The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
Mitch Albom, 2015
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062294432
Summary
Mitch Albom creates his most unforgettable fictional character—Frankie Presto, the greatest guitarist to ever walk the earth—in this magical novel about the bands we join in life and the power of talent to change our lives.
An epic story of the greatest guitar player to ever live, and the six lives he changed with his magical blue strings.
In Albom’s most sweeping novel yet, the voice of Music narrates the tale of its most beloved disciple, young Frankie Presto, a war orphan raised by a blind music teacher in a small Spanish town. At nine years old, Frankie is sent to America in the bottom of a boat. His only possession is an old guitar and six precious strings.
But Frankie’s talent is touched by the gods, and his amazing journey weaves him through the musical landscape of the 20th century, from classical to jazz to rock and roll, with his stunning talent affecting numerous stars along the way, including Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Carole King, Wynton Marsalis and even KISS.
Frankie becomes a pop star himself. He makes records. He is adored. But his gift is also his burden, as he realizes, through his music, he can actually affect people’s futures—with one string turning blue whenever a life is altered.
At the height of his popularity, Frankie Presto vanishes. His legend grows. Only decades later, does he reappear—just before his spectacular death—to change one last life.
With its Forest Gump-like romp through the music world, The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto is a classic in the making. A lifelong musician himself, Mitch Albom delivers a remarkable novel, infused with the message that “everyone joins a band in this life” and those connections change us all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 23, 1958
• Raised—Oaklyn, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Brandeis University; M.J., Columbia
University; M.B.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in Detroit, Michigan
Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom is an American best-selling author, journalist, screenwriter, dramatist, radio, television broadcaster and musician. His books have sold over 30 million copies worldwide. Having achieved national recognition for sports writing in the earlier part of his career, he is perhaps best known for the inspirational stories and themes that weave through his books, plays and films.
Early life
Mitch Albom was born May 23, 1958 in Passaic, New Jersey. He lived in Buffalo for a little bit but then settled in Oaklyn, New Jersey which is close to Philadelphia. He grew up in a small, middle-class neighborhood from which most people never left. Mitch was once quoted as saying that his parents were very supportive and always used to say, “Don’t expect your life to finish here. There’s a big world out there. Go out and see it.”
His older sister, younger brother and he himself, all took that message to heart and traveled extensively, His siblings are currently settled in Europe. Albom once mentioned that how his parents presently say, “Great. All our kids went and saw the world and now no one comes home to have dinner on Sundays.”
Sports journalism
While living in New York, Albom developed an interest in journalism. Supporting himself by working nights in the music industry, he began to write during the day for the Queens Tribune, a weekly newspaper in Flushing, New York. His work there helped earn him entry into the Graduate School of Journalism. During his time there, to help pay his tuition he took work as a babysitter. In addition to nighttime piano playing, Albom took a part-time job with SPORT magazine.
Upon graduation, he freelanced in that field for publications such as Sports Illustrated, GEO, and the Philadelphia Inquirer, and covered several Olympic sports events in Europe, paying his own way for travel and selling articles once he was there. In 1983, he was hired as a full-time feature writer for the Fort Lauderdale News and Sun Sentinel, and eventually promoted to columnist. In 1985, having won that year’s Associated Press Sports Editors award for best Sports News Story, Albom was hired as lead sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press.
During his years in Detroit he became one of the most award-winning sports writers of his era; he was named best sports columnist in the nation a record 13 times by the Associated Press Sports Editors, and won best feature writing honors from that same organization a record seven times. No other writer has received the award more than once.
He has won more than 200 other writing honors from organizations including the National Headliner Awards, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, and National Association of Black Journalists. In 2010, Albom was awarded the APSE's Red Smith Award for lifetime achievement, presented at the annual APSE convention in Salt Lake City, Utah. Many of his columns have been collected into a series of four anthologies—the Live Albom books—published from 1988-1995.
Sports books
Albom's first non-anthology book was Bo: Life, Laughs, and the Lessons of a College Football Legend (1998), an autobiography of football coach Bo Schembechler co-written with the coach. The book became Albom's first New York Times bestseller.
Albom's next book was Fab Five: Basketball, Trash Talk, The American Dream (1993), a look into the starters on the University of Michigan men's basketball team who, as freshman, reached the NCAA championship game in 1992 and again as sophomores in 1993. The book also became a New York Times bestseller.
Tuesdays with Morrie
Albom's breakthrough book came about after a friend of his viewed Morrie Schwartz's interview with Ted Koppel on ABC News Nightline in 1995, in which Schwartz, a sociology professor, spoke about living and dying with a terminal disease, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease).
Albom, who had been close with Schwartz during his college years at Brandeis, felt guilty about not keeping in touch so he reconnected with his former professor, visiting him in suburban Boston and eventually coming every Tuesday for discussions about life and death. Albom, seeking a way to pay for Schwartz's medical bills, sought out a publisher for a book about their visits. Although rejected by numerous publishing houses, the idea was accepted by Doubleday shortly before Schwartz's death, and Albom was able to fulfill his wish to pay off Schwartz's bills.
The book, Tuesdays with Morrie (1997) is a small volume that chronicles Albom's time spent with his professor. The initial printing was 20,000 copies. Word of mouth grew the book sales slowly and a brief appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" nudged the book onto the New York Times bestseller's list in October 1997. It steadily climbed, reaching the No. 1 position six months later. It remained on the New York Times bestseller list for 205 weeks. One of the top selling memoirs of all time, Tuesdays With Morrie has sold over 14 million copies and been translated into 41 languages.
Oprah Winfrey produced a television movie adaptation by the same name for ABC, starring Hank Azaria as Albom and Jack Lemmon as Morrie. It was the most-watched TV movie of 1999 and won four Emmy Awards. A two-man theater play was later co-authored by Albom and playwright Jeffrey Hatcher and opened Off Broadway in the fall of 2001, starring Alvin Epstein as Morrie and Jon Tenney as Albom.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Albom's next foray was in fiction with The Five People You Meet in Heaven (2003). The book was a fast success and again launched Albom onto the New York Times bestseller list, selling over 10 million copies in 35 languages. In 2004, it was turned into a television movie for ABC, starring Jon Voight, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Imperioli, and Jeff Daniels. The film was critically acclaimed and the most watched TV movie of the year, with 18.6 million viewers.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven is the story of Eddie, a wounded war veteran who lives what he believes is an uninspired and lonely life fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. On his 83rd birthday, Eddie is killed while trying to save a little girl from a falling ride. He awakes in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a location but a place in which your life is explained to you by five people who were in, who affected, or were affected by, your life.
Albom has said the book was inspired by his real life uncle, Eddie Beitchman, who, like the character, served during World War II in the Philippines, and died when he was 83. Eddie told Albom, as a child, about a time he was rushed to surgery and had a near-death experience, his soul floating above the bed. There, Eddie said, he saw all his dead relatives waiting for him at the edge of the bed. Albom has said that image of people waiting when you die inspired the book's concept.
For One More Day
Albom's third novel, For One More Day (2006), spent nine months on the New York Times bestseller list after debuting at the top spot. It also reached No. 1 on USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. It was the first book to be sold by Starbucks in the launch of the Book Break Program in the fall of 2006. It has been translated into 26 languages. On December 9, 2007, the ABC aired the 2-hour television event motion picture Oprah Winfrey Presents: Mitch Albom's For One More Day, which starred Michael Imperioli and Ellen Burstyn. Burstyn received a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for her role as Posey Benetto.
For One More Day is “Chick” Benetto, a retired baseball player who, facing the pain of unrealized dreams, alcoholism, divorce, and an estrangement from his grown daughter, returns to his childhood home and attempts suicide. There he meets his long dead mother, who welcomes him as if nothing ever happened. The book explores the question, “What would you do if you had one more day with someone you’ve lost?”
Albom has said his relationship with his own mother was largely behind the story of that book, and that several incidents in For One More Day are actual events from his childhood.
Have a Little Faith
His first nonfiction book since Tuesdays was published, Have a Little Faith (2009) recounts Albom's experiences which led to him writing the eulogy for Albert L. Lewis, a Rabbi from his hometown in New Jersey. The book is written in the same vein as Tuesdays With Morrie, in which the main character, Mitch, goes through several heartfelt conversations with the Rabbi in order to better know and understand the man that he would one day eulogize. Through this experience, Albom writes, his own sense of faith was reawakened, leading him to make contact with Henry Covington, the African-American pastor of the I Am My Brother's Keeper church, in Detroit, where Albom was then living. Covington, a past drug addict, dealer, and ex-convict, ministered to a congregation of largely homeless men and women in a church so poor that the roof leaked when it rained. From his relationships with these two very different men of faith, Albom writes about the difference faith can make in the world.
The Time Keeper
Albom's third work of fiction, The Time Keeper (2012) is fablistic tale about the inventor of the world's first clock who is punished for trying to measure God's greatest gift. He is banished to a cave for centuries and forced to listen to the voices of all who come after him seeking more days, more years. Eventually, with his soul nearly broken, Father Time is granted his freedom, along with a magical hourglass and a mission: a chance to redeem himself by teaching two earthly people the true meaning of time.
The First Phone Call from Heaven
Albom's fourth work of fiction, The First Phone Call from Heaven (2013) tells the story of a small town on Lake Michigan that gets worldwide attention when its citizens start receiving phone calls from the afterlife.
The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
Told from the point of view of the Spirit of Music, Albom's fifth novel (2015) traces the life of the legendary (and fictional) super guitarist Frankie Presto and his extraordinary impact on the music of his time.
Charity work
Albom has founded a number of charitable organizations whose missions are to aid disadvantaged and homeless people. The groups have raised funds to pay for resuce services, youth programs, beds, kitchen, food, and daycare.
• The Dream Fund at the College for Creative Studies (CCS) was started by Albom in 1992. Its purpose is to provide funding for under-served children to participate in the arts and to instill confidence in our youth. Since its founding, CCS has used the Dream Fund to support visual, performing, summer “Week at a Time” youth scholarships, community art programs, and even the Detroit 300 project in 2001. The Dream Fund has raised over $115,000 in scholarships since its inception.
• S.A.Y. Detroit (which stands for Super All Year Detroit) is an umbrella organization for charities dedicated to improving the lives of the neediest—including A Time to Help, S.A.Y. Detroit Family Health Clinic, and A Hole in the Roof Foundation. S.A.Y. distributes money to shelters in Detroit for projects specifically designed to help the plight of those in need. Its projects to date include the building of a state-of-the-art kitchen at the Michigan Veterans Foundation shelter and a day-care center at COTS for children of homeless women
• A Time To Help was established in 1997 as a means of galvanizing the people of Detroit to volunteer on a regular basis. The group has staged more than 100 monthly projects ranging from building houses, delivering meals, beautifying city streets, running adoption fairs, repairing homeless shelters, packing food, and hosting an annual Christmas party to a shelter for battered women.
• A Hole in the Roof Foundation helps faith groups of any denomination, who care for the homeless, to repair the spaces in which they carry out their work and offer their services. The seed that gave root to the Foundation—and also inspired its name—is the I Am My Brother's Keeper church in Detroit, MI. Here, despite a gaping hole in the roof, and no matter how harsh the weather, the pastor tends to his community to provide spiritual nourishment and a sanctuary for the homeless. (Adapted from Wikiipedia. First retrieved 9/18/2013.)
Book Reviews
Albom’s The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto hits the right notes. Albom’s love for music is richly apparent...and his maxims about life will no doubt bring readers on a pleasantly sentimental journey about the bandmates in their lives.
USA Today
As always, Albom’s novel has a larger message...and The Magic Strings of Frankie Pesto resonates with a kind of cosmic connection.
Miami New Times
A beautiful story that forces us to think about the concept of a life well lived…. Albom brings his literary magic once again.
Huffington Post
Albom’s fable about the power of song carries you along like a beautiful melody.
People
Within a few pages, you’ll be as delighted with this sparkling book as I was. Start it, stick with it, and you’ll find The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto to be a book of note.
Yankton Daily Press
What an entertainer! Mitch Albom, author, playwright, screenwriter, nationally syndicated columnist—and philanthropist, as his audience learned, was a charmer…. There seemed to be no end to this man’s talents.
NorthJersey.com
Albom...blends the spiritual and the musical to tell the story of Frankie Presto, the greatest guitar player the world has ever heard. Fleeing Spain for America with a battered old guitar, [Presto] moves from the Forties to the Sixties, affecting everyone and transforming a few...
Library Journal
At the funeral of guitar superstar Frankie Presto, who disappeared at the peak of his fame, the Spirit of Music looks back on his life.... [A] sentimental journey that might be a mashup of the lives of shooting stars like Bobby Darin or Ricky Nelson.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What are the effects of having The Spirit of Music narrate the novel? How does it shade the story?
2. Of what significance—literal or symbolic—is it that Frankie Presto was born amidst El Terror Rojo, the Spanish civil war? How do you think the cultural restrictions and political tensions affected Frankie’s childhood? How do you think they impacted his music?
3. Throughout the novel, we get glimpses of Frankie’s story from people—both real andimagined—who knew Frankie through his music. What does this array of voices and characters add to the novel? How do they add to our understanding of Frankie?
4. The narrator suggests that “everyone joins a band in this life,”likening family or other social groups to being in a band. In what ways is this true? How might it be helpful to think of life and relationships this way?
5. Cast into the river as a baby, Frankie is saved by the hairless dog. What is the role of the dog in Frankie’s life?
6. Very early in his life, Frankie shows “flashes of genius” with music. How much of genius talent is given, how much is earned?
7. In what ways might working with language—writing, reading, and speaking—be like making music?
8. Consider Frankie’s music teacher, El Maestro. What does he value most about music? How did losing his sight affect him? How does getting Frankie into his life fulfill him?
9. Beyond teaching Frankie how to play the guitar, how does El Maestro impact Frankie’s life? How does he step in when Baffa is imprisoned? What else does he teach him?
10. El Maestro tells Frankie, in no uncertain terms, that, “music hurts.” What might he mean? In what ways is this statement true or not for Frankie? Do you agree with El Maestro?
11. When Frankie shows himself to be a talented singer as well as guitar player, El Maestro says that he must choose because “being both means being neither.” What does he mean? Is it true that a person can only be truly great at one thing?
12. Frankie enjoys and plays many genres of music, from intricate classical or jazz to simple, contemporary pop. What does it take to appreciate such different expressions of music? Why might many people limit their listening to a particular type of music?
13. Franco’s oppressive political regime in Spain created conditions under which “art suffers.” How can art be limited by politics? What do you think is powerful or threatening to strict political rule about art and music? How do we see music exercise that power in Frankie’s life?
14. Music is often defined as the organization of sound and silence in time. What do you think is the role of silence in music? How do we see Frankie balance sound and silence in his own life. Why do you think this is important?
15. Consider the long, romantic, and complex relationship between Frankie and Aurora York. Why do they always return to one another? What does this say about the role of forgiveness in the novel?
16.The narrator states that, “all love stories are like symphonies,” with four movements: Allegro, Adagio, Minuet/Scherzo, and Rondo. In what ways is this true? Why do such relationships experience such change?
17. Frankie “grew up all over the place: Spain, England, Detroit, Nashville, New Orleans, Louisiana, California.” How does this influence him and his music? How might different places and landscapes affect an artist?
18. Despite all his talent and success, late in his life Frankie still doesn’t believe he deserves applause. Why might this be so?
19. How does Frankie and Aurora’s adopted daughter, Kai, change Frankie’s life? His music? What does Frankie mean when he tells Paul Stanley that “the older you get, the more you want your kids to know about you”?
20. The narrator, Music, claims that “all humans are musical.” Do you agree? In what ways might this be true? What do you think defines music and what role does it play in our everyday life?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
When the Moon Is Low
Nadia Hashimi, 2015
HarperCollins
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062369574
Summary
Nominee, 2015 Goodreads Best Book of 2015
Mahmoud's passion for his wife Fereiba, a schoolteacher, is greater than any love she's ever known. But their happy, middle-class world—a life of education, work, and comfort—implodes when their country is engulfed in war, and the Taliban rises to power.
Mahmoud, a civil engineer, becomes a target of the new fundamentalist regime and is murdered. Forced to flee Kabul with her three children, Fereiba has one hope to survive: she must find a way to cross Europe and reach her sister's family in England.
With forged papers and help from kind strangers they meet along the way, Fereiba make a dangerous crossing into Iran under cover of darkness. Exhausted and brokenhearted but undefeated, Fereiba manages to smuggle them as far as Greece. But in a busy market square, their fate takes a frightening turn when her teenage son, Saleem, becomes separated from the rest of the family.
Faced with an impossible choice, Fereiba pushes on with her daughter and baby, while Saleem falls into the shadowy underground network of undocumented Afghans who haunt the streets of Europe's capitals. Across the continent Fereiba and Saleem struggle to reunite, and ultimately find a place where they can begin to reconstruct their lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1978
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Raised—New Jersey
• Education—B.As., Brandeis University; M.D., State University of New York, Brooklyn
• Currently—lives in the state of Maryland, USA
Nadia Hashimi was born and raised in New York and New Jersey. Both her parents were born in Afghanistan and left in the early 1970s, before the Soviet invasion. Her mother, granddaughter of a notable Afghan poet, traveled to Europe to obtain a Master’s degree in civil engineering and her father came to the United States, where he worked hard to fulfill his American dream and build a new, brighter life for his immediate and extended family.
Nadia was fortunate to be surrounded by a large family of aunts, uncles and cousins, keeping the Afghan culture an integral part of their daily lives.
Nadia attended Brandeis University where she obtained degrees in Middle Eastern Studies and Biology. In 2002, she made her first trip to Afghanistan with her parents who had not returned to their homeland since leaving in the 1970s. It was a bittersweet experience for everyone, finding relics of childhood homes and reuniting with loved ones.
Nadia enrolled in medical school in Brooklyn and became active with an Afghan-American community organization that promoted cultural events and awareness, especially in the dark days after 9/11. She graduated from medical school and went on to complete her pediatric training at NYU/Bellevue hospitals in New York City. On completing her training, Nadia moved to Maryland with her husband where she works as a pediatrician. She’s also a part of the “Lady Docs,” a group of local female physicians who exercise, eat and blog together.
With her rigorous medical training completed, Nadia turned to a passion that had gone unexplored. Her upbringing, experiences and love for reading came together in the form of stories based in the country of her parents and grandparents (some even make guest appearances in her tales!).
Her debut novel, The Pearl That Broke Its Shell was released in 2014. Her second novel, When The Moon Is Low, followed in 2015 and chronicled the perilous journey of an Afghan family as they fled Taliban-controlled Kabul and fell into the dark world of Europe's undocumented.
She and her husband are the beaming parents of four curious, rock star children, two goldfish and a territorial African Grey parrot. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A must-read saga about borders, barriers, and the resolve of one courageous mother fighting to cross over.
Oprah Magazine
[T]he Taliban has on daily life in Kabul.... Hashimi masterfully captures Saleem's moving story as he squats in refugee camps, stealthily makes his way to Italy, and unexpectedly finds transport to France, all while haunted by loving memories of Mahmood. Verdict: Expertly depict[s] the anxiety and excitement that accompanies a new life. —Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Fereiba describes herself as “an outsider in my father’s home” as a child, and then becomes a literal outsider as a refugee. What do you think the author is trying to say about being an outsider? Is there anythingpositive to be gained from having an outsider’s perspective and experience? Who are the outsiders in your family or society?
2. What do you make of KokoGul? Is she the classic “wicked stepmother”, or are there more layers to her? What do you think she was like at Fereiba’s age? What motivates her most as a wife and mother?
3. In hindsight, knowing what happened, did Fereiba make the right decision to leave Kabul? Was she right to press on towards London without Saleem? What would you have done in her situation?
4. Fereiba’s family frequently gets by thanks to the kindness of strangers, particularly Hakan and Hayal, the Turkish couple who take in the family and generously help support them. Why do you think Hakan and Hayal do this? Should Fereiba’s family have stayed in Turkey with them? What compels them to leave a seeming safe harbor and continue to Europe?
5. When Saleem is talking with Roksana about why she works to help refugees he
...wondered what kind of person he would be if he were in her shoes. Would he take up the cause of srangers? Would he care enough about how people were being treated that he would spend his time handing out food and filling out applications on their behalf? He hoped he would. But it was very possible he wouldn’t.
Would you do what Saleem wonders about?
6. Saleem’s journey is dramatically affected by three girls his own age: Ekin, the Turkish farmer’s daughter, Roksana, the Greek aid worker, and Mimi, the Albanian prostitute. What does he owe to each of them? Why do you think they helped him, even when it was risky for them?
7. Who is the man Saleem encounters in the refugee camp in Calais? Is he really, as he claims, a friend of Fereiba’s beloved grandfather?
8. There is water imagery throughout the novel. As the old man stares out over the English Channel that divides Saleem from his family, we read that...
From here is was easy to see the currents, linear streams of water a shade different from the rest of the ocean, like secret passages within the depths.
As Saleem gets closer, Fereiba dreams of him
...swimming across a brilliant, blue ocean...There was water all around him, and he glided through, swimming in smooth, strong strkes as if he’d been raised by the ocean.
What is the significance of the water imagery? What message does it carry about the family’s journey?
9. What do you think happens to Saleem? Is he ultimately reunited with his family? What will happen to Samira and Aziz? How will their lives be different than their older brother’s?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Sound of Glass
Karen White, 2015
Penguin Publishing
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451470898
Summary
Nominee, 2015 Goodreads Best Book of the Year
It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward’s husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news—Cal’s family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal’s reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt.
Charting the course of an uncertain life—and feeling guilt from her husband’s tragic death—Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal’s unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff.
This unknown legacy, now Merritt’s, will change and define her as she navigates her new life—a new life complicated by the arrival of her too young stepmother and ten-year-old half-brother.
Soon, in this house of strangers, Merritt is forced into unraveling the Heyward family past as she faces her own fears and finds the healing she needs in the salt air of the Low Country. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.S., Tulane University
• Currently—lives near Atlanta, Georgia
Karen White is an American author of some 20 fiction novels.
She was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but because of her father's work with Exxon, her family moved around. She spend most of her childhood in various U.S. states, as well as in Venezuela and England, where she graduated from The American School in London.
Inspired by Gone With the Wind, Karen knew early on that she wanted to be a writer. Instead, however, when it was time for college, she returned to the U.S. to earn a B.S. degree in management from Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
After 10 years in the business world, Karen finally turned to her dream of becoming an author. She published her first book in 2000—In the Shadow of the Moon—which went on to became a double finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA Award.
Her books have since achieved best seller status on both the New York Times and USA Today lists. They have also been nominated for numerous national contests including the SIBA (Southeastern Booksellers Alliance) Fiction Book of the Year, and has twice won the National Readers’ Choice Award.
She writes what she refers to as "grit lit"—Southern women’s fiction. She has also expanded her horizons into writing a mystery series set in Charleston, South Carolina.
When not writing, she spends her time reading, scrapbooking, playing piano, and avoiding cooking. She currently lives near Atlanta, Georgia, with her husband and two children...and two spoiled Havanese dogs. (Adapted from Wikipedia and the author's website. Retrieved 12/06/2015.)
Book Reviews
Some books you read for the pure pleasure of the writing. Others you read for the emotions that are invoked. The Sound of Glass is a book that pays off in both areas. Karen White dug deep to create this tale of the south and it is well worth all of her efforts. Don't miss this one!
Jackie K. Cooper - Huffington Post
In this fish-out-of-water tale, Merritt moves from her native Maine to a small town in South Carolina.... Verdict: White deftly handles the multifaceted plot while creating a vivid atmosphere. —Karen Core, Detroit P.L.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the effect of the plane crash in 1955 and the effect on Beaufort. How does it affect the lives of the characters in this story for generations? How did it recast Edith’s life?
2. Of all Loralee’s maxims found in her Journal of Truths, which rings the truest to you? Do you carry around any of your own "truths" to guide your thinking?
3. Even after her husband’s death, why does Edith keep her "secret project" under wraps, even though it helps and inspires the police community?
4. Why do you think Edith makes the sea-glass wind chimes so devotedly? And why do you think Merritt chooses to leave them all in place? What do they come to represent, and why might they be called "mermaid’s tears"?
5. Why does Merritt blame herself for Cal’s death? How does she transform herself over the course of the book? Is she finally at peace with her journey at the end of the story?
6. Discuss the tragic connection between the women in the book. How did each survive her circumstances? Do you think a predisposition for domestic violence is a trait you can inherit?
7. Were you shocked by the "beloved" letter’s contents? Or by Merritt’s ties to the letter?
8. Do you think Edith was right to keep the letter writer’s secret? Was she justified in any way?
9. Did Cal’s personal struggles and rationale for seeking out Merritt surprise you? Was he sensible in feeling wronged by Edith’s secrecy?
10. Do you believe in fate or coincidences? Are there such things in your opinion? Do you think Merritt and Gibbes were ultimately meant for each other?
11. What is Loralee’s legacy for her loved ones? Do you think she successfully "built" a family or guidebook for Owen?
(Questions found on author's website.)
Trail of Broken Wings
Sejal Badani, 2015
Amazon Publishing
370 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781477822081
Summary
Nominee, 2015 Goodreads Best Book of the Year.
When her father falls into a coma, Indian American photographer Sonya reluctantly returns to the family she’d fled years before. Since she left home, Sonya has lived on the run, free of any ties, while her soft-spoken sister, Trisha, has created a perfect suburban life, and her ambitious sister, Marin, has built her own successful career.
But as these women come together, their various methods of coping with a terrifying history can no longer hold their memories at bay.
Buried secrets rise to the surface as their father—the victim of humiliating racism and perpetrator of horrible violence—remains unconscious. As his condition worsens, the daughters and their mother wrestle with private hopes for his survival or death, as well as their own demons and buried secrets.
Told with forceful honesty, Trail of Broken Wings reveals the burden of shame and secrets, the toxicity of cruelty and aggression, and the exquisite, liberating power of speaking and owning truth. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
A former attorney, Sejal Badani left the law to pursue writing full time. She was an ABC/Disney Writing Fellowship and CBS Writing Fellowship Finalist.
When not writing, she loves reading, biking along the ocean, traveling and trying to teach her teacup Morkie not to hide socks under the bed (so far she has been completely unsuccessful). Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, and Ed Sheeran are always playing in the background. She would love to speak to book clubs via Skypes. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
There are no maintstream media reviews online for this title. Head to Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers talking points to help start your discussion for TRAIL OF BROKEN WINGS … then take off on your own:
1. Trail of Broken Wings is told through four different characters. Whose story, or character, do you find most compelling, and why? The persepctives, however, vary: two use a first-person narration, while two others use a third-person. Why might the author have chosen two differing points of view?
2. Talk about the different ways in which the sisters have responded to, or coped with, their father's abuse.
3. Brent the father is comatose through the book, yet he is possibly the most influential character. Talk about who he is--what we come to learn about him. How have his past actions affected the lives of his wife and daughters? Do you have sympathy for him? Might extenuating circumstances excuse his actions?
4. What does this book suggest about the power of secrets—in a family or in an individual life? What is your personal understanding of why secrets become secrets? Might it be better for some of life's suffering to be kept under wraps—or do you think it's always best to bring them to light, to keep them from becoming "secrets"?
5. To what extent does the past determine the future? Is it possible to ever break free of the past—and if so, how? What does this novel seem to say?
6. What part does trust and love play in healing in Trail of Broken Wings?
7. What is the significance of the book's title, "Trail of Broken Wings"?
8. What do you think of the book's ending? Is it earned? Or is it unrealistic and pat?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Of Human Bondage
W. Somerset Maugham, 2015
Signet Classics
640 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780140185225
Summary
Modern Library - one of the 100 best novels of all time.
From a tormented orphan with a clubfoot, Philip Carey grows into an impressionable young man with a voracious appetite for adventure and knowledge. His cravings take him to Paris at age eighteen to try his hand at art, then back to London to study medicine.
But even so, nothing can sate his nagging hunger for experience. Then he falls obsessively in love, embarking on a disastrous relationship that will change his life forever.…
Although not an autobiography as he once claimed, Of Human Bondage is marked by countless similarities to Maugham’s own life. Based on what he knew, fact and fiction are inexorably mingled—heightened by emotions that are all his own. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 25, 1874
• Where—Paris, France
• Raised—England, UK
• Death—December 16, 1965
• Where—Cap Ferrat, France
• Education—Univerity of Heidelberg (no degree); M.D., St. Thomas's Hospital (Kings College)
William Somerset Maugham was a British playwright, novelist and short story writer. He was among the most popular writers of his era and reputedly the highest paid author during the 1930s.
Boyhood
Born in Paris to English parents, Maugham lost both mother and father by the age of 10. He was sent to England where he was raised by an aunt and paternal uncle, the vicar of Whitstable, who proved a cruel and emotionally distant guardian. As a boy, his short stature and a severe stutter hampered him socially.
At King’s School in Canterbury he became the victim of bullying and retreated into his studies. Unhappy both at his school and his uncle's vicarage, the young Maugham developed a talent for wounding remarks to those who displeased him, a trait reflected in some of Maugham's literary characters.
Medical school
Rather than continuing on to Oxford to study law as had his father and three older brothers, Maugham traveled instead to Germany where he spent time as an unregistered student at the University of Heidelberg. To appease his uncle, he eventually trained and qualified as a physician; however, he had already decided he would be a writer. Although he earned his medical degree, he never practiced. His first novel, Liza of Lambeth, came out in 1897, the same year he graduated. Its initial run sold out so rapidly that Maugham gave up medicine to write full-time.
While studying medicine, Maugham kept his own lodgings and took pleasure in furnishing them. He filled many notebooks with literary ideas, and continued writing nightly while also studying. His first novel drew on details from his experiences doing midwifery work in Lambeth, a South London slum.
Later, Maugham would recall those years in St. Thomas's Hospital (now part of King's College London), viewing them not as a detour from writing but as vaulable inspiration. He met a swath of humanity he would not have met otherwise, seeing individuals at a time of anxiety and heightened meaning: "I saw how men died. I saw how they bore pain. I saw what hope looked like, fear and relief."
Writing life
His book earnings enabled Maugham to travel and live in places such as Spain and Capri for the next decade, but his next ten works never came close to rivaling the success of Liza.
This changed, however, in 1907 with the success of his play Lady Frederick. By the next year, he had four plays running simultaneously in London. The plays gained such popularity that Punch published a cartoon of Shakespeare biting his fingernails, looking worriedly at the billboards.
By 1914, Maugham was famous—with 10 plays and 10 novels to his name. Too old to enlist when the World War I broke out, he served in France as a member of the British Red Cross—in what became known as the "Literary Ambulance Drivers," a group of some 24 well-known writers, including the Americans John Dos Passos, E. E. Cummings, and Ernest Hemingway.
During this time, he met Frederick Gerald Haxton, a young San Franciscan, who became his companion and lover until Haxton's death in 1944. Throughout this period, Maugham continued to write. He proofread Of Human Bondage at a location near Dunkirk during a lull in his ambulance duties.
When first published in 1915, Of Human Bondage was criticized in both the UK and the US. The New York World described the romantic obsession of the protagonist Philip Carey as "the sentimental servitude of a poor fool." It took Theodore Dreiser, the influential American novelist and critic, to rescue the novel's reputation. Dreiser referred to it as a work of genius, likening it to a Beethoven symphony. His praise gave the book a needed lift, and it has never been out of print since.
Maugham indicates in his foreword that he derived the novel's title from a passage in Baruch Spinoza's Ethics:
The impotence of man to govern or restrain the emotions I call bondage, for a man who is under their control is not his own master...so that he is often forced to follow the worse, although he see the better before him.
Of Human Bondage somewhat parallels Maugham's life: Philip Carey has a club foot rather than Maugham's stammer, the vicar of Blackstable resembles the vicar of Whitstable, and Carey becomes a medic. The close relationship between fictional and non-fictional became a Maugham trademark. In 1938 he wrote: "Fact and fiction are so intermingled in my work that now, looking back on it, I can hardly distinguish one from the other."
Intelligence work
Maugham returned to England from his ambulance duties to promote Of Human Bondage. But he was eager to assist the war effort again and was introduced to a high-ranking intelligence officer known as "R" Maugham and recruited in 1915. He began work in Switzerland as part of a network of British agents, operating against the Berlin Committee. He lived in Switzerland as a writer.
Quiet and observant, Maugham had a good temperament for intelligence work; he believed he had inherited from his lawyer father a gift for cool judgement and the ability to be undeceived by facile appearances.
In June 1917, he was asked to undertake a special mission in Russia. It was part of an attempt to keep the Provisional Government in power—and Russia in the war—by countering German pacifist propaganda. Two and a half months later, the Bolsheviks took control. Maugham subsequently said that if he had been able to get there six months earlier, he might have succeeded.
Maugham later used his spying experiences as the basis for Ashenden: Or the British Agent, a 1928 collection of short stories about a gentlemanly, sophisticated, aloof spy. The character is considered to have influenced Ian Fleming's later series of James Bond novels.
Marriage and family
Although attracted to men, Maugham entered into a relationship with Syrie Wellcome, the wife of Henry Wellcome, an American-born English pharmaceutical magnate. They had a daughter named Mary Elizabeth Maugham (1915–1998). Henry Wellcome sued his wife for divorce, naming Maugham as co-respondent.
In May 1917, Syrie Wellcome and Maugham were married. Syrie Maugham became a noted interior designer, who in the 1920s popularized "the all-white room." But the couple was unhappy, and Syrie divorced Maugham in 1929, finding his relationship and travels with Haxton too difficult to live with.
1920s and 30s
In 1916, during the war, Maugham had traveled to the Pacific to research The Moon and Sixpence, his novel based on the life of Paul Gauguin. It was the first of numerous journeys that would continue through the late-Imperial British world of the 1920s and 30s. The trips served as inspiration for his novels.
Maugham became known for his portrayal of the waning days of colonialism in India, Southeast Asia, China, and the Pacific. On all his journeys, he was accompanied by Haxton, whom he regarded as indispensable to his success as a writer. Maugham was painfully shy, and Haxton, ever the extrovert, gathered human material which the author converted to fiction.
On A Chinese Screen, a collection of 58 ultra-short story sketches, was published in 1922. Maugham had written them during his 1920 travels through China and Hong Kong, and he dedicated the book to Syrie.
In 1926, Maugham bought the Villa La Mauresque, on nine acres at Cap Ferrat on the French Riviera. It became home for most of his life, and it was where he hosted one of the great literary and social salons of the 1920s and 30s. He continued to be highly productive, writing plays, short stories, novels, essays and travel books.
In his 1933 novel, An Appointment in Samarra, death is both the narrator and a central character. It is based on an ancient Babylonian myth, and the American writer John O'Hara credited Maugham's novel as a creative inspiration for his own 1934 novel, titled Appointment in Samarra.
By 1940, with the collapse of France and its occupation by the German Third Reich, Maugham was forced to leave the French Riviera, he was a refugee—but certainly one of the wealthiest and most famous in the English-speaking world.
Maugham spent most of World War II in the US, first in Hollywood, where he was one of the first authors to make significant money from film adaptations, and later in the South. Then in his 60s, he was asked by the British government to make patriotic speeches in an effort to induce the US to aid Britain, if not necessarily become an allied combatant.
Grand old man of letters
When his companion Gerald Haxton died in 1944, Maugham moved back to England. In 1946, after the war, he returned to his villa in France, where he lived, interrupted by frequent and long travels, until his death.
Maugham began a relationship with Alan Searle, whom he had first met in 1928. A young man from the London slum area of Bermondsey, Searle had already been kept by older men. He proved a devoted if not a stimulating companion. One of Maugham's friends, describing the difference between Haxton and Searle, said simply: "Gerald was vintage, Alan was vin ordinaire."
Maugham's love life was almost never smooth. He once confessed:
I have most loved people who cared little or nothing for me and when people have loved me I have been embarrassed ... In order not to hurt their feelings, I have often acted a passion I did not feel.
In 1962 Maugham sold a collection of paintings, some of which had already been assigned to his daughter Liza by deed. She sued her father and won a judgment of £230,000. Maugham publicly disowned her and claimed she was not his biological daughter. He adopted Searle as his son and heir, but the adoption was annulled.
In his 1962 volume of memoirs, Looking Back, Maugham attacked the late Syrie Maugham and wrote that Liza had been born before they married. The memoir cost him several friends and exposed him to much public ridicule. Liza and her husband Lord Glendevon contested the change in Maugham's will in the French courts, and it was overturned.
But, in 1965 Searle inherited £50,000, the contents of the Villa La Mauresque, Maugham's manuscripts and his revenue from copyrights for 30 years. Thereafter the copyrights passed to the Royal Literary Fund.
Maugham died in 1965, at the age of 91, in Cap Feret, France. There is no grave: his ashes were scattered near the Maugham Library, The King's School, Canterbury. Liza Maugham, Lady Glendevon, died in 1998 at the age of 83, survived by her four children (a son and a daughter by her first marriage to Vincent Paravicini, and two more sons to Lord Glendevon).
Reputation
Commercial success with high book sales, successful theatre productions, and a string of film adaptations, backed by astute stock market investments, allowed Maugham to live a very comfortable life. Even as a boy, small in stature, Maugham had been proud of his stamina, and in his adult years, he was openly proud of his ability to continue turning out book after play after book.
Yet, despite his triumphs, he never attracted the highest respect from the critics or his peers. Maugham attributed this to his lack of "lyrical quality," his small vocabulary, and failure to make expert use of metaphor in his work.
Maugham wrote at a time when more experimental modernist literature such as that of William Faulkner, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf was gaining increasing popularity and winning critical acclaim. His own view of his abilities remained modest—toward the end of his career he placed himself "in the very first row of the second-raters."
Maugham began collecting theatrical paintings before the World War II and continued building his collection through the years until it became second only to that of the Garrick Club. From 1951, some 14 years before his death, his paintings began their exhibition life. Bequeathed to the Trustees of the National Theatre, they were were placed on loan to the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden in 1994. (Adapted from Wikipedia and Penguin Random House. Retrieved 12.4.2015.)
Book Reviews
A gorgeous read, as interesting and valuable at the beginning as at the end. Compact of the experiences, the dreams, the hopes, the fears, the disillusionments, the ruptures, and the philosophizing of a strangely starved soul, it is a beacon light by which the wanderer may be guided.
Theodore Dreiser - New Republic
The modern writer who has influenced me the most.
George Orwell
It is very difficult for a writer of my generation, if he is honest, to pretend indifference to the work of Somerset Maugham. He was always so entirely there.
Gore Vidal
One of my favorite writers.
Gabriel García Marquez
[A]n entirely new departure. Maugham, who usually cultivates a fastidious detachment, shows in this work a personal commitment that was unusual, sweeping the reader up in his own passionate intensity. Compelling and uncompromising, written with an unflagging energy and drive, the work could hardly be more different from any he had previously published.... The story closely follow[s] the events of Maugham’s early life, with at its centre the terrifying experience of a masochistic sexual obsession.
Selina Hastings - author, Maugham biographer
Discussion Questions
1. When Mr. Perkins, the headmaster of King’s School, tries to persuade Philip to go to Oxford, we are told that Philip "felt himself slipping. He was powerless against the weakness that seemed to well up in him" (p. 81). Is Philip’s refusal to be ordained or to at least go to Oxford a weakness or a strength?
2. While Hayward believes in "the Whole, the Good, and the Beautiful" (p. 112), Weeks, defining himself as a Unitarian, says he "believes in almost everything that anybody else believes" (p. 114). How do these two outlooks compare with each other and with Philip’s interpretation, at the end of the novel, of the Persian carpet design as a metaphor for the meaning of life?
3. After realizing that he no longer believes in God, why does Philip say to himself, "If there is a God after all and He punishes me because I honestly don’t believe in Him I can’t help it" (p. 119)?
4. When Philip starts to see how reality differs from his ideals, the narrator says that the young "must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life" (p. 121). Why does Maugham use a religious image associated with Christ’s suffering to describe the suffering of disillusionment?
5. When discussing Philip’s initial disillusionment, the narrator says, "The strange thing is that each one who has gone through that bitter disillusionment adds to it in his turn, unconsciously, by the power within him which is stronger than himself" (p. 121). What is this power?
6. After Philip leaves Heidelberg, why does the narrator tell us that Philip "never knew that he had been happy there" (p. 130)?
7. Why does Philip subject himself with masochistic obstinacy to Mildred’s cruelty?
8. Do Philip’s life choices reflect Cronshaw’s theory about pleasure being the only motive for human action?
9. Why is Philip happy when he casts aside his desire for happiness?
10. Why does Philip think of "the words of the dying God" (p. 604) as he forgives humanity’s defects, Griffiths’s treachery, and Mildred’s cruelty?
11. Why does Maugham end the novel with Philip and Sally’s engagement?
12. Does Philip ever rid himself of idealism?
13. At the end of the novel, are we meant to think that Philip has found the freedom he has been looking for?
(Questions issued by Penguin Classics.)