The Last Enchantments
Charles Finch, 2014
St. Martin's Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250018717
Summary
The Last Enchantments is a powerfully moving and lyrically written novel. A young American embarks on a year at Oxford and has an impassioned affair that will change his life forever.
After graduating from Yale, William Baker, scion of an old line patrician family, goes to work in presidential politics. But when the campaign into which he's poured his heart ends in disappointment, he decides to leave New York behind, along with the devoted, ambitious, and well-connected woman he’s been in love with for the last four years.
Will expects nothing more than a year off before resuming the comfortable life he's always known, but he's soon caught up in a whirlwind of unexpected friendships and romantic entanglements that threaten his safe plans. As he explores the heady social world of Oxford, he becomes fast friends with Tom, his snobbish but affable flat mate; Anil, an Indian economist with a deep love for gangster rap; Anneliese, a German historian obsessed with photography; and Timmo, whose chief ambition is to become a reality television star. What he's least prepared for is Sophie, a witty, beautiful and enigmatic woman who makes him question everything he knows about himself.
For readers who made a classic of Richard Yates's A Good School, Charles Finch's The Last Enchantments is a sweeping novel about love and loss that redefines what it means to grow up as an American in the twenty-first century. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1980
• Raised—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.A. Oxford University
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Charles Finch is an American author of mystery novels set in Victorian era England. He was born in New York City and graduated from Yale University where he majored in English and History. He also holds a master's degree in Renaissance English Literature from the University of Oxford. He is the grandson of American artist and writer Anne Truitt. He lives in Chicago, Illinois.
His first published novel in 2007, A Beautiful Blue Death, introduced gentleman sleuth Charles Lenox. The book was named one of Library Journal’s Best Books and was nominated for the Agatha Award for best new mystery of 2007. The September Society, Finch's second historical mystery featuring the Charles Lenox character, was published in 2008. The Fleet Street Murders came out in 2009 and was nominated for the Nero Award. A Stranger in Mayfair, the fourth Lenox mystery, was released in 2010. A Burial at Sea, A Death in the Small Hours, and An Old Betrayal were released in 2011, 2012, and 2013, respectively.
Finch's first contemporary novel, The Last Enchantments, was published in 2014. He has written for the New York Times and regularly reviews books for the Chicago Tribune and USA Today. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/17/2014.)
Book Reviews
The Last Enchantments is a discover-thy-own-true-self story written by Charles Finch, a Chicago-based author and Printers Row Journal contributor well known for moody mysteries. It succeeds on some levels. It baffles on many more. It is at times wonderfully written and at times not wonderful at all. I harbor affection for the book it might have been.
Beth Kephart - Chicago Tribune
[A] privileged young man stretching his way through the unavoidable emotional growing pains of, well, growing up—is at turns charming and annoying.... Finch is an able narrator, and The Last Enchantments moves quickly. Bank on a focused, four-hour session to sweep through it. You'll have a nice time, but much like college, you won't necessarily want to go back.
Tucker Shaw - Denver Post
Will Baker, formerly a staffer on the failed John Kerry campaign, decides to salve his wounded ego by spending a year at...Oxford.... The strength of Finch’s novel is its vivid portrayal of Oxford University in all its history, along with the school’s ancient and quirky traditions, and colorful student body and faculty. Sadly, readers may find this deft scene-setting wasted on a protagonist as vacuous and aimless as Will.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Young man studies abroad, falls in love with his new surroundings, and meets a beautiful woman: that sounds like the gist of every campus story ever told, but Finch's charming effort distinguishes itself with its personal touch.... Finch's first contemporary novel...often reads less like fiction than as memoir, and will be enjoyed by readers of both —Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ
Library Journal
[A] lyrical ode to youth, idealism and love in a contemporary novel about a young man's year of graduate studies at Oxford University.... Finch brings each character to life with striking effectiveness as they struggle with issues of class, the political climate, academics and their futures. A portrait of university life that's contemplative and nostalgic.
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.)
The Art of Falling
Kathryn Craft, 2014
Sourcebooks
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781402285196
Summary
One wrong step could send her over the edge...
All Penny has ever wanted to do is dance—and when that chance is taken from her, it pushes her to the brink of despair, from which she might never return. When she wakes up after a traumatic fall, bruised and battered but miraculously alive, Penny must confront the memories that have haunted her for years, using her love of movement to pick up the pieces of her shattered life.
Kathryn Craft's lyrical debut novel is a masterful portrayal of a young woman trying to come to terms with her body and the artistic world that has repeatedly rejected her. The Art of Falling expresses the beauty of movement, the stasis of despair, and the unlimited possibilities that come with a new beginning. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Syracuse, New York, USA
• Education—M.S. Miami University (Ohio)
• Currently—lives in Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Kathryn Craft writes stories that seek beauty and meaning at the edge of darkness. Rich with material for further thought or discussion, her novels make a perfect choice for book clubs. Pre-order links are live for her debut novel, The Art of Falling, published by Sourcebooks in 2014. The Philadelphia dance world in which the story is set serves as a harsh microcosm of our society, with its celebrity-driven expectations of women's bodies.
As a former modern dancer, choreographer, and 19-year dance critic, Kathryn knows this world. Her interest in body image is personal and life-long (isn't every woman's?) but she researched the issue more academically while obtaining a master's in health and physical education from Miami University, Ohio. Every page of the novel is infused with a dancer's heightened awareness of the human body and its movement.
While the Leaves Stood Still (Sourcebooks, Spring 2015), her second novel, is based on true events surrounding the 1997 suicide standoff that resulted in her husband's death.
She loves to bring writers together, so for more than a decade has served in a variety of positions on the boards of the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group and the Philadelphia Writers' Conference. Kathryn also hosts writing retreats for women and speaks often about writing. She is a contributing editor at the Blood-Red Pencil blog, writes a monthly series, "Turning Whine into Gold" at the Writers in the Storm blog, and freelances as a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com. She is a proud member of the Liar's Club, co-founded by New York Times best-selling thriller writer Jonathan Maberry and cross-genre fantasy author Gregory Frost. Kathryn is happy to skype with book clubs. Contact her here. (From the author's website.)
Visit the Kathryn's author page on Amazon.
Book Reviews
Kathryn Craft is deeply knowledgeable about the demands of dance, but her story transcends the art form's insular world. The Art of Falling is a story of friendship and personal growth, and a helluva good read.
Elizabeth Zimmer, dance critic - Metro New York
Dancer Penny Sparrow struggles to regain balance after a mysterious accident leaves her injured, in Craft’s mixed debut.... The characters and their dialogue are often maudlin, but Craft, a former dance teacher, choreographer, and critic, delivers an enjoyable portrait of the hidden world of dance and the mind of a dancer.
Publishers Weekly
Craft, a former dancer and choreographer, captures the entanglement of pain and despair and beauty and hope that often knits our lives and, through the character of Penny, illustrates how self-acceptance is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.
Booklist
Penelope Sparrow...wakes up in the hospital after a 14-story plunge.... To see the truth, Penny will have to recognize the lies and rough condemnation of the dance world. Craft's debut novel lovingly traces the aesthetics of movement and gently explores the shattering pain of despair. A sensitive study of a woman choreographing her own recovery.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Do you think a person could survive a fourteen-story fall? Discuss cases of miraculous survival that the media has covered. How do you think such a thing would affect your own life?
2. What is your perception of Penny as a dancer? Do you think she has what it takes to make it in a performance career? Why or why not?
3. Evelyn clearly believed in her daughter from a young age and provided Penny with the special training she needed to succeed in her field. What other endeavors require a similar focus? Compare and contrast the risks of focused training and generalized education in today’s society.
4. After Angela’s previous roommate dies, she tells Penny that the woman “just couldn’t hang on any longer.” How much power do you believe we can have over our own deaths? Discuss experiences you have had with dying people who seemed to “let go.”
5. Penny thinks she has walked a safe line between “low calorie” and “nutritionally healthy.” Do you think Penny has an eating disorder? Why or why not? How would you define “eating disorder”?
6. Penny says, “Restricting was the closest feeling I’d ever had to self-love.” What do you think she meant by that? How is restricting also like self-hate?
7. Each of the novel’s characters has a different notion about the relationship between eating and body image. In this regard, compare and contrast Penny, Bebe, Evelyn, Margaret MacArthur, Angela, and Kandelbaum. With which of these characters do your thoughts and/or influences align regarding the limitations of your body? Do these thoughts help or hinder you? Have your thoughts changed over time?
8. Discuss how Penny’s developing body image was influenced by her mother, her father, miss Judith, and Bebe.
9. Laura MacArthur was told outright that she had to lose weight to be in the company. In Penny’s case, was the pressure to be thin from the dance world, or from within Penny? In what way does our society at large send signals to all women about the ideal body image? Have you ever felt pressure—at work, at school, or at home—to have a body that was different in a significant way than yours? How did you deal with it?
10. Penny describes the scale as “my partner in crime, my lover, and my nemesis.” What does this mean? Do you have a relationship with the scale? If yes, what is it, and does it influence your day-to-day lifestyle?
11. Angela and Kandelbaum are Penny’s first friends outside the dance world. Why is this significant? What drew the three of them into such a fast friendship? What were they able to give to one another?
12. Discuss the structure of the novel. How did the author use the opening situation to raise the two questions that drive the novel’s interweaving story lines? Was the technique effective in drawing the novel to a satisfactory conclusion?
13. While reading, when did you first suspect Penny might have tried to kill herself? Now that you’ve finished the book, do you still think Penny tried to commit suicide? Why or why not?
14. In the psych ward, Penny says, “Just because I suffered traumatic memory loss didn’t mean I was out of my mind. If anything, I was out of my body.” What do you think she means by this?
15. Is Dmitri a villain? In what ways did he support Penny’s dream, and in what ways did he hinder her? And when he put his own interests first—was that a bad thing? Whose fault was it that she had to part ways with the company?
16. Penny says, “My passion for dance and my passion for Dmitri could no longer be separated; I didn’t know where one ended and the other began.” Explain what that means and how this issue is related to her relationships with her mother and her own body.
17. Discuss the role that muscle memory plays in Penny’s healing. Have you ever experienced a time when your muscles seemingly remembered something your brain had forgotten?
18. Discuss the concept of space as a dancer’s partner. What role does “space” play in other arts: Visual? Architecture? Music? Literature?
19. How was Evelyn’s weight a metaphor in her relationship with Penny? Why was their relationship so strained, and when did it start to heal?
20. Compare and contrast Kandelbaum and Penny in terms of faith and other kinds of support. Do you think Kandelbaum would have considered suicide if he was left on his own after losing Angela? Was Penny able to set a foundation of faith that she could rely upon in the future?
21. Penny and Angela discuss a wrestling match between body and soul at death’s doorstep. Compare Angela’s death with what Penny remembers of her actions before the fall. Are body and soul separate entities, or are they inextricably interwoven?
22. Compare the Penelope Sparrow who moved to New York to start auditioning to the same character at the end. How has she changed? Name a few of the major turning points that stick out to you.
23. What is Penny hoping to accomplish with Real People Dance? Do you think the world will accept them? In what ways is America’s tolerance for individual body differences and intolerance for unhealthy lifestyles becoming more apparent?
24. Were you surprised that Penny hires her mother as musical director for the new company? Do you think they’ll be able to work together? What has changed about their relationship?
25. What do you think Penny’s life will be like after the close of the book? In what ways will it be different from the career she envisioned as a child, and in what ways will it differ from her experience with Dance DeLaval? If she and Dmitri meet again, what do you think that would be like?
B O N U S Q U E S T I O N S
Here are a few bonus questions you might also like.
1. Did you trust Penelope as the narrator?
2. When she said in the psych ward, “The conversation I needed to re-establish was neuromuscular,” what do you think she meant? Do you think she was right about that as being key to her healing?
3. One of the first things people said about you as a baby was undoubtedly, “You look just like your mother (or father).” Discuss the relationship between what Penny thinks of her mother’s body and what she thinks of her own. Were comparisons to your own parents problematic for you? Why?
4. On p. 53, Evelyn says Penny “deserves” a place on her wall. Do you think people “deserve” success? Did Penny? Why or why not?
5. On p. 191, Kandelbaum talks about what the world would be like if our bodies were all the same. What additional thoughts do you have about the importance of our differences?
(Questions issued by the author and publisher.)
Little Failure: A Memoir
Gary Shteyngart, 2014
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679643753
Summary
At the age of five, Igor Shteyngart became a professional writer. For his first novel, entitled Lenin and His Magical Goose, this diminutive Leningrad native received from his patron grandmother exactly one piece of cheese per page.
Unfortunately, greater fame and sustenance would have to wait for the future novelist (Super Sad True Love Story; Absurdistan). Until then, he would become a major disappointment for his loving, but materialistic mother, who crowned him with the neologism Failurchka.
Little Failure recaptures the excitement, expectations, and steep learning curve of the family's move to the United States when Igor (soon to be Gary) was only seven. Combining hilarious stories and refreshing insights, this memoir reinforces Shteyngart's reputation as a talented storyteller. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 5, 1972
• Where—Leningrad, USSR
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College (Ohio); M.F.A.,
Hunter College (NYC)
• Awards—Stephen Crane Award; National Jewish
Book Award
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Gary Shteyngart (born Igor Semyonovich Shteyngart) is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.
Background
Shteyngart spent the first seven years of his childhood living in a square dominated by a huge statue of Vladimir Lenin in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia; (he alternately calls it "St. Leningrad" or "St. Leninsburg"). He comes from a Jewish family and describes his family as typically Soviet. His father worked as an engineer in a LOMO camera factory; his mother was a pianist.
In 1979 when Gary was 7, the Shteyngart family immigrated to the United States, where he was brought up with no television in his family's New York City apartment and where English was not the household language. He did not shed his thick Russian accent until the age of 14.
Later Shteyngart traveled to Prague, an experience that inspired his first novel, set in the fictitious European city of Prava. He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City; Oberlin College in Ohio, where he earned a degree in politics; and Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing.
Writing career
Shteyngart took a trip to Prague which inspired his first novel, The Russian Debutante's Handbook (2002), which is set in the fictitious European city of Prava. He has published two more novels: Absurdistan (2006) and Super Sad True Love Story (2010). His fourth book, Little Failure (2014), is a memoir recounting his family's emigration to the U.S. in 1979.
His other writing has appeared in The New Yorker, Slate, Granta, Travel and Leisure, and The New York Times.
Shteyngart's work has received numerous awards. The Russian Debutante's Handbook won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction Award and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It was named a New York Times Notable Book and one of the best debuts of the year by The Guardian. In 2002, he was named one of the five best new writers by Shout NY Magazine. Absurdistan was chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times Book Revieww and Time magazine, as well as a book of the year by the Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications. In June 2010, Shteyngart was named as one of The New Yorker magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers. Super Sad True Love Story won the 2011 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for comic literature.
Personal
Shteyngart now lives in New York City. He has taught writing at Hunter College, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University. During the Fall of 2007, he also had a fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany.
Shteyngart is married to Esther Won who is of Korean descent. In October 2013, they became parents to Johnny Won Shteyngart. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/14/2014.)
Book Reviews
Of the many enormously gifted authors now writing about the immigrant experience…Gary Shteyngart is undoubtedly the funniest…[His] evocative new memoir…is as entertaining as it's moving…he poignantly conveys his parents' hard-fought efforts to make new lives for themselves in America, while using humor to chronicle his own difficulties in trying to bridge the dislocations of two cultures…the closing chapter, recounting a 2011 return trip with his parents to Russia, provides a fitting end to this keenly observed tale of exile, coming-of-age and family love: It's raw, comic and deeply affecting, a testament to Mr. Shteyngart's abilities to write with both self-mocking humor and introspective wisdom, sharp-edged sarcasm and aching—and yes, Chekhovian—tenderness
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
[H]ilarious and moving…Little Failure is so packed with humor, it's easy to overlook the rage, but it's there, and it's part of what makes the book so compelling…Thanks to Little Failure, the army of readers who love Gary Shteyngart is about to get bigger.
Andy Borowitz - New York Times Book Review
Little Failure...puts the lure in failure.
Wall Street Journal
An ecstatic depiction of survival, guilt and perseverance.... Russia gave birth to that master of English-language prose named Vladimir Nabokov. Half a century later, another writer who grew up with Cyrillic characters is gleefully writing American English as vivid, original and funny as any that contemporary U.S. literature has to offer.
Los Angeles Times
Surely some enterprising scholar is already gnawing at the question of why two of the brilliant outliers of American writing were Russian immigrants. One, of course, was the great Vladimir Nabokov. The other is the youngish Shteyngart. They both have the qualities of sly humor, secret griefs.
San Francisco Chronicle
What a beautiful mess!... [Shteyngart has] not just his own distinct identity, but all the loose ends and unresolved contradictions out of which great literature is made.
Charles Simic - New York Review of Books
The tragic story of what makes a great comic writer.
Lev Grossman - Time
Hilarious . . . an affectionate take on growing up in gray Leningrad and Technicolor Queens.
People
Shteyngart is a great writer—there’s no arguing his literary merit—but he’s also very, very funny, which is a rare quality in literature these days.
GQ
Literary gold...[a] bruisingly funny memoir.
Vogue
Funny, unflinching, and, title notwithstanding, a giant success.... The innate humor of Shteyngart’s storytelling is dotted with touching sadness, all of it amounting to an engrossing look at his distinct, multilayered Gary-ness.
Entertainment Weekly
Shteyngart possesses a rare trait for a serious novelist: he is funny—and not just knowing-nod, wry-smile funny, but laugh-aloud, drink-no-liquids-while-reading funny.
Economist
Moving....and laugh-out-loud funny.
USA Today
(Starred review.) In his typical laugh-aloud approach, the acclaimed novelist carries us with him on his journey, from his birth in Leningrad and his decision to become a writer at age five to his immigration to America and his family's settling in New York City in 1979.... Shteyngart's self-deprecating humor contains the sharp-edged twist of the knife of melancholy in this take of a young man "desperately trying to have a history, a past."
Publishers Weekly
Honest, poignant, hilarious.... Shteyngart's stalwart refusal to cast himself as a victim sets this book apart from the majority of American memoirs, whose authors seem hell-bent on passing judgement on the people who raised them.... Shteyngart seems to have made a deal with some minor devil (a daredevil?) stipulating that if he exposed every crack and fissure in himself, laid bare every misstep, fuckup, and psychic flaw, his memoir would be a deep and original book. If so, the payoff here was absolutely worth it. —Kate Christensen
Bookforum
(Starred review.) An immigrant's memoir like few others, with as sharp an edge and as much stylistic audacity as the author's well-received novels.... Shteyngart traces his family history from the atrocities suffered in Stalinist Russia, through his difficulties assimilating as the "Red Nerd" of schoolboy America.... [A] memoir [that's] compelling and entertaining—one that frequently collapses the distinction between comedy and tragedy.
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.)
Eat What You Kill
Ted Scofield, 2014
St. Martin's Press
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250021823
Summary
Evan Stoess is a struggling young Wall Street analyst obsessed with fortune and fame. A trailer park kid who attended an exclusive prep school through a lucky twist of fate, Evan’s unusual past leaves him an alien in both worlds, an outsider who desperately wants to belong.
When a small stock he discovers becomes an overnight sensation, he is poised to make millions and land the girl of his dreams, but disaster strikes and he loses everything.
Two years later a mysterious firm offers Evan a chance for redemption, and he jumps at the opportunity. His new job is to short stocks—to bet against the market. But when the stock goes up and he finds himself on the brink of ruin once again, another option presents itself: murder. At a moral crossroads, Evan must ask himself—how far will a man go for money and revenge? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Louisville, Kentucky, USA
• Education—B.A., J.D., M.B.A. Vanderbilt University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Ted Scofield is an author, securities attorney, and entrepreneur.
Ted serves as the General Counsel of Icebreaker Entertainment, LLC, a New York-based company that creates and markets consumer products under multiple brands. In his role as an attorney, Ted advises entrepreneurs, emerging companies, and established corporations on the private and public sales of both equity and debt.
After graduating from Vanderbilt University, Ted started a political consulting firm. During this time period, he wrote essay-length features for a weekly newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky, where Ted was born and raised.
In 1994 Ted returned to Vanderbilt University, where he earned a JD and MBA in finance. In New York, he worked for Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP before launching his own private practice and joining his current firm.
Ted has extensive media experience including appearances as a political commentator on WPIX Channel 11 in New York City. He has been quoted in USA Today, the New York Times, BusinessWeek and dozens of other regional and national publications.
Ted lives on the Upper East Side of Manhattan with his wife, Christi, their palm tree, Spike, and their little money tree, Benjamin. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Ted on Facebook.
Book Reviews
Stephen Frey fans will welcome Scofield’s debut, a financial thriller that accessibly conveys the intricacies of a world in which a company can make millions on other companies whose stocks decline in value.
Publishers Weekly
Surprisingly, Stoess is a sympathetic character despite his murderous ways, which makes this debut novel an emotional rollercoaster of a read. Recommend it to fans of financial thrillers, especially those by Christopher Reich and Joseph Finder.
Booklist
Scofield’s debut novel, a financial thriller, introduces readers to a main character so difficult and full of malice that he makes Hannibal Lector seem like a kindly old uncle with quirky dietary habits.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Let’s start with the title. What does “eat what you kill” mean, as it relates to the book? Do you believe an “eat what you kill” mentality is beneficial for an individual? Is it positive for society in general?
2. A reviewer for Booklist said “Stoess is a sympathetic character despite his murderous ways.” Do you agree? Did you sympathize with Evan? Did you find yourself rooting for him? Why or why not?
3. Evan describes himself as a “disciple” of Ayn Rand’s philosophy of objectivism. What does he mean by this? How does objectivism influence his thoughts and actions?
4. The ability to sell stocks short: A good thing or bad thing? Why?
5. Why is Evan attracted to Albert Camus? What aspects of Camus’s philosophy and life appeal to Evan, and why?
6. Do violent video games “breed evil”? Are video game players more likely to engage in criminal or antisocial behavior? If so, what should we, as a society, do about it?
7. What roles do pop culture and literature play in the book? Why does Evan so often quote movies, books and television shows?
8. Eat What You Kill has been described as American Psycho meets Wall Street. Do you agree with this description? Is Evan more Patrick Bateman, or Bud Fox?
9. Were you surprised by the revelation in the final chapter about the relationship between Evan and another character? If not, when did you figure it out?
10. What is next for Evan Stoess? And who should play him in the movie?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
The Death of Santini: The Story of a Father and His Son
Pat Conroy, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385530903
Summary
In this powerful and intimate memoir, the beloved bestselling author of The Prince of Tides and his father, the inspiration for The Great Santini, find some common ground at long last.
Pat Conroy’s father, Donald Patrick Conroy, was a towering figure in his son’s life. The Marine Corps fighter pilot was often brutal, cruel, and violent; as Pat says, "I hated my father long before I knew there was an English word for 'hate.'" As the oldest of seven children who were dragged from military base to military base across the South, Pat bore witness to the toll his father’s behavior took on his siblings, and especially on his mother, Peg. She was Pat’s lifeline to a better world—that of books and culture. But eventually, despite repeated confrontations with his father, Pat managed to claw his way toward a life he could have only imagined as a child.
Pat’s great success as a writer has always been intimately linked with the exploration of his family history. While the publication of The Great Santini brought Pat much acclaim, the rift it caused with his father brought even more attention. Their long-simmering conflict burst into the open, fracturing an already battered family. But as Pat tenderly chronicles here, even the oldest of wounds can heal. In the final years of Don Conroy’s life, he and his son reached a rapprochement of sorts. Quite unexpectedly, the Santini who had freely doled out physical abuse to his wife and children refocused his ire on those who had turned on Pat over the years. He defended his son’s honor.
The Death of Santini is at once a heart-wrenching account of personal and family struggle and a poignant lesson in how the ties of blood can both strangle and offer succor. It is an act of reckoning, an exorcism of demons, but one whose ultimate conclusion is that love can soften even the meanest of men, lending significance to one of the most-often quoted lines from Pat’s bestselling novel The Prince of Tides: “In families there are no crimes beyond forgiveness.” (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 26, 1945
• Where—Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• Education—B.A., The Citadel
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California, and Fripp
Island, South, Carolina
Pat Conroy was born in Atlanta, Georgia, to a young career military officer from Chicago and a Southern beauty from Alabama, whom Pat often credits for his love of language. He was the first of seven children.
His father was a violent and abusive man, a man whose biggest mistake, Conroy once said, was allowing a novelist to grow up in his home, a novelist "who remembered every single violent act... my father's violence is the central fact of my art and my life." Since the family had to move many times to different military bases around the South, Pat changed schools frequently, finally attending the Citadel Military Academy in Charleston, South Carolina, upon his father's insistence. While still a student, he wrote and then published his first book, The Boo, a tribute to a beloved teacher.
After graduation, Conroy taught English in Beaufort, where he met and married a young woman with two children, a widow of the Vietnam War. He then accepted a job teaching underprivileged children in a one-room schoolhouse on Daufuskie Island, a remote island off the South Carolina shore. After a year, Pat was fired for his unconventional teaching practices—such as his unwillingness to allow corporal punishment of his students—and for his general lack of respect for the school's administration. Conroy evened the score when he exposed the racism and appalling conditions his students endured with the publication of The Water is Wide in 1972. The book won Conroy a humanitarian award from the National Education Association and was made into the feature film Conrack, starring Jon Voight.
Writings
Following the birth of a daughter, the Conroys moved to Atlanta, where Pat wrote his novel, The Great Santini, published in 1976. This autobiographical work, later made into a powerful film starring Robert Duvall, explored the conflicts of his childhood, particularly his confusion over his love and loyalty to an abusive and often dangerous father.
The publication of a book that so painfully exposed his family's secret brought Conroy to a period of tremendous personal desolation. This crisis resulted not only in his divorce but the divorce of his parents; his mother presented a copy of The Great Santini to the judge as "evidence" in divorce proceedings against his father.
The Citadel became the subject of his next novel, The Lords of Discipline, published in 1980. The novel exposed the school's harsh military discipline, racism and sexism. This book, too, was made into a feature film.
Pat remarried and moved from Atlanta to Rome where he began The Prince of Tides which, when published in 1986, became his most successful book. Reviewers immediately acknowledged Conroy as a master storyteller and a poetic and gifted prose stylist. This novel has become one of the most beloved novels of modern time—with over five million copies in print, it has earned Conroy an international reputation. The Prince of Tides was made into a highly successful feature film directed by Barbra Streisand, who also starred in the film opposite Nick Nolte, whose brilliant performance won him an Oscar nomination.
Beach Music (1995), Conroy's sixth book, was the story of Jack McCall, an American who moves to Rome to escape the trauma and painful memory of his young wife's suicidal leap off a bridge in South Carolina. The story took place in South Carolina and Rome, and also reached back in time to the Holocaust and the Vietnam War. This book, too, was a tremendous international bestseller.
While on tour for Beach Music, members of Conroy's Citadel basketball team began appearing, one by one, at his book signings around the country. When his then-wife served him divorce papers while he was still on the road, Conroy realized that his team members had come back into his life just when he needed them most. And so he began reconstructing his senior year, his last year as an athlete, and the 21 basketball games that changed his life. The result of these recollections, along with flashbacks of his childhood and insights into his early aspirations as a writer, is My Losing Season, Conroy's seventh book and his first work of nonfiction since The Water is Wide.
South of Broad, published in 2009, 14 years after Beach Music, tells the story of friendships, first formed in high school, that span two decades.
In 2013, Conroy published his memoir, The Death of Santini, in which he revealed in greater detail his childhool and family life, especially the brutality of his father. Eventually, however, before his father's death, Pat and his father achieved peace, and Pat learned to forgive.
He currently lives in Fripp Island, South Carolina with his wife, the novelist Cassandra King. (Adapted from the author's website and Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
The Death of Santini instantly reminded me of the decadent pleasures of [Conroy's] language, of his promiscuous gift for metaphor and of his ability, in the finest passages of his fiction, to make the love, hurt or terror a protagonist feels seem to be the only emotion the world could possibly have room for, the rightful center of the trembling universe.... Conroy’s conviction pulls you fleetly through the book, as does the potency of his bond with his family, no matter their sins, their discord, their shortcomings.
Frank Bruni - New York Times
Despite the inherently bleak nature of so much of this material, Conroy has fashioned a memoir that is vital, large-hearted and often raucously funny. The result is an act of hard-won forgiveness, a deeply considered meditation on the impossibly complex nature of families and a valuable contribution to the literature of fathers and sons.
Washington Post
Conroy remains a brilliant storyteller, a master of sarcasm, and a hallucinatory stylist whose obsession with the impress of the past on the present binds him to Southern literary tradition.
Boston Globe
Conroy has the reflective ability that comes only with age. He has a deeper understanding of his father and the havoc he brought to his family.…But against the backdrop of ugliness and pain, Conroy also describes a certain kind of love, even forgiveness.
Associated Press
Conroy writes athletically and beautifully, slicing through painful memories like a point guard splitting the defense….It is a fast but wrenching read, filled with madness and abuse, big-hearted description and snarky sibling dialogue—all as Conroy comes to terms with what he calls "the weird-ass ruffled strangeness of the Conroy family."
Minneapolis Star Tribune
A heady, irresistible confusion of love and hate, "one more night flight into the immortal darkness to study that house of pain one more time," to prove how low his princes and princesses of Tides can sink and how high they can soar. True Conroy fans wouldn’t have it any other way.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In several of his 12 previous books, bestseller Conroy mined his brutal South Carolina childhood—most directly in the book that became a 1979 hit movie, The Great Santini, about a violent fighter pilot and his defiant son. In this memoir, the 68-year-old sheds the fictional veil, taking "one more night flight into the immortal darkness to study that house of pain a final time." The result is a painful, lyrical, addictive read that his fans won’t want to miss. (3.5 stars out of 4.)
People
While the intent may have been to paint a more honest picture of his parents, Conroy only shows himself to be insecure about the legacy of his books.... [and this one is] rendered in histrionic sappy prose. In the end his picture of the Conroy clan is one of deeply flawed people convinced the world is against them.
Publishers Weekly
In spite of the pain and cruelty [in his growing up years], there was forgiveness, and a mature friendship was realized between Conroy and his father before the latter’s death. Conroy’s eulogy concludes the book and is a fine summing-up of a compelling and readable portrait of a dysfunctional family.... Conroy’s many fans...will welcome it for its honesty, power, and humor. —Jay Freeman
Booklist
(Starred review.) In this memoir, Conroy unflinchingly reveals that his father, fighter pilot Donald Conroy, was actually much worse than the abusive Meechum in his novel.... Although his father's fearsome persona never really changed, Conroy learned to forgive.... It's an emotionally difficult journey that should lend fans of Conroy's fiction an insightful back story to his richly imagined characters. The moving true story of an unforgivable father and his unlikely redemption.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
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