The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women
Kate Moore, 2016 (2017, U.S.A.)
Source Books
4496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781492649359
Summary
The incredible true story of the women who fought America's Undark danger
The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.
Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive — until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.
But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.
Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Kate Moore is a the author of The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women (UK title, The Radium Girls: They Paid with Their Lives. Their Final Fight Was for Justice).
Prior to becoming a writer, Moore worked for 12 years in publishing, as an editorial director for Penguin Random House. In 2014 she turned to freelance—ghostwriting memoir, biography, and history.
It was in 2015, while directing a London version of the play, These Shining Lives, the story of women in Ottowa, Canada, who worked with radium, that Moore realized no account of the tragedy existed from the perspective of the women. That led her to conduct her own research and eventually write The Radium Girls. (Adapted from the publisher and Goodreads.)
Book Reviews
[A] fascinating social history—one that significantly reflects on the class and gender of those involved [is] Catherine Cookson meets Mad Men.…The importance of the brave and blighted dial-painters cannot be overstated.
Sunday Times (UK)
Kate Moore…writes with a sense of drama that carries one through the serpentine twists and turns of this tragic but ultimately uplifting story. She sees the trees for the wood: always at the center of her narrative are the individual dial painters, so the list of their names at the start of the book becomes a register of familiar, endearing ghosts
Spectator (UK)
In this thrilling and carefully crafted book, Kate Moore tells the shocking story of how early 20th-century corporate and legal America set about silencing dozens of working-class women who had been systematically poisoned by radiation.… Moore [writes] so lyrically (Five stars).
Mail on Sunday (UK)
Radium Girls spares us nothing of their suffering; though at times the foreshadowing reads more like a true-crime story, Moore is intent on making the reader viscerally understand the pain in which these young women were living, and through which they had to fight in order to get their problems recognized.…The story of real women at the mercy of businesses who see them only as a potential risk to the bottom line is haunting precisely because of how little has changed; the glowing ghosts of the radium girls haunt us still.
NPR Books
A perfect blend of the historical, the scientific, and the personal, this richly detailed book sheds a whole new light on this unique element and the role it played in changing workers' rights. The Radium Girls makes it impossible for you to ignore these women's incredible stories, and proves why, now more than ever, we can't afford to ignore science, either.
Bustle
In giving voice to so many victims, Moore overburdens the story line…[yet she] details what was a “ground-breaking…accomplishment” for worker’s rights.… [A]n emotionally charged…long, sad book.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Moore's well-researched narrative is written with clarity and a sympathetic voice that brings these figures and their struggles to life…a must-read for anyone interested in American and women's history, as well as topics of law, health, and industrial safety.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) This timely book celebrates the strength of a group of women, whose determination to fight improved both labor laws and scientific knowledge of radium poisoning. Written in a highly readable, narrative style, Moore's chronicle of these inspirational women's lives is sure to provoke discussion-and outrage-in book groups.
Booklist
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Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Radium Girls…then take off on your own:
1. Trace the emotional trajectory of the women who worked with radium paint—from their initial excitement about their jobs to their realization that it was killing them.
2. What do you find most horrifying about the suffering the women endured as their health deteriorated? Was this too difficult to read? Or did you get through it?
3. Talk about the response of the United States Radium Corporation to the women's complaints—how much did it truly understood about the hazards of radium? What arguments did the company enlist against the health claims of the women?
4. What most outraged you about the treatment the women received? The dentist who approached the company for hush money, for instance? What else?
5. To what extent do today's laws offer workers protection against hazardous materials and other dangers in the workplace? Consider OSHA, for instance. How far have we come? What relevance does this story have in the 21st century?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Baker's Secret
Stephen P. Kiernan, 2017
HarperCollins
350 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062369581
Summary
From the multiple-award-winning, critically acclaimed author of The Hummingbird and The Curiosity comes a dazzling novel of World War II—a shimmering tale of courage, determination, optimism, and the resilience of the human spirit, set in a small Normandy village on the eve of D-Day.
On June 5, 1944, as dawn rises over a small town on the Normandy coast of France, Emmanuelle is making the bread that has sustained her fellow villagers in the dark days since the Germans invaded her country.
Only twenty-two, Emma learned to bake at the side of a master, Ezra Kuchen, the village baker since before she was born. Apprenticed to Ezra at thirteen, Emma watched with shame and anger as her kind mentor was forced to wear the six-pointed yellow star on his clothing. She was likewise powerless to help when they pulled Ezra from his shop at gunpoint, the first of many villagers stolen away and never seen again.
In the years that her sleepy coastal village has suffered under the enemy, Emma has silently, stealthily fought back. Each day, she receives an extra ration of flour to bake a dozen baguettes for the occupying troops. And each day, she mixes that precious flour with ground straw to create enough dough for two extra loaves—contraband bread she shares with the hungry villagers. Under the cold, watchful eyes of armed soldiers, she builds a clandestine network of barter and trade that she and the villagers use to thwart their occupiers.
But her gift to the village is more than these few crusty loaves. Emma gives the people a taste of hope—the faith that one day the Allies will arrive to save them. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1960
• Where—Newtonville, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Middlebury College; M..A. Johns Hopkins; M.F.A. Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Awards—George Polk Award; Scripps Howard Award (both for journalism)
• Currently—lives in Charlotte, Vermont
Stephen P. Kiernan is a journalist and author of five books: two nonfiction and three novels. He was born in Newtonville, New York, the sixth of seven children. He received his B.A. in 1982 from Middlebury College, his M.A. from Johns Hopkins University, and his M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Kiernan has worked for more that 20 years as a journalist for the Burlington Free Press, Boston Globe, and AARP, among others. Those years have garnered him 40 awards, including the Gerald Loeb Award for financial journalism, the George Polk Award for medical reporting, and the Associated Press Managing Editors’ Freedom of Information Award. Stephan has also taught at Middlebury College and the New England Young Writer’s conference.
In much of his journalism and his nonfiction books Kiernan has become an advocate for health care, including hospice, palliative care, and advanced directives. His 2006 book, Last Rights: Rescuing the End of Life from the Medical System, was written in the hopes of changing how people faced mortality. His 2010 work, Authentic Patriotism: Restoring America's Founding Ideals Through Selfless Action, championed the benefits, personal and societal, of greater civic engagement.
Keiernan turned to fiction in 2013 with The Curiosity. In 2015 he released The Hummingbird, and in 2017, The Baker's Secret. In addition to his writing, he has also performed on the guitar for many years. In addition to recording 3 CDs of solo instrumentals, he has composed music for dance, the stage, documentaries and TV specials. He lives in Charlotte, Vermont, with his two sons.
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) This moving and thought-provoking work of historical fiction will be popular with lovers of other recently popular World War II novels such as Anthony Doerr's All the Light We Cannot See and Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale. —Elizabeth Safford, Boxford Town Lib., MA
Library Journal
hile Europe awaits liberation from Hitler’s troops, one small Normandy village is held together by the resourcefulness of a 22-year-old woman with a talent for baguettes.… Evoking a not exactly unfamiliar chapter of 20th-century history, Kiernan succeeds in engagement but not much originality.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're made available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Baker's Secret…then take off on your own:
1. Out of the many, many books about World War II, is there anything in this onr that stands out—the character of Emma, perhaps? The treatment of the townspeople by the Nazi's?
2. What do you think of Emma? In what way is she an unlikely heroine? What skills does she possess that end up making her so effective as a resister? Would any of us have been so brave?
3. Talk about the other characters—Monkey Boy, Guillaume, Uncle Ezra, and the Monsignor—and the roles they played. Any favorites?
4. Vergers is a small village, where everyone knows everyone else and is aware of all the comings and goings. Is that closeness a boon or a danger to those involved in undermining the Nazis?
5. What about Michelle and her love affair with the German soldier? Was the price she paid fair…or too steep?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online of off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Goodbye Days
Jeff Zentner, 2017
Random House
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780553524062
Summary
Goodbye Days asks what you would do if you could spend one last day with someone you lost.
Where are you guys? Text me back. That's the last message Carver Briggs will ever send his three best friends, Mars, Eli, and Blake. He never thought that it would lead to their death.
Now Carver can’t stop blaming himself for the accident and even worse, a powerful judge is pressuring the district attorney to open up a criminal investigation.
Luckily, Carver has some unexpected allies: Eli’s girlfriend, the only person to stand by him at school; Dr. Mendez, his new therapist; and Blake’s grandmother, who asks Carver to spend a “goodbye day” together to share their memories and say a proper farewell.
Soon the other families are asking for their own goodbye day with Carver—but he’s unsure of their motives. Will they all be able to make peace with their losses, or will these goodbye days bring Carver one step closer to a complete breakdown or—even worse—prison? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Asheville, North Carolina, USA
• Education—J.D., Vanderbilt University
• Awards—William C. Morris from the American Library Assn.
• Currently—lives in Nashville, Tennessee
Before Jeff Zentner became an author, he was a guitarist-singer-songwriter. Before that he was a lawyer, in fact, an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Tennessee. He earned his JD degree from Vanderbilt in 2006 and tried cases for the state for a number of years. He also put in time as an adjunct professor at the University of North Carolina-Asheville.
Although he didn't pick up the guitar until he was 21, it was music and songwriting that became his passions. In the early 2000s he joined a band called Creech Holler, and although it received good reviews, the group eventually broke up. At that point, Zentner cut his own solo albums, releasing five CDs on his own. He also appeared on recordings with Iggy Pop, Nick Cave, Warren Ellis, Thurston Moore, Debbie Harry, Mark Lanegan, and Lydia Lunch, among others.
Then, while volunteering as a guitar teacher for the Tennessee Teen Rock Camp and the Southern Girls Rock Camp, he was inspired by the young people he worked with to try something different. As he explained it to BookPage:
Working with these amazing teens…showed me how young people cling to the art they love and are willing to wear their hearts on their sleeves and be vulnerable for it. The art you love as a young person is so formative. I wanted to create art for that audience.… I would say that volunteering at Rock Camp made me want to write about kids who are creators—musicians, specifically.
Realizing, as he told the Washington Post that he "was never that technically skilled as a musician" to be successful, he decided to try writing novels instead of songs.
His foray into fiction came in 2016 with his novel, The Serpent King, which received rave reviews and won the William C. Morris Award from the American Library Association. The book land on the "Best of 2016" list of seemly every book review media outlet. He followed his debut with a second book, Goodbye Days, in 2017.
Zentner lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and son. (Adapted from various online sources. Retrieved 5/3/2017.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) From the opening line, Zentner expertly channels Carver’s distinctive voice as a 17-year-old.… Flashbacks and daydreams capture the jovial spirit of…shenanigans interspersed with poignant admissions only best friends would share. Racial tensions, spoiled reputations, and broken homes all play roles in an often raw meditation on grief (Ages 14–up).
Publishers Weekly
Although sprinkled with lighter stories of the friends in happier times, this is a weighty, well-crafted novel…explor[ing] the somber and complex realities of life, especially responsibility, fractured relationships, and the butterfly effect of consequences (Grades 9-up). —Emily Moore, Camden County Library System, NJ
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) Zentner does an excellent job in creating empathetic characters, especially his protagonist Carver, a budding writer whose first-person account of his plight is artful evidence of his talent.
Booklist
Zentner's novel peels back the many layers of feeling that Carver experiences as he deals with his family, the families of his friends, and school, the present-tense narration putting readers directly in Carver's head. However,…his voice is at times too adult…. Still, it is a novel full of wisdom…. A fine cautionary tale and journey toward wisdom, poignant and realistic (Ages 14-18).
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Goodbye Days…then take off on your own:
1. What was your experience reading Goodbye Days? Does the humor in the story help leaven the book for you? Or is it simply too sad, even grim, to read?
1. How culpable, legally, is Carver for the death of his three friends?
3. When Blake's grandmother explains the concept of goodbye to Carver she says: "Funny how people move through this world leaving little pieces of their story with the people they meet… Makes you wonder what'd happen if all those people put their puzzle pieces together." Explain what she means by that observation. Do you feel that you have left pieces of yourself with others—friends and family? Does that mean you're a different person to different people? Does it imply there is no true you? Or what?
4. What do you think of Carver? What are the ways he must try to adjust to life after the accident, to cope not just with his sense of guilt but also with his loneliness and grief? He describes himself as "a beach in November." What would that feel like?
5. Carver talks about waking up after a dream, crying "because your shot at redemption is another thing you’ve lost. And you’re tired of losing things." Why is redemption so difficult? Is redemption real or is it an emotional-psychological state? Does someone confer redemption?
6. What role do Jesmyn, Georgia, and the rest of his family play in Carver's recovery process?
7. What does Carver come to know and understand by the end of the book—about himself and his friends? How has he grown?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Ill Will
Dan Chaon, 2017
Random House
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345476043
Summary
"We are always telling a story to ourselves, about ourselves." This is one of the little mantras Dustin Tillman likes to share with his patients, and it’s meant to be reassuring. But what if that story is a lie?
A psychologist in suburban Cleveland, Dustin is drifting through his forties when he hears the news: His adopted brother, Rusty, is being released from prison.
Thirty years ago, Rusty received a life sentence for the massacre of Dustin’s parents, aunt, and uncle. The trial came to epitomize the 1980s hysteria over Satanic cults; despite the lack of physical evidence, the jury believed the outlandish accusations Dustin and his cousin made against Rusty.
Now, after DNA analysis has overturned the conviction, Dustin braces for a reckoning.
Meanwhile, one of Dustin’s patients has been plying him with stories of the drowning deaths of a string of drunk college boys. At first Dustin dismisses his patient's suggestions that a serial killer is at work as paranoid thinking, but as the two embark on an amateur investigation, Dustin starts to believe that there’s more to the deaths than coincidence. Soon he becomes obsessed, crossing all professional boundaries—and putting his own family in harm’s way.
From one of today’s most renowned practitioners of literary suspense, Ill Will is an intimate thriller about the failures of memory and the perils of self-deception. In Dan Chaon’s nimble, chilling prose, the past looms over the present, turning each into a haunted place. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Raised—Sidney, Nebraska, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Syracuse University
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; O'Henry Award; Academy Award in Literature-American Academy of Arts & Letters
• Currently—lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Dan Chaon (pronounced "Shawn") is the acclaimed author of Fitting Ends and Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award, which was also listed as one of the ten best books of the year by the American Library Association, Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, and Entertainment Weekly, as well as being cited as a New York Times Notable Book.
Chaon’s fiction has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and won both Pushcart and O. Henry awards. Chaon teaches at Oberlin College and lives in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, with his wife and two sons. (From the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
In his haunting, strikingly original new novel, Ill Will, Chaon takes formidable risks, dismantling his timeline like a film editor and building the narrative with short, urgent chapters told from a few key perspectives. Intentionally fragmented, the structure echoes the illusive patterns of memory, how life-changing events return to us over long periods of time in vivid scraps and can be tweaked or embellished depending on where our lives are when we remember them…Here is a writer who doesn't shy away from difficult, confusing subjects or the troubling feelings that result. He also doesn't shy away from plot…I read the concluding sections with increasing horror; the ending, twisting in [Chaon's] assured hands like a Rubik's Cube, is at once predictable and harrowing.
Elizabeth Brundage - New York Times Book Review
Outstanding.… Following writers like Richard Matheson and Shirley Jackson, Dan Chaon writes in the spooky tradition of suburban gothic.… An unreliable narrator can often feel like a cheap trick in the novelist’s playbook, but Mr. Chaon employs it masterfully, integrating unreliability into the book’s very typography.… Mr. Chaon’s writing is cool and precise, but his story is thrillingly unstable. It also boasts, at the end, a traditional horror-novel payoff I didn’t see coming—Stephen King couldn’t have done it better.
Wall Street Journal
If you’re up for being caught in a seamy heartland underbelly of fear, superstition, and paranoia, with side excursions through urban legend and recovered-memory hysteria, Ill Will is your book.… Chaon’s powers of description are impressive.… His knack for leaving sentences tellingly unfinished and thoughts menacingly incomplete.…is perfect.
Boston Globe
The scariest novel of the year…ingenious.… By now we should all be on guard against Dan Chaon, but there’s just no effective defense against this cunning writer. The author of three novels and three collections of short stories, he draws on our sympathies even while pricking our anxieties. Before beginning his exceptionally unnerving new book, go ahead and lock the door, but it won’t help. You’ll still be stuck inside yourself, which for Chaon is the most precarious place to be.… There’s something irresistibly creepy about this story, which stems from the thrill of venturing into illicit places of the mind.… Chaon’s novel walks along a garrote stretched taut between Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock. By the time we realize what’s happening, we’ve gone too far to turn back. We can only inch forward into the darkness, bracing for what might come next.
Washington Post
Powerfully unsettling.… A ranking master among neo-pulp stylists, Chaon adds to the book’s disorienting effects by playing with the physical text. Some chapters take the form of parallel columns, two or three to a page. White spaces and uneven alignments push words, sentences—and thoughts—apart.… While such touches underscore the author’s playful approach, the writerly stagecraft keeps the reader off guard and sometimes on edge, in a kind of altered cognitive state. There’s a lot going on under the surface of Ill Will—more than one reading will reveal. Going back and reading this oddly compelling book again will only provide more pleasure.
Chicago Tribune
Terrifically eerie.… The thriller transcends its genre to become a fascinating study in generational trauma.… Too few writers prize atmosphere as much as narrative tautness. With Ill Will, Chaon succeeds at delivering both.
Dallas Morning News
Powerful.… Chaon is one of America’s best and most dependable writers, and in the end, Ill Will is a ruthlessly "realistic" piece of fiction about the unrealistic beliefs people entertain about their world.
Los Angeles Times
Spanning more than thirty years, this intriguing novel about a tightly wired criminal psychologist with a murky past has the tension of a thriller plus the emotional release of justice finally served.
Oprah Magazine
One of the best thrillers I’ve encountered in a very, very long time, Dan Chaon’s latest novel will chill you to the bone and keep you guessing at every turn.
Newsweek
Reading a truly terrifying novel can make you feel like you’re drowning: As much as you may want to surface and catch your breath, the plot holds you in its grip.… As Chaon moves nimbly between viewpoints, calling memories and relationships into question, a powerful undercurrent of dread begins to form beneath the story, slowly but inexorably pulling you under.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review.) For this exceptional and emotionally wrenching novel, Chaon plants the seeds of new manias into the hard, unforgiving ground that will be familiar to his readers.… With impressive skill, across multiple narratives that twine, fracture, and reset, Chaon expertly realizes his singular vision of American dread.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [I]ntensely readable and shadowy.… In this creepy yet fascinating work, with a bleak Ohio wintery landscape as backdrop, Chaon creates a world of tragedy, disease, and drug abuse right out of today's news and makes it real while keeping readers guessing on many levels. —James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.
Library Journal
Chaon has created another of those twilight realms of which he is an indisputable master. The book’s characters plumb the depths of deception and surpass all established measures of instability and dysfunction.… Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Shirley Jackson, Peter Straub, etc.…have a worthy heir in Dan Chaon
Booklist
(Starred review.) A dark genre-bending thriller.… Chaon also plays with form,…[but his] rhetorical somersaulting doesn't interfere with the main narrative, and though the novel at times feels baggy,…overall Chaon has mastered multiple psychologically complex and often fearsome characters.
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.)
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Edgar and Lucy
Victor Lodato, 2017
St. Martin's Press
544 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250096982
Summary
Edgar and Lucy is a page-turning literary masterpiece, a stunning examination of family love and betrayal.
Eight-year-old Edgar Fini remembers nothing of the accident people still whisper about. He only knows that his father is gone, his mother has a limp, and his grandmother believes in ghosts.
When Edgar meets a man with his own tragic story, the boy begins a journey into a secret wilderness where nothing is clear?not even the line between the living and the dead.
In order to save her son, Lucy has no choice but to confront the demons of her past.
Profound, shocking, and beautiful, Edgar and Lucy is a thrilling adventure and the unlikeliest of love stories. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Victor Lodato is am American playwright and novelist. His 2009 book, Mathilda Savitch was deemed a "Best Book of the Year" by the Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, and Globe and Mail. The novel won the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, and has been published in sixteen countries. His second novel, Edgar and Lucy was published in 2017.
His short fiction and essays have been published in The New Yorker, New York Times, and Best American Short Stories. Victor was born and raised in New Jersey, and currently divides his time between Ashland, Oregon and Tucson, Arizona. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[Lodato's] captivating debut novel, Mathilda Savitch, featured the 13-year-old heroine of the title as its fierce, brokenhearted narrator. In Edgar and Lucy, he switches things up a bit. Grief is still the heart of the matter here, but Lodato is working in a broader register that includes other, mostly adult, points of view. Still, he repeats the impressive trick of creating a character so peculiar, vivid and appealing (think of Owen Meany minus the messianic complex) that Edgar becomes this ambitious novel's enduring reward…On every page, Lodato's prose sings with a robust, openhearted wit, making Edgar and Lucy a delight to read.… What makes this disquieting exploration of love and mourning bearable is that Lodato works from a place of compassion. Even in the darkest moments, when his characters are being their worst selves, Lodato bathes them in tenderness and understanding.
Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - New York Times Book Review
Wonder-filled and magisterial.… Lodato's skill as a poet manifests itself on every page, delighting with such elegant similes and incisive descriptions…His skill as a playwright shines in every piece of dialogue.… And his skill as a fiction writer displays itself in his virtuoso command of point of view. The book pushes the boundaries of beauty.
Chicago Tribune
Edgar isn't like other boys and Lucy isn't like other moms, but grandma Florence keeps them tied to reality. And then their lives take a sharp turn.… This otherworldly tale will haunt you
People
A stunningly rendered novel.
Entertainment Weekly
The novel has the plot of a much briefer book, and, while some readers may revel in its rich description, others will find it self-indulgent. Secondary characters come across as more quirky than credible, and the introduction of the point of view of a ghostly character disrupts the flow of the narrative.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Flirting with danger on many fronts, this second novel from the author of the award-winning Mathilda Savitch is perceptive, compassionate, and humorous, drawing readers into the lives of these quirky yet recognizable and sympathetic characters. —James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.
Library Journal
[C]haracters hurtle toward a climax that begins to defy plausibility—the author ties things up with a jarring change in voice at the end—but readers who make it that far are apt to be enraptured already. A domestic fable about grief and redemption likely to leave readers emotionally threadbare.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The author considers this book “a love story.” Would you agree? If so, what are the various love stories represented? How would you define each of them? As triumphs or tragedies?
2. Look at the epigraphs throughout the book. Read them again and discuss how they relate to that particular part of the novel.
3. Think about Edgar’s relationships with the two women in his life. Does his extremely close bond to his grandmother Florence seem healthy, or problematic? As for Lucy: What do you think of her as a mother? Is she doing the best she can? Do you feel differently about her by the end of the book?
4. Think about the element of grief in this book. How does it affect the characters’ lives? How does it affect their decisions—and, ultimately, their fates?
5. Consider Edgar’s relationship with Conrad. What did you think, at first? Did your feelings change by the end of the book?
6. (SPOILER ALERT) Does Edgar run away from home, or is he kidnapped?
7. The author has referred to this book as “a New Jersey gothic.” Would you agree? If so, discuss the gothic elements in the novel. For instance: Do the characters have a complicated relationship to the past? Is there a sense of the past as a malignant influence? Do you think the dilapidated Fini house at 21 Cressida Drive or the cabin in the Pine Barrens could serve as updated version of the haunted or ruined castle of gothic literature?
8. Think about Lucy and Frank’s romance. Why do you think they were so drawn to each other? What is your opinion of Frank? What is his illness, exactly?
9. (SPOILER ALERT) What do you think of Edgar’s decision to return to the Pine Barrens? Why does he do it? How is he different when he’s finally reunited with his family.
10. How do you think the moments of comedy add to the storytelling?
11. (SPOILER ALERT) Discuss the reunion between Edgar and Lucy at the end of the novel. Why do they not go to each other immediately at the police station? What do they communicate to each other without words?
12. Consider Edgar’s personality: his shyness; his odd habits, such as hiding in tight spaces; his propensity for magical thinking. Do you think the doctor who suggests he might be “borderline autistic” is correct—or do you think something else is going on?
13. Discuss Edgar’s albinism. How does it affect his character? And what do you think is going on when his skin changes color after the fire—and then becomes white again at the end of the story?
14. Why do you think Conrad risks the closed world he’s built with Edgar to take him out to the cafe for pie?
15. How much sympathy (or lack thereof) do you have for Conrad?
16. Who really rescues Edgar from the fire—Conrad or Florence? Discuss the spiritual aspects of the book, including the idea of afterlife and/or limbo. Is the medium, Maria di Mariangela, fake or real? What about Florence’s ghost?
17. Why do you think the narration changes from third to first person toward the end? Who is really telling this story?
18. Think of all the secondary characters, such as Henry and Netty Schlip, Honey Fasinga, Thomas Pittimore, Jarell Lester, Jimmy Papadakis. What does Edgar’s disappearance mean to them? Does it reflect things from their own lives, their own sadnesses and longings? What is each person really looking for?
19. The author was born and raised in New Jersey. What did you think of his portrayal of the state and its inhabitants? Did you know much about the Pine Barrens before reading the book? Did you know the myth of the Jersey Devil?
20. Throughout the book, there are numerous descriptions of tunnels and water: Pio in the Lincoln Tunnel, the tunnels and aquifers under the Pine Barrens, Frank’s submerged car below Shepherd’s junction, even the waters of Consolidated Laundry where Florence worked. What do these waters and tunnels signify?
21. Did Edgar have three fathers: Frank, Conrad, and the butcher? Or no father?
22. Discuss the unfinished carving on the tree: Edgar loves… What is the meaning of this unfinished epitaph?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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