Norumbega Park
Anthony Giardina, 2012
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374278670
Summary
Richie Palumbo, the most prosaic of men, gets lost one night in 1969 while driving home with his family. He finds himself in the town of Norumbega—hidden, remote, and gorgeous, at the far edges of Boston’s western suburbs. He sees a venerable old house and, without quite knowing why, decides he must have it.
The repercussions of Richie’s wild dream to own a house in this town lead to a forty-year odyssey for his family. For his son, Jack, Norumbega becomes a sexual playground—until he meets one ungraspable girl and begins a lifelong pursuit of her. Joannie, Richie’s daughter, finds that the challenges of living in Norumbega encourage her to pursue the contemplative life. For Stella, Richie’s wife, life in Norumbega leads to surprising growth as both a sexual and a spiritual being.
Norumbega Park—by Anthony Giardina, the critically acclaimed author of White Guys—is about class and parental dreams, sex and spirituality, the way visions conflict with stubborn reality, and a family’s ability to open up for others a world they can never fully grasp for themselves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—Fordham University
• Currently—lives in Northhampton, Massachusetts
Anthony Giardina is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright. Anthony Giardina started his professional career as an actor. He switched to playwriting, and eventually began writing novels.
His work is particularly influenced by American culture in the 1950s. He was born in 1950 and grew up on a street in Waltham, Massachusetts, a largely Italian and Irish working class "sleeper" suburb of Boston on the trolley line to Cambridge. The protagonist's childhood neighborhood and schools in his book, Recent History, were largely modeled on Waltham.
According to the author, Recent History (2001) was marketed toward the "gay market." Though Giardina himself is not gay, he possesses a remarkable ability to express the internal dialogue and emotional motivations of a diverse range of characters.
Giardina's plays have been produced in New Haven, New York City, and Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to publications such as the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, and Harper's. His books include Men With Debts (1984), A Boy's Pretensions (1988), The Country of Marriage (stories, 1998), Recent History (2001), and White Guys (2006). His newest novel, Norumbega Park, was released in 2012.
Teaching
He has held teaching positions at Mount Holyoke College, the University of Rochester the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of Texas, Giardina currently teaches at Smith College.
Anthony Giardina says of his writing:
When I write fiction, I become the character I'm writing about, just as an actor becomes a character he's playing. You use parts of yourself, people you have known, things that have happened to you, but you're always aware that these things are being used to create a persona that's distinctly not you. Otherwise it wouldn't be any fun. (Author bio from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Norumbega Park, which moves from the late 1960s to the early 21st century, contains a good deal of graceful writing, especially in its initial sections. The subtle nuances of class; the charged eroticism between siblings, between husband and wife, between parents and children; the examination of faith and its loss — all are explored in rich, believable ways.
Jennifer Gilmore - New York Times Book Review
The beautiful, audacious fifth novel from author and playwright Anthony Giardina, follows the lives of Richie [Palumbo] and his family for 40 years.... Giardina is a master of prose that’s engaging but never seems rushed—he covers four decades in just over 300 pages. But his pacing remains natural and unhurried. His characters are as emotionally rich and complex as any you’ll find in the novels of Richard Ford, John Updike and Richard Yates.... Like Updike, [Giardina] deals with some uncomfortable themes—much of Norumbega Park deals with the delicate, sometimes awkward intersection of family and sexuality—but he handles them beautifully. And while many authors reflexively lapse into despair and pessimism, Giardina sticks with a truer kind of realism. Things might be bad; they might even be worse than they seem; but there’s always at least a chance of redemption.... There are countless emotional pitfalls authors can fall into, but Giardina has avoided every one, and the result is majestic—Norumbega Park is one of the bravest, most memorable American novels in years.
Michael Schaub - National Public Radio
One night in 1969, while driving with his family, Richie Palumbo accidentally discovers the (fictional) New England town of Norumbega, a WASPy enclave west of Boston, and falls in love at first sight with an old house near the town center—as well as what he and his family could become there. So begins Giardina’s contemplative new novel, which weaves the perspectives of the Palumbo family—wife Stella, son Jack, and daughter Joannie—over the course of 40 years as they struggle with faith, desire, and disappointment. Richie’s dreams prove elusive, and the Palumbos are ill-prepared for their new community: “The furniture they’d brought was full of the angles of an imagined future that, he realized now, had already dipped into the past.” Stella resists the town from the beginning, while Jack rebels against the weight of his father’s expectations by channeling his teenage energy and looks into seducing as many girls at Norumbega Regional High as he can. Joannie slips from her father’s grasp and becomes a cloistered nun. There are moments of grace and beauty—a late-night swim on an empty lake, an illicit glide across an iced-over pond—and Giardina (White Guys) effectively portrays the cloistered world of contemporary nuns. However, the characters’ malaise and dissatisfaction becomes claustrophobic.
Publishers Weekly
On an excursion beyond suburban Boston, Richie Palumbo stumbles across the town of Norumbega Park. While there, he has a vision of moving to the town and providing a perfect WASP environment for his children. He imagines himself as a pillar of the community, his wife as a society lady, his son as a popular athlete/scholar, and his daughter as a desirable, smart cheerleader type. Despite protests from his family, he settles them in Norumbega to live his dream. As with most dreams, reality doesn't quite match up. His son excels neither as a scholar nor as an athlete. His daughter joins a convent immediately after high school. His wife dies of cancer. Each character is left wondering how Richie's dream created the life they eventually led. Verdict: Giardina (White Guys) writes clearly and sympathetically about life's journey as he examines the turbulent waters where parental dreams and the aspirations of their children meet. This book will appeal to thoughtful fiction readers. Recommended. —Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
Genuine and deeply felt...Giardina places clauses side-by-side like blocks, no mortar visible, the lines of the structure straight and strong to create solid fiction that can contain and support all of our human longings.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A graceful novel of an American family struggling to find identity and spiritual meaning in an age resistant—and even hostile—to their fumbling attempts... [Norumbega Park] is a superb novel on every level, for Giardina fully fleshes out his characters as he scrutinizes their personal, family and social lives.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss Richie’s obsession with the Greeley house. What did it represent to him, the son of a Sicilian mason who had not wanted him to go to college? How do the novel’s epigraphs (about the land once called Norumbega) echo Richie’s dream? Is there a similar home or locale in your family history?
2. After leaving ComVac, Richie successfully runs a pizza parlor. Is it a step down for him to leave the white-collar world? How does Stella’s vision of success compare to her husband’s? How are Jack and Joan affected by their parents’ expectations?
3. In the closing scene of Part One, “Mr. Want” (pages 28–29), Jack tries to educate his sister about sex. She responds by writing “Jack is the devil” in her notebook. What does she learn from him that night?
4. What is the role of sexuality in the characters’ lives? How do gender and age affect their longing
and their joy, as well as their sense of guilt?
5. Does Joan’s immersion in the contemplative life appeal to you? What does the church seem to
offer her, from the time she was a little girl?
6. Is Elspeth’s father powerful only because he is wealthy? Why is he interested in financing Jack’s future, and in relying on Jack more than on his own children?
7. How does Jack’s attraction to Christina Thayer compare to his desire for Ellen Foley? As a wife and mother, what does Christina discover about herself when she tries to counsel Adam Goldstein (Chapter Two of Part Four, “The Heart’s Desire to Break”)? How does her marriage look from her point of view?
8. What are Angel and his children able to awaken in Joan that no one else could? How does she respond to the fact that his ancestry is different from hers? Why does race matter to Richie?
9. In Chapter Four of Part Five, “The Book of Joan” (page 280), Joan struggles to help Richie as they linger outside the house. Anthony Giardina writes, “This was the hardest, had always been the hardest, the way love was offered when you felt you least deserved it, despised yourself the most, how you had to rise to it. Love, that egomaniacal force, insisted on its rights. He wanted to push her away.” Do the characters in this novel believe they deserve to be loved? Do they overestimate their sins?
10. What relationship patterns are repeated across the generations in Norumbega Park? Are Zoe, Joe, and Julian poised to find more satisfaction than their parents had?
11. As Stella confronts mortality, why is Jack determined to find aggressive treatment for her? Is it as simple as wanting his mother to stay in his life? What drew her back to the pediatric unit at the chemotherapy center?
12. How does the setting of Norumbega and its lakes affect the characters? How does it set a different tone compared to the scenes in New York or Boston? What keeps the Palumbos from abandoning the house in Norumbega?
13. What does the novel say about the consequences of the American Dream? Should Richie feel guilty about the tactics he used to buy his dream house? In the end, how does he measure the value of his life?
14. Compare Norumbega Park to Anthony Giardina’s previous fiction that you have read. What themes of estrangement and belonging recur in his story lines? What aspects of love and power does his fiction help us understand?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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