Stone Creek
Victoria Lustbader, 2008
HarperCollins
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616849238
Summary
In the small town of Stone Creek, a random encounter offers two lonely people a chance at happiness.
Danny, a young widower, still grieves for his late wife, but for the sake of his five-year-old son, Caleb, he knows he must move on. Alone in her summer house, Lily has left her workaholic husband, Paul, to his long hours and late nights back in the city. In Stone Creek, she can yearn in solitude for the treasure she's been denied: a child.
What occurs when Lily and Danny meet is immediate and undeniable—despite Lily being ten years older and married. But ultimately it is little Caleb's sadness and need that will tip the scales, upsetting a precarious balance between joy and despair, between what cannot happen...and what must.
An unforgettable novel of tremendous emotional heft, Stone Creek brilliantly illuminates how the powers of love and loss transform the human heart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 11, 1947
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Stony Brook State University of New York
• Currently—lives in New York and on Long Island
Victoria Schochet Lustbader was born and raised in New York City, the youngest of three children and the only daughter of Rubin Schochet, a Lithuanian emigre, and Dorothy Hertz Schochet, a second-generation Russian.
Drawn to the arts from a young age, Victoria studied ballet for ten years, played the piano and guitar, and wrote poetry and stories. Always fascinated as well with the sciences and languages, she began college at SUNY Stony Brook as a Biology major with a minor in Russian, but ultimately got her BA in English. After graduation, Victoria spent thirteen years as an editor of science fiction and fantasy, first at Harper & Row, then at Putnam/Berkley. She worked extensively with authors such as Ursula LeGuin, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, Frank Herbert, and Philip Jose Farmer.
In 1982 she married author Eric Van Lustbader. For the next several years she continued in the publishing business as a freelance editor, but then began a second, decade-long career as a fundraiser and Board member with The Nature Conservancy on Long Island and throughout New York State.
In 2001, Victoria made the tumultuous decision to become a writer herself. Her first novel, Hidden, was published in June of 2006 by Forge Books. Her second, Stone Creek, was published by HarperCollins in May of 2008. She and her husband divide their time between NYC and the east end of Long Island. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Childless, married Lily Spencer, 46, falls for 30-something widower Danny Malloy and his five-year-old son in this would-be Whartonesque marriage tale from former book editor Lustbader (Hidden ). Lily's troubled marriage has led her to retreat to the small Catskill town of Stone Creek while husband Paul, 54, a successful Manhattan attorney, remains submerged in work. Paul and Lily have given up hope of having a child: Paul with brisk efficiency, Lily still mournful and yearning. When she and gifted, still-grieving furniture restorer Danny espy each other in the Stone Creek supermarket, sparks fly. As they come together, Lily finds in Danny the companionship Paul doesn't provide, and in Danny's son, Caleb, she finds a boy who needs a mother. As much as Lustbader tries to give Danny equal time, his struggles with a secretive, unforgiving mother-in-law never attain the resonance of Lily's search among an ex-husband, a current husband, a lover and a boy for someone with whom she can share her love and pain. Piercingly personal descriptions of love, loss and desperate attempts to plug life's gaps give Lustbader's second novel its emotional edge, while there's plenty of steam for romance readers.
Publishers Weekly
Lustbader's second novel (after Hidden) is a story of troubled lives and misunderstandings in which everyone is looking for love. Danny Malloy, father to five-year-old Caleb, misses his dead wife. Paul and Lily Spencer are a wealthy couple whose marriage suddenly hits a snag when they find they're unable to have children. Lily escapes to the couple's country home for the summer, needing someone to love-and finds herself on a collision course with Danny and Caleb. Lustbader, whose husband is thriller writer Eric Van Lustbader, shows promise with this effort, and her characters are certainly interesting. However, Lustbader tries too hard to present everyone's point of view; the narrative's third-person present tense only distances readers from the story. Additionally, there is not enough action to move the narrative along, and the combination of tension and introspection makes the writing feel cold at times. An optional purchase for large public libraries only.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. All three characters believe that they have met the love of their life. Danny thought Tara was the love of his life. Lily and Paul each believe the other is the love they were destined for. Do you believe there can only be one true love? Or is it possible to love again with the same kind of depth and fulfillment?
2. The book purposely brings up, without judgment, some of the many ways, motives and reasons why people are unfaithful to their committed partners, or to their idea of moral rightness. Do you think infidelity is ever justified? Can it be a good thing under the right circumstances? Do you think its ever justified to act in opposition to your own sense of what's morally right? What are other reasons, not explored in this book, that might cause someone to take such an action?
3. Each of the main characters in the book experiences a loss that paralyzes him or her in some way. Danny's loss is the most obvious; what loss do you think each of the other characters—Lily, Paul, Eve—suffer from? Do you think they all succeed in forgiving? Do you think that the act of forgiving, in each case, allows that person to move on with his or her life?
4. In reading about the beginning of their marriage, Lily's and Paul's relationship seems to be in perfect balance. How do you think this changes and what does Danny offer that Lily hasn't gotten in her relationship with Paul? Do you think Danny envisions the same intimacy in a relationship with Lily as he had with Tara?
5. Danny believes that he and Tara would never have had the problems that Lily and Paul have. Do you agree? Why? What are the differences in the two relationships?
6. Lily wonders which is worse—to lose something vital that you've had, or to have never had it at all; is one worse than the other and why? The reactions of the outside world are different in each case—when you lose something you had, the world notices and grieves with you. If you lose something you want but don't get, does the world notice? How do you grieve differently for a private loss rather than a public one? Do you think one process is easier than the other?
7. Lily's love for Danny is inextricably bound to her love and need for Caleb. They two of them bring up the two most primal urges in a woman/person: sex and parenthood. Would she have fallen in love with Danny if he didn't have a son, or if she didn't yearn for a child?
8. Danny's feelings for Lily go deeper than her resemblance to his dead wife. What is he responding to in her? Do you think they could have had a future together?
9. Do you think that Danny was right to give Eve Tara's journal? Why do you think he chose to do that? Who do you think it helped more, Danny or Eve? What does his act say about his feelings toward Eve and about his grieving over Tara? What do you think Eve's reaction to what she reads would be? Do you think she will feel differently about Tara and Danny afterward?
10. Lily faces one of the toughest decisions a person can face—torn between loving two people and having to choose one. Did Lily make the right decision in staying with Paul? What do you think would have happened if she had chosen Danny? What do you think are her reasons for her choice?
11. Lily and Danny will see one another again—they are determined not to lose their friendship, and Caleb's happiness. What do you think will happen when they do? Do you think it's possible for two people, who feel the way they do about each other, to remain just friends? Can very strong feelings for a person morph into something just as strong, and yet different?
12. Is this a happy ending?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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