The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien, 1937
Random House
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345534835
Summary
A great modern classic and the prelude to The Lord of the Rings
Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves embark upon a dangerous quest to reclaim the hoard of gold stolen from them by the evil dragon Smaug. Meanwhile...
Bilbo Baggins enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely traveling any farther than his pantry or cellar. But his contentment is disturbed when the wizard Gandalf, along with Thorin and his elves, arrive on his doorstep to suggest he would be the pefect companion. Thus a reluctant Bilbo is whisked away on a dangerous adventure, unaware that on his journey to the Lonely Mountain he will encounter both a magic ring and a frightening creature known as Gollum .
Along the way, the company faces trolls, goblins, giant spiders, and worse. But as they journey from the wonders of Rivendell to the terrors of Mirkwood and beyond, Bilbo will find that there is more to him than anyone—himself included—ever dreamed.
Author Bio
• Birth—January 3, 1892
• Where—Bloemfontein (Orange Free State), South Africa
• Raised—Sarehole, England, UK
• Death—September 2, 1973
• Where—Oxford, England
• Education—B.A. and M.A., Oxford University 1919
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on the 3rd January, 1892 at Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State, but at the age of four he and his brother were taken back to England by their mother. After his father's death the family moved to Sarehole, on the south-eastern edge of Birmingham. Tolkien spent a happy childhood in the countryside and his sensibility to the rural landscape can clearly be seen in his writing and his pictures.
His mother died when he was only twelve and both he and his brother were made wards of the local priest and sent to King Edward's School, Birmingham, where Tolkien shine in his classical work. After completing a First in English Language and Literature at Oxford, Tolkien married Edith Bratt.
He was also commissioned in the Lancashire Fusiliers and fought in the battle of the Somme. After the war, he obtained a post on the New English Dictionary and began to write the mythological and legendary cycle which he originally called "The Book of Lost Tales" but which eventually became known as The Silmarillion.
In 1920 Tolkien was appointed Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds which was the beginning of a distinguished academic career culminating with his election as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford.
Meanwhile Tolkien wrote for his children and told them the story of The Hobbit. It was his publisher, Stanley Unwin, who asked for a sequel to The Hobbit and gradually Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, a huge story that took twelve years to complete and which was not published until Tolkien was approaching retirement.
After retirement Tolkien and his wife lived near Oxford, but then moved to Bournemouth. Tolkien returned to Oxford after his wife's death in 1971. He died on 2 September 1973 leaving The Silmarillion to be edited for publication by his son, Christopher. (From Barnes & Noble, courtesy of HarperCollins, UK.)
Book Reviews
A glorious account of a magnificent adventure, filled with suspense and seasoned with a quiet humor that is irresistible.... All those, young or old, who love a fine adventurous tale, beautifully told, will take The Hobbit to their hearts.
New York Times
The Hobbit belongs to a very small class of books which have nothing in common save that each admits us to a world of its own. Its place is with Alice and The Wind in the Willows.
Times Literary Supplement
One of the best loved characters in English fiction... a marvellous fantasy adventure
Daily Mail
Finely written saga of dwarves and elves, fearsome goblins and trolls....[A]n exciting epic of travel, magical adventure, working up to a devastating climax.
The Observer
Discussion Questions
(The following Questions have been adapted from the excellent Random House Teacher's Guide for The Hobbit)
Chapter 1
1. What does the word hobbit make you think of? (Note: The possibilities include rabbit, hobby, Babbit, habit, and hob. The word is probably best seen as a blend of rabbit and hob, an obsolete British word meaning “a rustic, peasant” or “sprite, elf.”) How does Bilbo resemble a rabbit in this chapter? When you finish the book, ask yourself if he still reminds you of one.
2. What is it about adventures that causes Bilbo’s Tookish and his competing Baggins sides to reemerge? Explain those two sides. Can you relate to Bilbo’s feelings of ambivalence? Do you think everyone has similar “Tookish” and “Baggins” sides to their personalities?
Chapter 2
3. Begin paying close attention to the way that Tolkien uses the presence and absence of the character of Gandalf to develop both the plot and the character of Bilbo Baggins. Why is it important that Gandalf is not present when the expedition meets the trolls?
4. Myths, legends, and folktales often reflect the values of a given culture. At this point in the story, what can you infer about the character traits that Tolkien considers positive? What character traits are viewed in a negative light? What is more important at this point: intelligence or physical strength?
Chapter 3
5. What is the difference between the ways Bilbo and the dwarves react to Rivendell? How does Elrond feel about the expedition, and what does he say about the dwarves’ love of gold and the wickedness of dragons? What values are important to the elves?
Chapter 4
6. What does Tolkien tell us about goblins? Why do you think he does not give specific details about their appearance? Discuss what you think goblins look like, and explain which details in the book give you that idea.
7. Discuss the role that music plays in the development of the different magical beings. Compare the songs sung by the dwarves, the elves, and the goblins. How do the songs differ, and what they reveal about the creatures that sing them?
8. Consider the following quote: "It is not unlikely that [goblins] invented some of the machines that have since troubled the world, especially the ingenious devices for killing large numbers of people at once." What is Tolkien suggesting by linking his fantasy world to the reader’s modern world? What commentary is he making about the use of military technology?
Chapter 5
9. How are Bilbo and Gollum alike? Can you call Gollum evil? Discuss the concept that Gollum is the negative side of Bilbo with which Bilbo must come to terms before he can achieve his identity. What skills does Bilbo show in dealing with Gollum? Should Gollum be considered a sympathetic character?
Chapter 6
10. How would you describe the character traits of the dwarves? Why doesn’t Bilbo tell them about his ring at first? What do you think might have happened if he had told them?
11. At this point in the story, how much of an asset does Gandalf seem to be? Why doesn’t Gandalf do more to "save the day"? Are his powers limited, or is he intentionally refraining from using them? Why is it necessary to the story that he leave the expedition in the next chapter (7)?
Chapter 7
12. Discuss Beorn’s character. What are his virtues and vices? How does Bilbo come to understand him? In what way is Beorn similar to the beauty-and-the-beast archetype?
Chapter 8
13. Discuss Mirkwood. Is the forest evil? Consider the enchanted stream—what other objects in myth, legend and folktales does it recall? Why are those objects to be avoided...and why, despite warnings, do characters tend to fall victim to them? What symbolic purpose do you think these sorts of enchanted objects might serve?
14. After Gandalf leaves, who do you think should have become the leader of the expedition? What makes the expedition lose hope...and why is their despair unjustified?
15. Why does Bilbo tell the dwarves about his magic ring? What does his reluctance to do so tell us?
Chapter 9
16. Why does the Elvenking imprison the dwarves? Why won’t Thorin tell the Elvenking what his mission is? What characteristics does his refusal reveal about him? Do you think these characteristics are true for all dwarves or only for Thorin?
17. Is Bilbo a burglar now? What, if any, are his ethical dilemmas about stealing? How do the words burglar and thief differ in connotation? Is Bilbo’s type of burglary different from stealing?
18. The escape plan is completely Bilbo’s. How good is it? Can you think of an alternate plan? How much does it depend on luck? Does he deserve this luck?
19. At this point in the book do you think the dwarves have treated Bilbo fairly? Why do you think Bilbo is loyal to them? What does his loyalty reveal about his character?
Chapter 10
20. Does Thorin seem to be changing as he gets closer and closer to the mountain? How?
Chapter 11
21. In what way does Bilbo show that he has more spirit left than the dwarves?
Chapter 12
22. Describe the characteristics of dragons. What is the dragon spell, and why are dwarves so susceptible to it? (Note: In The Hobbit Tolkien reimagines the traditional motif of the cursed dragon-hoard. It's not so much that the curse is inherent as it is that treasure brings out the evil and foolish side of dwarves, elves, and men.)
Chapter 13
23. Why does Bilbo keep the Arkenstone? How does he justify his decision to withhold its discovery from Thorin? Does Bilbo have a right to the stone? What does the fact that Bilbo is willing to give up gold and jewels to have it suggest about the worth of the Arkenstone? Can you think of any traditional myths or parables about similar objects that Tolkien may be alluding to? What might be the symbolic importance of the stone?
Chapter 14
24. Characterize Bard and the Master. Who speaks more convincingly? What does their appearance suggest about them? Explain the reason for Bard’s pessimism. Who has more courage? Who displays more leadership? Do you believe that some people are natural leaders? Can this ability be inherited?
25. Why does the Elvenking set out from his halls for Esgaroth? What does this tell you about the value he places on treasure?
Chapter 15
26. From the very beginning, Bilbo has assumed that the climax of the adventure would be the recovery of the treasure. Then he realizes that Smaug must also be dealt with. Now he finds that even Smaug’s death does not end the adventure. What do you think Tolkien is trying to say about the purpose of trials and tribulations in a person’s life?
27. How has the treasure changed Thorin?
Chapter 16
28. Why does Thorin reject Roac’s advice?
29. Giving up the Arkenstone is Bilbo's noblest action. Why does he do it? What does it say about his values and ethics? Why does he return to the Mountain? Would you have returned to the dwarves or stayed with Bard and the elves?
Chapter 17
30. Consider the Elvenking’s statement: "Long will I tarry, ere I begin this war for gold." Do you think these are wise words? Is gold worth fighting over?
31. Trace Thorin’s moral degeneration. What causes him to change? In what ways does he end up being similar to Smaug? Why do you think he is so easily corrupted?
32. Before the arrival of the goblins and wargs, who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys" in the standoff around the mountain? How does your opinion change when the goblins arrive?
33. Which would be a greater tragedy: the killing of the armies of men, elves, and dwarves by the goblins, or a war between men, elves, and dwarves?
Chapter 18
34. "There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage...and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world." Discuss Bilbo’s character now that his adventure is completed. Why does he refuse the treasure? Why is he weary of his adventure? How has he proven himself to be a hero in spite of his lack of traditionally “heroic” attributes like strength and assertiveness?
35. Examine the final views we get of Thorin on his deathbed and in his tomb. Is his quest fulfilled? Why is his death necessary? What lesson does he learn? Does he deserve our respect or admiration? Is it right to bury him with the Arkenstone?
36. Examine in detail the various demands and offers made by Bard and the dwarves (and the elves). How does the final solution match what each party wants and deserves? What is the difference between Dain’s gift and Thorin’s promises?
Chapter 19
37. Gandalf exclaims to Bilbo: "Something is the matter with you! You are not the hobbit that you were." In what way has Bilbo changed? (Don’t forget to include the ability and desire to make poetry.) What does he gain from his adventure? How has his attitude toward home altered from the beginning of the book? Is it necessary to leave a place before you can truly appreciate it? Can you relate Bilbo’s experience to your own life in any way?
38. At the end of the book, Gandalf makes the following comment: "You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?" If "mere luck" is not responsible for Bilbo’s success, what is?
39. Bilbo is pleased that he is "only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!" Why is this a comforting perspective? How does viewing oneself as a small part of a larger whole impact the way a person interacts with the world around him?
40. Why didn’t Tolkien just end the book after the battle? What is the purpose of devoting two chapters to Bilbo’s return? How do these chapters help develop the character and/or important themes?
(Questions adapted from Random House Publishers Teacher's Guide.)
Under the Dome
Stephen King, 2009
Scribner
1008 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476735474
Summary
On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when—or if—it will go away.
Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens—town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing — even murder — to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 21, 1947
• Where—Portland, Maine, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Maine
• Awards—see below
• Currently—lives in Bangor, Maine
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction, and fantasy. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books. King has published 50 novels, including seven under the pen-name of Richard Bachman, and five non-fiction books. He has written nearly two hundred short stories, most of which have been collected in nine collections of short fiction. Many of his stories are set in his home state of Maine.
Early life
King's father, Donald Edwin King, who was born circa 1913 in Peru, Indiana, was a merchant seaman. King's mother, Nellie Ruth (nee Pillsbury; 1913–1973) was born in Scarborough, Maine. The two were married in 1939 in Cumberland County, Maine.
Stephen Edwin King was born September 21, 1947, in Portland, Maine. When King was two years old, his father left the family under the pretense of "going to buy a pack of cigarettes," leaving his mother to raise King and his adopted older brother, David, by herself, sometimes under great financial strain. The family moved to De Pere, Wisconsin, Fort Wayne, Indiana and Stratford, Connecticut. When King was eleven years old, the family returned to Durham, Maine, where Ruth King cared for her parents until their deaths. She then became a caregiver in a local residential facility for the mentally challenged. King was raised Methodist.
As a child, King apparently witnessed one of his friends being struck and killed by a train, though he has no memory of the event. His family told him that after leaving home to play with the boy, King returned, speechless and seemingly in shock. Only later did the family learn of the friend's death. Some commentators have suggested that this event may have psychologically inspired some of King's darker works, but King makes no mention of it in his memoir On Writing.
King's primary inspiration for writing horror fiction was related in detail in his 1981 non-fiction Danse Macabre, in a chapter titled "An Annoying Autobiographical Pause." King makes a comparison of his uncle successfully dowsing for water using the bough of an apple branch with the sudden realization of what he wanted to do for a living. While browsing through an attic with his elder brother, King uncovered a paperback version of an H. P. Lovecraft collection of short stories entitled The Lurker in the Shadows that had belonged to his father. The cover art—an illustration of a yellow-green Demon hiding within the recesses of a Hellish cavern beneath a tombstone—was, he writes, the moment in his life which "that interior dowsing rod responded to." King told Barnes & Noble Studios during a 2009 interview, "I knew that I'd found home when I read that book."
Education and early career
King attended Durham Elementary School and graduated from Lisbon Falls High School, in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He displayed an early interest in horror as an avid reader of EC's horror comics, including Tales from the Crypt (he later paid tribute to the comics in his screenplay for Creepshow). He began writing for fun while still in school, contributing articles to Dave's Rag, the newspaper that his brother published with a mimeograph machine, and later began selling stories to his friends which were based on movies he had seen (though when discovered by his teachers, he was forced to return the profits). The first of his stories to be independently published was "I Was a Teenage Grave Robber", serialized over three published and one unpublished issue of a fanzine, Comics Review, in 1965. That story was published the following year in a revised form as "In a Half-World of Terror" in another fanzine, Stories of Suspense, edited by Marv Wolfman.
From 1966, King studied English at the University of Maine, graduating in 1970 with a Bachelor of Arts in English. That same year his first daughter, Naomi Rachel, was born. He wrote a column for the student newspaper, The Maine Campus, titled "Steve King's Garbage Truck", took part in a writing workshop organized by Burton Hatlen, and took odd jobs to pay for his studies, including one at an industrial laundry. He sold his first professional short story, "The Glass Floor," to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. The Fogler Library at the University of Maine now holds many of King's papers.
After leaving the university, King earned a certificate to teach high school but, being unable to find a teaching post immediately, initially supplemented his laboring wage by selling short stories to men's magazines such as Cavalier. Many of these early stories have been published in the collection Night Shift. In 1971, King married Tabitha Spruce, a fellow student at the University of Maine whom he had met at the University's Fogler Library after one of Professor Hatlen's workshops. That fall, King was hired as a teacher at Hampden Academy in Hampden, Maine. He continued to contribute short stories to magazines and worked on ideas for novels. It was during this time that King developed a drinking problem, which would plague him for more than a decade.
Writing, 1970-2000
In 1973, King's novel Carrie was accepted by publishing house Doubleday. King threw an early draft of the novel in the trash after becoming discouraged with his progress writing about a teenage girl with psychic powers. His wife retrieved the manuscript and encouraged him to finish it. His advance for Carrie was $2,500, with paperback rights earning $400,000 at a later date. King and his family moved to southern Maine because of his mother's failing health. At this time, he began writing a book titled Second Coming, later titled Jerusalem's Lot, before finally changing the title to Salem's Lot (published 1975). In a 1987 issue of The Highway Patrolman magazine, he stated, "The story seems sort of down home to me. I have a special cold spot in my heart for it!" Soon after the release of Carrie in 1974, his mother died of uterine cancer. His Aunt Emrine read the novel to her before she died. King has written of his severe drinking problem at this time, stating that he was drunk delivering the eulogy at his mother's funeral.
After his mother's death, King and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where King wrote The Shining (1977). The family returned to western Maine in 1975, where King completed his fourth novel, The Stand (1978). In 1977, the family, with the addition of Owen Phillip (his third and last child), traveled briefly to England, returning to Maine that fall where King began teaching creative writing at the University of Maine. He has kept his primary residence in Maine ever since.
In 1985 King wrote his first work for the comic book medium, writing a few pages of the benefit X-Men comic book Heroes for Hope Starring the X-Men. The book, whose profits were donated to assist with famine relief in Africa, was written by a number of different authors in the comic book field, such as Chris Claremont, Stan Lee, and Alan Moore, as well as authors not primarily associated with that industry, such as Harlan Ellison. The following year, King wrote the introduction to Batman No. 400, an anniversary issue in which he expressed his preference for that character over Superman.
On June 19, 1999 at about 4:30 pm, King was walking on the shoulder of Route 5, in Lovell, Maine. Driver Bryan Smith, distracted by an unrestrained dog moving in the back of his minivan, struck King, who landed in a depression in the ground about 14 feet from the pavement of Route 5. According to Oxford County Sheriff deputy Matt Baker, King was hit from behind and some witnesses said the driver was not speeding, reckless, or drinking.
King was conscious enough to give the deputy phone numbers to contact his family but was in considerable pain. The author was first transported to Northern Cumberland Hospital in Bridgton and then flown by helicopter to Central Maine Medical Center, in Lewiston. His injuries—a collapsed right lung, multiple fractures of his right leg, scalp laceration and a broken hip—kept him at CMMC until July 9. His leg bones were so shattered doctors initially considered amputating his leg, but stabilized the bones in the leg with an external fixator. After five operations in ten days and physical therapy, King resumed work on On Writing in July, though his hip was still shattered and he could only sit for about forty minutes before the pain became worse. Soon it became nearly unbearable.
King's lawyer and two others purchased Smith's van for $1,500, reportedly to prevent it from appearing on eBay. The van was later crushed at a junkyard, much to King's disappointment, as he dreamed of beating it with a baseball bat once his leg was healed. King later mentioned during an interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he wanted to completely destroy the vehicle himself with a pickaxe.
During this time, Tabitha King was inspired to redesign his studio. King visited the space while his books and belongings were packed away. What he saw was an image of what his studio would look like if he died, providing a seed for his novel Lisey's Story.
In 2002, King announced he would stop writing, apparently motivated in part by frustration with his injuries, which had made sitting uncomfortable and reduced his stamina. He has since resumed writing, but states on his website that:
I'm writing but I'm writing at a much slower pace than previously and I think that if I come up with something really, really good, I would be perfectly willing to publish it because that still feels like the final act of the creative process, publishing it so people can read it and you can get feedback and people can talk about it with each other and with you, the writer, but the force of my invention has slowed down a lot over the years and that's as it should be.
Writing, 2000's
In 2000, King published a serialized novel, The Plant, online, bypassing print publication. At first it was presumed by the public that King had abandoned the project because sales were unsuccessful, but he later stated that he had simply run out of stories. The unfinished epistolary novel is still available from King's official site, now free. Also in 2000, he wrote a digital novella, Riding the Bullet, and has said he sees e-books becoming 50% of the market "probably by 2013 and maybe by 2012." But he also warns: "Here's the thing—people tire of the new toys quickly."
In August 2003 King began writing a column on pop culture appearing in Entertainment Weekly, usually every third week. The column is called "The Pop of King," a play on the nickname "The King of Pop" commonly given to Michael Jackson. In 2006, King published an apocalyptic novel, Cell. The book features a sudden force in which every cell phone user turns into a mindless killer. King noted in the book's introduction that he does not use cell phones. In 2007, Marvel Comics began publishing comic books based on King's Dark Tower series, followed by adaptations of The Stand in 2008 and The Talisman in 2009.
In 2008, King published both a novel, Duma Key, and a collection, Just After Sunset. The latter featured 13 short stories, including a novella, N., which was later released as a serialized animated series that could be seen for free, or, for a small fee, could be downloaded in a higher quality; it then was adopted into a limited comic book series.
In 2009, King published Ur, a novella written exclusively for the launch of the second-generation Amazon Kindle and available only on Amazon.com, and Throttle, a novella co-written with his son Joe Hill, which later was released as an audiobook Road Rage, which included Richard Matheson's short story "Duel". On November 10 that year, King's novel, Under the Dome, was published. It is a reworking of an unfinished novel he tried writing twice in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and at 1,074 pages, it is the largest novel he has written since 1986's It. It debuted at No. 1 in The New York Times Bestseller List.
Writing, 2010s
On February 16, 2010, King announced on his website that his next book would be a collection of four previously unpublished novellas called Full Dark, No Stars. In April of that year, King published Blockade Billy, an original novella issued first by independent small press Cemetery Dance Publications and later released in mass market paperback by Simon & Schuster. The following month, DC Comics premiered American Vampire, a monthly comic book series written by King with short story writer Scott Snyder, and illustrated by Rafael Albuquerque, which represents King's first original comics work. King wrote the background history of the very first American vampire, Skinner Sweet, in the first five-issue story arc. Scott Snyder wrote the story of Pearl.
In 2011 King published 11/22/63. It was nominated for the 2012 World Fantasy Award Best Novel. The eighth Dark Tower volume, The Wind Through the Keyhole, was published in 2012.
King's most recent novel is the 2013 Doctor Sleep, a sequel to The Shining (1977).
Awards
Alex Award
Balrog Award
Black Quill Award
Bram Stocker AWards (14)
British Fantasy Society Awards (6)
Deutscher Phantastik Pries (5)
Horror Guild Awards (6)
Hugo Award
International Horror Guild Awards (2)
Locus Awards (5)
Mystery Writers of America Awards (2, incl.,Grand Master)
National Book Foundation, Medal of Distringuished Contribution to American Letters
O. Henry Award
Quill Award
Shirely Jackson Award
Thriller Award
World Fantasy Awards (4)
World Horror Convention, World Horror Grandmaster Award
Personal life
King and his wife own and occupy three different houses, one in Bangor, one in Lovell, Maine, and they regularly winter in their waterfront mansion located off the Gulf of Mexico, in Sarasota, Florida. He and Tabitha have three children, Naomi, Joe and Owen, and three grandchildren.
Shortly after publication of The Tommyknockers, King's family and friends staged an intervention, dumping evidence of his addictions taken from the trash including beer cans, cigarette butts, grams of cocaine, Xanax, Valium, NyQuil, dextromethorphan (cough medicine) and marijuana, on the rug in front of him. As King related in his memoir, he then sought help and quit all forms of drugs and alcohol in the late 1980s, and has remained sober since. The first novel he wrote after quitting drugs and alcohol was Needful Things.
Tabitha King has published nine of her own novels. Both King's sons are published authors: Owen King published his first collection of stories, We're All in This Together: A Novella and Stories, in 2005. Joseph Hillstrom King, who writes under the professional name Joe Hill, published a collection of short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, in 2005. His debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was published in 2007 and will be adapted into a feature film by director Neil Jordan. King's daughter Naomi is a Unitarian Universalist Church minister in Plantation, Florida with her same-sex partner, Rev. Dr. Thandeka.
King is a fan of baseball, and of the Boston Red Sox in particular; he frequently attends the team's home and away games, and occasionally mentions the team in his novels and stories. He helped coach his son Owen's Bangor West team to the Maine Little League Championship in 1989. He recounts this experience in the New Yorker essay "Head Down," which also appears in the collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes. In 1999, King wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, which featured former Red Sox pitcher Tom Gordon as the protagonist's imaginary companion. In 2004, King co-wrote a book titled Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle the Historic 2004 Season with Stewart O'Nan, recounting the authors' roller coaster reaction to the Red Sox's 2004 season, a season culminating in the Sox winning the 2004 American League Championship Series and World Series. In the 2005 film Fever Pitch, about an obsessive Boston Red Sox fan, King tosses out the first pitch of the Sox's opening day game. (From Wikipedia. See complete article.)
Book Reviews
Under the Dome gravely threatens Stephen King's status as a mere chart-busting pop cultural phenomenon. It has the scope and flavor of literary Americana, even if Mr. King's particular patch of American turf is located smack in the middle of the Twilight Zone. It dispenses with his usual scatology and trippy fantasy to deliver a spectrum of credible people with real family ties, health crises, self-destructive habits and political passions. Even its broad caricatures prompt real emotion, if only via the damage they can inflict on others. Though the book's broad conspiratorial strokes become farfetched, its ordinary souls become ever more able to break hearts. This book has the heft of a brick…Hard as this thing is to hoist, it's even harder to put down.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
King has always produced at pulp speed. "Nov. 22, 2007 - March 14, 2009" proclaims the final page of Under the Dome: that's 1,100 pages in 480 days. We shouldn't be too squeamish about the odd half-baked simile or lapse into B-movie dialogue, is my point. Writing flat-out keeps him close to his story, close to his source. It seems to magnetize his imagination: by the final third of this novel King is effortlessly drawing in T. S. Eliot and the Book of Revelation, the patient etherized upon a table and the Star Wormwood.
James Parker - New York Times Book Review
In 2002 Stephen King announced that he'd given up writing.... [But] writing isn't done with King, not by a long shot....the result is one of his most powerful novels ever.... Although he's an undisputed master of suspense and terror, what gives King's work heft is his moral clarity. The harrowing climax of Under the Dome stems from a humane vision. It's another work in an oeuvre that identifies compassion as the antidote to evil, whether that evil be human or supernatural. And our stock of literature in the great American Gothic tradition is brilliantly replenished because of it.
Graham Joyce - Washington Post
[U]ncomfortably bulky, formidably complex and irresistibly compelling....[yet] King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully.... [W]hile this novel doesn't have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it's a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil.
Publishers Weekly
The frequent accusation that King writes too long is sometimes deserved. However, when he works in an epic mode, depicting dozens of characters and all their interrelationships, he can produce great work. He did it with The Stand and with It, and he has done it again here.... Some will balk at the page count, but a fast pace and compelling narrative make the reader's time fly. —Karl G. Siewert, Tulsa City-Cty. Lib., OK
Library Journal
Maine. Check. Strange doings. Check. Alien/demon presence. Check. Unlikely heroes. Check.... Evil is omnipresent here, but organized religion is suspect, useful only for those who would bleat, "The Dome is God's will." The woods are full of malevolent possibilities.... It hardly matters that, after 1,000-plus pages, the yarn doesn't quite add up. It's vintage King: wonderfully written, good, creepy, old-school fun.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
m. Stephen King says in an interview with his publisher that his inspirations for Under the Dome was "the serious ecological problems that we face.... we all live under the dome." What does he mean, and do you agree or disagree? Also, to what degree might "living under the dome" have wider implications than purely ecological?
m. In that same interview, King says...
In small towns, we think we know everybody else's business. But everybody holds back.... You're only as sick as your secrets, and some of the people in this book are pretty sick, indeed.
Who in particular, in this book's large cast of characters, has secrets...and what are they? Which characters would you say are "pretty sick, indeed"?
m. Finally, King says in the interview that Under the Dome explores one of the great subjects of fiction:
Why do people do what they do under stress? And in that sense you can see any novel is almost like a test tube case where you say, "what happens to ordinary people in extraordinary situations? How do they behave? Do they rise to the occasion or do they not?
Which character(s) in your estimation rise to the occasion, and in what way? Which ones do not? Had you been placed under the dome, how would you fare?
m. In what way is Dale Barbara an unlikely hero? Is he a hero?
m. Describe Jim Rennie, the book's mega-villain. Do you find him credible? Is he overdrawn, or do people like Rennie exist in the real world? Does Rennie get his just deserts...or would you have preferred a different end for him?
m. Where is God throughout this catastrophe? Is that a fair question...or not? What seems to be the underlying religious view of the book?
m. Which incidents do you find most heart-rending?
m. King doesn't address how and why the dome got there until the end. Why does he postpone the issue for so long? What seems to interest him in this book more than the answer to that question?
m. Were your surprised by the origin of the dome...or where you expecting it?
m. The book comes in at over 1,000 pages. Is it too long? Just long enough?
m. What are the moral implications of this book?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
Winter's Tale
Mark Helprin, 1983
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
768 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780544320420
Summary
Mark Helprin’s masterpiece will transport you to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented snows.
One winter night, Peter Lake—master mechanic and second-storey man—attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks it is empty, the daughter of the house is home.
Thus begins the affair between a middle-aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl dying of consumption. It is a love so powerful that Peter Lake, a simple and uneducated man, will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead. His great struggle is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature. (From the publisher.)
The book's 2014 film version stars Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay.
Author Bio
• Birth—1947
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., Harvard University
• Awards—National Jewish Book Award
• Currently—lives in Earlysville, Virginia
Mark Helprin is an American novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. While Helprin's fictional works straddle a number of disparate genres and styles, he has stated that he "belongs to no literary school, movement, tendency, or trend"
Biography
Helprin was born in Manhattan, New York in 1947. His father, Morris Helprin, worked in the film industry, eventually becoming president of London Films. His mother was actress Eleanor Lynn Helprin, who starred in several Broadway productions in the 1930s and 40s. In 1953 the family left New York City for the prosperous Hudson River Valley suburb of Ossining, New York. He was raised on the Hudson River and later in the British West Indies. Helprin holds degrees from Harvard University, and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Helprin's postgraduate study was at Princeton University and Magdalen College, Oxford, University of Oxford, 1976-77. He is Jewish-American, and he became an Israeli citizen during the late 1970s. He served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force. Helprin is married to Lisa (Kennedy) Helprin. They have two daughters, Alexandra and Olivia. They live on a 56-acre farm in Earlysville, Virginia, and like his father and grandfather who had farms before him, Helprin does much of the work on his land.
Novels, Short Stories and Periodicals
His first novel, published in 1977, was Refiner’s Fire: The Life and Adventures of Marshall Pearl, a Foundling. The 1983 novel Winter’s Tale is a sometimes fantastic tale of early 20th century life in New York City. He published A Soldier of the Great War in 1991. Memoir from Antproof Case, published in 1995, includes long comic diatribes against the effects of coffee. Helprin came out with Freddy and Fredericka, a satire, in 2005. His latest, In Sunshine and In Shadow, was released in 2012, and has been described as an extended love song to New York City.
Helprin has published three books of short stories: A Dove of the East & Other Stories (1975), Ellis Island & Other Stories (1981), and The Pacific and Other Stories (2004). He has written three children’s books, all of which are illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg: Swan Lake, A City in Winter, and The Veil of Snows. His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Helprin's writing has appeared in The New Yorker for two decades. He writes essays and a column for the Claremont Review of Books. His writings, including political op-eds, have appeared in The Wall Street Journal (for which he was a contributing editor until 2006), The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, National Review, American Heritage, and other publications.
Controversy
Helprin published an op-ed for the May 20, 2007 issue of The New York Times, in which he argued that intellectual property rights should be assigned to an author or artist as far as Congress could practically extend it. The overwhelmingly negative response to his position on the blogosphere and elsewhere was reported on The New York Times's blog the next day. Helprin was said to be shocked by the response.
In April 2009, HarperCollins published Helprin's "writer's manifesto", Digital Barbarism. In May, Lawrence Lessig penned a review of the book entitled "The Solipsist and the Internet" in which he described the book as a response to the "digital putdown" heaped upon Helprin's New York Times op-ed. Lessig called Helprin's writing "insanely sloppy" and also criticized HarperCollins for publishing a book "riddled with the most basic errors of fact."
In response to such criticisms Helprin wrote a long defense of his book in the September 21, 2009 edition of National Review, which concluded: "Digital Barbarism is not as much a defense of copyright as it is an attack upon a distortion of culture that has become a false savior in an age of many false saviors. Despite its lack of mechanical perfections, humanity, as stumbling and awkward as it is, is far superior to the machine. It always has been and always will be, and this conviction must never be surrendered. But surrender these days is incremental, seems painless, and comes so quietly that warnings are drowned in silence."
In May 2010, Helprin wrote an article which stated that China's military is "on the cusp" of being able to dominate Taiwan and the rest of the Far East.
Honors and Accomplishments
A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a former Guggenheim Fellow, Helprin has been awarded the National Jewish Book Award and the Prix de Rome from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
He is also a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. In 1996 he served as a foreign policy advisor and speechwriter to presidential candidate Bob Dole.
In May 2006, the New York Times Book Review published a list of American novels, compiled from the responses to "a short letter [from the NYT Book Review] to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to identify 'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.'" Among the twenty-two books to have received multiple votes was Helprin's Winter's Tale.
In 2006 Helprin received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. This award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.
On November 8, 2010, in New York City, Helprin was awarded the 2010 Salvatori Prize in the American Founding by the Claremont Institute. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[T]he heart of this book resides unquestionably in its moral energy, in the thousand original gestures, ruminations...writing feats that summon its audience beyond the narrow limits of conventional vision, commanding us to see our time and place afresh. Is it not astonishing that a work so rooted in fantasy, filled with narrative high jinks and comic flights, stands forth centrally as a moral discourse? It is indeed.... I do not pretend to know why or how the marvelous concord of discords in Mr. Helprin's Winter's Tale is achieved. I can testify only to the force of the book's summons to wider vision.... Not for some time have I read a work as funny, thoughtful, passionate or large-souled. Rightly used, it could inspire as well as comfort us. Winter's Tale is a great gift at an hour of great need.
Benjamin De Mott - New York Times (1983)
Helprin's portrait of a snow-bound New York from a 1900s that we just about recognise is peopled with Dickensian grotesques and fancies; gangs who battle in the streets, a race to build a bridge all the way to infinity, hidden communities surviving in corners of New York that never were, fantastical families in tumbledown houses at the centre of frozen lakes. There are vast newspapers, almost living things, in intense rivalry with each other, and a magical, Aslan-like horse that can leap across this icy vision of Manhattan. It's wonderful and perplexing and philosophical and, yes, sometimes infuriating.... On every re-reading, [I am] carried along by Helprin's lyrical prose and surreal depiction of New York.
David Barnett - Guardian.com
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 Tragedy of Arthur
Arthur Phillips, 2011
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812977929
Summary
The book's doomed hero is Arthur Phillips, a young man struggling with a larger-than-life father, a con artist who works wonders of deception but is a most unreliable parent.
Arthur is raised in an enchanted world of smoke and mirrors where the only unshifting truth is his father’s and his beloved twin sister’s deep and abiding love for the works of William Shakespeare—a love so pervasive that Arthur becomes a writer in a misguided bid for their approval and affection.
Years later, Arthur’s father, imprisoned for decades and nearing the end of his life, shares with Arthur a treasure he’s kept secret for half a century: a previously unknown play by Shakespeare, titled The Tragedy of Arthur. But Arthur and his sister also inherit their father’s mission: to see the play published and acknowledged as the Bard’s last great gift to humanity.
Unless it’s their father’s last great con.
By turns hilarious and haunting, this virtuosic novel—which includes Shakespeare’s (?) lost King Arthur play in its five-act entirety—captures the very essence of romantic and familial love and betrayal. The Tragedy of Arthur explores the tension between storytelling and truth-telling, the thirst for originality in all our lives, and the act of literary mythmaking, both now and four centuries ago, as the two Arthurs—Arthur the novelist and Arthur the ancient king—play out their individual but strangely intertwined fates. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 23, 1969
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard
• Currently—lives in New York City
Arthur Phillips is an American novelist active in the 21st century. His novels include Prague (2002), The Egyptologist (2004), Angelica (2007), The Song Is You (2009), and The Tragedy of Arthur (2011).
Phillips was born in Minneapolis and received a BA in history from Harvard (1986–90). After spending two years in Budapest (1990–1992), he then studied jazz saxophone for four semesters at Berklee College of Music (1992–93).[2] In his author biography and several interviews he claims to have been a child actor, a jazz musician, a five-time Jeopardy! champion, a speechwriter, and an advertising copywriter for medical devices, and a "dismally failed entrepreneur." He lived in Budapest from 1990 to 1992 and in Paris from 2001 to 2003, and now lives in New York with his wife and two sons.
Before becoming a best-selling novelist, Phillips was (in fact) a five-time champion on Jeopardy! in 1997. In 2005, he competed in the Jeopardy! Ultimate Tournament of Champions. He won his opening-round game but lost in the second round.
Books
• Prague (2002)
Despite its title, Prague is set almost entirely in Budapest, Hungary, primarily in 1990, with an interlude detailing several previous generations of Hungarian history, from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy through the First and Second World Wars.
The main line of the novel follows a group of young Western expatriates through their lives in Budapest. Interwoven tales produce an ensemble portrait of the expats and their adopted city, just recovering from decades of Communism, fascism, and war. The novel's recurring themes include nostalgia, sincerity and authenticity, and young people's first search for meaning in life. The novel was well received commercially and critically, winning Phillips the 2003 Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for Best First Fiction, as well as other honors.
• The Egyptologist (2004)
The novel is structured as journals, letters, telegrams, and drawings, from several different points of view. The main story is set in 1922 and follows a hopeful explorer who, working near Howard Carter (the man who discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamun), risks more and more of his life and savings on an apparently quixotic effort to find the tomb of an apocryphal Egyptian king.
The book was an international bestseller and critical success in more than two dozen countries. US critics noted Phillips's versatility in producing a book so different from his first, and fans of the book included Gary Shteyngart, George Saunders, Elizabeth Peters, and Stephen King. Others, however, most notably Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, found the book overlong and confusing.
• Angelica (2007)
Superficially a Victorian ghost story, Angelica won Phillips comparisons to Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov, and Stephen King. King himself praised the book, and the Washington Post opined that it cemented Phillips's reputation as "one of the best writers in America."
In the novel, the same events are retold four times from four different perspectives, each section casting doubt on the version that came before, until the reader is left to sort truth from fantasy on his or her own. Although the novel received extensive critical praise, it was a commercial disappointment.
• The Song Is You (2009)
Phillips's fourth novel tells the story of a middle-aged man's pursuit of a young woman, an Irish pop singer he sees performing in a bar. Kirkus Reviews said, "Phillips still looks like the best American novelist to have emerged during the present decade."
• The Tragedy of Arthur (2011)
This fifth book was shortlisted for the IMPAC International Literary Prize. A faux memoir, the story revolves around a con-man father who convinces his son to sell a hitherto unknown Shakespeare play. Publishers Weekly called it "a tricky project, funny and brazen, smart and playful." (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/21/2014.)
Book Reviews
Arthur Phillips has found the perfect vehicle for his cerebral talents: his ingenuity; his bright, elastic prose; and, most notably, his penchant for pastiche—for pouring his copious literary gifts into old vessels and reinventing familiar genres…With The Tragedy of Arthur Mr. Phillips has created a wonderfully tricky Chinese puzzle box of a novel that is as entertaining as it is brainy. If its characters are a little emotionally predictable, we don't mind all that much: we're more interested in seeing how the author cuts and sands his puzzle pieces, assembles them into a pretty contraption and then inserts lots of mirrors and false bottoms.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
[T]he novelist's art is a cunning ability to lure the reader into treating counterfeit bills as if they were current. And this particular novel—a fictional memoir posing as a fraudulent introduction to a forged play—is a spectacular instance of the confidence game. It is a tribute to Arthur Phillips's singular skill that his work leaves the reader not with resentment at having been tricked but rather with gratitude for the gift of feigned wonder.
Stephen Greenblatt - New York Times Book Review
I suspect that most readers will greatly enjoy Phillips's easygoing and digressive, if admittedly self-absorbed introduction. Just think of the joyless academic prose that a professional Elizabethan might have produced!…The Tragedy of Arthur, however you view it, shows off a writer at the top of his game.
Michael Dirda - Washington Post
Devious and exhilarating...an irresistible family drama bundled into an exploration of fraud and authenticity.
Wall Street Journal
Wily and witty...an engrossing family saga [with] sparkling and imaginative prose. Shakespeare would applaud a man who does him so proud.
Boston Globe
A circus of a novel, full of wit, pathos and irrepressible intelligence.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
The story of a family that is Shakespearean in several senses.... [The Tragedy of Arthur] contains literary echoes of Nabokov, Stoppard and even...Thomas Pynchon.
San Francisco Chronicle
Their father spends most of [Arthur and his sister Dana's] lives in prison, but when he's about to be released as a frail old man, he enlists Arthur in securing the publication of The Tragedy of Arthur from an original quarto he claims to have purloined from a British estate decades earlier.... It's a tricky project, funny and brazen, smart and playful.
Publishers Weekly
A memoir and a Shakespearean play wrapped into a novel?.... The narrator—a knockoff of the author himself?—relates the obsession of his father and twin sister with the Bard of Avon and the discovery within the family of a hitherto unknown play by none other than.... [T]he narrator pokes wicked fun at the ubiquitous memoir genre.... [I]nspired, original, entertaining writing—deftly delivered here by one of our most talented authors. —Edward Cone, New York
Library Journal
The always-original Phillips has outdone himself in this clever literary romp. Successfully blending and bending genres, he positions himself as a character in a novel that skewers Shakespearean scholarship, the publishing industry, and his own life to rollicking effect.... [Y]ou simply must read the book.... [Phillips] continues to intrigue and amaze. —Margaret Flanagane
Booklist
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.)
Unremarried Widow: A Memoir
Artis Henderson, 2014
Simon & Schuster
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 978145164928
Summary
In this powerful memoir, a young woman loses her husband twenty years after her own mother was widowed, and overcomes two generations of tragedy to discover that both hope and love endure.
Artis Henderson was a free-spirited young woman with dreams of traveling the world and one day becoming a writer. Marrying a conservative Texan soldier and becoming an Army wife was never part of her plan, but when she met Miles, Artis threw caution to the wind and moved with him to a series of Army bases in dusty southern towns, far from the exotic future of her dreams. If this was true love, she was ready to embrace it.
But when Miles was training and Artis was left alone, her feelings of isolation and anxiety competed with the warmth and unconditional acceptance she’d found with Miles. She made few friends among the other Army wives. In some ways these were the only women who could truly empathize with her lonely, often fearful existence— yet they kept their distance, perhaps sensing the great potential for heartbreak among their number.
It did not take long for a wife’s worst fears to come true. On November 6, 2006, the Apache helicopter carrying Miles crashed in Iraq, leaving twenty-six-year-old Artis—in official military terms—an “unremarried widow.” A role, she later realized, that her mother had been preparing her for for most of her life.
In this memoir Artis recounts not only the unlikely love story she shared with Miles and her unfathomable recovery in the wake of his death—from the dark hours following the military notification to the first fumbling attempts at new love—but also reveals how Miles’s death mirrored her father’s death in a plane crash, which Artis survived when she was five years old and which left her own mother a young widow.
In impeccable prose, Artis chronicles the years bookended by the loss of these men—each of whom she knew for only a short time but who had a profound impact on her life and on the woman she has become. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Born—Atlanta, Georgia, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Pennsylvania; M.A.,
Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Artis Henderson is an award-winning journalist and essayist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Reader’s Digest, Florida Weekly, and the online literary journal Common Ties. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a graduate degree from Columbia University’s School of Journalism. She lives in New York. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] powerful look at mourning as a military wife…one would struggle to find a young author so committed to detail. As [Henderson] writes her way toward her version of a happy, or perhaps happy-as-it-can-be, ending, she does so with her wits about her and all five senses thoroughly engaged. Her sense of place is exquisite…One can spend an afternoon reading a book, only to have the experience fly into the ether, forgotten until you glimpse the cover buried in a stack on your bedside. Or, as with this book, you can finish it in a day and find yourself haunted weeks later…Gold star work from a gold star wife.
Lily Burana - New York Times Book Review
After four months of marriage, Henderson lost her husband, a 23-year-old Army pilot, in the Iraq war, and she recounts in this languid, heart-tugging narrative their love story.... In her fluid prose Henderson portrays a moving journey to selfhood that strikes the reader as authentic and emotionally honest. Agents: Ann Stein and Aitken Alexander, Aitken Alexander Assoc. (Jan.)
Publishers Weekly
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Library Journal
A deeply moving memoir of love and grief that takes readers into the life of a military wife turned widow in a way that both embraces and transcends expectations.... Her willingness to reveal the complexities of her marriage as well as the raw emotion of her loss makes for a compelling page-turner. Book clubs will find much to discuss here.... A wholly American story that will find broad appeal with every reader who has ever wondered if she made the right choice.
Booklist
Journalist Henderson chronicles her passionate but unlikely romance and marriage to Miles, a fighter pilot... In 2006, Miles' helicopter crashed in bad weather.... Henderson writes movingly of his poignant, last letter to her.... She recounts how he urged her to pursue her dreams and relates her struggle to do so, despite her grief.... A beautiful debut from an exciting new voice.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Early in the book, we learn that Artis’s father was a pilot, just like Miles, and that he too was killed in a crash. The first time Artis’s mother meets Miles, she tells Artis he is just like her father. How do you see Artis’s family history affecting the decisions she makes? How do you think that knowledge and those memories influenced how she felt about getting involved with a pilot?
2. “What if you love someone with all your heart but you’re afraid that being with him means giving up the life you imagined for yourself?” (p. 88) Artis asks when she’s trying to figure out how to make a life with Miles. Later, when she pitches a relationship column to Florida Weekly, she admits she’s interested in “how to negotiate the terrain between what we want from life and what we want from a partner” (p. 220). How do you see this central question play out throughout the book? How do the other people in the story, especially those connected to the army, struggle with or resolve this tension?
3. Miles grew up in Texas, which is portrayed in the book as dry, dusty, and hot. Instead of staying in Texas while Miles deploys, Artis goes to Florida, her home, which feels lush and verdant. How does the author use the distinctive settings to cast light on how place affects the story? What other settings in the book does she describe, and how does that affect what happens there?
4. While Miles is stationed in Iraq, he tells Artis a story about going running one day. On the way back, he sees another solider ahead of him and decides to race him to camp. It is only once they’re back to camp safely that he realizes a sandstorm had blown up behind him; he has just outrun a sandstorm. Do you see this image as a metaphor for anything else in the book?
5. Artis never imagined marrying into the military, and she tries to separate herself from military life, never really fitting in with the other army wives or with Miles’s co-workers at the Officer’s Club. After Miles deploys, she moves to Florida and even talks about buying a house there to be their permanent home, removed from whatever base Miles will be sent to next. How else do you see Artis’s longing for distance play out in the story? What do you make of the fact that Artis eventually finds community and healing at the TAPS National Military Survivor Seminar?
6. Artis says that often women just know when something bad has happened to their husband (p. 127). Have you ever experienced a similar feeling of certainty about something happening far away? What do you think might be behind it?
7. Teresa Priestner is not satisfied with the information she is given about the helicopter crash that killed her husband and Miles, and she spends the rest of the book trying to prove that John deserves a Purple Heart. Artis, on the other hand, believes that their husbands are gone, and it doesn’t matter exactly how it happened (p. 169). What do these different attitudes reveal about how each woman deals with her grief? How do you think the differences in their lives might have influenced how they processed their husbands’ deaths?
8. Think about the different types of dreams that occur in the book—Miles’s startlingly prescient dream about the crash that opens the book (p. 10); the dream about the house Artis and Miles hoped to buy in Texas (p. 94); the dream in which Miles tells her that death itself is like a dream (p. 189). Do you think Artis believes it? How are these dreams different from one another, and how do they tie elements of the story together?
9. After Miles’s death, Artis admits that she feels angry at many people, but especially at her mother, “whose fate, despite my best efforts, I now shared.” (p. 132) Her relationship with Miles’s mother starts out rocky, but after his death, they are drawn together by their shared grief. What do these different responses reveal something about each of these women? How do you see Artis struggling to navigate the complicated territory of familial relationships?
10. In the beginning of the story, Artis consults a psychic, who gives her specific predictions Artis simply can’t imagine coming true (which, of course, do). Later in the story, she sees the psychic again, and is given more unbelievable predictions, at least one of which—seeing her name in print—has obviously come true. Do you believe in psychics? What do you make of the fact that her predictions were correct? Is there anything the psychic got wrong? Do you believe these predictions can be in any way self-fulfilling? Why or why not? What does the act of consulting a psychic reveal about Artis’s deep desires?
11. “Losing a spouse is in no way like losing a child, but all loss is in some way like losing ourselves.” Discuss this line. What losses have you experienced in your life? Do you agree that loss is like losing yourself? How do you find your way back?
12. There are several ways in which Artis reaches out for—or is reached out to by—the other side: She has dreams where Miles talks to her after he’s gone; she visits a psychic who gives her a message from Miles; she experiences strange phenomena, such as knocking in her house and the microwave turning on in the night, which she thinks might indicate a ghost. “I shook my head, disbelieving,” she writes. “But also believing a little.” (p. 186) What do you make of this? How do you see the barrier between this life and the next? Have you ever experienced similar comfort from beyond? How do you think the author’s belief allows her to experience or recognize it?
13. This story is written about events that happened in the not-too-distant past, and many of the events and trends that she mentions—the Florida real estate bubble that would never burst; the stock market crash of 2007—are written from the perspective of someone who knows how things turns out. How do you think knowing what happens to Miles affects how the author portrays the early stages of their relationship? Are there other elements of the story where you see this?
14. “If you took all the sorrows of the all the people in the world and hung them from a tree like fruit and then you let people choose which one they wanted, we would still pick our own” (p. 241). Do you believe this is true? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)