The Confessions of Young Nero
Margaret George, 2017
Penguin Publishing
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451473387
Summary
New York Times bestselling author, Margaret George, turns her gaze on Emperor Nero, one of the most notorious and misunderstood figures in history.
Built on the backs of those who fell before it, Julius Caesar's imperial dynasty is only as strong as the next person who seeks to control it. No one is safe from the sting of betrayal: man, woman, or child.
While Nero idealizes the artistic and athletic principles of Greece, his very survival rests on his ability to navigate the sea of vipers that is Rome, including his own mother, a cold-blooded woman whose singular goal is to control the empire.
But as Agrippina's machinations earn her son a title he is both tempted and terrified to assume, Nero's determination to escape her thrall will shape him into the Emperor he was fated to become.
Filled with impeccable research and captivating prose, The Confessions of Young Nero is the story of a boy's ruthless ascension to the throne and the lengths to which man will go in the ultimate quest for power and survival. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1943
• Where—Nashville, Tennessee, USA
• Education—B.A., Tufts University; M.A., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Madison, Wisconsin
Margaret George is an American historian and historical novelist, specializing in epic fictional biographies. She is known for her meticulous research and the large scale of her books.
She is the author of the bestselling novels Elizabeth I (2011), The Autobiography of Henry VIII (1986), Mary, Queen of Scotland and the Isles (1992), and The Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997). The latter novel was adapted into an Emmy-nominated TV miniseries. Other bestselling novels include Mary Called Magdalene (2002) and Helen of Troy (2006). She co-authored a children's book about tortoises called Lucille Lost. George plans to write a novel about Boudicca, highlighting her conflict with Rome and Nero.
George, whose father joined the U.S. Foreign Service when she was four, lived all over the world—Taiwan, Israel, and Germany—before she was thirteen. Exposed early to historical sites, she learned that legends might have historical bases: she attended school in Jaffa, Israel, where Jonah set sail (en route to meeting the whale), and she lived on the Rhine in Germany across from the Drachenfels, where Siegfried of the Nibelungenlied killed the dragon.
She graduated from Tufts University with a B.A. and Stanford University with an M.A., co-majoring in biological science and English literature. She worked as a science writer for several years at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Since then she has lived in El Salvador and Sweden, and now calls Madison, Wisconsin, home.
Writing
She began writing at a very early age, composing on yellow lined tablets and illustrating them herself. By middle school, she had begun writing novels, but did not show them to anyone except a few close friends. Only when a book was completely finished did she try for publication. Although she is now known exclusively for historical tomes, she wrote in many genres—science fiction, teen, humor, chick lit (although it wasn’t called that then), action-adventure, before finding what suited her best.
Her first published novel, The Autobiography of Henry VIII, 1986, set the pattern. It successfully defended the notorious king’s honor and argued his case. Twenty-five years after its publication, it is still influential and was at the top of the fans’ recommended Henry VIII fiction list for “The Tudors” TV miniseries.
Her other books show the same key characteristics: careful research almost qualifying for non-fiction standards, enough length to give perspective to the subject’s life, and colorful imagery.
She has been interviewed on A & E’s Biography Series on Henry VIII (Henry VIII: Scandals of a King, 1996) and Elizabeth I (Elizabeth : The Virgin Queen, 1996), as well as a special about Cleopatra (Cleopatra’s World: Alexandria Revealed, 1999). She was also a consultant for the CNN special “The Two Marys” in 2004.
Her knowledge of ancient medicine, acquired through her research on Cleopatra, Mary Magdalene, and Helen of Troy, led to being an invited lecturer at The American Glaucoma Society (San Diego, 2009), The Glaucoma Foundation (New York City,1997) and the International Congress of Glaucoma Surgery (Luxor, Egypt, 2003). (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
George’s reconstruction of the man, in terms both of his public life and private character, is more than a revisiting of fact: It’s a subtle exploration of identity and the insidious effects of power…Confessions is all about identity: How is it made, lost, reinvented?… Margaret George occupies that blurry space between history and fiction. And between Tacitus and Margaret George, I rather think it’s George’s account that is not only most sympathetic but most truthful.
Diana Gabaldon - Washington Post
Highly acclaimed for the detail and personality she gives to epic subjects, George's heavily researched novel flows dynamically among multiple points of view. Verdict: Historical fiction devotees…will quickly devour this first volume of a duology. —Catherine Lantz, Univ. of Illinois at Chicago Lib.
Library Journal
George's revisionist novel makes hefty use of its research, yet the emperor himself, shorn of his bad-boy reputation, emerges as oddly pallid.… [T]his workmanlike saga redeems Nero while simultaneously rendering him rather less fascinating.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What if Nero had refused to compete for the crown? Could he have had a quiet life and pursued his art in peace? Later in life, he expressed the idea that he could support himself by his art if he were deposed. Was that at all realistic? Or just another of his romantic dreams?
2. Two living emperors (Caligula and Claudius) are in the book, and the earlier ones are a constant psychological presence. What effect does Nero’s awareness of his lineage and of the expectation that he live up to it have on him from an early age?
3. Nero’s descent from Augustus meant that he was always in a spotlight but at the same time obscure, as there were many other descendants of Augustus. In the book he says, "I was, as always, solitary and singled out." He was both watched and ignored. What did he do in response to this?
4. There were rumors that Nero and his mother had an incestuous relationship, instigated by her as a means of controlling him. Of all the forms of incest, mother-son is the rarest. But it is the easiest to conceal, because mothers normally lavish affection on their children, including physical affection. In what ways do you see Agrippina’s seductive behavior affecting him in the novel?
5. How would you sum up Nero’s feelings toward his mother? Was the matricide at all justified? At what level? Political or psychological?
6. Did Nero really have no choice but to go along with Agrippina’s plans to murder Claudius so he could become emperor? What if he had refused?
7. Murder abounded in Nero’s family, but in the novel he wants to think he is different. At the same time, he fears he isn’t. Is there such a thing as "the blood of murderers" that is inherited?
8. There were four important women in Nero’s life: his mother; his first love, Acte; his first wife, Octavia; and his second wife, Poppaea. With the exception of Octavia, who was his arranged-marriage wife, the others were all older than he was and very strong characters. Acte and Poppaea he was madly in love with. Was he seeking a mother figure/surrogate in the older, beautiful, and strong-willed women he loved?
9. Nero was a romantic about marriage and exotic adventure. In what ways was this his undoing?
10. Nero was only sixteen when he became emperor and held supreme power in many spheres. At an age when people now just become eligible to drive and are too young to serve in the military, he commanded the entire Roman army and empire. Considering this, how well did he perform?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
If Not for You
Debbie Macomber, 2017
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425286951
Summary
An emotionally stirring novel that shows how obstacles can be overcome, differences can be strengths, and sometimes a choice can seem wrong even though it’s absolutely right.
If not for her loving but controlling parents, Beth Prudhomme might never have taken charge of her life and moved from her native Chicago to Portland, Oregon, where she’s reconnected with her spirited Aunt Sunshine and found a job as a high school music teacher.
If not for her friend Nichole, Beth would never have met Sam Carney, although first impressions have left Beth with serious doubts. Sam is everything Beth is not—and her parents’ worst nightmare: a tattooed auto mechanic who’s rough around the edges. Reserved and smart as a whip, Beth isn’t exactly Sam’s usual beer-drinking, pool-playing type of woman, either.
But if not for an awkward setup one evening, Beth might never have left early and been involved in a car crash. And if not for Sam—who witnessed the terrifying ordeal, rushed to her aid, and stayed with her until help arrived—Beth might have been all alone, or worse.
Yet as events play out, Sam feels compelled to check on Beth almost daily at the hospital—even bringing his guitar to play songs to lift her spirits. Soon their unlikely friendship evolves into an intense attraction that surprises them both.
Before long, Beth’s strong-willed mother, Ellie, blows into town spouting harsh opinions, especially about Sam, and reopening old wounds with Sunshine. When shocking secrets from Sam’s past are revealed, Beth struggles to reconcile her feelings. But when Beth goes a step too far, she risks losing the man and the life she’s come to love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 22, 1948
• Where—Yakima, Washington, USA
• Education—high school
• Awards—Quill Award; RITA and Distinguished Lifetime Achievement (Romance Writers of America)
• Currently—Port Orchard, Washington
Debbie Macomber is a best-selling American author of over 150 romance novels and contemporary women's fiction. Over 170 million copies of her books are in print throughout the world, and four have become made-for-TV-movies. Macomber was the inaugural winner of the fan-voted Quill Award for romance in 2005 and has been awarded both a Romance Writers of America RITA and a lifetime achievement award by the Romance Writers of America.
Beginning writer
Although Debbie Macomber is dyslexic and has only a high school education, she was determined to be a writer. A stay-at-home mother raising four small children, Macomber nonetheless found the time to sit in her kitchen in front of a rented typewriter and work on developing her first few manuscripts. For five years she continued to write despite many rejections from publishers, finally turning to freelance magazine work to help her family make ends meet.
With money that she saved from her freelance articles, Macomber attended a romance writer's conference, where one of her manuscripts was selected to be publicly critiqued by an editor from Harlequin Enterprises Ltd. The editor tore apart her novel and recommended that she throw it away. Undaunted, Macomber scraped together $10 to mail the same novel, Heartsong, to Harlequin's rival, Silhouette Books. Silhouette bought the book, which became the first romance novel to be reviewed by Publishers Weekly.
Career
Although Heartsong was the first of her manuscripts to sell, Starlight was the first of her novels to be published. It became #128 of the Silhouette Special Edition category romance line (now owned by Harlequin). Macomber continued to write category romances for Silhouette, and later Harlequin. In 1988, Harlequin asked Macomber to write a series of interconnected stories, which became known as the Navy series. Before long, she was selling "huge" numbers of books, usually 150,000 copies of each of her novels, and she was releasing two or three titles per year. By 1994, Harlequin launched the Mira Books imprint to help their category romance authors transition to the single title market, and Macomber began releasing single-title novels. Her first hardcover was released in 2001.
In 2002, Macomber realized that she was having more difficulty identifying with a 25-year-old heroine, and that she wanted to write books focusing more on women and their friendships. Thursdays at Eight was her first departure from the traditional romance novel and into contemporary women's fiction.
Since 1986, in most years Macomber has released a Christmas-themed book or novella. For several years, these novels were part of the Angel series, following the antics of angels Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy. Macomber, who loves Christmas, says that she writes Christmas books as well because "Every woman I know has a picture of the perfect Christmas in her mind, the same way we do romance. Reality rarely lives up to our expectations, so the best we can do is delve into a fantasy."
In general, Macomber's novels focus on delivering the message of the story and do not include detailed descriptive passages. Her heroines tend to be optimists, and the "stories are resolved in a manner that leaves the reader with a feeling of hope and happy expectation." Many of the novels take place in small, rural town, with her Cedar Cove series loosely based on her own hometown. Because of her Christian beliefs, Macomber does not include overly explicit sexual details in her books, although they do contain some sensuality.
Over 170 million copies of her books are in print throughout the world. This Matter of Marriage, became a made-for-tv movie in 1998. In 2009, Hallmark Channel broadcast "Debbie Macomber's Mrs. Miracle," their top-watched movie of the year. The next year Hallmark Channel aired "Call Me Mrs. Miracle," based on Debbie's novel of the same name, and it was the channel's highest rated movie of 2010. In 2011 Hallmark premiered "Trading Christmas," based on Debbie's novel When Christmas Comes (2004).
Debbie also now writes inspirational non-fiction. Her second cookbook, Debbie Macomber's Christmas Cookbook, and her second children's book, The Yippy, Yappy Yorkie in the Green Doggy Sweater (written with Mary Lou Carney), were released in 2012. There is also a Debbie Macomber line of knitting pattern books from Leisure Arts and she owns her own yarn store, A Good Yarn, in Port Orchard, Washington.
Now writing for Random House, Debbie published two Ballantine hardcovers in 2012, The Inn at Rose Harbor and Angels at the Table (November). The same year also saw the publication of two inspirational non-fiction hardcovers, One Perfect Word (Howard Books) and Patterns of Grace (Guideposts April). Starting Now, the ninth in her Blossom Street series, was issued in 2013.
Recognition
Macomber is a three-time winner of the B. Dalton Award, and the inaugural winner of the fan-voted Quill Award for romance (2005, for 44 Cranberry Point). She has been awarded the Romantic Times Magazine Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award and has won a Romance Writers of America RITA Award, the romance novelist's equivalent of an Academy Award, for The Christmas Basket. Her novels have regularly appeared on the Waldenbooks and USAToday bestseller lists and have also earned spots on the New York Times Bestseller List. On September 6, 2007 she made Harlequin Enterprises history, by pulling off the rarest of triple plays—having her new novel, 74 Seaside Avenue, appear at the #1 position for paperback fiction on the New York Times, USAToday and Publishers Weekly bestseller lists. These three highly respected bestseller lists are considered the bellwethers for a book's performance in the United States.
She threw out the first pitch in Seattle Mariners games at Safeco Field in 2007 and 2012. The Romance Writers of America presented Debbie with their prestigious 2010 Nora Roberts Lifetime Achievement Award.
Personal
Macomber has mentored young people, is the international spokesperson for World Vision’s Knit for Kids and serves on the Guideposts National Advisory Cabinet. She was appointed an ambassador for the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America national office in 1997.
Debbie and her husband, Wayne, raised four children and have numerous grandchildren. They live in Port Orchard, Washington and winter in Florida. When not writing, she enjoys knitting, traveling with Wayne and putting on Grandma Camps for her grandchildren, for whom she has built a four-star tree house behind her home in Port Orchard. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/11/2015.)
Discussion Questions
1. What are the main themes of the novel? Which do you find most thought provoking?
2. While Beth is deciding whether to meet Sam for dinner in Chapter 1, Sunshine urges her, "Let go of your inhibitions, live free, fall in love; make the most of this opportunity." In addition to meeting Sam, in what other situations does Beth embrace Sunshine’s advice? How does it transform her by the end of the book?
3. Compare and contrast the atmosphere of Beth and Sam’s first blind date with the atmosphere in Beth’s hospital room during their private conversation while she’s recovering from the accident. How did the accident act as a catalyst for their relationship? Even though it brought them together, did it create any hurdles for Beth and Sam?
4. Loyalty is a running theme throughout the novel. Discuss how loyalty, and the occasional lack thereof, affects the relationships between Beth, Sam, Ellie, and Sunshine.
5. How would the story have been different if Sam had a 9-5 office job instead of being a mechanic? Do you think Beth would have fallen for him just the same? How does the difference in their careers make the end of the story even more satisfying?
6. So much of this book is about control: taking charge of it where possible, and letting go when necessary. How is that different for each character? Who are the best examples of each?
7. Discuss how Ellie tends to misconstrue situations because of her falling out with Sunshine. How does her negative outlook create a ripple effect into other areas of her life? What is the author trying to tell us about perspective?
8. The title of this book seems to gain significance as the story progresses. How did your understanding of it grow and change between the first and last chapters of the book?
9. In many ways, it seems like Beth’s and Sam’s differences are what ultimately bring them together. This is in stark contrast to how the differences between Ellie and Sunshine drive them apart. Compare and contrast these relationships. What can be learned from each?
10. Discuss how Sam’s relationships with Trish and Luci impacts how he interacts with Beth. Do you think Sam’s reaction was appropriate when Beth took him to Luci’s piano recital? Why or why not?
11. How did you feel about Sunshine’s reunion with Peter? What events set the stage for them getting back together?
12. The closing line of the novel reads, "Warning label or not, she was lost." This passage refers to Beth being lost in love with Sam, but what other areas of her life could it also speak to?
13. Discuss the role of art, both visual and audible, for each character. How does it change your perception of them?
14. Have you ever taken a big risk, like Beth did in moving to Portland? How did you grow from that experience? What would you do differently?
15. Which character did you most easily relate to? How are you similar? Different?
16. Who would you cast to play each character in a movie adaptation of If Not for You? Why?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
Mississippi Blood (Natchez Burning Series, 3)
Greg Iles, 2017
HarperCollins
704 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062311153
Summary
The endgame is at hand for Penn Cage, his family, and the enemies bent on destroying them in this revelatory volume in the epic trilogy set in modern-day Natchez, Mississippi—Greg Iles’s epic tale of love and honor, hatred and revenge that explores how the sins of the past continue to haunt the present.
Shattered by grief and dreaming of vengeance, Penn Cage sees his family and his world collapsing around him.
The woman he loves is gone, his principles have been irrevocably compromised, and his father, once a paragon of the community that Penn leads as mayor, is about to be tried for the murder of a former lover.
Most terrifying of all, Dr. Cage seems bent on self-destruction. Despite Penn's experience as a prosecutor in major murder trials, his father has frozen him out of the trial preparations--preferring to risk dying in prison to revealing the truth of the crime to his son.
During forty years practicing medicine, Tom Cage made himself the most respected and beloved physician in Natchez, Mississippi. But this revered Southern figure has secrets known only to himself and a handful of others.
Among them, Tom has a second son, the product of an 1960s affair with his devoted African American nurse, Viola Turner. It is Viola who has been murdered, and her bitter son—Penn's half-brother—who sets in motion the murder case against his father.
The resulting investigation exhumes dangerous ghosts from Mississippi's violent past. In some way that Penn cannot fathom, Viola Turner was a nexus point between his father and the Double Eagles, a savage splinter cell of the KKK.
More troubling still, the long-buried secrets shared by Dr. Cage and the former Klansmen may hold the key to the most devastating assassinations of the 1960s. The surviving Double Eagles will stop at nothing to keep their past crimes buried, and with the help of some of the most influential men in the state, they seek to ensure that Dr. Cage either takes the fall for them, or takes his secrets to an early grave.
Tom Cage's murder trial sets a terrible clock in motion, and unless Penn can pierce the veil of the past and exonerate his father, his family will be destroyed. Unable to trust anyone around him—not even his own mother—Penn joins forces with Serenity Butler, a famous young black author who has come to Natchez to write about his father's case. Together, Penn and Serenity—a former soldier—battle to crack the Double Eagles and discover the secret history of the Cage family and the South itself, a desperate move that risks the only thing they have left to gamble: their lives.
Mississippi Blood is the enthralling conclusion to a breathtaking trilogy seven years in the making—one that has kept readers on the edge of their seats.
With piercing insight, narrative prowess, and a masterful ability to blend history and imagination, New York Times bestselling author Greg Iles illuminates the brutal history of the American South in a highly atmospheric and suspenseful novel that delivers the shocking resolution his fans have eagerly awaited. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Stuttgart, Germany
• Raised—Natchez, Mississippi, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Mississippi
• Currently—lives in in Natchez, Mississippi
Greg Ilesis an American novelist who was born in Stuttgart, Germany, where his physician father ran the U.S. Embassy Medical Clinic. He was raised in Natchez, Mississippi, in the US, the setting of many of his novels. After attending Trinity Episcopal Day School, he graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1983. Iles spent several years as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter in the band Frankly Scarlet.
He quit the band after he was married and began working on his first novel, Spandau Phoenix, a thriller about Nazi war criminal Rudolf Hess. The book was published in 1993 and became the first of twelve New York Times best sellers. In 2010, The Devil's Punchbowl reached #1 on the Times list.
Iles has published fourteen novels in a variety of genres. His books have been translated into more than twenty-five languages and published in more than thirty-five countries worldwide.
In 2002, he wrote the script 24 Hours from his novel of the same name. It was rewritten by director Don Roos and renamed Trapped (to avoid confusion with the then-current television series, 24), which Iles then rewrote during the shoot, at the request of the producers and actors. Iles has mixed feelings about the film, but he enjoyed working with the actors, including Charlize Theron, Kevin Bacon, Courtney Love, and Dakota Fanning.
In 2011, Iles sustained life-threatening injuries in a traffic accident and ultimately lost part of his right leg. He has since recovered and is now working on a trilogy of novels featuring Penn Cage, which is set in Natchez, Mississippi, Iles's hometown. The first volume, Natchez Burning, was published in 2014. His second, The Burning Tree, picks up immediately where the first leaves off and was released in 2015. The third volume, Mississippi Blood, published in 2017, brings the trilogy (supposedly) to its conclusion.
Iles is a member of the literary musical group The Rock Bottom Remainders, which includes authors Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Stephen King, Scott Turow, Amy Tan, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Matt Groening, and James McBride.
In July 2013, Greg co-authored Hard Listening (2013) with the rest of the Rock Bottom Remainders. The ebook combines essays, fiction, musings, candid email exchanges and conversations, compromising photographs, audio and video clips, and interactive quizzes to give readers a view into the private lives of the authors/musicians. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/15/2014.)
Book Reviews
A superb entertainment that is a work of power, distinction and high seriousness… also (a) prime example of what the thriller—and other forms of so-called "genre" fiction—can accomplish when pushed beyond traditional limits.
Washington Post
There is a graphic beauty to Iles’ writing. He uses measured words to express voluminous stories.… He is a masterful storyteller!
Huffington Post
[The books] are page-turning entertainments with an edge of history and a deep understanding of race relations in the American South.… Mississippi Blood is packed with compelling characters.… Harrowing and spellbinding.
Pittsburg Post-Gazette
Iles draws his characters so well, and brings off scenes so deftly.
Houston Chronicle
(Starred review.) Both unwieldy and tightly controlled, bestseller Iles’s terrific conclusion to his Natchez Burning trilogy (after 2015’s The Bone Tree) is a sweeping story that remains intimate.… The trial scenes are among the most exciting ever written in the genre.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) From his opening line, Iles draws you back into Penn Cage's deep South in this phenomenal trilogy's final novel (after Natchez Burning; The Bone Tree). His heart-racing, enthralling thriller brings to the forefront the racial divisiveness that still plagues this country. —Joy Gunn, Paseo Verde Lib., Henderson, NV
Library Journal
(Starred review.) This trilogy is destined to become a classic of literary crime fiction.
Booklist
Iles brings his politically charged, timely trilogy of Mississippi murder and mayhem to a thunderous close.… Iles mostly sticks to the format of the hard-boiled procedural, though there's some nicely wrought courtroom drama here, too.… A boisterous, spills-and-chills entertainment from start to finish.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
top of page (summary)
Beartown
Fredrik Backman, 2017
Atria Books
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501160769
Summary
A dazzling, profound novel about a small town with a big dream—and the price required to make it come true.
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees.
But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today.
Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.
Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.
Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 2, 1981
• Raised—Helsingborg, Sweden
• Education—no degree
• Currently—Stockholm
Fredrik Backman, Swedish author, journalist, and blogger, was voted Sweden's most successful author in 2013.
Backman grew up in Helsingborg, studied comparative religion but dropped out and became a truck driver instead. When the free newspaper Xtra was launched in 2006, the owner reached out to Backman, then still a truck driver, to write for the paper. After a test article, he continued to write columns for Xtra
In spring 2007, he began writing for Moore Magazine in Stockholm, a year-and-a-half later he began freelancing, and in 2012 he became a writer for the Metro. About his move to writing, Backman said...
I write things. Before I did that I had a real job, but then I happened to come across some information saying there were people out there willing to pay people just to write things about other people, and I thought "surely this must be better than working." And it was, it really was. Not to mention the fact that I can sit down for a living now, which has been great for my major interest in cheese-eating. (From his literary agent's website.)
Backman married in 2009 and became a father the following year. He blogged about preparations for his wedding in "The Wedding Blog" and about becoming a father on "Someone's Dad" blog. During the 2010 Winter Olympics, he wrote the Olympic blog for the Magazine Cafe website and has continued as a permanent blogger for the site.
In 2012, Backman debuted as an author, publishing two books on the same day: a novel, A Man Called Ove (U.S. release in 2014), and a work of nonfiction, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World. His second novel, My Grandmother Sent Me to Tell You She's Sorry, came out in 2013 (U.S. release in 2015). (Adapted from Wikipedia and the publisher. Retrieved 7/23/2014.)
Book Reviews
[P]oignant.… [I]t’s Backman’s rich characters that steal the show, and his deft handling of tragedy and its effects on an insular town. While the story is dark at times, love, sacrifice, and the bonds of friendship and family shine through, ultimately offering hope and even redemption.
Publishers Weekly
Backman expands his quirky character base in his latest novel, which once again takes place in a remote Swedish town.… Another solid offering from best-selling Swedish author Backman, with many parallels for American readers and small towns everywhere. —Mary K. Bird-Guilliams, Chicago
Library Journal
There are scenes that bring tears, scenes of gut-wrenching despair, and moments of sly humor.… A thoroughly empathetic examination of the fragile human spirit, Backman's latest will resonate a long time.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does hockey mean to the people of Beartown? What does winning the semifinal mean for the town’s future?
2. The town and the parents of the Beartown junior hockey team place great expectations on the shoulders of seventeen-year-old boys. How does this pressure affect the boys? Have the club’s leaders (David, Sune, Peter, and the others) prepared the boys to deal with this pressure? Have the boys’ parents?
3. How do issues related to social class affect the people of Beartown and the hockey club? Do those who live in the Hollow have a different world view from those who live in the Heights? Does hockey cut through class distinctions or reinforce them?
4. What does Kira’s role as a working mother, and her job as a lawyer, mean to her? How does her job affect the way others treat her? Consider this passage from the novel:
Not a second has passed since she had children without her feeling like a bad mother. For everything. For not understanding, for being impatient, for not knowing everything, not making better packed lunches, for still wanting more out of life than just being a mother. She hears other women in Beartown sigh behind her back: "Yes, but she has a full-time job, you know. Can you imagine?" (p. 63)
5. How do Peter and Kira complement each other in their relationship? How does he make up for her weaknesses, and vice versa? Do you think they have a solid marriage? A happy one?
6. Peter loves hockey because it demands his all, his everything. What does hockey demand from each of the characters in the book? What does it take from them?
7. There are many different parents and styles of parenting portrayed in the book. Which parents do you think are the most successful at preparing their children for the real world? Why?
8. Consider this sentiment echoed throughout the book: "What is a community? It is the sum total of our choices." (p. 312) By this definition, how do the townspeople of Beartown ultimately measure up? What kind of community have they built?
9. Several characters must find the courage to go against the grain of the tight-knit Beartown community. What is at stake for each character who does so, and is it worth it for them in the end?
10. Discuss the difference between male and female roles in the small village of Beartown. What is expected of the girls and women vs. the boys and men? Which characters break these expectations, and what are the consequences of doing so?
11. Consider the importance of names and nicknames throughout the novel. How does the lack of first names for "Kevin’s mother," "Kevin’s father," "David’s girlfriend," and Benji’s "bass player" change your impression of them? What effect does calling Maya "the young woman" have on Maya and her own narrative? How does she start to reclaim her own story?
12. In the course of the novel, we see that playing on a sports team teaches young people values like loyalty, responsibility, and commitment. But we also see instances of exclusion, aggression, and entitlement. Are their certain behaviors that are rewarded in a sports competition but considered inappropriate in daily life? Give examples. Which characters in the book have difficulty navigating this?
13. The events of the novel force the junior boys to grow up quickly as they are faced with very adult realities. What kind of man does Amat become over the course of the book? What do his actions reveal about him? What kind of man does Bobo become? Kevin? Benji?
14. Maya is surprised by how easily she can start to lie to her best friend, Ana, and keep secrets from her. How do each character’s secrets affect his or her relationship with loved ones? Consider the secrets between friends (Maya and Ana, Kevin and Benji, Amat and Zach), as well as those between parents and children, and husbands and wives.
15. How does Maya’s final act shape her future? How does it shape Kevin’s? Do you think a form of justice is achieved? Why or why not?
16. Why do you think Benji chooses to stay in Beartown and play for Sune’s A-Team instead of following the others to Hed? Was his choice affected by his relationship with the bass player?
17. At the end of the novel, do you think the tradition of the Beartown Hockey Club continues? Has its fundamental character changed? How do you think it will change going forward?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
Anything Is Possible
Elizabeth Strout, 2017
Random House
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812989403
Summary
An unforgettable cast of small-town characters copes with love and loss in this new work of fiction by #1 bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout.
Recalling Olive Kitteridge in its richness, structure, and complexity, Anything Is Possible explores the whole range of human emotion through the intimate dramas of people struggling to understand themselves and others.
Here are two sisters: One trades self-respect for a wealthy husband while the other finds in the pages of a book a kindred spirit who changes her life.
The janitor at the local school has his faith tested in an encounter with an isolated man he has come to help; a grown daughter longs for mother love even as she comes to accept her mother’s happiness in a foreign country; and the adult Lucy Barton (the heroine of My Name Is Lucy Barton, the author’s celebrated New York Times bestseller) returns to visit her siblings after seventeen years of absence.
Reverberating with the deep bonds of family, and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible again underscores Elizabeth Strout’s place as one of America’s most respected and cherished authors. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 6, 1956
• Where—Portland, Maine, USA
• Education—B.A., Bates College; J.D. and Certificate of Gerontology, Syracuse University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, and in Maine.
Elizabeth Strout is an American writer of fiction. She was born in Portland, Maine, and raised in small towns in Maine and New Hampshire. Her father was a science professor, and her mother taught high school.
After graduating from Bates College, Strout spent a year in Oxford, England, followed by studies at law school for another year. In 1982 she graduated with honors, and received both a law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law and a Certificate of Gerontology from the Syracuse School of Social Work. That year her first story was published in New Letters magazine.
Strout moved to New York City, and continued to write stories that were published in literary magazines, as well as in Redbook and Seventeen. It took her six or seven years to write Amy and Isabelle, which when published was shortlisted for the 2000 Orange Prize and nominated for the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. The novel was made into a television movie starring Elisabeth Shue and produced by Oprah Winfrey's studio, Harpo Films.
During the fall semsester of 2007, Strout was a NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities) professor at Colgate University, where she taught creative writing at both the introductory and advanced level. She was also on the faculty of the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In 2009 Strout was honored with a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Olive Kitteridge (2008), a collection of connected short stories about a woman and her immediate family and friends on the coast of Maine. In 2010, Italian booksellers voted Olive Kitteridge and Strout as the winner of the Premio Bancarella award in the medieval Piazza della Repubblica in Pontremoli, Italy. Her new book, The Burgess Boys, was published in 2013.
Strout is married to former Maine Attorney General James Tierney, who currently serves as the Director of the National State Attorney General Program at Columbia Law School. She divides her time between New York and Maine. (From Wikipedia.)
Extras
From a 2006 Barnes & Noble interview:
• My first job was when I was about 12, cleaning houses in the afternoons for different elderly women in town. I hated it. I would be so bored scrubbing at some kitchen tile, that my mind would finally float all over the place, to the beach, to a friend's house...all this happened in my mind as I scrubbed those tiles, so it was certainly good for my imagination. But I did hate it."
• Without a doubt my mother was an inspiration for my writing. This is true in many ways, but mostly because she is a wonderful storyteller, without even knowing it. I would listen, as a child, when some friend of hers came to visit, and they would gossip about the different people they knew. My mother had the most fascinating stories about people's families, murderers, mental illnesses, babies abandoned, and she delivered it all in a matter-of-fact way that was terribly compelling. It made me believe that there was nothing more interesting than the lives of people, their real hidden lives, and this of course can lead one down the path of becoming a fiction writer.
• Later, in college, one of my favorite things was to go into town and sit at the counter at Woolworth's (so tragic to have them gone!) and listen to people talking; the waitresses and the customers — I loved it. I still love to eavesdrop, but mostly I like the idea of being around people who are right in the middle of their lives, revealing certain details to each other — leaving the rest for me to make up.
• I love theater. I love sitting in an audience and having the actors right there, playing out what it means to be a human being. There is something about the actual relationship that is going on between the audience and the actors that I just love. I love seeing the sets and costumes, the decisions that have been made about the staging...it's a place for the eye and the ear to be fully involved. I have always loved theater."
• I also like cell phones. What I mean by that is I hear many people complain about cell phones; they can't go anywhere without hearing someone on a cell phone, etc. But I love that chance to hear half a conversation, even if the person is just saying, ‘Hi honey, I'll be home in ten minutes, do you want me to bring some milk?' And I'm also grateful to have a cell phone, just to know it's there if I need it when I'm out and about. So I'm a cell phone fan.
• I don't especially like to travel, not the way many people do. I know many people that love to go to far-off and different places, and I've never been like that. I seem to get homesick as quickly as a child. I may like being in some new place for a few days, but then I want to go home and return to my routine and my familiar corner stores. I am a real creature of habit, without a doubt.
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, she answered:
Perhaps the book that had the greatest influence on my career as a writer was The Journals of John Cheever. Of course many, many books had influenced me before I read that, but there was something about the honesty found in Cheever's journals that gave me courage as a writer. And his ability to turn a phrase, to describe in a breath the beauty of a rainstorm or the fog rising off the river... all this arrived in my life as a writer at a time when I seemed ready to absorb his examples of what a sentence can do when written with the integrity of emotion and felicity of language.
Book Reviews
I was captivated by her compassion. Her characters, always, are flawed. They embarrass themselves. They do terrible, terrible things. They occasionally get caught. And, yet, Strout sits beside them to hear their stories. To understand how they got there. To give them a voice.… Run to your local independent bookstore, or wherever it is you buy books, and try not to fall victim to “the most common complaint of all,” which Strout identifies as, "Life had simply not been what she thought it would be." READ MORE …
Abby Fabiaschi - LiLovers
In Elizabeth Strout’s Anything Is Possible, her stunning follow-up to My Name Is Lucy Barton, a famous author returns to the Midwestern hometown of her childhood, touching off a daisy-chain of stories narrated by those who knew her—memories of trauma and goodwill, resentments small and large, and the ever-widening gulf between haves and have-nots. Strout, always good, just keeps getting better.
Vogue
If you miss the charmingly eccentric and completely relatable characters from Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout’s best-selling My Name Is Lucy Barton, you’ll be happily reunited with them in Strout’s smart and soulful Anything Is Possible.
Elle
(Starred review.) [M]asterful storytelling. Damaged lives can be redeemed but, as [Strout] eloquently demonstrates in this powerful, sometimes shocking, often emotionally wrenching novel, the emotional scars can last forever.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) With her latest work, Pulitzer Prize winner Strout (for Olive Kitteridge) crafts a deep and complex inside view of the hearts and minds of individuals who make up a community. —Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [R]adiant.… The epic scope within seemingly modest confines recalls Strout's Pulitzer Prize winner, Olive Kitteridge, and her ability to discern vulnerabilities buried beneath bad behavior is as acute as ever. Another powerful examination of painfully human ambiguities and ambivalences.
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.)
top of page (summary)