Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932
Francine Prose, 2014
HarperCollins
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061713781
Summary
A richly imagined and stunningly inventive literary masterpiece of love, art, and betrayal, exploring the genesis of evil, the unforeseen consequences of love, and the ultimate unreliability of storytelling itself.
Paris in the 1920s. It is a city of intoxicating ambition, passion, art, and discontent, where louche jazz venues like the Chameleon Club draw expats, artists, libertines, and parvenus looking to indulge their true selves. It is at the Chameleon where the striking Lou Villars, an extraordinary athlete and scandalous cross-dressing lesbian, finds refuge among the club's loyal denizens, including the rising photographer Gabor Tsenyi, the socialite and art patron Baroness Lily de Rossignol, and the caustic American writer Lionel Maine.
As the years pass, their fortunes—and the world itself—evolve. Lou falls in love and finds success as a race car driver. Gabor builds his reputation with vivid and imaginative photographs, including a haunting portrait of Lou and her lover, which will resonate through all their lives. As the exuberant twenties give way to darker times, Lou experiences another metamorphosis that will warp her earnest desire for love and approval into something far more sinister: collaboration with the Nazis.
Told in a kaleidoscope of voices, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 evokes this incandescent city with brio, humor, and intimacy. A brilliant work of fiction and a mesmerizing read, it is Francine Prose's finest novel yet. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 1, 1947
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Radcliffe College
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; PEN-America prize for translation; Guggenheim Fellowship
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York
When it comes to an author as eclectic as Francine Prose, it's difficult to find the unifying thread in her work. But, if one were to examine her entire oeuvre—from novels and short stories to essays and criticism—a love of reading would seem to be the animating force.
That may not seem extraordinary, especially for a writer, but Prose is uncommonly passionate about the link between reading and writing. "I've always read," she confessed in a 1998 interview with Atlantic Unbound. "I started when I was four years old and just didn't stop.... The only reason I wanted to be a writer was because I was such an avid reader." (In 2006, she produced an entire book on the subject—a nuts-and-bolts primer entitled Reading Like a Writer, in which she uses excerpts from classic and contemporary literature to illustrate her personal notions of literary excellence.)
If Prose is specific about the kind of writing she, herself, likes to read, she's equally voluble about what puts her off. She is particularly vexed by "obvious, tired cliches; lazy, ungrammatical writing; implausible plot turns." Unsurprisingly, all of these are notably absent in her own work. Even when she explores tried-and-true literary conventions—such as the illicit romantic relationship at the heart of her best known novel, Blue Angel—she livens them with wit and irony. She even borrowed her title from the famous Josef von Sternberg film dealing with a similar subject.
As biting and clever as she is, Prose cringes whenever her work is referred to as satire. She explained to Barnes & Noble editors, "Satirical to me means one-dimensional characters...whereas, I think of myself as a novelist who happens to be funny—who's writing characters that are as rounded and artfully developed as the writers of tragic novels."
Prose's assessment of her own work is pretty accurate. Although her subject matter is often ripe for satire (religious fanaticism in Household Saints, tabloid journalism in Bigfoot Dreams, upper-class pretensions in Primitive People), etc.), she takes care to invest her characters with humanity and approaches them with respect. "I really do love my characters," she says, "but I feel that I want to take a very hard look at them. I don't find them guilty of anything I'm not guilty of myself."
Best known for her fiction, Prose has also written literary criticism for the New York Times, art criticism for the Wall Street Journal, and children's books based on Jewish folklore, all of it infused with her alchemic blend of humor, insight,and intelligence.
Extras
• Prose rarely wastes an idea. In Blue Angel, the novel that the character Angela is writing is actually a discarded novel that Prose started before stopping because, in her own words, "it seemed so juvenile to me."
• While she once had no problem slamming a book in one of her literary critiques, these days Prose has resolved to only review books that she actually likes. The ones that don't adhere to her high standards are simply returned to the senders.
• Prose's novel Household Saints was adapted into an excellent film starring Tracey Ullman, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Lili Taylor in 1993.
• Another novel, The Glorious Ones, was adapted into a musical.
• In 2002 Prose published The Lives of the Muses, an intriguing hybrid of biography, philosophy, and gender studies that examines nine women who inspired famous artists and thinkers—from John Lennon's wife Yoko Ono to Alice Liddell, the child who inspired Alice in Wonderland. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 is a novel of great reach and power, a portrait of an entire era. Prose's canvas is crowded with many characters, but they’re all well-delineated. She has a miraculous gift for imagining a foggy quay or a smoky cabaret—or a strait-laced banquet given by the Führer, eating his vegetarian nut cutlets while his guests tremble with fear. Though there are multiple narrators, each is distinct, since Prose has a knack for parodying different voices.
Edmund White - New York Times Book Review
Prose’s 21st novel captures the brilliance of Paris’s bohemian art scene in the ’20s and ’30s, as well as the dark days that followed.... The novel skillfully portrays the headiness of Parisian cafes, where artists and writers came together to talk and cadge free drinks, and the terror of the Nazi Occupation. Though the momentum lags at times, Prose deftly demonstrates with a wink the self-seeking nature of memory and the way we portray our past.
Publishers Weekly
What's most striking about this latest work from Prose is how effectively she weaves together the stories of more than a half dozen characters to tell the larger picture of France (and, indeed, Europe) between the World Wars while reflecting on the nature of evil and the limits of biography (and biographical fiction).... At first a smoothly unrolling tapestry, the novel deepens as it portrays a society careening toward war. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Artistically and intellectually adventurous, Prose presents a house-of-mirrors historical novel built around a famous photograph by Brassai of two women at a table in a Paris nightclub. The one wearing a tuxedo is athlete, race-car driver, and Nazi collaborator Violette Morris.... Prose considered writing a biography, but instead she forged an electrifying union of fact and fiction.... A dark and glorious tour de force. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
(Starred review.) A tour de force of character, point of view and especially atmosphere, Prose's latest takes place in Paris from the late 1920s till the end of World War II. The primary locus of action is the Chameleon Club, a cabaret where entertainment edges toward the kinky.... Within this multilayered web of characters, Prose manages to give almost every character a voice.... Brilliant and dazzling Prose.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The story of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932 centers around Lou Villars. Who is she? What do we learn about her as the novel progresses? What three adjectives would you use to describe her?
2. The novel is told in the voices of the various contemporaries of Lou. How does this method of narration add to the drama and depth of the story? Do you trust one viewpoint more than another? Did you like one narrator more than another?
3. There is another voice in the novel that is not part of Lou's circle—or even of the time—Nathalie Dunois. What does her voice add to the story? When you learn about Nathalie later in the book, how does it affect your understanding of Lou? What is Francine Prose trying to convey to us about the nature of narrative truth? Can we trust any of the characters in the book? Can we ever trust personal narrative—whether in fiction or nonfiction? What are the implications
for our understanding of these characters—especially Lou?
4. Discuss Lou's circle—the photographer Gabor Tsenyi, his girlfriend Suzanne Dunois, Baroness Lily de Rossignol, the Chameleon Club's manager, Yvonne Nagy, the American journalist Lionel Maine, German racer Inge Wallser, and even the collaborator Jean-Claude Bonnet. What impact did they have on Lou's life and outlook? Describe a few of them as individuals and their relationships with each other. What do they each think of Lou? What do Lou's subsequent actions hold for each of their lives? Choose one character and tell the story from his or her viewpoint.
5. What precipitated Lou's actions before and during the war? Was it spurned love, lost opportunity, or something more? Think about her character. Might Lou have acted the same way even if circumstances were different? How much influence did the Nazis have over her? Think about her childhood. How did the circumstances of her youth shape her? What about notions of nationalism and cultural chauvinism? Did they color who she was? Do you think she ever really considered the consequences of her choices?
6. Talk about the Chameleon Club. What purpose does it serve in the novel? Who were its patrons and what drew them there? What about Lou? How were places like the Chameleon Club indicative of their time?
7. Discuss the Paris that is recreated in the pages of the novel. How is the city itself a character? What is intriguing about Lou Villar's Paris? Would you have liked to visit this Paris? Can you feel the winds of change shifting in the novel? How does Francine Prose create mood and atmosphere? How do both add to the story as it unfolds?
8. In her biography of Lou, Nathalie writes, "Not only does creative work mine the rich veins of the unconscious, it also has an uncanny ability to obtain what the artist needs, from the world." How does creative work "mine the rich vein of the unconscious"? How does i have "an uncanny ability to obtain what the artist needs, from the world'? Use examples from this work or another to explain your understanding of Nathalie's words.
9. What is the role of art in the novel? How is it used to elevate the spirit and how can it be used for evil? Think about the period. How did the Nazis use art to promote their cause?
10. Would Lou feel at home with the political atmosphere today—the divisions between left and right, the anger over immigration, the "takers" and the "makers"? How does Lou's world compare to today? Use examples from the story to illustrate your ideas.
11. Late in the novel, the Baroness confides, "During the Occupation we learned to live with fear and humiliation, anger and insults, the witnessing of horrific scenes one could hardly believe were real." How did their lives and their art change as the political situation shifted —as their feelings of freedom turned to terror as fascism took hold?
12. At the end of the novel, well after the war, we learn that Lionel Maine is obsessed with the end of the movie Carrie, from Stephen King's horror novel. Why do you think that final scene—of the dead Carrie's arm punching through the ground where she is buried—affects him so much?
13. What are your impressions of Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932? Did it meet your expectations? What made your group choose to read the novel? What did you take away from your reading? If you've read other stories that bring to life this period and place, how do they compare to Lovers at the Chameleon Club?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Painter
Peter Heller, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385352093
Summary
Peter Heller, the celebrated author of the breakout best seller The Dog Stars, returns with an achingly beautiful, wildly suspenseful second novel about an artist trying to outrun his past.
Jim Stegner has seen his share of violence and loss. Years ago he shot a man in a bar. His marriage disintegrated. He grieved the one thing he loved. In the wake of tragedy, Jim, a well-known expressionist painter, abandoned the art scene of Santa Fe to start fresh in the valleys of rural Colorado.
Now he spends his days painting and fly-fishing, trying to find a way to live with the dark impulses that sometimes overtake him. He works with a lovely model. His paintings fetch excellent prices. But one afternoon, on a dirt road, Jim comes across a man beating a small horse, and a brutal encounter rips his quiet life wide open. Fleeing Colorado, chased by men set on retribution, Jim returns to New Mexico, tormented by his own relentless conscience.
A stunning, savage novel of art and violence, love and grief, The Painter is the story of a man who longs to transcend the shadows in his heart, a man intent on using the losses he has suffered to create a meaningful life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 13, 1959
• Raised—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Dartmouth College; M.F.A, Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Awards—Iowa Writers' Workshop's Michener Fellowship; National Outdoor's Book Award
• Currently—lives in Denver, Colorado
Peter Heller is a longtime contributor to NPR, and a contributing editor at Outside Magazine, Men’s Journal, and National Geographic Adventure. He is an award winning adventure writer and the author of four books of literary nonfiction. The Dog Stars, his first novel, was published in 2012.
Heller was born and raised in New York. He attended high school in Vermont and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire where he became an outdoorsman and whitewater kayaker. He traveled the world as an expedition kayaker, writing about challenging descents in the Pamirs, the Tien Shan mountains, the Caucuses, Central America and Peru.
At the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he received an MFA in fiction and poetry, he won a Michener fellowship for his epic poem “The Psalms of Malvine.” He has worked as a dishwasher, construction worker, logger, offshore fisherman, kayak instructor, river guide, and world class pizza deliverer. Some of these stories can be found in Set Free in China, Sojourns on the Edge. In the winter of 2002 he joined, on the ground team, the most ambitious whitewater expedition in history as it made its way through the treacherous Tsangpo Gorge in Eastern Tibet. He chronicled what has been called "The Last Great Adventure Prize" for Outside, and in his book Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet’s Tsangpo River.
The gorge—three times deeper than the Grand Canyon—is sacred to Buddhists, and is the inspiration for James Hilton’s Shangri La. It is so deep there are tigers and leopards in the bottom and raging 25,000 foot peaks at the top, and so remote and difficult to traverse that a mythical waterfall, sought by explorers since Victorian times, was documented for the first time in 1998 by a team from National Geographic. The book won a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, was number three on Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List” of all pop culture, and a Denver Post review ranked it “up there with any adventure writing ever written.”
In December, 2005, on assignment for National Geographic Adventure, he joined the crew of an eco-pirate ship belonging to the radical environmental group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as it sailed to Antarctica to hunt down and disrupt the Japanese whaling fleet.
The ship is all black, sails under a jolly Roger, and two days south of Tasmania the engineers came on deck and welded a big blade called the Can Opener to the bow—a weapon designed to gut the hulls of ships. In The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet’s Largest Mammals, Heller recounts fierce gales, forty foot seas, rammings, near-sinkings, and a committed crew’s clear-eyed willingness to die to save a whale. The book was published in 2007.
In the fall of 2007 Heller was invited by the team who made the acclaimed film The Cove to accompany them in a clandestine filming mission into the guarded dolphin-killing cove in Taiji, Japan. Heller paddled into the inlet with four other surfers while a pod of pilot whales was being slaughtered. He was outfitted with a helmet cam, and the terrible footage can be seen in the movie. The Cove went on to win an Academy Award. Heller wrote about the experience for Men’s Journal.
Heller’s most recent memoir, about surfing from California down the coast of Mexico, Kook: What Surfing Taught Me about Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, was published in 2010. Can a man drop everything in the middle of his life, pick up a surfboard and, apprenticing himself to local masters, learn to ride a big, fast wave in six months? Can he learn to finally love and commit to someone else? Can he care for the oceans, which are in crisis? The answers are in. The book won a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, which called it a “powerful memoir…about love: of a woman, of living, of the sea.” It also won the National Outdoor Book Award for Literature. (From the author's website.)
In 2012, Heller published his first novel, The Dog Stars, to wide acclaim. It received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal and Booklist and was chosen as a "Best Book of the Month" by both Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Heller currently lives in Denver, Colorado.
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Jim Stegner, celebrated painter, ardent fisherman and homespun philosopher, narrates this masterful novel, in which love (parental and romantic), artistic vision, guilt, grief, and spine-chilling danger propel a suspenseful plot.... Heller is equally skillful at describing the creation of a painting as he is at describing the thrilling details of a gunfight. Here, he explores the mysteries of the human heart and creates an indelible portrait of a man searching for peace, while seeking to maintain his humanity in the face of violence and injustice.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Heller’s writing is sure-footed and rip-roaring, star-bright and laced with ‘dark yearning,’ coalescing in an ever-escalating, ravishing, grandly engrossing and satisfying tale of righteousness and revenge, artistic fervor and moral ambiguity.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. The Painter opens several years before the rest of the narrative, in the bar where Jim fired the shot that changed the course of his life. Why do you think the author chose to open on this moment? How did it color your reading experience? Your perception of Jim?
2. An Ocean of Women is a painting born out of a comment made by Irmina. What was your interpretation of this painting? How does it relate to Jim’s treatment of women? Discuss Jim’s relationships with the following characters: Irmina, Sofia, Celia, Cristine. What similarities, if any, exist in how he treats each of these women? What does he admire about the women?
3. Discuss Jim’s relationship with Sofia. Why do you think he hesitates before initiating a physical relationship with her? In what ways is she a foil for his character?
4. The first-person narrative of The Painter allows for a slow reveal of information about Jim and his past. How did this piecemeal revelation add tension to the discussion of Alce’s death? How did it help to create a more sympathetic character?
5. Expressionism, as an artistic movement, is characterized by a preference for subjectivity over realism. Why do you think the author chooses to have Jim paint in this style? How do the concepts of realism versus subjectivity factor into the larger narrative concerns of The Painter?
6. In the beginning of the novel, Bob advises Jim to “be good.” These words are echoed throughout the novel, particularly as Jim wrestles with his self-image in the face of his increasingly violent behavior. Discuss the difference between being good and goodness as described by Jim on page 303. Is Jim a “good” person? What characters, if any, are “good” or display innate “goodness”?
7. On page 74, Jim describes how he “disappear[s]” in awe when viewing certain paintings and certain scenes of nature. Discuss the choice of wording. How do both art and nature provide a means of escapism for Jim throughout the novel?
8. Explore Jim’s relationship with Irmina. How does he rely on her for emotional support throughout the novel? How does she provide guidance for him?
9. Jim is a mostly self-taught painter. Discuss the moment when he realized that he wanted to paint. How did his experiences in childhood and adolescence influence his decision?
10. Trace the events that cause Jim’s violent side to emerge throughout the novel. What, if anything, do these events have in common?
11. Discuss the significance of the painting of the horse and crow. Why do you think the painting has “changed” in his absence after he assaults Celia’s ex-boyfriend? (page 216)
12. Jim paints for himself, but also needs to paint as a means of economic stability. By the end of the novel, do you think he is more accepting of the relationship between creator and consumer, or do the events in Santa Fe harden him toward the interaction?
13. Discuss the “flash flood” as described on pages 289 to 292. Explore its symbolism in the narrative and the development of Jim as a character. Why do you think he signaled Jason? Was it an instinctual or merciful act?
14. Jim’s relationship with his art dealer, Steve, is fraught with tension. How did you view their relationship? Is it one of mutual respect? Of economic necessity? Do you think Steve is intimidated by Jim’s violent past?
15. When Jim goes to Santa Fe, he finds himself in the center of a media maelstrom, carefully constructed by Steve. Discuss Jim’s reaction to becoming a public figure. Why do you think he is most chagrined by the “blogger?”(page 320)
16. How does Jim’s guilt over his actions—both over Alce and his violent behavior—manifest throughout the novel? How does he take to the canvas to mitigate his pain?
17. As you were reading, did you think Jason was going to kill Jim in the last scene of the book? Why do you think he spared his life?
18. Jim inhabits many roles throughout the novel: artist, father, spouse, lover, fisherman, criminal, celebrity. Which role makes him happiest? Which brings about the most conflict in his life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Natchez Burning (Natchez Burning Series, 1)
Greg Iles, 2014
William Morrow, Inc.
800 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062311078
Summary
Natchez Burning weaves crimes, lies, and secrets past and present into a mesmerizing thriller featuring southern mayor and former prosecutor Penn Cage.
Raised in the historic southern splendor of Natchez, Mississippi, Penn Cage learned all he knows of honor and duty from his father, Dr. Tom Cage. But now the beloved family doctor and pillar of the community has been accused of murdering Viola Turner, the African-American nurse with whom he worked in the dark days of the 1960s. Once a crusading prosecutor, Penn is determined to save his father, but Tom, stubbornly invoking doctor-patient privilege, refuses to even speak in his own defense.
Penn's quest for the truth sends him deep into his father's past, where a sexually charged secret lies waiting to tear their family apart. More chilling, this long-buried sin is only a single thread in a conspiracy of greed and murder involving the vicious Double Eagles, an offshoot of the KKK controlled by some of the wealthiest and most powerful men in the state.
Aided by a dedicated reporter privy to Natchez's oldest secrets and by his fiancée, Caitlin Masters, Penn uncovers a trail of corruption and brutality that places his family squarely in the Double Eagles' crosshairs. With every step costing blood and faith, Penn is forced to confront the most wrenching dilemma of his life: Does a man of honor choose his father or the truth?
Drenched in southern atmosphere, Natchez Burning marks the brilliant return of a genuine American master of suspense. Tense, disturbing, and filled with electrifying plot twists, this novel commences the most explosive and ambitious story Greg Iles has ever written. (From the publisher.)
Although this is the fourth Penn Cage novel, it is the first in a planned trilogy. The second volume is The Bone Tree (2015).
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Stuttgart, Germany
• Raised—Natchez, Mississippi, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Mississippi
• Currently—lives in in Natchez, Mississippi
Greg Ilesis an American novelist who was born in Stuttgart, Germany, where his physician father ran the U.S. Embassy Medical Clinic. He was raised in Natchez, Mississippi, in the US, the setting of many of his novels. After attending Trinity Episcopal Day School, he graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983. Iles spent several years as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter in the band Frankly Scarlet.
He quit the band after he was married and began working on his first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess. The book was published in 1993 and became the first of twelve New York Times best sellers. In 2010, The Devil's Punchbowl reached #1 on the Times list.
Iles has published fourteen novels in a variety of genres. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide.
In 2002, he wrote the script 24 Hours from his novel of the same name. It was rewritten by director Don Roos and renamed Trapped (to avoid confusion with the then-current television series, 24), which Iles then rewrote during the shoot, at the request of the producers and actors. Iles has mixed feelings about the film, but he enjoyed working with the actors, including Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon, Courtney Love, and Dakota Fanning.
In 2011, Iles sustained life-threatening injuries in a traffic accident and ultimately lost part of his right leg. He has since recovered and is now working on a trilogy of novels featuring Penn Cage, which is set in Natchez, Mississippi, Iles's hometown. The first volume, Natchez Burning, was published in 2014. His second, The Burning Tree, picks up immediately where the first leaves off and was released in 2015. The third volume, Mississippi Blood, published in 2017, brings the trilogy (supposedly) to its conclusion.
Iles is a member of the literary musical group The Rock Bottom Remainders, which includes authors Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Stephen King, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, and James McBride.
In July 2013, Greg co-authored Hard Listening (2013) with the rest of the Rock Bottom Remainders. The ebook combines essays, fiction, musings, candid email exchanges and conversations, compromising photographs, audio and video clips, and interactive quizzes to give readers a view into the private lives of the authors/musicians. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/15/2014.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Much more than a thriller, Iles’s deftly plotted fourth Penn Cage novel doesn’t flag...despite its length. In 2005, the ghosts of the past come back to haunt Cage—[whose father]...faces the prospect of being arrested for murder.... This superlative novel’s main strength comes from the lead’s struggle to balance family and honor.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) The murder of retired nurse Viola Turner in the small Mississippi town of Natchez sets off a firestorm of vicious attacks to prevent the unearthing of long-buried secrets. Penn Cage...becomes personally involved when his father, Dr. Tom Cage, is arrested for Viola's death.... [A]n absorbing and electrifying tale. —Joy Gunn, Paseo Verde Lib., Henderson, NV
Library Journal
(Starred review.) It’s been half a decade since Iles' last Penn Cage novel, but, oh boy, was it worth the wait!... This beautifully written novel represents some of the author’s finest work, with sharper characterizations and a story of especially deep emotional resonance, and we eagerly await volume two.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A searing tale of racial hatreds and redemption in the modern South, courtesy of Southern storyteller extraordinaire Iles.... [L]ong in the telling...the pages scoot right along without missing a beat. Iles is a master of regional literature, though he's dealing with universals here, one being our endless thirst to right wrongs. A memorable, harrowing tale.
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.)
Mr. Churchill's Secretary (Maggie Hope Series, #1)
Susan Elia MacNeal, 2012
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553593617
Summary
Mr. Churchill’s Secretary captures the drama of an era of unprecedented challenge—and the greatness that rose to meet it.
London, 1940. Winston Churchill has just been sworn in, war rages across the Channel, and the threat of a Blitz looms larger by the day. But none of this deters Maggie Hope. She graduated at the top of her college class and possesses all the skills of the finest minds in British intelligence, but her gender qualifies her only to be the newest typist at No. 10 Downing Street.
Her indefatigable spirit and remarkable gifts for codebreaking, though, rival those of even the highest men in government, and Maggie finds that working for the prime minister affords her a level of clearance she could never have imagined—and opportunities she will not let pass. In troubled, deadly times, with air-raid sirens sending multitudes underground, access to the War Rooms also exposes Maggie to the machinations of a menacing faction determined to do whatever it takes to change the course of history.
Ensnared in a web of spies, murder, and intrigue, Maggie must work quickly to balance her duty to King and Country with her chances for survival. And when she unravels a mystery that points toward her own family’s hidden secrets, she’ll discover that her quick wits are all that stand between an assassin’s murderous plan and Churchill himself.
In this daring debut, Susan Elia MacNeal blends meticulous research on the era, psychological insight into Winston Churchill, and the creation of a riveting main character, Maggie Hope, into a spectacularly crafted novel. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1966
• Raised—Buffalo, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Wellesley College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York
Susan Elia MacNeal is an American writer best known for her Maggie Hope mystery series. She was raised in Buffalo, NY, and attended Wellesley College, where she cross-registered for classes at MIT. She also attended the Radcliffe Publishing Course at Harvard.
Susan interned at Random House, then moved to Penguin publishers and, later, to McGraw-Hill. Eventually, she became an associate editor at Dance Magazine.
Mr. Churchill's Secetary, the first in the Maggie Hope mystery series, was published in 2012, followed by Princess Elizabeth's Spy in 2013. The third installment, The Prime Minister's Secret, is due out in 2014.
The first book won the 2013 Barry Award for Best Paperback original by Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine! The second was an Oprah Pick of the Week and won the Booky Award by BookGateway.com. Both books have been nominated for various other awards, including a Dilys, Edgar, Thriller, and Macavity, among others.
Susan's other writings have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, Fordor's, Time Out New York, Time Out London, Publishers Weekly, and Dance Magazine. She has also written for various publications of the New York City Ballet and is the author of two nonfiction books.
Susan is married and lives with her husband and two children in Brooklyn, New York. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A plucky heroine isn’t enough to salvage a plot overly dependent on contrivances, as shown by MacNeal’s debut set in 1940 London, the kickoff to a series. The murder of Diana Snyder, a secretary in Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s office, creates a vacancy that American expat Maggie Hope agrees to fill, despite her umbrage at having been previously passed over for a more substantive position there. Maggie adjusts fairly quickly, even as the people of London strive to withstand both German bombs and IRA outrages. Since those behind Snyder’s fatal stabbing as well as their motive are identified early on, the suspense mainly lies in whether Maggie will be able to use her intellect to foil a plot aimed at decapitating the British government. On several occasions, disaster is averted purely by chance, undermining efforts to credit Maggie with saving the day.
Publishers Weekly
British-born but American-raised Maggie Hope, a math whiz with an MIT graduate school offer on hold, went to London to sell her late grandmother's home. Now it's 1940, and she is passionate about staying to help with her birth country's war effort. As a secretary for the prime minister's office, she is privy to Winston Churchill's inner thoughts. But unbeknownst to Maggie, a mole is working nearby, burrowing deep inside 10 Downing Street and making plans to cripple England's leadership. Already, one secretary has died at the hands of IRA activists colluding with the Nazis, but Maggie's shocking discoveries about her own family further threaten national security. VERDICT Watch out for the smart girl who can crack codes with her slide rule. The appeal of real-life characters populating the story works well in this solid historical cozy debut. MacNeal squeezes in plenty of World War II facts but never slows the pace. I like pairing this with Maureen Jennings's Season of Darkness and Sarah R. Shaber's Louise's War.
Library Journal
Trying to sell your grandmother's decaying Victorian house back in London can have unexpected consequences. Maggie Hope was born in England, but after her parents were killed in a car accident, her aunt, a college professor, took her along when she accepted a position in Boston. Unable now to sell her grandmother's house, Maggie is forced to take in roommates to keep things going. Her degree in math from a prestigious college apparently means nothing when she applies for jobs that would use her considerable skills to aid Britain, now in the throes of World War II. Her friend David Greene, one of Winston Churchill's private secretaries, prevails on Maggie to take on a secretarial post at 10 Downing Street, where her predecessor was murdered. She does her best with her job and enjoys a busy social life with her friends and roommates: Chuck, an Irish girl training to be a nurse; Paige, a Virginia debutante Maggie met in college; Annabelle and Clarabelle, "the Dumb-Belles"; and, most recently, Sarah, a ballerina. While the Luftwaffe is raining bombs on London, the IRA is doing its best to help Germany with sabotage and espionage. Maggie and her friends are caught up in the situation when it appears one of them may be aiding the IRA. In the midst of this intrigue, Maggie is shocked to learn that her father is still alive. Though she has little time to spare from her job, she's determined to track him down. Brave, clever Maggie's debut is an enjoyable mix of mystery, thriller and romance that captures the harrowing experiences of life in war-torn London.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Do you identify with Maggie? If so, what did you identify with in her?
2. At what point in the book were you most caught up in her decisions?
3. Which secondary character did you like the best? Which did you like the least? Why? Did you change your opinion of these people as the novel progressed and more information was revealed about them?
4. What’s the single most important decision or realization that Maggie made during the course of the book?
5. Did you find Maggie’s character believable? Are there situations where she acted inconsistently with her character?
6. If you could change one trait or action of Maggie, what would it be?
7. Did Maggie grow and change over the course of the novel? How?
8. How else would you like to see Maggie grow and change after the events of the novel?
9. How does the book reflect the time period or culture in which it was published? Were the depictions accurate?
10 Were you surprised at the twists in the plot? If so, which ones?
11. Which betrayal to you think is worse for Maggie—Aunt Edith’s or her father’s?
12. Does this book inspire you to read more? If so, what does it make you want to read?
13. Since women were limited in their choices of jobs, what job would you have chosen or attempted to obtain? Would you have sent your children to the countryside to be safe?
14. What would have been the hardest part of rationing for you? For example: The characters cope with rationing, bombing raids, and clothing coupons, as well of other wartime necessities.
(Questions from the author's website.)
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr, 2014
Scribner
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501173219
Summary
Winner, 2014 Pulitzer Prize
From the highly acclaimed, multiple award-winning Anthony Doerr, a stunningly ambitious and beautiful novel about a blind French girl and a German boy whose paths collide in occupied France as both try to survive the devastation of World War II.
Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Natural History Museum, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home.
When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.
In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge.
Ten years in the writing, All the Light We Cannot See is a magnificent, deeply moving novel from a writer, says the Los Angeles Times, "whose sentences never fail to thrill." (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—Cleveland, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., Bowdoin College; M.F.A., Bowling Green State University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize; Story Award; Rome Prize from American Academy of Arts & Letters
Guggenheim Fellowship; Young Lions Award from NY Public Library
• Currently—lives in Boise, Idaho
Anthony Doerr is an American fiction writer. Born and raised in Ohio, he attended Bowdoin College, where he majored in history. He later earned an MFA from Bowling Green State University.
Many of the stories in his 2002 Shell Collector, take place in Africa and New Zealand, where he has worked and lived. In a 2004 online interview for the Washington Post, Doerr mentioned that his next work would involve occupied France during World War II and their subversive use of radios against the Nazis. The struggles in writing this book are documented in his 2007 book, a non-fiction memoir entitled Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World. His next novel, All the Light We Cannot See, came out in 2014.
Doerr also writes a column on science books for the Boston Globe and is a contributor to The Morning News.
Doerr is married with twin sons and lives in Boise, Idaho. From 2007–2010 he was considered Writer-in-Residence for the state of Idaho. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/15/2014.)
Book Reviews
[O]nce I started reading...All the Light We Cannot See, there was no putting it down.... The fact is [it] falls shortest when it tries to deal with Nazism.... Most preposterous of all is a certain Sgt. Maj. Reinhold von Rumpel, whose wickedness and physical loathsomeness are offset by nothing that could make him into a rounded character. His unbelievability exemplifies a mistake writers often make when describing monsters..... All the Light We Cannot See is more than a thriller and less than great literature... “a good read.” Maybe Doerr could write great literature if he really tried. I would be happy if he did.
William T. Vollmann - New York Times Book Review
Incandescent…Mellifluous and unhurried…Characters as noble as they are enthralling. Doerr looms myriad strains into a luminous work of strife and transcendence.
Hamilton Cain - Oprah Magazine
Intricately structured…All the Light We Cannot See is a work of art and of preservation.
Jane Ciabattari - BBC
(Starred review.) If a book’s success can be measured by its ability to move readers and the number of memorable characters it has, Story Prize–winner Doerr’s novel triumphs on both counts. Along the way, he convinces readers that new stories can still be told about this well-trod period, and that war—despite its desperation, cruelty, and harrowing moral choices—cannot negate the pleasures of the world.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Shifting among multiple viewpoints but focusing mostly on blind French teenager Marie-Laure and Werner, a brilliant German soldier..., this novel has the physical and emotional heft of a masterpiece. The main protagonists are brave, sensitive, and intellectually curious, and in another time they might have been a couple.... [H]ighly recommended. —Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC
Library Journal
Endlessly bold and equally delicate…An intricate miracle of invention, narrative verve, and deep research lightly held, but above all a miracle of humanity….Anthony Doerr’s novel celebrates—and also accomplishes—what only the finest art can: the power to create, reveal, and augment experience in all its horror and wonder, heartbreak and rapture.
Shelf Awareness
(Starred review.) A novel to live in, learn from, and feel bereft over when the last page is turned, Doerr’s magnificently drawn story seems at once spacious and tightly composed.... Doerr masterfully and knowledgeably recreates the deprived civilian conditions of war-torn France and the strictly controlled lives of the military occupiers.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.... Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book opens with two epigraphs. How do these quotes set the scene for the rest of the book? Discuss how the radio plays a major part in the story and the time period. How do you think the impact of the radio back then compares with the impact of the Internet on today’s society?
2. The narration moves back and forth both in time and between different characters. How did this affect your reading experience? How do you think the experience would have been different if the story had been told entirely in chronological order?
3. Whose story did you enjoy the most? Was there any character you wanted more insight into?
4. When Werner and Jutta first hear the Frenchman on the radio, he concludes his broadcast by saying “Open your eyes and see what you can with them before they close forever” (pages 48–49), and Werner recalls these words throughout the book (pages 86, 264, and 409). How do you think this phrase relates to the overall message of the story? How does it relate to Madame Manec’s question: “Don’t you want to be alive before you die?” (page 270)?
5. On page 160, Marie-Laure realizes “This...is the basis of his fear, all fear. That a light you are powerless to stop will turn on you and usher a bullet to its mark.” How does this image constitute the most general basis of all fear? Do you agree?
6. Reread Madame Manec’s boiling frog analogy on page 284. Etienne later asks Marie-Laure, “Who was supposed to be the frog? Her? Or the Germans?” (page 328) Who did you think Madame Manec meant? Could it have been someone other than herself or the Germans? What does it say about Etienne that he doesn’t consider himself to be the frog?
7. On page 368, Werner thinks, “That is how things are...with everybody in this unit, in this army, in this world, they do as they’re told, they get scared, they move about with only themselves in mind. Name me someone who does not.” But in fact many of the characters show great courage and selflessness throughout the story in some way, big or small. Talk about the different ways they put themselves at risk in order to do what they think is right. What do you think were some shining moments? Who did you admire most?
8. On page 390, the author writes, “To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness.” What did you learn or realize about blindness through Marie-Laure’s perspective? Do you think her being blind gave her any advantages?
9. One of Werner’s bravest moments is when he confronts von Rumpel: “All your life you wait, and then it finally comes, and are you ready?” (page 465) Have you ever had a moment like that? Were you ready? What would you say that moment is for some of the other characters?
10. Why do you think Marie-Laure gave Werner the little iron key? Why might Werner have gone back for the wooden house but left the Sea of Flames?
11. Von Rumpel seemed to believe in the power of the Sea of Flames, but was it truly a supernatural object or was it merely a gemstone at the center of coincidence? Do you think it brought any protection to Marie-Laure and/or bad luck to those she loved?
12. When Werner and Marie-Laure discuss the unknown fate of Captain Nemo at the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Marie-Laure suggests the open-endedness is intentional and meant to make us wonder (page 472). Are there any unanswered questions from this story that you think are meant to make us wonder?
13. The 1970s image of Jutta is one of a woman deeply guilt-ridden and self-conscious about her identity as a German. Why do you think she feels so much guilt over the crimes of others? Can you relate to this? Do you think she should feel any shame about her identity?
14. What do you think of the author’s decision to flash forward at the end of the book? Did you like getting a peek into the future of some of these characters? Did anything surprise you?
15. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” All the Light We Cannot See is filled with examples of human nature at its best and worst. Discuss the themes of good versus evil throughout the story. How do they drive each other? What do you think are the ultimate lessons that these characters and the resolution of their stories teach us?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)