My Name Is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout, 2016
Random House
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812979527
Summary
A simple hospital visit becomes a portal to the most tender relationship of all—the one between mother and daughter.
Lucy Barton is recovering slowly from what should have been a simple operation. Her mother, to whom she hasn’t spoken for many years, comes to see her.
Gentle gossip about people from Lucy’s childhood in Amgash, Illinois, seems to reconnect them, but just below the surface lie the tension and longing that have informed every aspect of Lucy’s life: her escape from her troubled family, her desire to become a writer, her marriage, her love for her two daughters.
Knitting this powerful narrative together is the brilliant storytelling voice of Lucy herself: keenly observant, deeply human, and truly unforgettable. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 6, 1956
• Where—Portland, Maine, USA
• Education—B.A., Bates College; J.D. and Certificate of Gerontology, Syracuse University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, and in Maine.
Elizabeth Strout is an American writer of fiction. She was born in Portland, Maine, and raised in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire. Her father was a science professor, and her mother taught high school.
After graduating from Bates College, Strout spent a year in Oxford, England, followed by studies at law school for another year. In 1982 she graduated with honors, and received both a law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law and a Certificate of Gerontology from the Syracuse School of Social Work. That year her first story was published in New Letters magazine.
Strout moved to New York City, and continued to write stories that were published in literary magazines, as well as in Redbook and Seventeen. It took her six or seven years to write Amy and Isabelle, which when published was shortlisted for the 2000 Orange Prize and nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. The novel was made into a television movie starring Elisabeth Shue and produced by Oprah Winfrey's studio, Harpo Films.
During the fall semsester of 2007, Strout was a NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) professor at Colgate University, where she taught creative writing at both the introductory and advanced level. She was also on the faculty of the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In 2009 Strout was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Olive Kitteridge (2008), a collection of connected short stories about a woman and her immediate family and friends on the coast of Maine. In 2010, Italian booksellers voted Olive Kitteridge and Strout as the winner of the Premio Bancarella award in the medieval Piazza della Repubblica in Pontremoli, Italy. Her new book, The Burgess Boys, was published in 2013.
Strout is married to former Maine Attorney General James Tierney, who currently serves as the Director of the National State Attorney General Program at Columbia Law School. She divides her time between New York and Maine. (From Wikipedia.)
Extras
From a 2006 Barnes & Noble interview:
• My first job was when I was about 12, cleaning houses in the afternoons for different elderly women in town. I hated it. I would be so bored scrubbing at some kitchen tile, that my mind would finally float all over the place, to the beach, to a friend's house...all this happened in my mind as I scrubbed those tiles, so it was certainly good for my imagination. But I did hate it."
• Without a doubt my mother was an inspiration for my writing. This is true in many ways, but mostly because she is a wonderful storyteller, without even knowing it. I would listen, as a child, when some friend of hers came to visit, and they would gossip about the different people they knew. My mother had the most fascinating stories about people's families, murderers, mental illnesses, babies abandoned, and she delivered it all in a matter-of-fact way that was terribly compelling. It made me believe that there was nothing more interesting than the lives of people, their real hidden lives, and this of course can lead one down the path of becoming a fiction writer.
• Later, in college, one of my favorite things was to go into town and sit at the counter at Woolworth's (so tragic to have them gone!) and listen to people talking; the waitresses and the customers — I loved it. I still love to eavesdrop, but mostly I like the idea of being around people who are right in the middle of their lives, revealing certain details to each other — leaving the rest for me to make up.
• I love theater. I love sitting in an audience and having the actors right there, playing out what it means to be a human being. There is something about the actual relationship that is going on between the audience and the actors that I just love. I love seeing the sets and costumes, the decisions that have been made about the staging...it's a place for the eye and the ear to be fully involved. I have always loved theater."
• I also like cell phones. What I mean by that is I hear many people complain about cell phones; they can't go anywhere without hearing someone on a cell phone, etc. But I love that chance to hear half a conversation, even if the person is just saying, ‘Hi honey, I'll be home in ten minutes, do you want me to bring some milk?' And I'm also grateful to have a cell phone, just to know it's there if I need it when I'm out and about. So I'm a cell phone fan.
• I don't especially like to travel, not the way many people do. I know many people that love to go to far-off and different places, and I've never been like that. I seem to get homesick as quickly as a child. I may like being in some new place for a few days, but then I want to go home and return to my routine and my familiar corner stores. I am a real creature of habit, without a doubt.
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, she answered:
Perhaps the book that had the greatest influence on my career as a writer was The Journals of John Cheever. Of course many, many books had influenced me before I read that, but there was something about the honesty found in Cheever's journals that gave me courage as a writer. And his ability to turn a phrase, to describe in a breath the beauty of a rainstorm or the fog rising off the river... all this arrived in my life as a writer at a time when I seemed ready to absorb his examples of what a sentence can do when written with the integrity of emotion and felicity of language.
Book Reviews
[R]ead slowly, to savor the depths beneath what at first seems a simple story of a mother-daughter reconciliation.... Strout develops the story in short chapters in which the reader intuits the emotional complexity of Lucy’s life.... This masterly novel’s message, made clear in the moving denouement, is that sometimes in order to express love, one has to forgive.
Publishers Weekly
The book does feel a bit abbreviated, but that's only because the characters and ideas are so compelling we want to hear more from the author who has limned them so sensitively. Fiction with the condensed power of poetry: Strout deepens her mastery with each new work, and her psychological acuity has never required improvement.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for My Name Is Lucy Barton:
1. What happened to Lucy that estranged her from her parents? When did you first begin to suspect, then to fully understand Lucy's demons?
2. Describe each of the two women, Lucy and her mother. What is their relationship with one another, and how does the relationship change during the course of the novel?
3. Why is Lucy's mother unable to be emotionally open to her daughter? How different is Lucy's relationship with her own daughters?
4. What is the state of Lucy's marriage? How do the couple's divergent upbringings, one impoverished and the other comfortable, affect their relationship? Talk about the role that class plays in this book.
5. How did you feel, later in the book, when Lucy's dying mother tells her, "I need you to leave" and the father who brutalized her says, "What a good girl you've always been"?
6. What does Strout's book suggest about the pull of family and the power of redemption? What makes forgiveness possible? Do all things deserve forgiveness?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
That Night
Chevy Stevens, 2014
St. Martin's Press
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250066831
Summary
As a teenager, Toni Murphy had a life full of typical adolescent complications: a boyfriend she adored, a younger sister she couldn't relate to, a strained relationship with her parents, and classmates who seemed hell-bent on making her life miserable.
Things weren't easy, but Toni could never have predicted how horrific they would become until her younger sister was brutally murdered one summer night.
Toni and her boyfriend, Ryan, were convicted of the murder and sent to prison.
Now thirty-four, Toni, is out on parole and back in her hometown, struggling to adjust to a new life on the outside. Prison changed her, hardened her, and she's doing everything in her power to avoid violating her parole and going back. This means having absolutely no contact with Ryan, avoiding fellow parolees looking to pick fights, and steering clear of trouble in all its forms.
But nothing is making that easy—not Ryan, who is convinced he can figure out the truth; not her mother, who doubts Toni's innocence; and certainly not the group of women who made Toni's life hell in high school and may have darker secrets than anyone realizes.
No matter how hard she tries, ignoring her old life to start a new one is impossible. Before Toni can truly move on, she must risk everything to find out what really happened that night.
But in That Night by Chevy Stevens, the truth might be the most terrifying thing of all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
• Education—N/A
• Awards—International Thriller Writers Award
• Currently—lives on Vancouver Island, B.E.
Chevy Stevens grew up on a ranch on Vancouver Island and still calls the island home. For most of her adult life she worked in sales, first as a rep for a giftware company and then as a Realtor. At open houses, waiting between potential buyers, she spent hours scaring herself with thoughts of horrible things that could happen to her. Her most terrifying scenario, which began with being abducted, was the inspiration for Still Missing. After six months Chevy sold her house and left real estate so she could finish the book.
Chevy enjoys writing thrillers that allow her to blend her interest in family dynamics with her love of the west coast lifestyle. When she’s not working on her next book, she’s hiking with her husband and dog in the local mountains. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
In this riveting, if overly ambitious thriller, Stevens raises significant themes—bullying, troubled families, the difficulties ex-cons face—but doesn’t do them all justice.... Despite some wooden secondary characters, this is an exciting page-turner with an incisive twist.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [A] suspenseful thriller with [a] tale of heartbreak, the cruelties of fate, and redemption.... The reader follows Toni on a journey marked by cruel classmates and a hateful mother as she eventually discovers the shattering truth behind her sister's untimely death.... A compelling, exceptional read. —Mariel Pachucki, Maple Valley, WA
Library Journal
Toni Murphy...[is] about to be paroled from a Canadian penitentiary. When she was 18, she and her boyfriend, Ryan, were convicted of killing Toni’s younger sister. Flashbacks to the months before her sister was killed and the years she spent in prison help the reader understand the woman Toni is today.... [A] suspenseful tale. —Karen Keefe
Booklist
Stevens draws a dark crime drama from the beautiful blue-green of Canada’s Vancouver Island.... Stevens has woven a warped psychological drama, a melancholy tale that comes to an existential and yet hopeful conclusion.... Stevens' dark psychological thriller...[features] damaged people and distinctive senses of place.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. One of the biggest issues this book raises is that of the justice system. It's supposed to be "innocent until proven guilty," but that doesn't seem to be the case for Toni and Ryan. After reading this book, how do you feel about prisons and the way we go about convicting accused criminals? Do you feel differently than you did before?
2. This book brings up high school bullying. When asked if Shauna's clique is based on reality or whether it's purely fictional, Chevy Stevens has said that she discovered through her research how particularly vicious teenaged girls can be, and how sad it is that the parents of these children are often unaware of what is going on. What do you think of this serious topic?
3. We get a lot of different views of Frank McKinney throughout the course of the novel. Our first image of him is as a sad, lonely widower, and our last is as a murderer. What do you think about his character?
4. Near the end of the book, Nicole's old friend Darlene says, "Everyone thought Nicole was so perfect, but she was just good at pretending to be." How did you feel about Nicole?
5. Comment on the nature of Toni's relationship with her mother. Was it healthy? What do you think about the disparity in the way Mrs. Murphy treated her two daughters?
6. Toni finds a surrogate mother in Margaret, who is then suddenly taken away at the end of the novel. Discuss what you think about Margaret's sudden decision to fight Helen. How do you feel about her subsequent death?
7. Toni refers to the friends she makes in prison as "the girls" and feels an especially strong bond with them. On the other hand, the animosity in prison also feels especially intense. Do you think there's something about the prison system that makes people develop powerful feelings, whether negative or positive, towards each other?
8. Shauna gets away with a lot in the novel. When talking about their days of friendship, Toni implies that a lot of this was because of a lack of adults taking an active interest in Shauna's life. Then again, Toni also feels that her own mother takes too much of an interest in her life. Which girl do you think had it better—the one with the mother who was always on her case, or the one with the absent father?
9. At one point, Ryan says to Toni, "Haven't you heard? No one grow up in prison." Yet people comment thoughout the novel that prison changes a person. Is this incongruous—are growing up and changing the same thing? Do you think Toni and Ryan are changed by, or grow up during, their time in prison?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Those Girls
Chevy Stevens, 2015
St. Martin's Press
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250034588
Summary
Life has never been easy for the three Campbell sisters. Jess, Courtney, and Dani live on a remote ranch in Western Canada where they work hard and try to stay out of the way of their father's temper.
One night, a fight gets out of hand and the sisters are forced to go on the run, only to get caught in an even worse nightmare when their truck breaks down in a small town. As events spiral out of control they find themselves in a horrifying situation and are left with no choice but to change their names and create new lives.
Eighteen years later, they are still trying to forget what happened that summer. But when one of the sisters goes missing, followed closely by her niece, they are pulled back into the past. And this time there's nowhere left to run.
With Those Girls Chevy Stevens presents her most visceral thriller yet: an unforgettable portrait of desperation, loyalty, and evil. A story of survival...and revenge. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
• Education—N/A
• Awards—International Thriller Writers Award
• Currently—lives on Vancouver Island, B.E.
Chevy Stevens grew up on a ranch on Vancouver Island and still calls the island home. For most of her adult life she worked in sales, first as a rep for a giftware company and then as a Realtor. At open houses, waiting between potential buyers, she spent hours scaring herself with thoughts of horrible things that could happen to her. Her most terrifying scenario, which began with being abducted, was the inspiration for Still Missing. After six months Chevy sold her house and left real estate so she could finish the book.
Chevy enjoys writing thrillers that allow her to blend her interest in family dynamics with her love of the west coast lifestyle. When she’s not working on her next book, she’s hiking with her husband and dog in the local mountains. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[A] gripping thriller.... Stevens skillfully builds suspense, but often draws characters with broad strokes, sacrificing depth for pacing, and a few niggling details (such as the timing of Brian’s marriage) remain unexplained. Despite its flaws, this fast-paced nail-biter will keep readers up late—and may evoke a few tears.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [Three] sisters...anxiously await the return of their abusive and alcoholic father, who has been away for a month working on an oil rig. The homecoming is worse than they anticipated.... [Such ] an engrossing, suspenseful tale that readers will wish they could warn the protagonists of the dangers that lie ahead...nail-biting suspense. —Susan Moritz, Silver Spring, MD
Library Journal
Tense, believable, and action-packed, made more vibrant by Stevens' sense of place.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Throughout the novel we observe the dynamics between the three sisters. How would you describe each sister’s role? Do their roles change as the novel progresses?
2. In what ways do we see how the experiences Dani, Courtney, and Jess had as children and teenagers affect the relationships they have and how they relate to people as adults? How are they each affected differently?
3. Why do Dani, Courtney, and Jess decide to flee after killing their father? Do you think fleeing was their only choice, or do you think they should have taken a different path?
4. Do you think the sisters were too trusting of Brian and Gavin when they met them? Would you have accepted their help if you had been in a similar position, or would you have reacted differently? At what point did you begin to think the boys were truly a dangerous threat?
5. In this novel we see horrible acts of cruelty, but also acts of great kindness and compassion. Which characters display compassion and generosity? What motivates them to do so?
6. Do you think Jess did the right thing by hiding the truth from Skylar for all those years?
7. What was your reaction to Skylar’s decision to run away to find Courtney? Would you have done the same thing in her position?
8. Were you surprised by the way things turned out in the end? What did you expect to happen? Did your expectations change as the novel progressed?
9. How did you react to Courtney’s decision to sacrifice herself to save Skylar?
10. Reflect on the structure of the book, which is written in two parts. How did it affect your experience as a reader? Were you surprised by the way the first part ended? What were your expectations for the second part?
11. What do you imagine the future to hold for Dani, Jess, and Skylar?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Guest Room
Chris Bohjalian, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385538893
Summary
The spellbinding tale of a party gone horribly wrong: two men lie dead in a suburban living room, two women are on the run from police, and a marriage is ripping apart at the seams.
When Kristin Chapman agrees to let her husband, Richard, host his brother’s bachelor party, she expects a certain amount of debauchery. She brings their young daughter to Manhattan for the evening, leaving her Westchester home to the men and their hired entertainment.
What she does not expect is this: bacchanalian drunkenness, her husband sharing a dangerously intimate moment in the guest room, and two women stabbing and killing their Russian bodyguards before driving off into the night.
In the aftermath, Kristin and Richard’s life rapidly spirals into nightmare. The police throw them out of their home, now a crime scene, Richard’s investment banking firm puts him on indefinite leave, and Kristin is unsure if she can forgive her husband for the moment he shared with a dark-haired girl in the guest room.
But the dark-haired girl, Alexandra, faces a much graver danger. In one breathless, violent night, she is free, running to escape the police who will arrest her and the gangsters who will kill her in a heartbeat. A captivating, chilling story about shame and scandal, The Guest Room is a riveting novel from one of our greatest storytellers. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—White Plains, New York, USA
• Education—Amherst College
• Awards—Anahid Literary Award, 2000; New England Book Award, 2002
• Currently—lives in Lincoln, Vermont
Christopher Aram Bohjalian, who goes by the pen name Chris Bohjalian, is an American novelist. Bohjalian is the author of nearly 20 novels, including New York Times bestsellers Midwives, Secrets of Eden, The Law of Similars, Before You Know Kindness, The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and The Night Strangers.
Bohjalian is the son of Aram Bohjalian, who was a senior vice president of the New York advertising agency Romann & Tannenholz. Chris Bohjalian graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In the mid-1980s, he worked as an account representative for J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York.
He and his wife lived in a co-op in Brooklyn until March 1986, when the two were riding in a taxicab in which the driver refused to let them out of the car for 45 minutes, ignoring all traffic lights and stop signs. Around midnight, the driver dropped them off at a near-deserted street in front of a crack house, where the police were conducting a raid and Bohjalian and his wife were forced to drop to the ground for their protection. The incident prompted the couple to move from Brooklyn; Bohjalian said, "After it was all over, we just thought, "Why do we live here?" A few days later, the couple read an ad in The New York Times referencing the "People's Republic of Vermont," and in 1987 the couple moved to Lincoln, Vermont.
Early career
After buying their house, Bohjalian began writing weekly columns for local newspaper and magazine about living in the small town, which had a population of about 975 residents. The Concord Monitor said of Bohjalian during this period, "his immersion in community life and family, Vermont-style, has allowed him to develop into a novelist with an ear and empathy for the common man." Bohjalian continued the column for about 12 years, writing about such topics as his own daily life, fatherhood and the transformation of America. The column has run in the Burlington Free Press since 1992. Bohjalian has also written for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.
Bohjalian's first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was released in 1988. Almost two decades after it was released, Bohjalian said of the book, "It was a train wreck. I hadn't figured things out yet." His third novel, Past the Bleachers, was released in 1992 and adapted as a Hallmark Channel television movie in 1995.
In 1998, Bohjalian wrote his fifth book, Midwives, a novel focusing on rural Vermont midwife Sibyl Danforth, who becomes embroiled in a legal battle after one of her patients died following an emergency Caesarean section. The novel was critically acclaimed and was selected by Oprah Winfrey as the October 1998 selection of her Oprah's Book Club, which helped push the book to great financial success. It became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Victoria Blewer has often described her husband as having "a crush" on the Sybil Danforth character. In 2001, the novel was adapted into a Lifetime Movie Network television film starring Sissy Spacek in the lead role. Spacek said the Danforth character appealed to her because "the heart of the story is my character's inner struggle with self-doubt, the solo road you travel when you have a secret."
Later career
Bohjalian followed Midwives with the 1999 novel The Law of Similars, about a widower attorney suffering from nameless anxieties who starts dating a woman who practices alternative medicine. The novel was inspired by Bohjalian's real-life visit to a homeopath in an attempt to cure frequent colds he was catching from his daughter's day care center. Bohjalian said of the visit, "I don't think I imagined there was a novel in homeopathy, however, until I met the homeopath and she explained to me the protocols of healing. There was a poetry to the language that a patient doesn't hear when visiting a conventional doctor." The protagonist, a father, is based in part on Bohjalian himself, and his four-year-old daughter is based largely on Bohjalian's daughter, who was three when he was writing the book., Liz Rosenberg of The New York Times said the novel shared many similarities with Midwives but that it paled in comparison; Rosenberg said, "Unlike its predecessor, it fails to take advantage of Bohjalian's great gift for creating thoughtful fiction featuring characters in whom the reader sustains a lively interest." Megan Harlan of The Boston Phoenix described it as "formulaic fiction" and said Bohjalian focused too much on creating a complex plot and not enough of complex characterizations. The Law of Similars, like Midwives, made the New York Times bestsellers list.
He won the New England Book Award in 2002, and in 2007 released "The Double Bind," a novel based on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
In 2008, Bohjalian released Skeletons at the Feast, a love story set in the last six months of World War II in Poland and Germany. The novel was inspired by an unpublished diary written by German citizen Eva Henatsch from 1920 to 1945. The diary was given to Bohjalian in 1998 by Henatsch's grandson Gerd Krahn, a friend of Bohjalian, who had a daughter in the same kindergarten class as Bohjalian's daughter. Bohjalian was particularly fascinated by Henatsch's account of her family's trek west ahead of the Soviet Army, but he was not inspired to write a novel from it until 2006, when he read Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, Max Hastings' history of the final years of World War II. Bohjalian was struck not only by how often Henatsch's story mirrored real-life experiences, but also the common "moments of idiosyncratic human connection" found in both. Skeletons of the Feast was considered a departure for Bohjalian because it was not only set outside of Vermont, but set in a particular historical moment.
His 2010 novel, Secrets of Eden, was also a critical success, receiving starred reviews from three of the four trade journals (Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly), as well as many newspapers and magazines. It debuted at # 6 on The New York Times bestseller list.
His next novel, The Night Strangers, published in 2011, represents yet another departure for Bohjalian. The is both a gothic ghost story and a taut psychological thriller.
He has written a weekly column for Gannett's Burlington Free Press since February 1992 called "Idyll Banter." His 1,000th column appeared in May 2011.
Personal comments
In a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview, Bohjalian offered up these personal comments:
I was the heaviest child, by far, in my second-grade class. My mother had to buy my pants for me at a store called the "Husky Boys Shop," and still she had to hem the cuffs up around my knees. I hope this experience, traumatizing as it was, made me at least marginally more sensitive to people around me.
I have a friend with Down syndrome, a teenage boy who is capable of remembering the librettos from entire musicals the first or second time he hears them. The two of us belt them out together whenever we're driving anywhere in a car.I am a pretty avid bicyclist. The other day I was biking alone on a thin path in the woods near Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, and suddenly before me I saw three bears. At first I saw only two, and initially I thought they were cats. Then I thought they were dogs. Finally, just as I was approaching them and they started to scurry off the path and into the thick brush, I understood they were bears. Bear cubs, to be precise. Which is exactly when their mother, no more than five or six feet to my left, reared up on her hind legs, her very furry paws and very sharp claws raised above her head in a gesture that an optimist might consider a wave and guy on a bike might consider something a tad more threatening. Because she was standing on a slight incline, I was eye level with her stomach—an eventual destination that seemed frighteningly plausible. I have never biked so fast in my life in the woods. I may never have biked so fast in my life on a paved road.
I do have hobbies—I garden and bike, for example—but there's nothing in the world that gives me even a fraction of the pleasure that I derive from hanging around with my wife and daughter.
He lives with his wife and daughter in Lincoln, Vermont, where he is active in the local church and the Vermont theater community—always off-stage, never on.
Writing style
Bohjalian novels often focus on a specific issue, such as homelessness, animal rights and environmentalism, and tend to be character-driven, revolving around complex and flawed protagonists and secondary characters. Bohjalian uses characteristics from his real life in his writings; in particular, many of his novels take place in fictional Vermont towns, and the names of real New Hampshire towns are often used throughout his stories. Bohjalian said, "Writers can talk with agonizing hubris about finding their voices, but for me, it was in Vermont that I discovered issues, things that matter to me." His novels also tend to center around ordinary people facing extraordinarily difficult situations resulting from unforeseen circumstances, often triggered by other parties. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
In his latest novel, Bohjalian stacks the deck against his well-to-do main character, Richard Chapman, who holds a bachelor party in his Bronxville home for his younger brother.... It is to the author’s credit that he takes [the] situation and makes it somewhat credible. Juxtaposed against the upper-class setting is Alexandra’s own account of being sold into slavery, which deserves a less sudsy book of its own.
Publishers Weekly
[A]nother fresh and different novel from the New York Times best-selling Bohjalian.... [A] tale of escalating suspense.
Library Journal
Gripping…. Venturing into crime-thriller territory familiar to fans of Harlan Coben, Bohjalian’s page-turner about an average Joe caught up in sordid events beyond his control resonates with chilling plausibility.
Booklist
[T]he plot thickens with blackmail threats, Internet defamation, employment discrimination, and marital meltdown, as Richard compounds his original error with even more implausible lapses in judgment. Character development takes a back seat in this expose of human trafficking, and Bohjalian's treatment often wavers between prurience and polemic.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When Anahit is forced to become Alexandra, what happens to her sense of self? How is she able to secretly retain many aspects of her true identity—particularly her sense of humor and her intellect? How does she navigate the multitude of cultures beyond her Armenian homeland? How would you fare in her situation?
2. If you were Kristin, how would you have reacted to Richard’s story? If you were Nicole, would you have broken off the engagement to Philip?
3. If the bachelor party had featured strippers or prostitutes who had freely chosen their line of work, would you call the debauchery harmless? Is a career in the sex trade ever freely chosen?
4. Discuss the psychological tactics Alexandra’s captors use against her. Is there anything she and her beloved grandmother could have done to see through Vasily’s promises?
5. How will Melissa be affected by the aftermath of her uncle’s party? How will these memories shape her understanding of a woman’s role in the world, and the nature of suffering?
6. Is Spencer simply motivated by money, or does he also crave power? How much does he have in common with Kirill and Pavel?
7. At the end of chapter 5, Alexandra says she never had faith in hatred, like Sonja did. What accounts for the differences between Sonja and Alexandra? What is the source of Alexandra’s resilience and her inability to become “good at hatred”?
8. Are most of the men you know similar to Richard, or are they more like his brother, Philip? Are Alexandra’s images from The Bachelor totally unrealistic?
9. How were you affected by the story Alexandra tells Richard about the crates of Barbie dolls? How do her memories of the dolls compare to Melissa and Kristin’s visit to FAO Schwarz?
10. As Alexandra and Richard struggled to be free of their separate turmoil, what outcomes were you envisioning for them? How did the ending compare to your predictions?
11. How did The Guest Room enhance your experience of other novels by Chris Bohjalian? What’s special about the worlds he brings to life in his storylines?
12. Although it’s a work of fiction, The Guest Room opens our eyes to the tragic reality of human trafficking. How can a novel spur change? How is a novelist’s approach different from that of journalists?
13. What should we teach our daughters and sons about sexuality and exploitation? Does sex appeal make a woman powerful, or does it make her vulnerable?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Winter Girl
Matt Marinovich, 2015
Knopf Doubleday
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385539975
Summary
A scathing and exhilarating thriller that begins with a husband's obsession with the seemingly vacant house next door.
It's wintertime in the Hamptons, where Scott and his wife, Elise, have come to be with her terminally ill father, Victor, to await the inevitable.
As weeks turn to months, their daily routine—Elise at the hospital with her father, Scott pretending to work and drinking Victor's booze—only highlights their growing resentment and dissatisfaction with the usual litany of unhappy marriages: work, love, passion, each other.
But then Scott notices something simple, even innocuous. Every night at precisely eleven, the lights in the neighbor's bedroom turn off. It's clearly a timer...but in the dead of winter with no one else around, there's something about that light he can't let go of.
So one day while Elise is at the hospital, he breaks in. And he feels a jolt of excitement he hasn't felt in a long time. Soon, it's not hard to enlist his wife as a partner in crime and see if they can't restart the passion.
Their one simple transgression quickly sends husband and wife down a deliriously wicked spiral of bad decisions, infidelities, escalating violence, and absolutely shocking revelations.
Matt Marinovich makes a strong statement with this novel. The Winter Girl is the psychological thriller done to absolute perfection. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1966
• Where—N/A
• Education—M.F.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Matt Marinovich is the author of The Winter Girl (2016) and Strange Skies (2007). He has worked as a freelance writer, manuscript editor, copy writer, and adjunct professor.
He has worked as an editor at Interview, Martha Stewart Living, People, and Real Simple. His writing has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Esquire.com, Salon, Quarterly West, Open City, Barcelona Review, Mississippi Review, Poets & Writers, and other publications.
He lives in Brooklyn. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A]bsorbing thriller [about]...Scott and Elise, a troubled couple...staying in the house of Elise’s abusive and dying father, Victor.... The revelations...seem rushed at times, and Scott’s own motivations aren’t always clear. Still, this is an engrossing, disquieting read for a chilly night.
Publishers Weekly
Family secrets and marital transgressions weave a suspenseful Hitchcockian story of intrigue, mystery, and deceit.... Marinovich offers a promising premise with a disturbing, fast-paced plot. While the ending may leave something to be desired, this is a quick read for fans of psychological thrillers. —Carolann Curry, Mercer Univ. Lib., Macon, GA
Library Journal
The twists are clever and the pacing relentless.
Booklist
[A] psychological thriller.... It starts with promise.... [but the] novel's second half devolves into a noisy, almost parodic noir, with too much coincidence, too many nested secrets, and too many people acting according to motives that seem cooked up.... But it all moves briskly, and the beginning is compelling enough to keep the reader turning pages.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they more one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you, the reader, begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers are skillful at hiding clues in plain sight. How well does the author hide the clues in this work?
4. Does the author use red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray?
5. Talk about plot's twists & turns—those surprising developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense? Are they plausible? Or do the twists & turns feel forced and preposterous—inserted only to extend the story.
6. Does the author ratchet up the story's suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? How does the author build suspense?
7. What about the ending—is it satisfying? Is it probable or believable? Does it grow out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 2). Or does the ending come out of the blue? Does it feel forced...tacked-on...or a cop-out? Or perhaps it's too predictable. Can you envision a better, or different, ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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