Outline
Rachel Cusk, 2014
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374228347
Summary
A luminous, powerful novel that establishes Rachel Cusk as one of the finest writers in the English language.
A man and a woman are seated next to each other on a plane. They get to talking—about their destination, their careers, their families. Grievances are aired, family tragedies discussed, marriages and divorces analyzed. An intimacy is established as two strangers contrast their own fictions about their lives.
Rachel Cusk’s Outline is a novel in ten conversations. Spare and stark, it follows a novelist teaching a course in creative writing during one oppressively hot summer in Athens. She leads her students in storytelling exercises. She meets other visiting writers for dinner and discourse. She goes swimming in the Ionian Sea with her neighbor from the plane.
The people she encounters speak volubly about themselves: their fantasies, anxieties, pet theories, regrets, and longings. And through these disclosures, a portrait of the narrator is drawn by contrast, a portrait of a woman learning to face a great loss.
Outline takes a hard look at the things that are hardest to speak about. It brilliantly captures conversations, investigates people’s motivations for storytelling, and questions their ability to ever do so honestly or unselfishly. In doing so it bares the deepest impulses behind the craft of fiction writing.
This is Rachel Cusk’s finest work yet, and one of the most startling, brilliant, original novels of recent years. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1967
• Where—Canada
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Whitbread Award; Somerset Maughm Award
• Currently—lives in London
Rachel Cusk was born in Canada in 1967 and spent much of her childhood in Los Angeles before finishing her education at St Mary's Convent, Cambridge. She read English at New College, Oxford, and has travelled extensively in Spain and Central America.
She is the author of eight novels, the first of which, Saving Agnes (1993), won the Whitbread First Novel Award. Her 2001 nonfiction exploration of motherhood, A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother, generated considerable controversy. Some women accused Cusk of loathing her own children while others secretly felt the book mirrored their own troubled attitudes. Inspite of—or because of—the controversy, the book has been reprinted numerous times, with Lynn Barber of the UK's The Guardian regarding it as "probably the most powerful book on motherhood ever written."
Her third novel, The Country Life (1997) won the Somerset Maughm Novel Award, while two other novels (see below) were shortlisted for literary prizes. In 2003, Cusk was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 Best of Young British Novelists.
Cusk is divorced from her second husband, photographer Adrian Clarke, with whom she has two daughters, Albertine and Jessye. Cusk wrote in detail about the marriage in Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation (2012); a review of the book by Camilla Long won Long the "Hatchet Job of the Year" award.
Books
1993 - Saving Agnes (Whitbread First Novel Award)
1995 -The Temporary
1997- The Country Life (Somerset Maughm Novel Award)
2001 - A Life's Work: On Becoming a Mother
2003 - The Lucky Ones (shortlisted, Whitbread Award)
2005 - In the Fold
2006 - Arlington Park (shortlisted, Orange Prize)
2009 - The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy
2009 - The Bradshaw Variations
2012 - Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation
2014 - Outline
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/15/2015.)
Book Reviews
[L]ethally intelligent…. While the narrator is rarely alone, reading Outline mimics the sensation of being underwater, of being separated from other people by a substance denser than air. But there is nothing blurry or muted about Cusk's literary vision or her prose: Spend much time with this novel and you'll become convinced she is one of the smartest writers alive. Her narrator's mental clarity can seem so hazardously penetrating, a reader might fear the same risk of invasion and exposure. Cusk is also—this sounds ridiculous—but she is also noticeably an adult. She writes about adult topics with sagacity and authority. Well-worn subjects—adultery, divorce, ennui—become freshly menacing under her gaze.
Heidi Julavits - New York Times Book Review
[A] poised and cerebral novel that has little in the way of straightforward plot yet is transfixing in its unruffled awareness of the ways we love and leave each other, and of what it means to listen to other people…. While little happens in Outline, everything seems to happen. You find yourself pulling the novel closer to your face, as if it were a thriller and the hero were dangling over a snake pit. This is largely because the small conversations and monologues in Outline are, at their best, as condensed and vivid as theater…. Ms. Cusk marshals a lot of gifts in this novel, and they are unconventional ones. With no straightforward narrative to hang onto, no moving in and out of rooms, she's left with the sound of her own mind, and it's a mind that is subtle, precise, melancholy. This is a novel with no wasted motion…Outline is a palate cleanser, an authoritative bit of clarifying acid, here when needed.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
Described as a "novel in ten conversations"...it turns out to be a clever, fresh device that dispenses with the need for much of a plot and presents instead more of a lush human collage.... [A] rich, thoughtful read.
Carol Midgley - (London) Times
Outline succeeds powerfully. Among other things, it gets a great variety of human beings down on to the page with both immediacy and depth; an elemental pleasure that makes the book as gripping to read as a thriller.... [A] stellar accomplishment.
James Lasdun - Guardian (UK)
Outline. It defies ordinary categorisation. It is about authorial invisibility, it involves writing without showing your face. The narrator is a writer who goes to teach creative writing in Greece and becomes enmeshed in other peoples’ narratives which Cusk stitches, with fastidious brilliance, into a single fabric.
Kate Kellaway - Guardian (UK)
[T]his has to be one of the oddest, most breathtakingly original and unsettling novels I’ve read in a long time ... [E]very single word is earned, precisely tuned, enthralling. Outline is a triumph of attitude and daring, a masterclass in tone.
Julie Myerson - Observer (UK)
[A work] of great beauty and ambition. Narratives are smoothed, as if by translation and retranslation, into their simplest, barest elements: parents, children, divorces, cakes, dresses, dogs. These elements then build, layer on layer, to form the most complex and exquisitely detailed patterns, swirling and whirling, wheels within wheels.
Jenny Turner - London Review of Books
[A] uniquely graceful and innovative piece of artistic self-possession, which achieves the rare feat of seamlessly amalgamating form and substance.
Lucy Scholes - Independent (UK)
Cusk’s uncompromising, often brutal intelligence is at full power. So is her technique... I can’t think of a book that so powerfully resists summary or review.... Inevitably, the only way to get close to the fascinating and elusive core of Outline is to read it.
Sophie Elmhirst - Financial Times
Never less than compelling...material that might have been ponderous in other hands is, here, magnetic, thanks to the mystery at the heart of Cusk’s book, her exquisite lightness of touch and her glinting wit.
Stephanie Cross - Daily Mail (UK)
The writing is brilliant.... Cusk is always cerebral but I've never noticed her drollery before...absorbing, thought-provoking.
Claire Harman - London Evening Standard (UK)
Cusk confounds expectations.... Outline is full of such wonderful surprises: subtle shifts in power and unexpectedly witty interludes.
Elena Seymenliyska - Telegraph (UK)
A tapestry of different voices, its shape emerging as if by happy accident.... [OutlinOutlinee] is a clever thought experiment that’s far too readable ever to feel like one.
Lidija Haas - Independent on Sunday (UK)
(Starred review.) On an airplane to Athens....Faye strikes up a conversation with the passenger... [and eventually] learns about his multiple marriages and troubled children. Thus begins this brilliant novel from Cusk...structure[d] around a series of dialogues between Faye and those she encounters on her travels.
Publishers Weekly
This book about love, loss, memory, and the lies we tell ourselves and others exudes a contemplative, melancholy atmosphere tempered by Britsh author Cusk’s wonderfully astute observations of people and the visual impressions created by her exquisitely strucutred sentences. —Sally Bissell
Library Journal
[T]he most compelling part of Outline is its undercurrent of rage.... [With] polished, analytical language. Cusk’s writing is lovely.... Outline is a smart ascetic exercise. —Hannah Tennant-Moore
Bookforum
(Starred review.) Outline is an expertly crafted portrait that asks readers to look deeply into the text for discovery. Those who accept that challenge will be rewarded for the effort.
Booklist
The individual stories collectively suggest that self-knowledge is a poor substitute for happiness, but perhaps readers can find some hope from the narrator's admission that she can't shake "this desire to be free…despite having proved that everything about it was illusory." Dark, for sure, but rich in human variety and unsentimental empathy..
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.)
Vanessa and Her Sister: A Novel
Priya Parmar, 2014
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780804176378
Summary
An intimate glimpse into the lives of Vanessa Bell, her sister Virginia Woolf, and the controversial and popular circle of intellectuals known as the Bloomsbury Group.
London, 1905: The city is alight with change, and the Stephen siblings are at the forefront. Vanessa, Virginia, Thoby, and Adrian are leaving behind their childhood home and taking a house in the leafy heart of avant-garde Bloomsbury. There they bring together a glittering circle of bright, outrageous artistic friends who will grow into legend and come to be known as the Bloomsbury Group. And at the center of this charmed circle are the devoted, gifted sisters: Vanessa, the painter, and Virginia, the writer.
Each member of the group will go on to earn fame and success, but so far Vanessa Bell has never sold a painting. Virginia Woolf’s book review has just been turned down by The Times. Lytton Strachey has not published anything. E. M. Forster has finished his first novel but does not like the title. Leonard Woolf is still a civil servant in Ceylon, and John Maynard Keynes is looking for a job. Together, this sparkling coterie of artists and intellectuals throw away convention and embrace the wild freedom of being young, single bohemians in London.
But the landscape shifts when Vanessa unexpectedly falls in love and her sister feels dangerously abandoned. Eerily possessive, charismatic, manipulative, and brilliant, Virginia has always lived in the shelter of Vanessa’s constant attention and encouragement. Without it, she careens toward self-destruction and madness. As tragedy and betrayal threaten to destroy the family, Vanessa must decide if it is finally time to protect her own happiness above all else.
The work of exciting young newcomer Priya Parmar, Vanessa and Her Sister exquisitely captures the champagne-heady days of prewar London and the extraordinary lives of sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Hawaii
• Education—Mt. Holyoke College; Oxford University; University of Edinburgh
• Currently—lives in London, England, and in Hawaii, USA
A former dramaturg and freelance editor, Priya Parmar was educated at Mount Holyoke College, The University of Oxford and The University of Edinburgh. She is the author of Exit the Actress (2011) and Vanessa and Her Sister (2014). Priya and her husband and their French bulldog Herbert divide their time between Hawaii and London. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Rarely do you encounter a woman who commands as much admiration as does the painter Vanessa Bell in Priya Parmar's multilayered, subtly shaded novel…. Parmar's portrait brings Vanessa out of the shadows, into fully realized, shining visibility. The world remembers Virginia better than her enigmatic older sister: Parmar restores the symmetry of their relationship in the familial landscape, showing how essential Vanessa's steadying force was to Virginia's precarious balance.… Parmar's fabricated journal is an uncanny success. Its entries, plausible and graceful, are imbued with the same voice that can be found in letters by or about Vanessa. And Parmar's decision to interleave the invented diary with invented correspondence heightens the authentic feel of the portrait…In Vanessa and Her Sister, Parmar gives truth and definition to the character of a woman whose nature was as elusive as her influence was profound.
Liesl Schillinger - New York Times Book Review
In her gossipy, entertaining historical novel about the British bohemians, Priya Parmar conjures a devastating fictional portrait of one of those triangles—the great writer Virginia Woolf; her sister, the painter Vanessa Bell; and Vanessa’s husband, art critic Clive Bell.... Parmar’s perceptive and well-informed fill-in-the-blanks approach—and her elegant, accessible style—makes for some tasty, frothy Bloomsbury pie, indeed.
USA Today
An elegant, entertaining novel that brings new life to the Bloomsbury Group’s intrigues.
Dallas Morning News
The pretzeled plot unfolds at a steady pace, in crisp period prose, and rarely feels inevitable.
New York
Captivating...a subtle exploration of the sisters’ complicated emotional life.... Through letters and Vanessa’s journal entries, [Parmar] captures the excitement of social experimentation.
BBC
In this delightful novel, Parmar reimagines the brilliant, fragile writer and her turn-of-the-century bohemian friends, the famous Bloomsbury set, through the eyes of her painter sister Vanessa.... You’ll be spellbound (Book of the Week)
People
You’ll get lost in the worlds of Vanessa Bell and her sister, Virginia Woolf, as they struggle to make it as a painter and an author, respectively, in prewar London—but more so than art, this is a story of sisterhood.
Glamour
Parmar ambitiously attempts to show us through the eyes of Vanessa Bell, a celebrated painter in her own right, in her inventive, meticulously researched Vanessa and Her Sister.... The Bloomsbury Group were famous for their weekly salons, which were fueled by intellectual discourse, banter and booze; in Parmar’s story, you can almost hear the glasses tinkling. But the author’s greatest triumph is giving voice to the steady, loyal, motherly Vanessa, who lived nobly in her sister’s shadow only to experience a heartbreaking betrayal.
Good Housekeeping
Parmar inhabits the gilded "bohemian hinterland" of Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa, creating a vibrant fictional homage.
Oprah Magazine
Vanessa and Her Sister provides a fascinating take on this literary family, and the affection and exasperation Virginia’s sister might have felt living with a genius, who was prone to fits of madness. If you’re at all interested in Virginia Woolf, or just a fan of a good piece of historical fiction, in the vein of The Paris Wife, this book’s the one for you.
Bustle
(Starred review.) [E]xcellent.... Parmar’s narrative is riveting and successfully takes on the task of turning larger-than-life figures into real people. Readers who aren’t familiar with the Bloomsbury group might be overwhelmed at first by the sheer number of characters in the book, but Parmar weaves their stories together so effortlessly that nothing seems out of place.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) A devoted, emotionally intense portrait of the Bloomsbury group focuses in particular on sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, whose complicated relationship is tested to the breaking point by their competing affections for two men. [The Bloomsbury] group's extraordinarily intertwined history...[is] not exactly uncharted territory, but Parmar enters it with passion and precision, delivering a sensitive, superior soap opera of celebrated lives.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When the novel opens, their father has died and the Stephen siblings have moved from their childhood home in Kensington to bohemian Bloomsbury. Why do you think Vanessa chose to uproot her siblings and move to such a radically different part of town? What sort of change is she trying to bring about for her family?
2. Vanessa tells us that her family value words and books over painting and visual arts. How do you think growing up in such a family affected Vanessa's view of herself as an artist? Would you rather be a writer or a painter?
3. Vanessa has always protected and supported Virginia, and has excused much of her difficult and unsocial behavior. Do you think Vanessa's tolerance gives Virginia permission to behave in the way that she does?
4. What is your opinion of Virginia and Vanessa’s relationship? Before Vanessa’s betrayal, did you find them to be legitimate friends, or do you feel something was missing between them even before Vanessa married Clive? How does Vanessa’s view of her sister change after she marries?
5. Vanessa turns down several proposals from Clive, but decides to accept him after Thoby dies. Do you feel that if Thoby had lived, Vanessa might have chosen a different path? Or that Virginia might not have behaved as she did? Do you think Vanessa and Clive are well-suited to each other?
6. Virginia feels contempt for Clive and thinks him an unsuitable husband for her sister. Why does she seek to "find a place" in Vanessa's marriage? What do you think Virginia hopes to achieve?
7. We often think of the early twentieth century as being a time of almost Victorian restraint, yet the Bloomsbury Group were open about both homosexual and heterosexual love. Do you think they were utterly unique? Do you believe such openness was actually more common at the time than we traditionally believe?
8. The Bloomsbury Group not only challenged the norms of the time, but challenged each other during their numerous discussions about art, writing, philosophy, economics and even love. Vanessa at times feels she is out of her depth, and marvels at Virginia’s brilliance. Do you agree with her assessment of herself? How difficult do you feel it would have been to be a part of such a talented and intelligent circle?
9. At one point Vanessa reflects, "If Virginia were not my sister, we would be a pedestrian cliche. Instead, we are a bohemian nightmare." How do you feel the ideals of the Bloomsbury Group influenced Vanessa’s reaction to not only Clive’s affair with Virginia, but his choice to resume physical relations with Mrs. Raven Hill? If you had been in her shoes, do you feel you would have responded differently?
10. The story opens with a letter from Virginia to Vanessa stating, "What happened cannot break us. It is impossible. Someday you will love and forgive me. Someday we will begin again." How did this letter color your reading of the rest of the novel? Did you expect Vanessa to forgive Virginia at any point? Do you think it is fair to say that Vanessa still loves her sister, despite that fact that she ultimately decides she cannot forgive her? Do you agree with Vanessa’s decision?
11. Vanessa and Her Sister is told largely through excerpts from Vanessa’s diary and her letters, with snippets of correspondence between her family and friends. What did you think of this narrative style? Was there any one person whose perspective you wished to see more often? How objective did you feel Vanessa’s portrayal of the story was?
12. Of the two sisters, Virginia is undoubtedly the more famous. Were you surprised by anything you learned about her in this novel? Did it challenge any previous ideas you had about her?
13. At the end of the novel, the author gives a brief description of what became of the members of the Bloomsbury Group. Was there anything in there you found unexpected? Disappointing? Particularly satisfying?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Ploughmen
Kim Zupan, 2014
Henry, Holt & Co.
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780805099515
Summary
Steeped in a lonesome Montana landscape as unyielding and raw as it is beautiful, Kim Zupan's The Ploughmen is a new classic in the literature of the American West.
At the center of this searing, fever dream of a novel are two men—a killer awaiting trial, and a troubled young deputy—sitting across from each other in the dark, talking through the bars of a county jail cell: John Gload, so brutally adept at his craft that only now, at the age of 77, has he faced the prospect of long-term incarceration and Valentine Millimaki, low man in the Copper County sheriff’s department, who draws the overnight shift after Gload’s arrest. With a disintegrating marriage further collapsing under the strain of his night duty, Millimaki finds himself seeking counsel from a man whose troubled past shares something essential with his own.
Their uneasy friendship takes a startling turn with a brazen act of violence that yokes together two haunted souls by the secrets they share, and by the rugged country that keeps them. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 25, 1953
• Raised—near Great Falls, Montana, USA
• Education—M.F.A., University of Montana
• Currently—lives in Missoula, Montana
Kim Zupan, a native Montanan, lives in Missoula and grew up in and around Great Falls, where much of The Ploughmen is set. For twenty-five years Zupan made a living as a carpenter while pursuing his writing. He has also worked as a smelterman, pro rodeo bareback rider, ranch hand, Alaska salmon fisherman and presently teaches carpentry at Missoula College. He holds an MFA from the University of Montana. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Set in northern Montana, the novel presents a powerful and implacable landscape, all dry soil and fractured river breaks…Zupan is also a carpenter, and he writes with the precision of his trade. He does not shy away from themes of innocence or guilt. Neither does he exploit those themes in the service of melodrama. Riffing on the rhythms of Cormac McCarthy, he composes vivid scenes of tenderness and manipulation between the two men. Millimaki and Gload develop a jailhouse relationship that is convincing, and harrowing…The book features plenty of suspense. What it offers in addition are Zupan's considerable skills with description and mood…The Ploughmen is a dark and imaginative debut.
Alyson Hagy - New York Times Book Review
Mr. Zupan produces pleasurably lush and baroque prose, especially when describing his setting’s awesome and unforgiving topography.
Wall Street Journal
Passionately arresting… Even though Zupan’s novel deals with grim topics, he plows the depths of grief and numbness with such a concentrated dedication that the prose is a character in itself. His sentences are unleashed in a furious splendor… bleak and brilliant—the best kind of book.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Stunning…A remarkable novel... It's almost hard to believe that it’s a debut…. It's a portrait of the West as a sometimes desolate and cold place, full of possibility, maybe, but also full of danger from every corner. It's a modern West, caught between the romance of the frontier and the mundane, harsh realities of living in the present day United States. And it’s absolutely beautiful, from its tragic opening scene to its tough, necessary end. Zupan is an unsparing writer, but also a generous, deeply compassionate one.
NPR
The expansive, indifferent and lonely landscapes that populate the book are as vital as the two main characters and elevate Mr. Zupan’s work from a story about an unlikely friendship to a solemn exploration of the human soul—and how it is formed by the space that surrounds it.
Pittsburg Post-Gazette
Gripping… a strong debut for a talented wordsmith…. Zupan has that rare skill and we as readers are better off for it.
Montana Magazine
We know we are in the hands of a master storyteller from the very first pages of Kim Zupan’s powerful, beautifully crafted debut novel The Ploughmen…. The searing, lyrical prose, relentless violence, and tenuous moments of reprieve are reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor…. The disturbing yet quietly redemptive finale to this gripping and psychologically nuanced tale leaves the reader satisfied. Bravo, Mr. Zupan.
Montana Quarterly
Nuanced…fascinating…What Zupan offers is a superb, retro prose style, channeling William Faulkner in long passages engorged with vocabulary, and meditations on what it means to be alive, if barely, in rural Montana circa 1980…a rich, morose meditation on death, law enforcement, and friendship.
BookPage
It would be too simple to say The Ploughmen centers on the idea of good and evil; it is not so black and white as that. The story is perpetually gray, with pockets of light and dark, not just in its morality but in its scenery…. [Zupan] writes with a kind of straightforwardness reminiscent of Kerouac. This memorable debut is at times strikingly beautiful, while at others quite bleak, but it is always poignant.
Booklist
[A] riveting debut….A fascinating first novel that examines the complexities of two men, opposites in every way, whose lives nevertheless intertwine. With such a strong debut, Zupan’s literary future looks exceptionally promising.
Library Journal
Serial killer bonds with cop in a first novel with a high body count.... Val Millimaki...has been given the graveyard shift to guard [Gload] and pry loose details of old crimes. The two discover they were both farm kids, plowing the fields.... It's not the paucity of action but the flawed characterizations that hurt this oppressive work the most.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The lonely, expansive Montanan countryside looms large in The Ploughmen. What does North American rural life represent to John and Valentine? How does it affect their relationship?
2. Deputy Valentine’s guilty conscience over the victims he has not been able to save weighs heavily on him. How is this related to Valentine finding his mother’s body after her suicide? What do you think he’s really looking for as he searches for the victims?
3. When talking to Valentine, the sheriff wonders aloud why John opens up to him: “Just hates cops like all get-out. But he talks to you.” Valentine answers, “We talk about farming.” What other reasons do you think John opened up to Valentine and not to any other officers who were on duty?
4. What is the significance of the book’s title?
5. To combat insomnia, John would revisit his past, thinking of his favorite plowing field and his fond, monotonous memories from the tractor seat. Sometimes in this dream he would envision gulls coming to feast on infant mice. He could not parse them out, try as he might, and their screaming would keep him from sleep. What might the seagulls symbolize?
6. In chapter four John told Valentine that there are not many things he regrets. And he’s not exactly eaten up by the few things he does regret. Do you find this to be true? Why or why not?
7. John admitted to Valentine that though he had many opportunities to kill him, he spared him for the sake of their friendship. Why do you think John spared Valentine’s life?
8. Near the novel’s end, John is languishing in prison. How do you think he perceives death at this point in his life?
9. Valentine and John both have troubled relationships with women. Valentine’s marriage to Glenda is on the rocks, he’s distant from his sister, and he is still haunted by his mother’s suicide. John, as well, has complicated feelings about Francie. Discuss the roles of female characters in the book and how they’ve affected these men.
10. In her letters to Val, his sister saves questions about their mother for the post script. Each question hits Val like a gut punch. Why do you think it’s so hard for him to connect with his sister?
11. The female characters in the novel constantly search for something more or feel their current world is not enough—whether it was Valentine’s mother looking for a way out, or Glenda’s yearning for something outside her marriage and the house she and Valentine shared, to Francie seeking companionship that John couldn’t provide. What are your thoughts about the isolation these women felt in a predominantly male, rural environment? What do you think the author is trying to say about gender roles in this particular world?
12. In chapter one when Francie is introduced, John imagined Francie’s spirit fluttering among moths as they battered themselves against the window screen, which he identified as small souls seeking the freedom of the greater world. Do you think he envisioned a normal life with her? Do you think John always knew Francie’s fate, or was this something he had recently decided?
13. Discuss the end of The Ploughmen. Do you feel more or less empathetic towards John now that you know his story? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Bound to the Ground
Lauren Hogue, 2014
Dream Big Publishing
283 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781503160132
Summary
Being born with the ability to foretell the future is an amazing skill but to live as prey, hunted for that power, sucks. One girl knows this life all too well. Her name is Leah and this is her story.
Leah Hawthorne has kept her talent hidden for years, fearing capture and life imprisonment in an insane asylum just like they did to her grandfather. After all isn't that where they put raving lunatics who declare their supernatural abilities? It isn't until a group of earthbound angel Protectors show her a glimpse of a new life, one where her gift can be used openly, that she dares to throw off the strict regulations that have bound her to a limited existence. But angels aren't the only ones who have been watching over Leah.
Donovan, high commander of the demon army—the Leviathan Order—has been lurking in the shadows, pining after Leah's ability, awaiting the perfect moment to snatch her away from the Protectors. Thankfully Leah's strong instinct and discernment for all things evil has her running in the opposite direction, right into the arms of her angel Protectors. What she doesn't know is that her decision to join the Protectors sets off a cataclysmic war between the spiritual entities, making her the Leviathan Order's newest target.
Enraged as losing Leah, his most precious prize, to his mortal enemies, Donovan seeks to destroy Leah in the most devious way he can, by kidnapping the only family member she has left.. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 1988
• Raised—Dayton, Ohio, USA
• Education—A.A., Southwest Missouri College of Theology
• Currently—lives in Youngstown, Ohio
Follow Lauren on Facebook
Visit Lauren's Tumbler page.
Book Reviews
B2TG is THRILLING! B2TG (The Protectors Trilogy) ranks up there with The Hunger Games, Divergent, Under the Never Sky, etc. If you like fantasy fiction then this book is for you! There is action, romance *melt*, and thrill! Leah's character is so sassy and you cannot help but to fall in love with Garret. There's even parts of the book that will make you gasp out loud. No, really... it was quite embarrassing while I was reading in public. I loved this book and cannot wait for the 2nd book to come out! (5 out of 5 stars)
Kaitlyn Palmquist - Amazon customer
Awesome book! It is a must read! (5 out of 5 stars)
Shelly Nitzsky - Amazon customer
Awesome! (5 out of 5 stars)
Illa Vitto - Amazon customer
Discussion Questions
1. Is Leah's strong, sassy character one that you can relate to? Would you or would you not stand up to your parent/ legal guardian if you felt passionately about a subject or would you trust their judgment based on their knowledge and experiences?
2. How would you rate John's role as a guardian? Do you think it is right or fair of him to continue to play the "parent" role even though Leah is eighteen, a legal adult?
3. What do you think of Leah's openness and readiness to trust Garret and Dean, especially after John's experience with mysterious strangers? Is that choice wise or safe, or naive and stupid? Or do you admire her bravery?
4. At what point in the story did you, the reader, become absorbed into the storyline and have that "impossible to put this book down" moment?
5. Did you find that the first person writing technique distanced you from the main character? Or could you fully grasp, scene by scene, what was happening in Leah's life?
6. At what point in time did you decide whether or not you liked the book? What helped you make this decision?
7. What major emotion did Bound to the Ground evoke in you, the reader?
8. In Bound to the Ground there are a few interesting plot twists, were you able to predict them before they happened or were you shocked and surprised by the turn of events?
9. Is there a scene, conversation, or character that you would change and why?
10. Will you be actively looking for the sequel to Bound to the Ground?
11. Would you like to see Bound to the Ground as a movie? If so, who would you like to see play Leah, Garret, and John's roles?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
The Girl on the Train
Paula Hawkins, 2015
Penguin Group (USA)
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594633669
Summary
A debut psychological thriller that will forever change the way you look at other people's lives.
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck.
She’s even started to feel like she knows them. "Jess and Jason," she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?
Compulsively readable, The Girl on the Train is an emotionally immersive, Hitchcockian thriller and an electrifying debut. (From the publisher.)
See the 2016 film version with Emily Blunt.
Listen to our Movies Meet Book Club Podcast as Hollister and O'Toole discuss the movie and book.
Author Bio
• Birth—August 26, 1972
• Where—Harare, Zimbabwe
• Education—Oxford University
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK
Paul Hawkins was born and raised in Salisbury, Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe). Her father was an economics professor and financial journalist. In 1989, when she was 17, she moved to London to study for her A-Levels at Collingham College, an independent college in Kensington, West London. She later read philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford Unviersity. After graduation, she spent 15 years as a journalist — as a business reporter for The Times and later as a freelancer for a number of publications. She also wrote a financial advice book for women, The Money Goddess.
Sometime in 2009, Hawkins began to write romantic comedy under the pen name Amy Silver. She wrote four novels, including Confessions of a Reluctant Recessionista, but none ever achieved commercial success. Eventually, she decided to challenge herself by writing in a darker mode. Giving up her freelance work to write full-time on fiction, Hawkins ended up borrowing money from her family to make ends meet.
But after only six months, Hawkins finished her novel, and in 2015 The Girl on the Train was published. A complex thriller, with themes of domestic violence, alcohol, and drug abuse, the book became an instant bestseller. It has sold close to 20 million copies in 15 countries and 40 languages and in 2016 was adapted to film starring Emily Blunt. Hawkin's second novel, Into the Water, was released in 2017. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/28/2017.)
Book Reviews
The Girl on the Train has more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since Gone Girl…. Paula Hawkins [is] no slouch when it comes to trickery or malice…. Ms. Hawkins scrambles the timing of scenes, with Megan gone in one chapter and then present in the next. She also shifts well among her narrators' points of view to keep the reader on edge, and only as the book progresses do these different perspectives begin to dovetail. Scrambling a story is easy, but it's done here to tight, suspenseful effect.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Paula Hawkins has come up with an ingenious slant on the currently fashionable amnesia thriller.... Hawkins juggles perspectives and timescales with great skill, and considerable suspense builds up along with empathy for an unusual central character.
Guardian (UK)
Like its train, the story blasts through the stagnation of these lives in suburban London and the reader cannot help but turn pages.... The welcome echoes of Rear Window throughout the story and its propulsive narrative make The Girl on the Train an absorbing read.
Boston Globe
Given the number of titles that are declared to be "the next" of a bestseller...book fans have every right to be wary. But Paula Hawkins’ novel The Girl on the Train just might have earned the title of "the next Gone Girl."
Christian Science Monitor
[A] twisty thriller.... It’s being called the next Gone Girl.
USA Today
[The Girl on the Train] pulls off a thriller's toughest trick: carefully assembling everything we think we know, until it reveals the one thing we didn't see coming.
Entertainment Weekly
Gone Girl fans will devour this psychological thriller.... Hawkins’s debut ends with a twist that no one—least of all its victims—could have seen coming.
People
Hawkins’s taut story roars along at the pace of, well, a high-speed train.... Hawkins delivers a smart, searing thriller that offers readers a 360-degree view of lust, love, marriage and divorce.
Good Housekeeping
There’s nothing like a possible murder to take the humdrum out of your daily commute.
Cosmopolitan
Rachel takes the same train into London every day, daydreaming about the lives of the occupants in the homes she passes. But when she sees something unsettling from her window one morning, it sets in motion a chilling series of events that make her question whom she can really trust.
Woman’s Day
(Starred review.) [A] psychologically astute debut.... [Hawkins] deftly shifts between the accounts of the addled Rachel, as she desperately tries to remember what happened, Megan, and, eventually, Anna, for maximum suspense. The surprise-packed narratives hurtle toward a stunning climax, horrifying as a train wreck and just as riveting.
Publishers Weekly
[U]nfortunately, by using [different narrators for each chapter], debut author Hawkins confuses the reader. With only a brief look into backstory, undeveloped characters offer no reason or motivation for their actions, and none of them is likable. [A] disappointing psychological thriller. —Marianne Fitzgerald, Severna Park H.S., MD
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Desperate to find lives more fulfilling than her own, a lonely London commuter imagines the story of a couple she's only glimpsed through the train window in Hawkins' chilling, assured debut.... Even the most astute readers will be in for a shock as Hawkins slowly unspools the facts, exposing the harsh realities of love and obsession's inescapable links to violence.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We have 2 sets of questions: one from the publisher and a second set graciously offered to LitLovers by Jennifer Johnson, ML, MLIS, Reference Librarian, Springdale (Arkansas) Public Library. Thank you, Jennifer.
1. We all do it—actively watch life around us. In this way, with her own voyeuristic curiosity, Rachel Watson is not so unusual. What do you think accounts for this nosy, all-too-human impulse? Is it more extreme in Rachel than in the average person? What is so different about her?
2. How would you have reacted if you’d seen what Rachel did from her train window—a pile of clothes—just before the rumored disappearance of Megan Hipwell? What might you or she have done differently?
3. In both Rachel Watson’s and Megan Hipwell’s marriages, deep secrets are kept from the husbands. Are these marriages unusual or even extreme in this way? Consider how many relationships rely on half-truths? Is it ever necessary or justifiable to lie to someone you love? How much is too much to hide from a partner?
4. What about the lies the characters tell to themselves? In what ways is Rachel lying to herself? Do all people tell themselves lies to some degree in order to move on with their lives? Is what Rachel (or any of the other characters) is doing any different from that? How do her lies ultimately affect her and the people around her?
5. A crucial question in The Girl on the Train is how much Rachel Watson can trust her own memory. How reliable are her observations? Yet since the relationship between truth and memory is often a slippery one, how objective or "true" can a memory, by definition, really be? Can memory lie? If so, what factors might influence it? Consider examples from the book.
6. One of Rachel’s deepest disappointments, it turns out, is that she can’t have children. Her ex-husband Tom’s second wife Anna is the mother to a young child, Evie. How does Rachel’s inability to conceive precipitate her breakdown? How does the topic of motherhood drive the plot of the story? What do you think Paula Hawkins was trying to say about the ways motherhood can define women’s lives or what we expect from women’s domestic lives, whether as wives, mothers, or unmarried women in general?
7. Think about trust in The Girl on the Train. Who trusts whom? Who is deserving of trust? Is Rachel Watson a very trustworthy person? Why or why not? Who appears trustworthy and is actually not? What are the skills we use to make the decision about whether to trust someone we don’t know well?
8. Other characters in the novel make different assumptions about Rachel Watson depending on how or even where they see her. To a certain extent, she understands this and often tries to manipulate their assumptions—by appearing to be a commuter, for instance, going to work every day. Is she successful? To what degree did you make assumptions about Rachel early on based on the facts and appearances you were presented? How did those change over time and why? How did your assumptions about her affect your reading of the central mystery in the book? Did your assumptions about her change over its course? What other characters did you make assumptions about? How did your assumptions affect your interpretation of the plot? Having now finished The Girl on the Train, what surprised you the most?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Jennifer's Questions
1. Discuss the voyeuristic curiosity of Rachel. Through these internal and dialog interactions with three different women throughout the book, the author has forced the reader to become guilty of similar curiosity. What does this reflect about reality and society? How reflective is this book on the current societal situation?
2. What similarities can we identify about Anna, Rachel, and Megan? What differences can we identify and how, as the book progress, do those differences fade away as they become more similar?
3. Paula Hawkins’ book has been identified as a “Hitchcockian thriller.” What characteristics make this statement due? How different is the book from Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Psycho?
4. Paula Hawkins has 15 years’ experience as a journalist. Does Girl on the Train reflect a journalistic style?
5. Born and raised in Zimbabwe and living in London since 1989, what can we identify from the book that shows her diverse cultural background?
6. Which of the below photos represent how you viewed Rachel?
(Questions by Jennifer Johnson. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution to both Jennifer and LitLovers. Thanks.)
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