the relationship between a mother and daughter…. Though this well-written story will appeal to a broad range of readers for its rich characterization, mothers and daughters will especially find Clara’s and Tamar’s story moving and memorable.
Publishers Weekly
McGhee’s latest novel… not only tackles the complexities of a mother-daughter relationship and the unresolved conflicts that can have lasting effects on both women, it also informs readers about how Alzheimer’s can quickly and cruelly ravage a person.
Library Journal
[A] quietly powerful novel…. [Readers] will appreciate McGhee’s magnetic prose and her ability to pack a richly detailed story into a slim novel. Atmospheric and introspective.
Booklist
“A luminous novel…. [T]he author’s gift for subtly poetic language and her believable dialogue make Clara’s journey worth following. McGhee has an almost musical ability to repeat the themes of her novel with enough variation to keep them fresh.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Never Coming Back … then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Clara's childhood? What kind of mother was Tamara, and how would you describe the relationship of mother and daughter? (Have you read Alison McGhee's 2000 novel, Shadow Baby, which recounts Clara's early years?)
2. Follow-up to Question 1: The relationship between Clara and her mother lies at the crux of the novel. How does Clara's relationship to Tamara change during the course of the story? Also, talk about the contradictory nature of Clara's feelings.
3. Are there any parallels in this book for your life in coming to know a parent as both an individual and mother or father?
4. Clara poses an interesting question in the novel's opening lines when wondering when her mother began the fall into the rabbit hole of Alzheimer's. "Did something insider her change in a single moment? Quit working? Decide enough was enough?" What is your understanding of the disease process — how and when it begins to alter the mind/brain? To what extent is the individual aware of the altered mind?
5. Talk about the irony of Clara's profession as a writer — putting into words what is difficult for people to express on their own.
6. What is the significance of the novel's title "never coming back"? To whom does it apply?
7. Were you surprised by the secret Clara uncovers at the end of the book? Or did you see it coming?
8. What do you think of the author's use of the game show Jeopardy as a device to frame questions that Clara wants answers to? Clever? Hokey? Funny? Distracting?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)