The Things We Do For Love
Kristin Hannah, 2004
Random House
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345520807
Summary
Years of trying unsuccessfully to conceive a child have broken more than Angie DeSaria’s heart. Following a painful divorce, she moves back to her small Pacific Northwest hometown and takes over management of her family’s restaurant. In West End, where life rises and falls like the tides, Angie’s fortunes will drastically change yet again when she meets and befriends a troubled young woman.
Angie hires Lauren Ribido because she sees something special in the seventeen-year-old. They quickly form a deep bond, and when Lauren is abandoned by her mother, Angie offers the girl a place to stay. But nothing could have prepared Angie for the far-reaching repercussions of this act of kindness. Together, these two women—one who longs for a child and the other who longs for a mother’s love—will be tested in ways that neither could have imagined. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September, 1960
• Where—Southern California, USA
• Reared—Western Washington State
• Education—J.D., from a school in Washington (state)
• Awards—Golden Heart Award; Maggie Award; National Reader's Choice
• Currently—lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington
In her words
I was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When I was eight years old, my father drove us to Western Washington where we called home. After working in a trendy advertising agency, I decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words I will never forget from my mother. I was in my third-and final-year of law school and my mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. I was shocked to discover that she believed I would become a writer. For the next few months, we collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.
After my mom's death, I packed up all those bits and pieces of paper we'd collected and put them in a box in the back of my closet. I got married and continued practicing law.
Then I found out I was pregnant, but was on bed rest for five months. By the time I'd read every book in the house and started asking my husband for cereal boxes to read, I knew I was a goner. That's when my darling husband reminded me of the book I'd started with my mom. I pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time my son was born, I'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred me to try harder, work more. In 1990, I got "the call," and in that moment, I went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and I've never looked back. In all the years between then and now, I have never lost my love of, or my enthusiasm for, telling stories. I am truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
In this tear-jerking novel by Hannah (Between Sisters), 38-year-old Angela Malone abandons a successful advertising career in Seattle to find comfort in West End, the small Pacific Northwest coastal town where she grew up. Pregnancy woes (chronic miscarriages, a baby who lived only for five days and a botched adoption) have caused her marriage to journalist Conlan to end in divorce. Her big, warmhearted Italian family welcomes her with open arms, and she throws herself into revamping the family restaurant, DeSaria's. Then she befriends hard-working teenager Lauren Ribido, who's in need of a new coat, some mothering and, later on, a place to live. Lauren's life is far worse than self-pitying Angie's—she's pregnant, her alcoholic mother has given up on her, and her rich boyfriend, David, is off to his first-choice college. Lauren can't go through with the abortion David encourages her to have, and the next step seems obvious: she should give the baby up to Angie, who's on the way to reconciling with Conlan. Hannah stacks the odds against Lauren almost absurdly, and makes her life with Angie a rose-tinted dream come true, but she paints a wrenching, convincing picture of the dilemma teenage mothers face. Familiar but warmly rendered characters, a few surprising twists and a bittersweet ending make this satisfying summer reading.
Publishers Weekly
In her latest novel, Hannah (On Mystic Lake) tells the story of a woman so consumed by her inability to have a child that her relationships with her family, her friends, and especially her husband are damaged. After divorcing, Angie Malone returns home to care for her aging mother and try to salvage the family's floundering restaurant business. She offers the teenaged Lauren Ribido a job as a waitress. Cautious about becoming too emotionally involved with the young woman, Angie watches Lauren cope with school, a distant and perpetually drunk mother, and a romantic relationship with a wealthy high school boyfriend. When an unexpected (but predictable) pregnancy forces Lauren to give up her dreams, Angie must come to grips with how much help she can offer the young woman. Hannah strikes a serious and quite somber chord, bringing a thoughtful, insightful touch to Angie's attempts to restart her marriage, bond with her siblings, and assist Lauren. The romantic aspect of the novel takes a distant second place to the relationship between the two women and the complicated issues of grief, childbearing, and acceptance. A worthwhile addition to any public library fiction collection. —Margaret Hanes, Sterling Heights P.L., MI
Library Journal
Best-selling Hannah's latest sensitive tale explores the need we all have for love in a portrait of two women of different ages and backgrounds. Angie Malone has come back to her small Washington State town after suffering the loss of a child, the end of a marriage, and the death of her father. Nestled in the bosom of her family...as she copes with her grief.... When Angie reaches out to 18-year-old Lauren Ribido,...they worry that she'll be disappointed. Lauren has not had an easy life.... Angie becomes attached to her and acts like a surrogate mother as they embark on a shaky friendship. Hannah captures the joy and heartache of family as she draws the reader into the lives of her characters and makes them feel like personal friends, proving once again why she is a star of women's fiction. —Patty Engelmann
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Kristin Hannah begins her novel with a quote from writer/ philosopher Henry David Thoreau: “Things do not change; we change.” Do you think the events of the novel are responsible for Angie’s personal growth?
2. The Things We Do for Love focuses on two women, both in relationships burdened by an overwhelming problem.Why does Conlan and Angie’s relationship weather the storm whereas Lauren and David’s relationship does not?
3. Lauren wonders about her mother’s emotional neglect, “So why did it still hurt, after all these years? You’d think a heart would grow calluses at some point.” Why didn’t Lauren’s heart grow calluses? What was the source of hope before meeting Angie? How was she able to envision a better life for herself?
4. Descriptions of the town of West End proliferate in the novel. It is a place characterized by dramatic fluctuations in weather and even in population between the tourist season and the quiet winters. It is a small town, but it holds radically different associations for each character. How is Angie’s West End different from Lauren’s West End or David’s West End? In what ways is the town itself a character in the book?
5. Lauren’s childhood was marked by a dearth of two important things: love and money. Does Lauren, consciously or not, think that these two things go together? Is she attracted to David’s family money, or does she love him in spite of it?
6. Does Angie believe that her mother can communicate with her late father?
7. “Lauren wanted to push the hair out of her mother’s eyes but she didn’t dare. It was the kind of intimacy that could ruin everything.” Why is Lauren afraid of establishing intimacy with her mother? What does she fear would result from these impulses?
8. It is much easier for Lauren to tell her mother that she’s pregnant than it is for her to tell Angie. Why?
9. Were you surprised by Lauren’s decision to have the baby? What aspects of Lauren’s personality may have served as clues toward predicting what decision she would eventually make?
10. Lauren’s relationship with Angie gives her a new, powerful confidence that she has never felt before. How does this confidence change the way Lauren interacts with her world? Does it bring her closer to the other people in her life, or does it alienate her?
11. David’s mother tells Lauren that “motherhood changes who you are.” How do you think that having a child changes a woman? Angie is the only woman in the novel who is not technically a mother. How is she different from the ‘mothers’ that surround her?
12. There are a handful of times in the book where Angie prays. Does Angie strike you as a religious woman? How does she relate to her family’s Catholicism? For what (or whom) does she pray?
13. Conlan and Angie’s first few encounters on their road to reconciliation take place in their bedrooms. Why do you think it is easier for them, after having been married for so long, to show their love for each other physically before having a discussion?
14. Obviously, food plays a large role in the DeSaria family’s traditions and daily life. They attribute to a good meal the power to heal and to conjure feelings of joy and togetherness. But food has negative connotations in the novel as well: lack, loneliness, and inadequacy. How are Lauren and Angie’s relationships with food similar?
15. When Conlan shows up at the cottage on Christmas Eve, he says that he came to meet Lauren. Why is meeting Lauren such a priority for him? What do you think his expectations of Lauren were? How does his impression of her after they meet change his mind about Angie’s decision to take Lauren in?
16. Lauren remarks about her unplanned pregnancy: “A smart girl would have done things differently.” Do you agree with that statement?
17. When Lauren asks Angie to raise her unborn baby, Angie is immediately certain that it would be “doing the wrong thing.” What is Angie really worried about, and why? How do the concepts of right and wrong play into this life-altering decision?
18. Conlan tells Lauren that she did a grown-up thing, which is not the same as being a grown-up. Do you think that Lauren matures throughout the course of the novel?
19. Lauren tells David that if she hadn’t gotten pregnant they might have stayed together forever. How did the baby create weakness in their relationship, or did it just illuminate a weakness that already existed?
20. When Lauren left the hospital with her baby in tow, she followed her heart and struck out on her own with no safety net in sight; but she also broke a promise that she’d made to someone she loved, and didn’t stick around to defend her choice. Do you think that what Lauren did was brave or cowardly?
21. What do you think the future holds for Angie? Do you think that she’s truly ready to help raise a baby, under her own roof, that will never be her own? What strategies do you think she should employ to make it work?
(Questions issued by publisher.)