Sparta
Roxana Robinson, 2013
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374267704
Summary
Giving voice to one of the most crucial issues of our time, the acclaimed novelist Roxana Robinson has created a portrait of the walking wounded among America’s veterans—soldiers who have no physical scars but who cannot overcome the emotional traumas of Operation Iraqi Freedom and its otherworldly horrors.
In Sparta, Conrad Farrell’s family has no military heritage, but as a classics major at Williams College, Conrad is drawn to the Marine Corps ethic: “Semper Fidelis” came straight from the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, where every citizen doubled as a full-time soldier. After college, Conrad joins the Marines and is deployed to Iraq at the height of U.S. attempts to democratize a nation overrun by brutal factions.
Returning home to New York’s Westchester County after four years of honorable service, Conrad appears to be in perfect shape: he hasn’t been shot, he was never wounded by an IED, and he sticks to a tough workout routine. As strong as he is, it’s soon apparent that the transition from war to peace may destroy him.
As he attempts to reconnect with the people and places he once loved, he is haunted by psychological demons. The survival tactics that brought him home safely are now his worst enemy, winding his psyche into a taut knot of fear and guilt. Picturing dangers and destruction at every turn while questioning the value of his mission in Iraq, he tries to navigate a homeland that no longer feels like home to him.
He longs for help—from his family, his girlfriend, his fellow troops, the VA—but each attempt to reach out ends disastrously. Capturing the nuances of the unique estrangement that modern soldiers face as they attempt to rejoin the society they’ve fought for, Sparta is a powerful testament to the moral consequences of war, for civilians and soldiers alike. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Pine Mountain, Kentucky, USA
• Raised—New Hope, Pennsylvania
• Education—B.A., University of Michigan
• Currently—lives in New York City
Roxana Robinson is an American novelist and biographer whose fiction explores the complexity of familial bonds and fault lines. Her 2013 novel, Sparta, was published to wide acclaim, and her 2008 novel, Cost, was named one of the Five Best Novels of the Year by the Washington Post. She is also the author of Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life, and has written widely on American art and issues pertaining to ecology and the environment.
Life and Work
Robinson was born in Pine Mountain, Kentucky, and raised in New Hope, Pennsylvania, the child of educators and the great-great-granddaughter of social reformer Henry Ward Beecher. She graduated from Buckingham Friends School, in Lahaska, and from The Shipley School, in Bryn Mawr. She studied writing at Bennington College with Bernard Malamud and received a B.A. degree in English Literature from the University of Michigan. She worked in the American painting department at Sotheby's and wrote about American art until she began to successfully publish short fiction in the 1980s.
Equally skilled in both long and short form fiction, Robinson is the author of several novels, three story collections and a biography. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Atlantic, and Best American Short Stories, and been widely anthologized and broadcast on National Public Radio. Four of her works have been chosen as Notable Books of the Year by the New York Times, and Cost won the Maine Fiction Award and was long-listed for the Dublin Impac Prize for Fiction. She was named a Literary Lion by the New York Public Library, and currently serves on the board of PEN American Center and the Authors Guild. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, and the Guggenheim Foundation.
Robinson has taught at Wesleyan University, the University of Houston and at the New School. Since 1997, she has taught at the Wesleyan Writers’ Conference, and is currently teaching in the Hunter College MFA Program.
Robinson is also a biographer and scholar of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American art. Her articles have appeared in Arts, ARTnews, and Art & Antiques, as well as in exhibition catalogues for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Katonah Museum of Art and others. Her biography of Georgia O'Keeffe was deemed by Calvin Tomkins, of The New Yorker, "without question the best book written about O'Keeffe,” and named a New York Times Notable Book. Robinson lectures frequently on Georgia O'Keeffe, and appeared in the BBC documentary on the artist.
She reviews books for the New York Times and Washington Post, and her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Harper's, Vogue, Real Simple, and More. She has also written about travel for the New York Times, Travel and Leisure, and elsewhere.
Robinson is passionate about environmental concerns, explored in her novel Sweetwater, and has published numerous op-eds in the Boston Globe, International Herald Tribune, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. She has also been a guest blogger for the National Resource Defense Council. She also writes about gardening for publications such as House and Garden, Horticulture, and Fine Gardening. Her garden is listed in the Garden Conservancy Open Days, and has been written about in the New York Times, House and Garden, Traditional Homes, Atlantic, and Gardens Illustrated. She serves on the council of the Maine Coast Heritage Trust, which promotes the conservation of natural places statewide.
She lives in New York, Maine and Connecticut with her husband. Her daughter is a painter whose work appeared on both the hardcover and paperback editions of Cost.
Critical Reception
Hailed as “one of our best writers” by Jonathan Yardley of the Washington Post, and “John Cheever’s heir apparent” by the New York Times Book Review, Robinson has also been said, by Time, to be in the “august company” of Edith Wharton, Louis Auchincloss and Henry James.
With Cost, Robinson moved into a larger arena, and, as critic Ron Charles of the Washington Post has said, she “has crept into corners of human experience [that] each of us is terrified to approach ... the implacable tragedies that shred our sense of how the world should work.” In a New York Times interview on the extensive research she did, Robinson said, “Cost has a larger reach than my previous books, both in terms of emotional risk and experience. Alzheimer's and heroin addiction are things I found both very threatening and compelling. They seemed like things I needed to explore."
Spotlighted for her short fiction in the New York Times Book Review, Robinson compared writing a story to
like doing a cliff dive, the kind that only works when the wave hits just right. You stand on top, poised and fearful, looking at what lies below: you must start your dive when the wave has withdrawn, and there's nothing beneath you but sand and stone. You take a deep breath and throw yourself over, hoping that, by the time you hit, the wave will be back, wild and churning, and full of boiling energy. It's kind of terrifying. It's unbelievably fun.
Robinson has written introductions to The Best Early Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Matter of Prejudice and Other Stories by Kate Chopin, and a forthcoming edition of the English novelist Elizabeth Taylor's A Game of Hide and Seek. She edited and wrote the introduction to The New York Stories of Edith Wharton, published by NYRB Classics, as well the introduction to Wharton’s The Old Maid: The Fifties, published by Modern Library Classics. Robinson was also a guest on the recent WAMC/Northeast Public Radio program “American Icons,” on which she discussed House of Mirth. She is also on the Advisory Council at The Mount, Wharton’s historic home in Lenox, Massachusetts.
Commenting on her affinity with Wharton, Robinson notes,
Wharton and I come from similar backgrounds. I grew up with the rules that governed her: emotions were to be strictly controlled, pain was not to be acknowledged, and the rules of decorum were to be obeyed. I’ve always been fascinated by her unblinking exegesis of all this, the way you are when someone breaks the rules, the way you are when you read something and think, “What? Are you allowed to write about this?” Wharton wrote about her world in a way that made it possible for me – and for all of us who come after her—to go into our own worlds still further, and to tease out the innermost reaches of pain and passion from the decorous woven fabric of our lives.
Her work is increasingly used for teaching purposes, and the University of Connecticut has taught a course called, “The Works of Roxana Robinson.”A. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/26/2013.)
Book Reviews
Pardon the pun, but Roxana Robinson's new novel, Sparta, which takes us deep inside the troubled head of a Marine returning from four years of active duty in Iraq, really is a tour de force.... Sparta is a novel with a mission—which in a lesser writer's hands could spell its doom. But Robinson manages to convey the difficulties of a warrior returning to society and dramatize how we fail our veterans without reducing her story to a polemic. She pulls this off by expertly deploying three literary weapons: emotional insight, moral nuance and intellectual depth.
Heller McAlpin - Washington Post
Both lyrical and unsentimental, richly honest and humane.
Wall Street Journal
An intelligent, sensitive analyst of family life.
Chicago Tribune
[After] four years of service in Iraq, [Conrad Farrell] finds coming back to his family in Westchester, N.Y., a disorienting experience.... Robinson brings us deep inside Conrad’s soul, and inside the suffocating despair and frustration that can stalk soldiers even when they are ostensibly out of harm’s way. By letting the reader live in Conrad’s skin, Robinson creates a moving chronicle of how we fail our returning troops.
Publishers Weekly
A Marine commander returns home from Iraq badly shaken in this novel...[and] slowly slips off the rails.... Robinson has convincingly summarized the wartime experience, but only rarely does it feel like she's made a full person out of Conrad, who has the distant feel of an Everyvet.... As Conrad's decline accelerates, Robinson hurries the pace of the closing chapters.... A well-intentioned but flawed exploration of an underdiscussed topic.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Explore the novel’s title. How does the description of Spartan life in chapter 4 compare to the life of a U.S. soldier in the twenty-first century? Why was Conrad drawn to classicism? Did he experience any of those ideals as a modern American warrior?
2. If you were in Claire’s position, how would you respond to Conrad’s homecoming? Ultimately, what does he need from her, and from all his loved ones? What makes it hard for him get his needs met without turning people away?
3. What are some of the differences between Marshall’s and Lydia’s approaches to their children? Despite her career as a successful therapist, why is Lydia mystified by Conrad’s symptoms, culminating in chapter 24, when she rejects his rage by telling him, “I can’t stand this. Con, you have to do something about this”?
4. How did Ali change Conrad’s perspective on privilege and political struggles? What common fears did they share?
5. As Conrad observes the dramatic changes in Go-Go’s value system, what does he discover about the way he and his friends have changed since graduation? Are we our true selves during our college years, or is that just an experimental phase? Do the demands of adulthood transform us into our true selves?
6. From chapter 5, where the factions of Fallujah are explained, what clarity did you gain? How did an American soldier’s duties in Iraq compare to those of armed forces in Vietnam and Korea?
7. While being with Jenny, what does Conrad discover about growing older and the changes that took place while he was away? As he walks familiar ground in Katonah and Manhattan, what has changed within him? What did his military service cost him?
8. What does Conrad’s heartrending experience with the VA and his session with Dr. Chandler reveal about the high suicide rates among U.S. soldiers and veterans? What would it take to fully fund psychiatric care in the military and rank it alongside weapons and armor in importance?
9. As Conrad remembers Carleton, Olivera, Anderson, and others, what emotions does he experience beyond guilt? How does his network of survivors cope with the seemingly trivial, naive nature of civilian life?
10. Everyone in Conrad’s world seems to have a purpose tied to meaningful work. Despite his damaged psyche, Conrad tries to find a new mission, enrolling in an economics class and forcing himself through the GMAT. How did his perception of a meaningful life radically change whenhe enlisted?
11. What truths are finally spoken at the end of chapter 24? How does the Farrells’ response to trauma compare to your family’s? Throughout the novel, Conrad told himself that he must keep certain truths from his family. Was he right?
12. What makes Conrad’s relationship with Ollie special? What is Ollie able to see and do that the other family members—and the VA clinician—can’t?
13. In what ways can fiction sometimes capture reality better than a history book? How did Conrad’s story affect your understanding of the challenges faced by veterans and the aftermath of modern warfare?
14. What themes of healing are woven throughout this and other fiction you’ve read by Roxana Robinson? What is both unique and universal about Conrad’s experience?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Instructions for a Heatwave
Maggie O'Farrell, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345804716
Summary
Sophisticated, intelligent, impossible to put down, Maggie O’Farrell’s beguiling novels blend richly textured psychological drama with page-turning suspense.
Instructions for a Heatwave finds Maggie O'Farrell at the top of her game, with a novel about a family crisis set during the legendary British heatwave of 1976.
- Gretta Riordan wakes on a stultifying July morning to find that her husband of forty years has gone to get the paper and vanished, cleaning out his bank account along the way.
- Gretta’s three grown children converge on their parents’ home for the first time in years: Michael Francis, a history teacher whose marriage is failing.
- Monica, with two stepdaughters who despise her and a blighted past that has driven away the younger sister she once adored.
- Aoife, the youngest, now living in Manhattan, a smart, immensely resourceful young woman who has arranged her entire life to conceal a devastating secret.
O’Farrell writes with exceptional grace and sensitivity about marriage, about the mysteries that inhere within families, and the fault lines over which we build our lives—the secrets we hide from the people who know and love us best.
In a novel that stretches from the heart of London to New York City’s Upper West Side to a remote village on the coast of Ireland, O’Farrell paints a bracing portrait of a family falling apart and coming together with hard-won, life-changing truths about who they really are. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Coleraine, Northern Ireland, UK
• Raised—Wales and Scotland, UK
• Education—Cambridge University
• Awards—Costa Award; Betty Trask Award; Somerset Maugham Award
• Currently—lives in London, England
Maggie O'Farrell is a British author of contemporary fiction, who was once featured in Waterstones' 25 Authors for the Future. It is possible to identify several common themes in her novels—the relationship between sisters is one, another is loss and the psychological impact of those losses on the lives of her characters.
The Vanishing Act Esme Lennox was published in 2007. In 2010 O'Farrell won the Costa novel award for The Hand That First Held Mine. Her 2013 novel, Instructions for a Heatwave, also received wide acclaim.
Maggie was born in Ireland and grew up in Wales and Scotland. At the age of eight she missed a year of school due to a viral infection, an event that is echoed in The Distance Between Us. Maggie worked as a journalist, both in Hong Kong and as the Deputy Literary Editor of The Independent on Sunday. She has also taught creative writing.
She is married to the novelist William Sutcliffe, whom she met at Cambridge. They live in Hampstead Heath, London, with their two children. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[O'Farrell] has made her mark by combining the elements of good old-fashioned drama—love affairs in the shadows, the reappearance of long-lost relatives, hidden wives—with a modern lightness of touch in language and a deft freedom in moving her narratives forward through juxtaposition rather than linear plotting. For the reader, this can feel like having one’s cake and eating it too. O’Farrell’s novels appeal to a broad audience, but they’re also smart and provocative. Over and over, they try to work out who people really are, how ordinary lives can conceal extraordinary stories.
Stacey D'Erasmo - New York Times Book Review
Riveting.... Finely drawn... Once again, O’Farrell demonstrates her mastery at depicting strained relationships, skewed family loyalties, and the just reachable light at the end of the tunnel.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Acutely observed…revelatory, redemptive, and moving…There is a deliciousness to this novel, a warmth and readability that render it unputdownable and will surely make it a hit. O’Farrell has done it again.
Joanna Briscoe - Guardian (UK)
An accomplished and addictive story told with real humanity, warmth, and infectious love for the characters. Highly recommended,
Viv Groskop - Observer (UK)
A literary event…evocative, articulate, and joyously readable…O’Farrell’s talent for drawing intriguing but relatable characters is eclipsed only by a rare gift for description that is almost photographic in its imagery…An author at the top of her game.
Charlotte Heathcote - Sunday Express (UK)
Humorous, humane, and perceptive…O’Farrell depicts relationships with piercing acuity in haunting, intense prose…a deliciously insightful writer…Her sharp but humane eye dissects every form of human interaction.
Leyla Sanai - Independent on Sunday (UK)
Elegant, lyrical, and subtle…O’Farell’s a compassionate writer, showing us every member of the family from a variety of viewpoints, ensuring that we understand and feel for every one of them even as they drive each other mad…The Riordans will stay in your mind long after you finish reading this book. They’re funny, infuriating, and impossible not to love. They feel like family.
Anna Carey - Irish Times (UK)
Thoroughly absorbing and beautifully written…A novel about what we say and what other people hear; about families; what we don’t tell each other and what we do; the compromises and accommodations we make and what happens when we build our lives around half-truths.
Victoria Moore - Daily Mail (UK)
A ripping yarn…A brilliant domestic drama that teeters on the edge of being a thriller; it’ll hook you in at the start and keep you dangling.
Katie Law - Evening Standard (UK)
O’Farrell is adept at creating pace out of the intricacies of family relations. She keeps the gas up on the Bunsen burner throughout...I felt that I gobbled this book.
Vicky Allan - Herald (UK)
A rich, barbed interplay among siblings, who gibe, snap, and snipe as they go through their father's things, slowly teasing out one another's long-buried secrets—and a few of Gretta’s and Robert’s, too.
Entertainment Weekly
When Gretta Riordan's husband, Robert, disappears during the 1976 London heatwave, her three grown children return home for the first time in years.... [T]he siblings and their mother are forced to confront old resentments which bubble to the surface. O'Farrell skillfully navigates between past and present.... An absorbing read from start to finish, through O'Farrell's vibrant prose, each character comes alive as more is revealed and the novel unfolds.
Publishers Weekly
During an infamous heat wave in 1976 London, Robert Riordan fails to return after heading out to buy a newspaper, and wife Gretta calls in her grown children for help. Multi-award-winning O'Farrell should be a household name here.
Library Journal
A beautiful portrait of family life. The story really blossoms in the second half . . . where the family’s secrets and private feuds come raging forth so that the true healing can begin.
Booklist
An Irish family saga, replete with secrets, rivalries, and misbehavior becomes a compelling and entertaining story in Maggie O’Farrell’s hands.... O’Farrell takes readers on journeys interior and exterior—recounted in flawless prose that will have you reading while strap-hanging, standing in line, or waiting at a stop light.
Shelf Awareness
A sometimes-brooding but always sympathetic novel, by prize-winning British writer O'Farrell, of a family's struggles to overlook the many reasons why they should avoid each other's glances and phone calls.... [N]o one's quite normal, which is exactly as it is with every family on Earth.... O'Farrell paints a knowing, affectionate, sometimes exasperated portrait of these beleaguered people, who are bound by love, if a sometimes-wary love, but torn apart by misunderstanding, just like all the rest of us. A skillfully written novel of manners, with quiet domestic drama spiced with fine comic moments. The payoff is priceless, too.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The weather referenced in the novel’s title refers to the setting but also takes on symbolic or metaphorical significance. O’Farrell writes that “strange weather brings out strange behavior.... [People] start behaving...not so much out of character but deep within it” (p. 103). What does she mean by this? Where do we see examples of this among the characters? How does the heat enhance or mirror the psychological drama of the story?
2. Consider the various examples of siblings in the story. What are their relationships like? Are there many similarities among their relationships? Are the siblings very alike as characters? What problems or tensions are evident among them, and what causes this?
3. In the opening scenes of the book, O’Farrell creates a sense of the routine and the mundane through a description of Gretta’s and Robert’s daily habits. It creates a sense of domesticity, but how does this sense of the routine also heighten the feeling of alarm over Robert’s disappearance and affect our reaction to the revelations at the story’s end?
4. When we are introduced to Michael Francis, we find him thinking that “[h]e is, for a moment, exactly the person he is meant to be..... There is no difference...between the way the world might see him and the person he privately knows himself to be” (p. 13). What does the author mean by this? Where do we find discrepancies in the book between who a character really is and who others see the character to be? What causes this dissonance?
5. Examine the various representations of family and family structures in the book. Are they very similar? What does this tell us about marriage and family? About the characters? Most of the characters are, or have been, married. What were their reasons for marrying? How is marriage represented in the story? Are these unions mostly successful? What makes them successful or not?
6. Why is Michael Francis so upset by his wife’s haircut and enrollment in history classes?
7. Pregnancy and birth are recurring subjects in the book; the loss that can be associated with them is also explored. Evaluate the scenes that portray pregnancy and birth: Gretta’s births, Monica’s loss, Michael Francis’s children, and Aoife’s pregnancy. What message does the novel seem to present about birth?
8. Whose fault is it that Monica’s secret was found out? How did Monica respond to the secret being revealed to her husband? What is your reaction?
9. The characters reflect throughout the book on various events from their childhoods. What were some of the more memorable events, or events that had the greatest impact on them? What do these revelations seem to indicate about the impact of the past and its relationship to the present?
10. Consider the various conflicts in the novel. There is the problem of Robert’s disappearance, but other conflicts also begin to surface. Are these conflicts resolved? If so, how? How does the larger conflict unite or divide the characters? How does each character respond to conflict?
11. Evaluate the structure of the book. How does it accommodate point of view? Does any single standpoint dominate the story? How does this affect our response to the characters and our interpretation of the story? How would our understanding of the story have been different if it was told in only one point of view?
12. Evaluate the style of the book. Is O’Farrell’s language simple or difficult or complex? What about the sentence structures? How does her style of writing work to create a sense of portraiture, albeit with words?
13. Analyze O’Farrell’s use of flashbacks as a literary device. The characters are constantly recalling moments and events from the past. This allows us to know the unknowable. What insight does it give us into the characters? What does we learn about subjects such as memory, history, and truth?
14. Gretta tries to “keep Ireland alive” (p. 6) through trips to Ireland, Mass and communion, her cooking, and other customs. How do her children respond to her efforts? How does the book create a portrait of the complexities of tradition versus modernity? The characters are all living in different places–different countries, even. What might this say about contemporary living and the modern family?
15. Consider the sense of time in the book. The story takes place over only a few days, yet we get a sense of the entire history of each character from childhood to the present day. How does O’Farrell accomplish this?
16. Evaluate disappearance and estrangement as themes of the novel. While Mr. Riordan’s disappearance takes center stage, instances of disappearance and escape are not limited to his character. What other examples do we find in the novel? What causes these disappearances? What causes the divisions between the characters that grow into estrangement? How could this be helped?
17. What secrets do the characters keep from one another? Is one more surprising than another? If so, why? How do the characters react to the revelation of one another’s secrets?
18. Is Aoife’s disability identified? Why or why not? How does her disability affect how other characters perceive her? How does it affect her life? Does anyone try to help? How does it influence readers’ perception of her character?
19. What does the novel tell us about tragedy and the ways in which we face tragedies? Does each character respond in the same way? Does the way that the characters deal with tragedy change throughout the story?
20. How does this novel compare to O’Farrell’s other works? What are some of the recurring themes? Is their treatment similar? Are there recurring character types or plotlines?
(Questions by the publisher.)
Closed Doors
Lisa O'Donnell, 2014
HarperCollins
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062271891
Summary
In this tense and brilliant tale, a young boy on a small Scottish island, where everyone knows everything about everyone else, discovers that a secret can be a dangerous thing.
Eleven-year-old Michael Murray is the best at two things: hacky sack and keeping secrets. His family thinks he's too young to hear grown-up stuff, but he listens at doors—it's the only way to find out anything. And Michael's heard a secret, one that may explain the bruises on his mother's face.
When the whispers at home and on the street become too loud to ignore, Michael begins to wonder if there is an even bigger secret he doesn't know about. Scared of what might happen if anyone finds out, and desperate for life to return to normal, Michael sets out to piece together the truth. But he also has to prepare for the upcoming talent show, keep an eye out for Dirty Alice—his archnemesis from down the street—and avoid eating Granny's watery stew.
Closed Doors is the startling new novel from Lisa O'Donnell, the acclaimed author of The Death of Bees. It is a vivid evocation of the fears and freedoms of childhood and a powerful tale of love, of the loss of innocence, and of the importance of family in difficult times. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Bute, Island of the Firth of Clyde, Scotland
• Education—B.A.,Glasgow Caledonian University
• Awards—Orange Prize (screenwriting); Commonwealth Book Prize
• Currently—lives Scotland
Lisa O’Donnell winner of The Orange Prize for New Screenwriters with her screenplay The Wedding Gift in 2000. Lisa was also nominated for the Dennis Potter New Writers Award in the same year.
Her first novel, The Death of Bees, published in 2012, won the 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize. Her second novel, Closed Doors, was released in 2014. Lisa had moved to Los Angeles, California, as a screenwriter but has since returned to live in Scotland. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[D]azzling.... O’Donnell won the prestigious Commonwealth Book Prize last year with The Death of Bees, a first novel that deftly balanced the morbid with the mundane, a talent that remains on full display here.... O’Donnell’s great talent is most apparent in her depiction of the gap between Michael’s thoughts and his actions.... It’s not revealing too much to say that O’Donnell wraps up Closed Doors in a way that feels both unpredictable and inevitable. It’s a fitting end to a moving story that stakes a lasting, and disturbing, emotional claim on her readers.
Andrew Ervin - New York Times Book Review
There’s loss of innocence here, but the overwhelming tone is warm and sparky; O’Donnell shows how a shattered family can remake itself, and Michael’s narrative voice is delightful—observant, thoughtful, comical, and thoroughly believable.
Sunday Times (London)
O'Donnell has created a resourceful, scabby-kneed character who is both believably childish and knowingly perceptive. Yet the novel never feels as blisteringly original as its predecessor.... [Closed Doors] relies on the first-person testimony of Michael—which, while admirably direct, sometimes seems a little bald on the page: "'My da is sad, my granny is sad. We are all afraid and I pray for my ma to get better."
Alfred Hickling - Guardian - (UK)
[O’Donnell] has fashioned yet another humane and compulsive read, grounded in a realism which, depicted through a child’s eyes—with that hint of a child’s surreal perception—gathers together violence, humor, and love in a most believable way.
Scotland on Sunday
Though O’Donnell creates a powerful voice for her young protagonist, she is less than fair to Rosemary, whose fear that telling the truth would open her up to victim blaming is presented as simply a source of pain to others, rather than as a legitimate concern.
Publishers Weekly
As in The Death of Bees, a 2013 Commonwealth Book Prize winner, O'Donnell looks at adult misbehavior through the eyes of a child. Eleven-year-old Michael Murray has peered behind enough doors to know why his mother's face is often bruised, but he suspects that more secrets await him
Library Journal
(Starred review.) The novel asks (and possibly answers) two important questions—to what extent should children be protected from the truth, and does silence do more harm than good? While it deals with disturbing subject matter, this is an engaging page-turner that effectively explores the trials and tribulations of childhood with warmth and humor. —Kerri Price
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.)
Ready Player One
Ernest Cline, 2011
Broadway Books
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307887443
Summary
At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, Ready Player One is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.
It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.
Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.
And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.
For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.
And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.
Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.
A world at stake ... A quest for the ultimate prize ... Are you ready? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Ashland, Ohio, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Austin, Texas
Ernest Cline is an American novelist, spoken word artist and screenwriter. In his past, he worked as a short-order cook, fish gutter, plasma donor, elitist video store clerk, and tech support drone. His primary occupation, however, has always been geeking out, and he eventually threw aside those other promising career paths to express his love of pop culture fulltime as a spoken word artist and screenwriter. His 2009 film Fanboys, much to his surprise, became a cult phenomenon
Spoken word
From 1997-2001, Cline performed his original work at the Austin Poetry Slam venues. He was the Austin Poetry Slam Champ in 1998 and 2001, and competed on the Austin Poetry Slam Teams at the 1998 Austin National Poetry Slam and the 2001 Seattle National Poetry Slam
His most popular spoken word pieces include: "Dance, Monkeys, Dance", "Nerd Porn Auteur" and "When I Was a Kid." Paulo Ang, a UCSD student, created a popular flash cartoon out of Ernie's track "Dance Monkeys Dance." Cline himself subsequently reworked "Dance Monkeys Dance" into a faux educational filmstrip, which became a popular viral video that has now been translated into 29 different languages.
In 2001, Cline self-published a chapbook collection of his spoken word writing, The Importance of Being Ernest and released an album, The Geek Wants Out, both sold through his website.
Screenwriting
In 1996, Cline wrote a sequel (Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League) to W. D. Richter's 1984 film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension and made it available on the Internet.
In 1998, Cline's screenplay, Fanboys, generated local interest in Austin, TX, including mention on Harry Knowles' website Ain't It Cool News. In late 2005, the Weinstein Company purchased Ernest Cline's script for Fanboys film, casting Sam Huntington, Chris Marquette, Dan Fogler, Jay Baruchel and Kristen Bell as the five main characters. Fanboys was released in 2009.
Also in the summer of 2008, Lakeshore Entertainment announced that they would be producing Cline's screenplay, Thundercade. Thundercade follows the story of a video game junkie in his mid-30's who learns that a young gamer has beaten a record he set when he was a teenager. He then travels with his friends to the world's largest gaming championship, Thundercade, to restore his former glory.
Fiction
In June 2010 Cline sold his first novel Ready Player One in a bidding war. The film rights to the novel were sold the following day to Warner Bros. with Cline attached to write the screenplay. Ten months after the hardcover release and coinciding with the paperback release, Cline revealed on his blog that both the paperback and hardcover editions of Ready Player One contained an elaborately hidden easter egg. This clue will form the first part of a series of staged video gaming tests, similar to the plot of the novel. Cline also revealed that the competition's grand prize would be a 1981 DeLorean.
Personal life
Like the hero of Ready Player One, Cline spent much of his young adulthood working a series of low-paying tech support jobs that allowed him to surf the Internet while on the clock and research his many pop-culture obsessions. He's a huge fan of the Back to the Future film series and owns a 1982 DeLorean DMC-12 sports car that has been modified to look like the time-travelling vehicle from the films. Cline’s all-time favorite video game is Black Tiger, which figures prominently into the plot of Ready Player One.
Cline lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and daughter. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/25/13.)
Book Reviews
The science-fiction writer John Scalzi has aptly referred to Ready Player One as a "nerdgasm" [and] there can be no better one-word description of this ardent fantasy artifact about fantasy culture.... But Mr. Cline is able to incorporate his favorite toys and games into a perfectly accessible narrative.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
A most excellent ride.... [T]he conceit is a smart one, and we happily root for [the heroes] on their quest....[F]ully satisfying.
Boston Globe
Gorgeously geeky, superbly entertaining, this really is a spectacularly successful debut.
Daily Mail (UK)
Enchanting.... Willy Wonka meets the Matrix. This novel undoubtedly qualifies Cline as the hottest geek on the planet right now. [But] you don't have to be a geek to get it.
USA Today
A fun, funny and fabulously entertaining first novel.... This novel's large dose of 1980s trivia is a delight...[but] even readers who need Google to identify Commodore 64 or Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde, will enjoy this memorabilian feast.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Incredibly entertaining.... Drawing on everything from Back to the Future to Roald Dahl to Neal Stephenson's groundbreaking "Snow Crash," Cline has made Ready Player One a geek fantasia, '80s culture memoir and commentary on the future of online behavior all at once.
Austin American-Statesman
Triggers memories and emotions embedded in the psyche of a generation.... [Cline crafts] a fresh and imaginative world from our old toy box, and finds significance in there among the collectibles.
Entertainment Weekly
Ridiculously fun and large-hearted, and you don't have to remember the Reagan administration to love it.... [Cline] takes a far-out premise and engages the reader instantly.... You'll wish you could make it go on and on.
NPR.org
The grown-up's Harry Potter.... [T]he mystery and fantasy in this novel weaves itself in the most delightful way, and the details that make up Mr. Cline's world are simply astounding. Ready Player One has it all.
Huffington Post
A treasure for anyone already nostalgic for the late 20th century.... But it’s also a great read for anyone who likes a good book.
Wired.com
[An] adrenaline shot of uncut geekdom, a quest through a virtual world.... In a bleak but easily imagined 2044, Wade Watts...lives primarily online, alongside billions of others, via a massive online game, OASIS....The science fiction, video game, technology, and geeky musical references pile up quickly, sometimes a bit much so, but sweet, self-deprecating Wade, whose universe is an odd mix of the real past and the virtual present, is the perfect lovable/unlikely hero
Publishers Weekly
[A] geeky kid named Wade Watts...gets caught up in a worldwide virtual utopia called Oasis. There he finds himself on a virtual treasure hunt for a very real treasure. Described by Firstshowing.net as a blend of Avatar, The Matrix, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, this book promises to be really, really big. Get it, probably in multiples.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) An exuberantly realized, exciting, and sweet-natured cyber-quest. Cline’s imaginative and rollicking coming-of-age geek saga has a smash-hit vibe.
Booklist
The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it's free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate.....[C]lever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate "epic throwdown" fail to stir the blood.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The OASIS becomes a part of daily life for users around the globe. What virtual realms (Google, Facebook, iCloud) do you depend on? What is at stake in the war against IOI, the internet service provider that wants to overturn Halliday’s affordable, open-source approach? Is it dangerous to mix profit and dependence on technology?
2. Explore the question of identity raised in the novel. What do the characters’ avatars tell us about their desires and their insecurities? In reality, does our physical appearance give false clues about who we really are? How does Parzival, transformed into a celebrity gunter, become Wade’s true self?
3. With a narrator who vividly captures the human experience, Ready Player One delivers a world that is easy for us to imagine. In the novel, what was at the root of the grim downturn for Earth’s inhabitants? Could your community start looking like the stacks by the year 2044?
4. How does love affect Wade’s rational mind? Would you have given Art3mis the tip about playing on the left side to defeat the lich (page 99, chapter ten)? Did you predict that she would turn out to be a friend or a foe?
5. How does public school in the OASIS compare to your experience in school? Has author Ernest Cline created a solution to classroom overcrowding, student apathy, and school violence?
6. In his Columbus bunker, Wade puts on so many pounds that he can no longer fit comfortably in his haptic chair. How would you fare in his weight-loss program, described in chapter nineteen, featuring a simulation gym, coaching from Max, and a lockout system that restricts his diet and forces him to exercise?
7. Wade’s OASIS pass phrase is revealed on page 199, at the end of chapter nineteen: “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful.” What does this philosophy mean to him at that point in his life?
8. How is the novel shaped by the 1980s backdrop, featuring John Hughes films, suburban shows like Family Ties, a techno-beat soundtrack, and of course, a slew of early video games? Did Halliday grow up in a utopia?
9. Discuss Bryce Lynch’s financial situation, rigged so that Wade could infiltrate IOI. When does Wade become willing to “die trying”? How did you react to the image of debtors being forced into indentured servitude?
10. Wade doesn’t depend on religion to make moral decisions or overcome life-threatening challenges. What does the novel say about humanity’s relationship to religion? What sort of god is Halliday, creator of the OASIS universe?
11. Despite their introverted nature, the book’s characters thrive on friendship. Discuss the level of trust enjoyed by Halliday and Og, and among Wade, Aech, Art3mis, Daito, and Shoto. How is true power achieved in Ready Player One?
12. In the closing scenes, Halliday’s reward proves to be greater than mere wealth. What is Halliday’s ultimate prize? How did the rules of Halliday’s game help him determine the type of player who would likely win?
13. In his quest for the three keys, Wade is required to inhabit many imaginary worlds, including movies, video games, and a simulation of Halliday’s childhood home. Which of these virtual realities appealed to you the most? What sort of virtual reality is provided by a novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Astor Place Vintage
Stephanie Lehmann, 2013
Simon & Schuster
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451682052
Summary
Amanda Rosenbloom, proprietor of Astor Place Vintage, thinks she’s on just another call to appraise and possibly purchase clothing from a wealthy, elderly woman. But after discovering a journal sewn into a fur muff, Amanda gets much more than she anticipated.
The pages of the journal reveal the life of Olive Westcott, a young woman who had moved to Manhattan in 1907. Olive was set on pursuing a career as a department store buyer in an era when Victorian ideas, limiting a woman’s sphere to marriage and motherhood, were only beginning to give way to modern ways of thinking.
As Amanda reads the journal, her life begins to unravel until she can no longer ignore this voice from the past. Despite being separated by one hundred years, Amanda finds she’s connected to Olive in ways neither could ever have imagined. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—San Francisco, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California-Berkeley; M.F.A.,
New York University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Stephanie Lehmann grew up in San Francisco, wrapping herself in warm sweaters and bingeing on television. Wanting early on to be a writer, she talked her parents into buying her an electric typewriter and, at the age of 12, began writing short stories. Thus began her first experience with rejection letters.
Lehmann received her B.A. in psychology from the University of California-Berkeley and finally, screwing up her courage, moved to New York City. She attended New York University's graduate program in creative writing and received her M.A. She married a fellow student from her writing program who is an English teacher. The two live in New York, watch television together, and have grown children.
Stephanie Lehmann is the author of several books: Astor Place Vintage (2013), You Could Do Better (2006), The Art of Undressing (2005), Are You In the Mood (2004), and Thoughts While Having Sex (2003). (For the longer, funnier biography see the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Enchanting.... [T]he stories of two New York women a century apart, interweaving their lives through playful synchronicity and hints of the supernatural. The present-day timeline involves Amanda Rosenbloom, who owns the eponymous Astor Place Vintage clothing store and....[who] discovers the 1907 diary of Olive Westcott, an upper-class woman who dreamed of becoming a department store buyer.... Lehmann does a seamless job of moving between the past and present and gives a definite sense of place to the story’s two periods.... First-class storytelling with an enticing dose of New York City history.
Publishers Weekly
The past meets the present in Lehmann's work of feminist literary fiction. In 2007, 39-year-old Amanda... finds a journal, started in 1907 by a woman named Olive.... These two women are separated by a century but have a lot in common. Olive is rebelling against the 19th-century concept of a woman's "place" in society, and Amanda feels herself caught between two historic eras.... The author combines an impressive knowledge of history, sociology and psychology to create an intellectually and emotionally rewarding story.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When Amanda first visits Jane Kelly’s apartment to assess her clothes, she ponders, “funny how styles from your own parents’ day tend to call out with that seductive aura of nostalgia” (page 10). What era’s styles appeal you?
2. While Amanda is being hypnotized, her doctor asks her to think of a place that makes her feel “comfortable and content” (page 29), and she has some difficulty deciding on one. Why do you think it was such a challenge for her? What place would you choose?
3. Olive is both unable and unwilling to rely on financial aid from men—from her father or a potential husband—yet Amanda regularly accepts checks from her married lover, Jeff. Which of the two women seems more modern?
4. Amanda’s fascination with history was originally inspired by her collection of Time-Life books called This Fabulous Century. She thinks, “I used to pore over every word and stare at the glossy photographs with laser-like eyes trying to take in every detail and see beyond the edges to find aswers to questions I couldn’t quite put into words” (pages 74–75). Are there books in your life that have had a similar effect on you?
5. Do you think Olive’s father’s car accident was a true accident, or was it somehow suicide? If Olive had not been forced to find work to support herself after his death, in what ways might her life have turned out differently?
6. A woman of Olive’s socioeconomic background is expected to become a wife and mother; and the idea of working is considered base, and therefore shocking, to friends and family. As a store clerk she is offered low wages and few opportunities for advancement. Despite this, Olive pursues a career. How does this illustrate her character? How do Olive’s ways of dealing with change compare to Amanda’s? How are their challenges different?
7. Amanda continues to see Jeff even though she knows she shouldn’t. Why do you think it’s so hard for her to end the affair? Do you see this as weakness in her character? Does the fact that she dated Jeff before he got married affect your opinion of their affair?
8. When Amanda finds out she is not pregnant, why do you thinks she seem disappointed? How does her pregnancy scare contrast with Olive’s?
9. Psychic Lola Cotton seems to contact Olive’s dead mother, telling Olive: “‘She wants you to know . . . you must not feel guilty. She forgives you’” (page 49). Olive views this with skepticism. Is she too focused on looking forward to deal with feelings about her mother’s death?
10. Amanda wonders whether her whole life is “ruled by nostalgia.” She thinks, “The past doesn’t just go away; it lingers on. You can actually touch and see the remains, and to the extent that these souvenirs survive, the past is the present. You can’t say that for the future.... You can never hold the future in your hands” (page 100). Do you agree? Does Amanda spend too much of her life looking back? Why is it so hard for her to leave Jeff? What finally convinces her to do it?
11. As a single woman in the early 1900s, Olive cannot stay alone at a reputable hotel; there are women-only areas in restaurants and bars; the idea of her working is met with significant disapproval; and the Victorian attitudes about women’s sexuality leave her ignorant and unprepared. At the end of the book she thinks, “Perhaps the day will come when women exist in the world as equals to men” (page 386). Do you think that day has come? If not, do you think it ever will?
12. The theme of change as constant and unstoppable is present throughout the novel. Is the past always worth leaving behind? Is newer always better? Is it possible to strike a balance between preserving what is worthy about the past while allowing for modern developments?
13. The author leaves the story open at the end, and we never know whether Jane Kelly reads the journal, whether Amanda starts a relationship with Rob, even whether Olive and Angelina ever open a hat shop. Why do you think the author chose to end her book this way? What do you think happens to the characters?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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