The Paying Guests
Sarah Waters, 2014
Penguin Group (USA)
576 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594633119
Summary
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.
With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.
Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times, Sarah Waters has earned a reputation as one of our greatest writers of historical fiction, and here she has delivered again. A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of a fascinating time and place, The Paying Guests is Sarah Waters’s finest achievement yet. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 21, 1966
• Where—Neyland, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK
• Education—B.A., University of Kent; M.A., Lancaster University; Ph.D., University of London
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Sarah Waters grew up in Wales in a family that included her father Ron, mother Mary, and sister. Her mother was a housewife and her father an engineer who worked on oil refineries. She describes her family as "pretty idyllic, very safe and nurturing." Her father, "a fantastically creative person," encouraged her to build and invent.
Waters said, "When I picture myself as a child, I see myself constructing something, out of plasticine or papier-mâché or Meccano; I used to enjoy writing poems and stories, too." She wrote stories and poems that she describes as "dreadful gothic pastiches," but had not planned her career.
“I don’t know if I thought about it much, really. I know that, for a long time, I wanted to be an archaeologist — like lots of kids. And I think I knew I was headed for university, even though no one else in my family had been. I was always bright at school, and really enjoyed learning. I remember my mother telling me that I might one day go to university and write a thesis, and explaining what a thesis was; and it seemed a very exciting prospect. I was clearly a bit of a nerd.”
Waters was a "completely tomboyish child", but "got into" femininity in her teenage years. She had always been attracted to boys, and it was not until university that she first fell in love with a woman.
After Milford Haven Grammar School, Waters attended university, and earned degrees in English literature. She received a BA from the University of Kent, an MA from Lancaster University, and a PhD from Queen Mary, University of London. The work for her PhD dissertation, ('Wolfskins and togas : lesbian and gay historical fictions, 1870 to the present' i(available as a free download from the British Library's ETHOS service) served as inspiration and material for future books. As part of her research, she read 19th-century pornography, in which she came across the title of her first book, Tipping the Velvet.
Waters lives in a top-floor Victorian flat in Kennington, south-west London. The rooms, which have very high ceilings, used to be servant quarters. Waters lives with her two cats.
Writing
Before writing novels, Waters worked as an academic, earning a doctorate and teaching. Waters went directly from her doctoral thesis to her first novel. It was during the process of writing her thesis that she thought she would write a novel; she began as soon as the thesis was complete. Her work is very research-intensive, which is an aspect she enjoys. Waters was a member of the long-running London North Writers circle, whose members have included the novelists Charles Palliser and Neil Blackmore, among others.
With the exception of her most recent book, The Little Stranger, all of her books contain lesbian themes, and she does not mind being labeled a lesbian writer. She said, "I'm writing with a clear lesbian agenda in the novels. It's right there at the heart of the books." She calls it "incidental," because of her own sexual orientation. "That's how it is in my life, and that's how it is, really, for most lesbian and gay people, isn't it? It's sort of just there in your life."
Waters' novels include: Tipping the Velvet (1998), Affinity (1999), Fingersmith (2002), The Night Watch (2006), The Little Stranger (2009), and The Paying Guests (2014).
Awards
Sarah Waters was named as one of Granta's 20 Best of Young British Writers in January 2003. The same year, she received the South Bank Award for Literature. She was named Author of the Year at the 2003 British Book Awards. In both 2006 and 2009 she won "Writer of the Year" at the annual Stonewall Awards. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2009. She has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times and Orange Prize twice. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Although Waters is definitely up to constructing a big, entertaining story, her strength seems to be in blueprinting social architecture in terms of its tiniest corners and angles, matters measurable by inches rather than feet—small moments we recognize but have never articulated, even to ourselves…. Perhaps Waters's most impressive accomplishment is the authentic feel she achieves, that the telling—whether in its serious, exciting, comic or sexy passages—has no modern tinge. Not just that no one heats up the cauliflower cheese in a microwave or sends a text message, but that the story appears not merely to be about the novel's time but to have been written by someone living in that time, thumping out the whole thing on a manual typewriter.
Carol Anshaw - New York Times Book Review
[A] tour de force of precisely observed period detail and hidden passions.
Wall Street Journal
You open The Paying Guests and immediately surrender to the smooth assuredness of Sarah Waters’s silken prose… You cannot choose but read. The book has you in thrall. You will follow Waters and her story anywhere… A novel that initially seems as if it might have been written by E.M. Forster darkens into something by Dostoevsky or Patricia Highsmith. It also becomes unputdownable … the reader is in for a seriously heart-pounding roller-coaster ride.
Washington Post
The new Sarah Waters novel, which finds the author at the height of her powers, weaves her characteristic threads of historical melodrama, lesbian romance, class tension, and sinister doings into a fabric of fictional delight that alternately has the reader flipping pages as quickly as possible, to find out what happens next, and hesitating to turn the page, for fear of what will happen next.
Boston Globe
[Waters] masterfully weaves true crime, domestic life and romantic passion into one of the best novels of suspense since Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca… [The Paying Guests is] diabolically clever… with one of the hottest sex scenes ever to be set in a scullery.
Los Angeles Times
It’s been a while since a book kept me up until 3:30 a.m., but The Paying Guests grabbed me and would not let me go…The wonderfully melodramatic plot, the brilliant characterization of protagonist Frances Wray, the vivid depiction of the zeitgeist in post-WWI London — each of these elements was equally responsible for the kidnapping of this unsuspecting reader, as masterminded by British novelist Sarah Waters, a three-time Booker Prize finalist.
Newsday
If you haven’t already embraced the novels of Sarah Waters, now is the moment. Don’t think twice. Collect all six and devour them with the same feverish abandon of the lovers who can be found between their covers…[The Paying Guests] is no romance novel or mere thriller, but a well-wrought, closely observed drama of a tumultuous period in British history… Herein lies the deliciousness of this book, and the others Waters has written: As much as Frances longs to give her heart to someone who will cherish it, we can never be sure, when she opens the final door, whether she will find the lady or the gallows.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Pitch perfect… powered by queer longing, defiant identity politics, and lusty, occasionally downright kinky sex.
Slate
(Starred review.) Readers of Waters’s previous novels know that she brings historical eras to life with consummate skill, rendering authentic details into layered portraits of particular times and places. Waters’s restrained, beautiful depiction of lesbian love furnishes the story with emotional depth, as does the suspense that develops during the tautly written murder investigation and ensuing trial.
Publishers Weekly
[A] rich historical setting in which you can feel the smallness of middle-class English life. But neither Frances nor Lilian is terribly sympathetic, and it's hard to root for them. But perhaps that is the point. Waters keeps you guessing until the very end. Verdict: For fans of complex historical crime fiction with a strong sense of dread. —Devon Thomas, Chelsea, MI
Library Journal
(Starred review.) An exquisitely tuned exploration of class in post-Edwardian Britain—with really hot sex.... As life-and-death questions are answered, new ones come up, and until the last page, the reader will have no idea what's going to happen. Waters keeps getting better, if that's even possible after the sheer perfection of her earlier novels.
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.)
Gutenberg's Apprentice
Alix Christie, 2014
HarperCollins
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062336019
Summary
An enthralling literary debut that evokes one of the most momentous events in history, the birth of printing in medieval Germany—a story of invention, intrigue, and betrayal.
Youthful, ambitious Peter Schoeffer is on the verge of professional success as a scribe in Paris when his foster father, the wealthy merchant and bookseller Johann Fust, summons him home to corruption- riddled, feud-plagued Mainz to meet "a most amazing man."
Johann Gutenberg, a driven and caustic inventor, has devised a revolutionary—and, to some, blasphemous—method of bookmaking: a machine he calls a printing press. Fust is financing Gutenberg's workshop, and he orders Peter to become Gutenberg's apprentice. Resentful at having to abandon a prestigious career as a scribe, Peter begins his education in the "darkest art."
As his skill grows, so too does his admiration for Gutenberg and his dedication to their daring venture: printing copies of the Holy Bible. But when outside forces align against them, Peter finds himself torn between two father figures—the generous Fust and the brilliant, mercurial Gutenberg, who inspires Peter to achieve his own mastery.
Caught between the genius and the merchant, the old ways and the new, Peter and the men he admires must work together to prevail against overwhelming obstacles in a battle that will change history...and irrevocably transform them all. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June, 1958
• Where—Redwood, California, USA
• Raised—California, Montana, and British Columbia, Canada
• Education—B.A., Vassar College; M.A., University of California, Berkeley; M.F.A.,
Saint Mary's College of California
• Currently—lives in London, England, UK
Alix Christie is an author, journalist, and letterpress printer. She learned the craft as an apprentice to two master California printers and owns and operates a 1910 Chandler & Price letterpress. She holds a master of fine arts degree from Saint Mary's College of California and currently lives in London, where she reviews books and arts for the Economist. Gutenberg's Apprentice is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
In her words:
I was born in the Silicon Valley while it was still orchards, and grew up in California, Montana, and British Columbia. A move to New York state to attend Vassar College, where I was a Phi Beta Kappa philosophy major, led to Manhattan and a stint in advertising copywriting. I returned home to pursue a masters degree in journalism at the University of California and have been a peripatetic reporter and writer ever since.
My articles and commentary have appeared in the Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, The Economist, The Guardian, Salon and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. I am the former editor of the Foreign Service of the San Francisco Chronicle, a network of freelance foreign correspondents.
While raising two children in the 1990s I earned a Masters of Fine Arts in fiction from St. Mary’s College of California. My debut novel, Gutenberg's Apprentice, is forthcoming this fall. An earlier unpublished work was a semi-finalist in the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, and my short stories have appeared in Southwest Review, Other Voices, and For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn: Six Words, Six Stories, Six Writers, a limited letterpress edition from Foolscap Press.
(From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.)Christie’s fiction debut descriptions of technical processes and medieval society are enthralling; the romance and personal melodrama are less compelling. At her best, she demonstrates a printer’s precision and a dogged researcher’s diligence in her painstakingly meticulous account of quattrocento innovation, technology, politics, art, and commerce
Publishers Weekly
Christie's slow-paced debut is rich in historical detail. Although the writing can be overblown, the story of the birth of the printing press is fascinating. Readers who enjoy historical fiction such as Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures will enjoy this admirable outing. —Terry Lucas, Rogers Memorial Lib., Southampton, NY
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Gorgeously written...dramatizes the creation of the Gutenberg Bible in a story that devotees of book history and authentic historical fiction will relish...An inspiring tale of ambition, camaraderie, betrayal, and cultural transformation based on actual events and people, this wonderful novel fully inhabits its age.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Christie masterfully depicts the time and energy required to print the first Bibles...against a catastrophic backdrop of plague, the fall of Constantinople, the violent superstitions of the peasantry, and a vested intelligentsia.... [T]he narrative is given texture through intermittent chapters in which Schoeffer...relates his story to Trithemius, abbot of Sponheim. A bravura debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel begins with Peter Schoeffer telling the story to a writer. In what ways are verbal and written storytelling similar or different?
2. What does Peter retain and lose in his shift from artisan scribe to printmaking engineer?
3. Considering Peter’s initial conflict between the scribe’s art and the printing press, what’s the relationship between art and technology?
4. A central issue in Mainz is the ancient one between homo faber—the man who makes things—and he who sells or trades what others make. What is the conflict here? How might it continue in contemporary culture? Examine the irony of craftsmen making by hand something that would "replace the hand of man."
5. Peter admits late in his life that the printing press never brought "the liberation that it promised" by lifting man "from bigotry and want and greed." How might it have done this? What forces kept it from happening?
6. In what ways does Peter’s experience and identity as an orphan affect his life and relationships?
7. Hermann Rosenberg, a vicar, argues that the printing press could secure knowledge with a standardized text and avoid cultural disorder. In what parts of culture might such a lack of variation be problematic?
8. How do the many references to the biblical stories woven throughout add to the novel? Which seem the most powerful or poignant?
9. Peter thinks one of Gutenberg’s brilliant abilities is "to see a thing—a person too—in pieces." What might this mean? What are its costs?
10. Peter also describes Gutenberg as "beholden to no group…nor…any other man. He stood outside, alone, a solitary soul." How did such disconnection serve or hinder him? To what degree might such behavior be a necessary precondition for brilliance or innovative thinking? or something like this…)
11. When Peter first sees the print from metal letters he carved, "it all changed." What is the nature of such a "spark"?
12. Gutenberg makes harsh statements about the value of women, referring to Eve, Pandora, and Magdalene. Consider the two women in Peter’s life, Grede and Anna Pinzler. How are they powerful, valuable women?
13. What constituted Peter’s "unexpected joy" working with the various craftsmen in the secret workshop?
14. What qualities in Gutenberg caused him to risk the failure of the printing press itself? Were these qualities necessary and unavoidable for him?
15. As the workshop falls apart Peter realizes that the work there had a series of technical rites and rituals and prayer-like vocabulary that bound the workers together. How does this occur? What’s the nature of rites and rituals that they can have this effect even in a secular activity?
16. In what ways is our contemporary shift from print to digital media similar to or different from the shift from hand-written to mechanically printed text?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Adultery
Paulo Coelho, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101874080
Summary
In the latest novel from Paulo Coelho, a woman attempts to overcome midlife ennui by rediscovering herself in a passionate relationship with a man who had been a friend in her youth.
A woman in her thirties begins to question the routine and predictability of her days. In everybody's eyes, she has a perfect life: happy marriage, children, and a career. Yet what she feels is an enormous apathy.
All that changes when she encounters a successful politician who had, years earlier, been her high school boyfriend. As she rediscovers the passion missing from her life, she will face a life-altering choice. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1947
• Where—Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
• Education—Left law school in second year
• Awards—Crystal Award (Switzerland), 1999; Rio Branco
Order (Brazil), 2000; Legion d’Honneur (France), 2001;
Brazilian Academy of Letters (Brazil), 2002
• Currently—lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Paulo Coelho's books have been translated into 56 languages, topped bestseller lists throughout the world, and scored him such celebrity fans as Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton, and Madonna; yet for Brazilian publishing phenom Paulo Colho, the road to success has been strewn with a number of obstacles, many of them rooted in his troubled past.
Personal life
As a youth, Coelho was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father, a professional engineer. When he rebelled, expressing his intentions to become a writer, his parents had him committed to a psychiatric hospital where he was subjected to electro-shock therapy. He left home to join the 1970s countercultural revolution, experimenting with drugs, dabbling in black magic, and getting involved in Brazil's bohemian art and music scene. He teamed with rock musician Raul Seixas for an extremely successful songwriting partnership that changed the face of Brazilian pop—and put a lot of money in Coelho's pockets. He also joined an anti-capitalist organization called the Alternative Society which attracted the attention of Brazil's military dictatorship. Marked down as a subversive, he was imprisoned and tortured.
Amazingly, Coelho survived these horrific experiences. He left the hippie lifestyle behind, went to work in the record industry, and began to write, but without much success. Then, in the mid-1980s, during a trip to Europe, he met a man, an unnamed mentor he refers to only as "J," who inducted him into Regnum Agnus Mundi, a secret society that blends Catholicism with a sort of New Age mysticism. At J's urging, Coelho journeyed across el Camino de Santiago, the legendary Spanish road traversed by pilgrims since the Middle Ages. He chronicled this life-changing, 500-mile journey—the culmination of decades of soul-searching—in The Pilgrimage, published in 1987.
Writings
The following year, Coelho wrote The Alchemist, the inspirational fable for which he is best known. The first edition sold so poorly the publisher decided not to reprint it. Undaunted, Coelho moved to a larger publishing house that seemed more interested in his work. When his third novel, 1990's Brida, proved successful, the resulting media buzz carried The Alchemist all the way to the top of the charts. Released in the U.S. by HarperCollins in 1993, The Alchemist became a word-of-mouth sensation, turning Coelho into a cult hero.
Since then, he has gone on to create his own distinct literary brand—an amalgam of allegory and self-help filled with spiritual themes and symbols. In his novels, memoirs, and aphoristic nonfiction, he returns time and again to the concepts of quest and transformation and has often said that writing has helped connect him to his soul.
While his books have not always been reviewed favorably and have often become the subject of strong cultural and philosophical debate, there is no doubt that this self-described "pilgrim writer" has struck a chord in readers everywhere. In the 2009 edition of the Guiness Book of World Records, Coelho was named the most translated living author—with William Shakespeare the most translated of all time!
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Few writers are able to accomplish what Coelho can in just two to four weeks—which is how long it takes for him to write an entire novel.
• Before become a bestselling novelist, Coelho was a writer of a different sort. He co-wrote more than 60 songs with Brazilian musician Raul Seixas.
• Coelho is the founder of the Paulo Coelho Institute, a non-profit organization funded by his royalties that raises money for underprivileged children and the elderly in his homeland of Brazil.
• Coelho has practiced archery for a long time; a bow and arrow helps him to unwind.
• In writing, Coelho says "I apply my feminine side and respect the mystery involved in creation."
• Coelho loves almost everything about his work, except conferences. "I am too shy in front of an audience. But I love signings and having eye contact with a reader who already knows my soul."
• When asked what book most influenced his life, he answered:
The Bible, which contains all the stories and all the guidance humankind needs. (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Coelho milks each opportunity to preach—by way of endless interior monologues, quotes from Scriptureand talky scenes—sermons about love, marriage, sexual attraction, evolutionarytheory and every other imponderable he can muster. Occasional interestingtidbits about the novel's setting, the French-speaking Swiss canton of Vaud,are not enough to redeem the pervasive mawkishness.More trite truthiness from Coelho.
Publishers Weekly
[A]n interview with a writer...sets Linda on an increasingly out-of-control cure for her restless boredom.... Coelho...is perhaps too successful. Linda's adultery, more tedious than convincing, will fail to convince the reader to accept her guilt-free rationale for her behavior. —Beth Andersen, formerly with Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal
Coelho milksceach opportunity to preach...sermons about love, marriage, sexual attraction, evolutionary theory and every other imponderable he can muster. Occasional interesting tidbits about the novel's setting, the French-speaking Swiss canton of Vaud,are not enough to redeem the pervasive mawkishness. More trite truthiness from Coelho.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the beginning of the novel, Linda describes herself as risk-averse. How does the concept of risk taking factor into the protagonist’s actions throughout the novel? By the end of the novel, do you think that she associates risk with reward?
2. How is love defined throughout Adultery? On page 90, Linda contemplates requited versus unrequited love. Which type of love do you believe is more transformative in the novel?
3. Throughout the novel, the protagonist attempts to articulate what her unhappiness feels like: “an animal who can’t quite understand how it got caught in the trap,” a “spongy black hole.” How did these analogies help to shape your understanding of her mental state? Did you feel sympathy for the character throughout your reading experience?
4. On page 131, Linda claims she feels “comfortable in my madness.” Are there points where you feel that she is losing touch with reality or giving in to delusional thinking?
5. Why is Jacob so attractive to Linda? Is it the illicitness of their affair that excites her, or does she have a genuine appreciation for his personality? What aspects of his personality are most appealing to her?
6. On page 125, the protagonist emphasizes the importance of “keeping up appearances. ” How does that need to exhibit a normal, happy life arise throughout Adultery? Where in the novel do the boundaries between public and private personas become blurred?
7. Discuss the significance of the novel Frankenstein throughout Adultery. How is the scientist/monster dichotomy reflected in the Linda’s own personality and actions?
8. On page 158, the protagonist laments that all she feels is “insomnia, emptiness, and apathy, and, if you just ask yourselves, you’re feeling the same thing.” Why do you think the author chose to direct that sentiment toward the reader? Are there other places in the novel wherein the protagonist assumes the reader feels the same way she does?
9. Examine the scene in which Marianne and Jacob dine with Linda and her husband. Based on what was said, do you think that Marianne had any suspicion about her husband’s affair? Or did Linda’s anxiety about the situation color her perception of Marianne’s words?
10. Discussions regarding drug usage in Switzerland occur several times in the book. Before going to meet the drug dealer, Linda notes that the Swiss “both prohibit and tolerate” drugs at the same time (page 116). What does this contradiction say about Swiss culture?
11. Adultery is set in Switzerland, and mentions of Swiss culture pepper the narrative. Discuss what you learned about Geneva and Swiss culture. Did anything surprise you? Are there any connections to be made between the discussion of cultural norms in Swiss culture and the protagonist’s actions?
12. As her affair progresses, Linda’s actions and thoughts take a darker, more obsessive tone. Did your perception of her change throughout the novel? How did you react to her decision to “destroy” Marianne?
13.Adultery is a novel that explores the line between morality and immorality. How does Linda define morality? How does her husband? What actions—if any—would you deem immoral?
14. It could be argued that Adulteryy is about examining selfhood. How does Linda’s understanding of herself and her desires change by the end of the novel? What does her affair teach her about herself? About her relationship with her husband? Do you think she regrets her affair?
15. Discuss the scene in which the protagonist and her husband go paragliding (page 241). How does that experience transform her? Why do you think she cries after she lands?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Invention of Exile
Vanessa Manko, 2012
Penguin Group (USA)
304pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594205880
Summary
Austin Voronkov is many things. He is an engineer, an inventor, an immigrant from Russia to Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1913, where he gets a job at a rifle factory. At the house where he rents a room, he falls in love with a woman named Julia, who becomes his wife and the mother to his two children.
When Austin is wrongly accused of attending anarchist gatherings his limited grasp of English condemns him to his fate as a deportee; retreating with his family to his home in Russia, they become embroiled in the civil war and must flee once again, to Mexico.
While Julia and the children are eventually able to return to the United States, Austin becomes indefinitely stranded in Mexico City because of the black mark on his record. He keeps a daily correspondence with Julia as they each exchange their hopes and fears for the future and as they struggle to remain a family across a distance of two countries.
Austin becomes convinced that his engineering designs will be awarded patents, thereby paving the way for the government to approve his return and award his long sought-after American citizenship. At the same time he becomes convinced that an FBI agent working for the House Committee for Un-American Activities is monitoring his every move, with the intent of blocking any possible return to the United States.
Austin’s and Julia’s struggles build to crisis and heartrending resolution in this dazzling, sweeping debut. The novel is based in part on Vanessa Manko’s family history and a trove of hidden letters that serve as a kind of inheritance—letters from a grandfather she never knew.
Manko uses this history as a jumping-off point for the novel, which deals with themes of exile and invention and explores how loss reshapes and transforms lives. It is a profoundly moving story of family, history, and the meaning of home. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Brookfield, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Connecticut; M.A., New York University
M.F.A, Hunter College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Vanessa earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College where she was the recipient of a Hertog Fellowship. Prior to writing, Vanessa trained in ballet at the North Carolina School of the Arts and danced professionally before returning to school to earn her B.A. in English from the University of Connecticut.
She went on to receive her M.A. from New York University’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study where she focused on dance history and performance studies. Vanessa has taught writing at NYU and SUNY Purchase and she is the former Dance Editor of The Brooklyn Rail. An excerpt of The Invention of Exile, her first novel, was published in Granta 114, Exit Strategies in 2012. Originally from Brookfield, CT, Vanessa now lives in Brooklyn, New York. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
An achingly painful and all too relevant meditation on what can happen to identity when human beings are crammed inside an unforgiving container of politics, bureaucracy, and fear...Manko’s own prose is… rich and convincing…[A] wonderful first novel.
Elizabeth Graver - Boston Globe
The summer’s surest candidate for lit-hit crossover.
New York Magazine
Manko’s debut thrums with longing.
Vanity Fair
An incident from her own family history inspired Manko’s fine fiction debut, in which Austin Voronkov, a Russian engineer and inventor, emigrates to the U.S. in 1913 and finds...[himself] falsely accused of being an anarchist.... The beating heart of Manko’s story is Austin’s determination to be reunited with his family.
Publishers Weekly
Trust Penguin Press to offer historically informed fiction. Early 1900s Russian immigrant Austin Voronkov is a happily married father of two in Bridgeport, CT. But after tripping over his English while responding to accusations [of anarchy,] the family must flee [their U.S.] home.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A man separated from his family for years reckons with his isolation in Manko's debut, a superb study of statelessness.... She deeply explores...the impact of years of lacking a country.... A top-notch debut, at once sober and lively and provocative.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What are your definitions of home and family? What are Austin’s? How do your definitions align or differ?
2. What was your reaction to the interrogation scenes in Connecticut (pp. 20–37)? Do you think there was anything Austin could have done to sway the inquisitor’s mind?
3. How is the lighthouse symbolic in Austin’s and Julia’s lives? What about Julia’s flooded garden?
4. Austin is very hopeful, to the point of obsession, that his inventions will aid him in reuniting with his family. How does the theme of invention work in his life and in the novel?
5. What is Anarose’s role?
6. The storyline and perspective shift and jump over time and place. How does this structure inform the story?
7. Austin muses, “Paper is stronger than one thinks. Papers, documents don’t define a man, but they lived in a mire of them. . . . His days revolved around papers. But no amount of paper means a country” (p. 116). What do you think about this passage? How do papers control how Austin conducts his life?
8. How does Austin’s story fit into the trope of the United States as a “melting pot” for immigrants? How did it influence your thoughts on the immigrant experience?
9. Austin is paranoid that an FBI agent, Jack, has him under surveillance. Do you think the agent is real, or is he a figment born of fear and distrust? What purpose does Jack serve?
10. Correspondence is a vital undercurrent in Austin’s life. How do the many letters and notes we read bring him closer to—and push him further apart from—his loved ones? How do you correspond with people close to you?
11. How does Austin’s conception and understanding of being American and returning to the United States change throughout the novel? What was your reaction to his thoughts in the final pages?
12. What does the title, The Invention of Exile, mean to you? In what ways was Austin in exile?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Fever
Meg Abbott, 2014
Little, Brown
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316231053
Summary
The panic unleashed by a mysterious contagion threatens the bonds of family and community in a seemingly idyllic suburban community.
The Nash family is close-knit. Tom is a popular teacher, father of two teens: Eli, a hockey star and girl magnet, and his sister Deenie, a diligent student. Their seeming stability, however, is thrown into chaos when Deenie's best friend is struck by a terrifying, unexplained seizure in class. Rumors of a hazardous outbreak spread through the family, school and community.
As hysteria and contagion swell, a series of tightly held secrets emerges, threatening to unravel friendships, families and the town's fragile idea of security. (From the publisher.)
The Fever is loosely inspired by a recent outbreak in upstate New York. See Megan's Huffington Post article about the true-life LeRoy, NY case. (From the author's website.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1971
• Where—near Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan; Ph.D., New York University
• Awards—Edgar Award for Outstanding Fiction
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Megan Abbott is an American author of crime fiction and a non-fiction analyst of hardboiled crime fiction. Her novels and short stories have drawn from and re-worked classic subgenres of crime writing, with a female twist.
Abbott grew up in suburban Detroit and graduated from the University of Michigan. She is married to Joshua Gaylord, a New School professor who writes fiction under his own name and the pseudonym "Alden Bell."
Abbott was influenced by film noir, classic noir fiction, and Jeffrey Eugenides's novel The Virgin Suicides. Two of her novels reference notorious crimes. The Song is You (2007) is based around the disappearance of Jean Spangler in 1949, and Bury Me Deep (2009) is based on the 1931 case of Winnie Ruth Judd, who was dubbed the "Trunk Murderess."
Abbott has won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for outstanding fiction. Time named her one of the "23 Authors That We Admire" in 2011.
Works
2005 - Die a Little
2007 - The Song Is You
2007 - Queenpin (2008 Edgar Award; 2008 Barry Award)
2009 - Bury Me Deep
2011 - The End of Everything
2012 - Dare Me
2014 - The Fever
2016 - You Will Know Me
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/9/2016.)
Book Reviews
Megan Abbott is a seasoned, Edgar Award-winning author with exceptional gifts for making nerves jangle and skin crawl. She is also skilled at turning teenage sexuality into cause for squirming…The Fever is about a clique of high school girls who are harassed by strange, terrifying symptoms. This is not a book about rationally getting to the root of the problem; but about the eroticism and hysteria that run wild in a small town that has no idea what is consuming its young women…Few readers are going to be seriously drawn in by the drama of which high school kid has a crush on which other. It's the book's constant throb of horror that keeps it gripping.
Janet Maslin - New York Times Book Review
Megan Abbott has been called the Queen of Noir...Her new novel, Dare Me, is something of a switch for Abbott in that it's about a cheerleading squad, though - trust us - it's still quite hard-boiled...A contemporary novel about a cheerleading squad that somehow manages to be as dark and sinister as any of Abbott's fiction.
Sherryl Connely - New York Daily News
Like her stunning 2012 book, , Abbott's new novel focuses on teenage girls and the damage they can do.... In sparDare Mee, ferocious language, Abbott captures their energy. . . The beauty of Abbott's writing, and the skilled way she weaves the men's lesser narratives into Deenie's story, make this a standout in contemporary crime fiction. Megan Abbott knows what girls are made of.
Boston Globe
A terrific psychological thriller....A reminder of the great P.D. James adage that the most dangerous emotion is love.
Toronto Globe and Mail
Megan Abbott is] a unique talent with a signature style that gets stronger with every book. With its confident plotting and lyrical prose, The Fever may be her best novel yet.
Los Angeles Times
The Fever sends chills. Megan Abbott's 'high school noir' is sensual and sinister...atmospheric and compelling...What sets Abbott apart from other mystery scribes is her evocative language. There is drama and a fast-moving narrative, but she skillfully weaves a mounting dread into the novel, as well as a claustrophobic sensuality. You feel as if you're in the heads of each of the teenagers in the fictional town of Dryden, but also privy to the inner life of the adults, as well.
Detroit News
The plot's myriad twists and turns, like the precarious pyramids the cheerleaders perfect, are intriguing and unexpected."
USA Today
Make no mistake, this is no pulpy teenage tale: It's a very grown-up look at youth culture and how bad behavior can sometimes be redeemed by a couple of good decisions."
Sara Nelson - Oprah Magazine
[A] thrilling...peek into the strange, inscrutable minds of teenage girls.... Abbott’s adolescents are close to pitch-perfect with their sudden switches between childlike vulnerability and calculating maturity. What the narrative lacks in depth it makes up for in momentum and dark mystery. This is a gripping story.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Once again, Abbott makes an unforgettable inquiry into the emotional lives of young people, this time balanced with parents' own fears and failings. It's also a powerful portrait of community, with interesting echoes of The Crucible: it's the twenty-first century, and, in many ways, we're still frightened villagers, terrified of the unknown. Abbott may be on her way to becoming a major writer.
Booklist
(Starred review.) The lives of teenage girls are dangerous, beautiful things in Abbott's stunning seventh novel.... [S]omething in the town is causing the fits, and it's only a matter of time before [Deenie is] next. Nothing should be taken at face value in this jealousy- and hormone-soaked world except that Abbott is certainly our very best guide.
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.)