Getting Rooted in New Zealand
Jamie Baywood, 2013
CreateSpace
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781482601909
Summary
Craving change and lacking logic, at 26, Jamie, a cute and quirky Californian, impulsively moves to New Zealand to avoid dating after reading that the country’s population has 100,000 fewer men.
In her journal, she captures a hysterically honest look at herself, her past and her new wonderfully weird world filled with curious characters and slapstick situations in unbelievably bizarre jobs.
It takes a zany jaunt to the end of the Earth and a serendipitous meeting with a fellow traveler before Jamie learns what it really means to get rooted. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 9, 1983
• Where—Savannah, Georgia, USA
• Raised—Petaluma, California
• Education—B.A., San Diego State University; M.A.,
University of Leeds (UK)
• Currently—lives in the UK
Jamie Baywood grew up in Petaluma, California. In 2010, she made the most impulsive decision of her life by moving to New Zealand. Getting Rooted in New Zealand is her first novel about her experiences living in New Zealand. Jamie is married and currently living in the United Kingdom working on her second novel. (From the author.)
Book Reviews
Giggle Worthy... It is difficult to write so openly about your life as you have and I found myself keenly reading to see what happened next. All your adventures with those crazy people sounded so dreadful, but provided such amusement in the way you have represented them. You make no real judgment on any person and I can tell that while you respect them as humans, you don't put up with bad behaviour, so that's an inspiration in itself. (4 out of 5 stars.)
O. Dale (Amazon Customer Reviews)
As a New Zealander, I really enjoyed this book. It was funny, and a lot of the things about NZ are definitely true.... I live overseas, so I can understand that no one outside of New Zealand really gets our slang and sometimes our accent, so that part really spoke to me! However, at the same time it doesn't paint a true picture of New Zealand, given that the author worked in terrible jobs, had visa restrictions, didn't have a lot of money, and stayed in run-down housing. Auckland, while being the largest city, isn't necessarily representative of NZ. Overall, I'd recommend this book. (4 out of 5 stars.)
Mark (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Honest Humor... A great read! Honestly and effortlessly humorous. I giggled lots and really felt for Jamie at her times of struggle. Thank You for sharing so openly your experiences, obstacles and breakthroughs. (5 out of 5 stars.)
Sparkles (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Really enjoyed this book, I have to say. It was funny, quirky, even weird in places, but always entertaining. Having lived in New Zealand myself, I can definitely relate to some of Jamie's experiences as a foreigner. Love NZ and love this book - highly recommended! (5 out of 5 stars.)
Polak (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Fantastic, hilarious & Inspiring, I absolutely loooovvvveeeedddd it. It is funny & absolutely honest. Very inspiring as it really draws reader's attention to read more and more. I can't wait now for her 2nd novel to come out. A movie should be made on "Getting Rooted in New Zealand". Definitely will be a super hit (5 out of 5 stars.)
A-dreamer (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Must Read Book - Hilarious! A real page turner - like reading a very funny / interesting friend's secret diary.Also a fascinating insight into life in New Zealand as seen through the eyes of a traveller. Jamie Baywood is the thinking man's Bridget Jones—with an edge. Would make a hilarious movie - but until that comes out the book is a must. (5 out of 5 stars.)
J. Hamilton (Amazon Customer Reviews)
Discussion Questions
1. Jamie decided to move to New Zealand to escape her dubious love life in California. Have you ever had dating experiences that made you want to flee the country?
2. What is the meaning of the title Getting Rooted in New Zealand? Would you have called the book something else? If so, what would your title be?
3. While in New Zealand, Jamie had a lot of temporary jobs. Which one did you find the most shocking and why?
4. Are there any books you can compare Getting Rooted in New Zealand to?
5. Who do you think should play Jamie if Getting Rooted in New Zealand was made into a movie?
6. What surprised you most about Getting Rooted in New Zealand or Jamie?
7. Did any of the characters in the book remind you of anyone you know?
8. Were there any quotes or scenes that stood out to you in the book? Why?
9. At the end of the book, Jamie makes another impulsive decision. Where do you think Jamie and various characters in the book will be in five years?
(Questions provided by the author.)
Flora
Gail Godwin, 2013
Bloomsbury
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781620401200
Summary
Ten-year-old Helen and her summer guardian, Flora, are isolated together in Helen's decaying family house while her father is doing secret war work in Oak Ridge during the final months of World War II. At three Helen lost her mother and the beloved grandmother who raised her has just died.
A fiercely imaginative child, Helen is desperate to keep her house intact with all its ghosts and stories. Flora, her late mother's twenty-two-year old first cousin, who cries at the drop of a hat, is ardently determined to do her best for Helen. Their relationship and its fallout, played against a backdrop of a lost America will haunt Helen for the rest of her life.
This darkly beautiful novel about a child and a caretaker in isolation evokes shades of The Turn of the Screw and also harks back to Godwin's memorable novel of growing up, The Finishing School. With its house on top of a mountain and a child who may be a bomb that will one day go off, Flora tells a story of love, regret, and the things we can't undo. It will stay with readers long after the last page is turned. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 18, 1937
• Where—Birmingham, Alabama, USA
• Raised—Ashville, North Carolina
• Education—B.A., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;
M.A. and Ph.D., University of Iowa, Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in Woodstock, New York
Gail Kathleen Godwin, an American novelist and short story writer, has published one non-fiction work, two collections of short stories, and eleven novels, three of which have been nominated for the National Book Award and five of which have made the New York Times Bestseller List.
Personal life
Godwin was born in Birmingham, Alabama but raised in Asheville, North Carolina by her divorced mother and grandmother. She attended Peace College in Raleigh, North Carolina (a women's college founded by Presbyterians in 1857) from 1955 to 1957, but graduated with a B.A. in Journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1959. She worked briefly as a reporter for the Miami Herald and married a Herald photographer named Douglas Kennedy. After the job and the marriage finished (by firing and by divorce, respectively), she worked as waitress back home in North Carolina to save money to travel to Europe.
In the early 1960s, Godwin worked for the U.S. Travel Service at the U.S. Embassy in London and wrote novels and short stories in her spare time. She returned to the United States and worked briefly as an editorial assistant at the Saturday Evening Post before attending the University of Iowa, earning her M.A. (1968) from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and PhD (1971) in English Literature.
Godwin's body of work has garnered many honors, including three National Book Award nominations, a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts grants for both fiction and libretto writing, and the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Five of her novels have been on the New York Times best seller list.
Godwin lives and writes in Woodstock, New York. Her family includes her half-brother Rebel A. Cole and half-sister Franchelle Millender.
Writings
Godwin’s eighteen books have established her as a leading voice in American literature along several currents. Her first few novels, published in the early 1970s, explored the worlds of women negotiating restrictive roles. The Odd Woman (1974) was a National Book Award finalist, as was her fourth novel, Violet Clay (1978), in which she modernized the Gothic novel and explored such themes as villainy and suicide.
A Mother and Two Daughters (1982) marked a turning point in Godwin’s career. It encompassed a community, Mountain City, based on her hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, and carried out her empathetic method of entering many characters’ minds within a fluid narrative. Voted a National Book Award finalist, it also became Godwin’s first best-seller. Between it and her next four best-sellers, Godwin interposed Mr. Bedford and the Muses (1983), her second short story collection after Dream Children (1976).
Dream Children had been Godwin’s offering, with some additions, of work she’d created at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, studying with advisors Kurt Vonnegut and Robert Coover. It exhibits her early interest in allegory made real on a psychological level. The Iowa years come alive in her edited journals, The Making of a Writer, Journals, 1963-1969 (2010). A previous volume, The Making of a Writer, Journals, 1961-1963 (2006), presents her years in Europe after a do-or-die decision to become a writer. The novella, “Mr. Bedford,” which leads her second story collection, derives from her time in London. Narrated in the first person, it achieves the author’s quest for timelessness through a look into a living room window.
“Last night I dreamed of Ursula DeVane,” begins Godwin’s sixth novel, The Finishing School (1984), again employing a first person reverie, and turning it toward one of Godwin’s fertile interests, the effect of a powerful personality on a developing one. The suspense that tragically ensues relates to her next novel, A Southern Family, which returns to Mountain City, but is darker than A Mother and Two Daughters, as it involves a murder-suicide that sends shock waves and melancholy through a family. All of Godwin’s second three novels were published additionally as mass market paperbacks.
Father Melancholy’s Daughter (1991), also a best-seller, represented Godwin’s independence from the best-seller niche being marketed for her. The daughter of the title navigates her relationships with her father, an Episcopal minister; and with a classic Godwin character, a bewitching theatrical auteur. Theology, and its non-doctrinal meaning in spiritual life, became one of the areas in which Godwin began to act as a leading explorer. The subject is embraced in Evensong, her 1999 sequel to Father Melancholy’s Daughter; and in her 2010 novel, Unfinished Desires. It also informs her non-fiction book, Heart: A Natural History of the Heart-Filled Life (2001), illustrated by stories from her life and from her constant reading.
Godwin ninth novel, The Good Husband (1994), makes use of a form she’d emulated as a 24-year-old in Europe, Lawrence Durrell’s quartet (as in The Alexandria Quartet), by which a story is told through four related characters. Godwin’s new direction—not just in form, but also in choice of characters—did not reach the best-seller list. Evensong, her tenth novel, did; and then she engaged in another literary experiment, "Evenings at Five" (2003), a novella that explores, through a distinctive kind of stream-of-consciousness, the presence that follows the death of a long-term companion. It is based on her relationship with composer Robert Starer, with whom she collaborated on nine libretti. Regarding Evenings at Five, Godwin said she wanted “to write a different kind of ghost story.” The trade paperback edition of the book, with Godwin’s autobiographical “Christina Stories” added, became one of eight works of her fiction published as Ballantine Readers Circle trade paperbacks, with interviews and reader’s guides.
For her twelfth novel, Queen of the Underworld, Godwin fashioned a Bildungsroman, derived from her years as a Miami Herald reporter, 1959-60. Her experience included close familiarity with the Cuban emigre community, with whom, at times, she conversed in Spanish.
Unfinished Desires (2010) exemplified her empathetic method by inhabiting the minds and enunciating the voices of more than a dozen full characters. Set at a girls’ school run by nuns, it makes the connection between religious devotion and artistic seriousness. The novel openly reveals girls in adolescence, as well as their elders, who bequeath them their deep-set issues. Suspense comes from multi-punch power plays, as well as from characters’ struggles to be good. The novel’s original title, "The Red Nun," refers to the statue of a tragic novitiate, whose story becomes the subject of a school play, which in turns becomes an arena for acting out. The play’s the thing, dramatically, metaphorically, and psychologically. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/2/2010.)
Book Reviews
Witty and moving.... The incidents of this plot are daringly few: A boring summer during which nothing happens is a challenge most novelists should avoid. Godwin, though, has the psychological sensitivity to make these still, humid days seem fraught with impending consequence.... The success of this trim novel rests entirely on Godwin's ability to maintain the various chords of Helen's voice, which are by degrees witty, superior, naive and rueful.... Her recollection of that tragic summer, turned over and over in her mind for years, is something between a search for understanding and a mournful confession. But finally it's a testament to the power of storytelling to bring solace when none other is possible.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Flora is Godwin at her best, a compelling story about Helen’s growth of consciousness told with fearless candor and the poignant wisdom of hindsight.
Boston Globe
Flora is a tightly focused, painful and eventually eruptive novel. Its ruminative, sometimes regretful narrator explores the complex heart of a child, showing us that it's not inevitably a sweet, gooey thing. It can be, as well, a shuddering volcanic island with but a single haunted inhabitant.
Christian Science Monitor
On the surface, Gail Godwin’s luminous Flora is a quiet, simple novel about a few weeks spent in near isolation in the North Carolina mountains in the summer of 1945. Under the surface, however, run currents connecting the lives of the two main characters to those of dozens of others, present and especially past.
Columbus Dispatch
Gail Godwin’s Flora sneaks up on you. The premise is small, but ambitiously so in the 'small, square, two inches of ivory' sense that Jane Austen used to describe her novelistic palette . . . . [Godwin]draws out the haunting Big Questions — loss, regret, family bonds — as the novel progresses, and then she leaves them, smartly and humbly, for the reader to answer.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Remorse may be the defining emotion for our narrator, Helen, but Godwin the writer has nothing to regret: Flora is an elegant little creeper of a story.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR's Fresh Air
In a coming-of-age novel as exquisitely layered and metaphorical as a good peom, Godwin explores the long-term fallout from abandonment and betrayal, the persistence of remorse and the possibility of redemption
MORE magazine
Narrator Helen Anstruther, “going on eleven,” is the relentlessly charismatic and wry star of this stirring and wondrous novel from Godwin.... When her father leaves to do “secret work for World War II” in neighboring Tennessee... [Fora] is left in the care of 22-year-old...relative.... Godwin’s thoughtful portrayal of their boredom, desires, and the eventual heartbreak of their summer underscores the impossible position of children, who are powerless against the world and yet inherit responsibility for its agonies.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) A superbly crafted, stunning novel by three-time National Book Award award finalist Godwin (A Mother and Two Daughters), this is an unforgettable, heartbreaking tale of disappointment, love, and tragedy. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
Godwin, celebrated for her literary finesse, presents a classic southern tale galvanic with decorous yet stabbing sarcasm and jolting tragedy.... Godwin’s under-your-skin characters are perfectly realized, and the held-breath plot is consummately choreographed. But the wonder of this incisive novel of the endless repercussions of loss and remorse at the dawn of the atomic age is how subtly Godwin laces it with exquisite insights into secret family traumas, unspoken sexuality, class and racial divides, and the fallout of war while unveiling the incubating mind of a future writer.
Booklist
In the summer of 1945, 10-year-old Helen....needs someone to stay with her while [her father] does "more secret work for World War II" in Oak Ridge, Tenn. So he asks her mother's 22-year-old cousin, Flora,...[who] seems like a dumb hick to snobbish little Helen...a thoroughly unappealing narrator. But as Godwin skillfully peels back layers of family history...we see that Helen is mean because she's terrified.... Unsparing yet compassionate; a fine addition to Godwin's long list of first-rate fiction bringing 19th-century richness of detail and characterization to the ambiguities of modern life.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Flora begins, “There are things we can’t undo, but perhaps there is a kind of constructive remorse that could transform regrettable acts into something of service to life.” (1) What “regrettable acts” is Helen referring to? How does she try to make her remorse “constructive” and “of service to life,” in telling the story of her summer with Flora?
2. When Flora begins, Honora “Nonie” Anstruther is already dead, yet we get to know her intimately throughout the novel. In what ways do we become acquainted with Nonie’s voice? What aspects of Nonie’s personality are revealed through her loved ones’ memories?
3. Consider the descriptions of Old One Thousand, the Anstruther estate where Helen grows up. How does the house feel haunted by its former occupants, including the Recoverers, Honora, and Lisbeth? What elements of decay contribute to the estate’s creepy and isolated feel?
4. Consider Helen’s inheritances from her various family members. In what ways does she resemble her grandmother, her father, her mother, and even her cousin Flora? What personality traits, positive and negative, does she owe to each of these forebears?
5. Consider the few details Helen reveals about her adult life as she recalls the summer of 1945. If she has written “a collection of stories about failed loves,” what might her personal life be like? (121) What might have caused her “breakdown and lengthy stay in
an expensive institution,” (276) and how has writing helped Helen reconnect with her past?
6. Finn disagrees with Helen’s low opinion of Flora; he says, “I think you are confusing simpleminded and simple-hearted.” (255) What does Finn mean by “simple-hearted?” Does this capture Flora more accurately than Helen’s youthful opinion of her? Why or why not?
7. “You’ve had such a strange childhood,” Flora tells Helen. (77) Why does Flora’s observation upset Helen? In what ways has her childhood been “strange,” and why might young Helen not recognize its oddness?
8. Discuss the hints of the supernatural in Flora. What might explain the voice Helen hears while sitting in Nonie’s car and walking down the driveway? What does Mrs. Jones’s intimate relationship with her daughter, Rosemary, suggest about the enduring relationship between the dead and living?
9. Helen reflects on her game of “fifth grade” with Flora, “We were making up a game that needed both of us . . . But right here, right in here somewhere, in what we were making together, is located the redemption, if there is to be any.” (141) Discuss the ways that Helen and Flora collaborate when they play “fifth grade.” What does Helen learn from Flora while they play, despite her assumption that she controls the game completely?
10. Honora writes to Flora in a 1944 letter, “‘Spoken word is slave; unspoken is master,’ as the old adage goes.” (162) Why does Honora believe in the value of silence over speech? How has Helen inherited Honora’s opinions about the spoken and unspoken? How does the novel itself tiptoe the line between secrecy and revelation?
11. Two past scandals are revealed in Flora: Harry’s teenage affair with a Recoverer named Willow Fanning, and the identity of Harry’s true father, Earl Quarles. How has the Anstruther family kept these two events under wraps? How does the novel eventually reveal each of these secrets?
12. Discuss the love triangle of Helen, Finn, and Flora. How does Helen become so emotionally invested in Finn? What fantasies overtake her when she thinks about him? What is the basis of the attraction between Finn and Flora? How does each react to Helen’s jealousy and rage?
13. Helen concludes about Flora, “I thought I knew all there was to know about her, but she has since become one of my profoundest teachers, thought she never got to stand in front of a real class and teach.” (273) What lessons about life, love, and generosity does Helen learn from Flora? How does Helen react to Flora’s birthday gift of Honora’s letters—uncensored, so Helen can “grow into them” ? (272)
14. In the novel, the manufacture of atomic weaponry at Oak Ridge is called the “best kept secret in the history of the world.” (227) Discuss the relationship between family secrets and war secrets in the novel. How does the secret history of World War II intersect with the Anstruthers’ secrets?
15. The day after Flora’s death and the atomic explosion in Hiroshima, Harry and Finn both appear in the paper, “grouped beneath the caption LOCAL HEROES.” (265) What are the ironies of Harry and Finn’s supposed heroism? What are the consequences of their “heroic” efforts in the war and at home?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Someday, Someday, Maybe
Lauren Graham, 2013
Ballentine Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345532749
Summary
From Lauren Graham, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, comes a witty, charming, and hilariously relatable debut novel about a struggling young actress trying to get ahead―and keep it together―in New York City.
It’s January 1995, and Franny Banks has just six months left of the three-year deadline she set for herself when she came to New York, dreaming of Broadway and doing “important” work. But all she has to show for her efforts so far is a part in an ad for ugly Christmas sweaters, and a gig waiting tables at a comedy club. Her roommates―her best friend Jane, and Dan, an aspiring sci-fi writer―are supportive, yet Franny knows a two-person fan club doesn’t exactly count as success.
Everyone tells her she needs a backup plan, and though she can almost picture moving back home and settling down with her perfectly nice ex-boyfriend, she’s not ready to give up on her goal of having a career like her idols Diane Keaton and Meryl Streep. Not just yet. But while she dreams of filling their shoes, in the meantime, she’d happily settle for a speaking part in almost anything—and finding a hair product combination that works.
Everything is riding on the upcoming showcase for her acting class, where she’ll finally have a chance to perform for people who could actually hire her. And she can’t let herself be distracted by James Franklin, a notorious flirt and the most successful actor in her class, even though he’s suddenly started paying attention. Meanwhile, her bank account is rapidly dwindling, her father wants her to come home, and her agent doesn’t return her calls. But for some reason, she keeps believing that she just might get what she came for.
Someday, Someday, Maybe is a story about hopes and dreams, being young in a city, and wanting something deeply, madly, desperately. It’s about finding love, finding yourself, and perhaps most difficult of all in New York City, finding an acting job. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 16, 1967
• Where—Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
• Raised—outside Washington, DC
• Education—B.A., Barnard College; M.F.A., Southern
Methodist University
• Currently—lives in New York City and Los Angeles, California
CLauren Helen Graham is an American actress, producer and novelist. She is best known for playing Lorelai Gilmore on the WB Network dramedy series Gilmore Girls and Sarah Braverman on Parenthood.
Graham was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Her mother, Donna Grant, was a fashion buyer, and her father, Lawrence Graham, was a candy industry lobbyist, who is the current president for National Confectioners Association. Graham was raised Catholic, and has Irish ancestry. She was five years old when her parents were separated and moved to Washington, D.C., where her father became a congressional staffer. Her mother now lives in London. Graham has a half-sister and a half-brother from her father's second marriage and a British half-sister from her mother's second marriage, Shade Grant, who works at a talent agency.
As a girl, Graham rode horses competitively, but soon switched to acting, honing her talent at Langley High School, where she took part in the drill team and graduated in 1984. Graham earned her actor's equity card in 1988 after two years in summer stock at the Barn Theatre in Augusta, Michigan. She graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. After moving to Texas in 1992, Graham earned a Master of Fine Arts in Acting Performance from Southern Methodist University.
Career
After completing her education, Graham moved back to New York City where she earned her living as a waitress and tutor teaching SAT test prep for The Princeton Review. While she aspired to become an actress, she made publicity appearances wearing the costume of Striker, the dog mascot of the US-based 1994 FIFA World Cup. In 1995, she relocated to Hollywood, California. She appeared in various commercials for products such as Dimetapp and Lean Cuisine and hosted free preview weekends on The Movie Channel.
In addition to her many guest starring and co-starring roles on prime-time television, Graham starred in four failed sitcoms, including Townies (with Molly Ringwald and Jenna Elfman), the short-lived sitcom Lush Life (with Lori Petty and Karyn Parsons), and M.Y.O.B., which was burned off by NBC in the summer months before the premiere of Gilmore Girls.
Between 1996 and 1997, Graham became a regular guest star on several hit NBC shows. She played a graduate student who caught the eye of Dick on 3rd Rock from the Sun, Richard's overly-optimistic girlfriend on Caroline in the City, and Jerry's speed-dial ranking girlfriend on Seinfeld. She played a Hollywood producer who had a love interest in Rey Curtis in a three-part episode of Law & Order, where she acted opposite Scott Cohen, who would later play one of Graham's love interests, Max Medina, on Gilmore Girls. She also portrayed an antagonizing but friendship-starved efficiency expert on Newsradio. She was meant to be the permanent replacement for the departing Newsradio regular Khandi Alexander, but viewers disliked the character.
In 2000, Graham landed her breakthrough role as Lorelai Gilmore on Gilmore Girls. For her work she received a nomination for Best Actress in a Television Series (Drama) at the 2001 Golden Globe Awards. Beginning with Season 7 episode "To Whom It May Concern" and continuing throughout the rest of the season, Graham served as a producer on Gilmore Girls. TV Guide reported that she received the position in an attempt to persuade her to sign for an eighth season.
Graham returned to her guest-starring roots when she portrayed herself in two episodes of NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. Graham has also appeared in the second season of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown, co-hosted by Dave Foley of Newsradio. After winning her preliminary match, she came in second to another former Newsradio star, Maura Tierney, in the championship game.
Graham's film roles encompass several NYU student films and multiple major studio releases, including Sweet November, Bad Santa, The Pacifier, Because I Said So, and Evan Almighty.
Graham has said that she enjoys playing in short films, and acting in the Williamstown Theatre Festival. She has performed in numerous short films, including the 15-minute long Gnome. In 2007, Graham signed a seven-figure development deal with NBC in one of the year's richest TV talent pacts.
Graham has also worked as the voice-over announcer in national advertising for Kellogg's various Special K products, and in American Express ads introducing the Plum Card, which is targeted towards small and growing businesses.
Graham made her Broadway debut as Miss Adelaide in the revival of Guys and Dolls, which began preview performances at the Nederlander Theatre on February 5, 2009 and opened on March 1, 2009. Initial reviews for this performance have been mixed, but generally regard her fresh take on the character as a success. The production closed June 14, playing 113 shows and 28 previews.
On October 9, 2009, it was announced that Graham would replace Maura Tierney in the television series Parenthood as single mother Sarah Braverman. Tierney left the show to seek treatment for cancer. The series debuted on NBC the following year, and was later renewed for a second season.
In July 2012, Graham was a guest judge in the first episode of Season 10 of the reality television series Project Runway.
Writing
Graham's debut novel Someday, Someday, Maybe, a work based on a fictionalization of her experiences in the New York acting scene in the mid-1990s, was released in 2013.
Personal
Lauren Graham has reportedly dated Tate Donovan (2002), Matthew Perry (2003) and Marc Blucas (2005). She has been in a relationship with her Parenthood co-star Peter Krause since 2010. She owns an apartment in Manhattan and a house in Los Angeles. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/25/2013.)
Book Reviews
Graham…has smartly mined just the right details from her own experience, infusing her work with crackling dialogue and observations about show business that ring funny and true. Despite its forays into predictable chick-lit territory, her book succeeds as a winning, entertaining read largely because of Graham's confidence and ceaselessly observant wit…just like the screenwriters of the best romantic comedies, she has taken elements of the familiar and spun them into a novel that's heartfelt, hilarious and, hopefully, just the first example of what she can do with the written word.
Jen Chaney - Washington Post
With insight, care, and an abundance of humor, [Graham] demonstrates that her acting chops are not her only talent.
Library Journal
In TV-star Graham's debut, an aspiring actress runs up against a self-imposed deadline: Make it in NYC within three years, or find another profession. It's 1995, and Franny is about to give up on her goal..... It's make it or break it time, but as is sometimes the case in semiautobiographical novels, the story seems to meander aimlessly, as it might in real life. However, thanks to Graham's affection for her characters as well as her authoritative exposition of the logistics of an actor's working...life, readers will excuse the detours. An entertainment-industry coming-of-age story that manages to avoid many of the cliches of the genre by repurposing them to humorous ends.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the author chose to tell parts of the story through pages of Franny's Filofax planner? What elements does it add to the novel?
2. Is setting a deadline on your dream a good idea? Or is it unrealistic? Do you think it ultimately helped or hindered Franny's career?
3. Although he only appears as a recorded voice on the answering machine, Clark plays an important role in the story. What does his and Franny's back-up plan represent? What does his engagement force Franny to do?
4. For parts of the novel, Franny adapts to a situation by playing a character she is not. When is she being true to herself? When is she most happy?
5. Why didn't Franny sign with Barney Sparks? What would you have done in her position?
6. Franny appreciates the bridge on the D train because it helps her put things in perspective. Do you have a D train bridge in your life? What is it?
7. Do you agree with Franny's interpretation of love triangles on page 281?
8. Penelope and Franny have an interesting relationship throughout the novel. In what ways does it change? What does Penelope help Franny understand?
9. On page 307, the taxi driver remarks, "How'd it get this far and not go pop?" Why does this resonate with Franny? What could it represent in her life?
10. What does everyone else see in Franny that she doesn't see for herself?
11. On page 335, Franny's father tells her, "Imagine the best for yourself now and then, won't you, hon?" Discuss the importance of having a positive attitude, and how this changes for Franny.
12. The characters throughout the novel have their own individual takes on authenticity. What does it mean to James? How is that different from what it means to Dan, Franny, or Penny? VVhich definition do you agree with? Is it possible to be authentic in an industry that is in itself an artificial craft?
13. How has Franny changed by the end of the novel? What were her most transforming moments? Who most strongly influenced her?
14. Of all the themes in the novel—dreams, hope, friendship, believing in yourself, etc.—which did you find the most compelling? What do you think is the takeaway lesson of the book?
(Questins issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
TransAtlantic
Colum McCann, 2013
Random House
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812981926
Summary
In the National Book Award–winning Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann thrilled readers with a marvelous high-wire act of fiction that The New York Times Book Review called “an emotional tour de force.”
Now McCann demonstrates once again why he is one of the most acclaimed and essential authors of his generation with a soaring novel that spans continents, leaps centuries, and unites a cast of deftly rendered characters, both real and imagined.
Newfoundland, 1919. Two aviators—Jack Alcock and Arthur Brown—set course for Ireland as they attempt the first nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, placing their trust in a modified bomber to heal the wounds of the Great War.
Dublin, 1845 and ’46. On an international lecture tour in support of his subversive autobiography, Frederick Douglass finds the Irish people sympathetic to the abolitionist cause—despite the fact that, as famine ravages the countryside, the poor suffer from hardships that are astonishing even to an American slave.
New York, 1998. Leaving behind a young wife and newborn child, Senator George Mitchell departs for Belfast, where it has fallen to him, the son of an Irish-American father and a Lebanese mother, to shepherd Northern Ireland’s notoriously bitter and volatile peace talks to an uncertain conclusion.
These three iconic crossings are connected by a series of remarkable women whose personal stories are caught up in the swells of history. Beginning with Irish housemaid Lily Duggan, who crosses paths with Frederick Douglass, the novel follows her daughter and granddaughter, Emily and Lottie, and culminates in the present-day story of Hannah Carson, in whom all the hopes and failures of previous generations live on. From the loughs of Ireland to the flatlands of Missouri and the windswept coast of Newfoundland, their journeys mirror the progress and shape of history. They each learn that even the most unassuming moments of grace have a way of rippling through time, space, and memory.
The most mature work yet from an incomparable storyteller, TransAtlantic is a profound meditation on identity and history in a wide world that grows somehow smaller and more wondrous with each passing year. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Where—Dublin, Ireland
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; Rooney Prize; Hennessy Award for
Irish Literature; Irish Independent Hughes and Hughes/
Sunday Independent Novel of the Year; Ireland Fund
of Monaco Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award;
Deauville Festival of Cinema Literary Prize; named French
Chevalier des arts et lettres; inducted into Ireland's
Aosdana
• Currently—lives in New York City
Colum McCann is an Irish writer of literary fiction—two collections of short stories and several novels, most recently TransAtlantic (2013). He is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing in the Master of Fine Arts program at Hunter College, New York and a regular visitor to the European Graduate School.
McCann's fiction has been published in 35 languages. His novels include Songdogs (1995), This Side of Brightness (1998), Dancer (2003), Zoli (2006), Let the Great World Spin (2009), and TransAtlantic (2013). He has written for numerous newspapers and periodicals, including the New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Times (of London), Irish Times, Granta, and La Repubblica. His short story "Everything in this Country Must" was made into a short film directed by Gary McKendry. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 2005.
Early and private life
McCann was born in Dublin and studied journalism in the former College of Commerce in Rathmines, now the Dublin Institute of Technology He began his career as a reporter for the Irish Press, and had his own column and byline by the age of 21.
In 1986 he arrived in the United States with the purpose of writing a novel. He soon found that he was lacking the life experience to undertake such a project, so he took a bicycle tour across North America for the next 18 months, collecting many of the experiences that he later said influenced his fiction, especially the wide range of voices and backgrounds of his characters.
He settled in Texas from 1988 until 1991 where he worked as a wilderness guide in a program for juvenile delinquents in Texas, and completed his B.A in the University of Texas. In 1992 he married Allison Hawke and moved to Japan, where the McCanns lived for a year and a half. He and his wife then moved to New York where they currently reside with their three children, Isabella, John Michael, and Christian.
Major works
McCann's 2009 novel Let the Great World Spin uses the true story of Philippe Petit as a "pull-through metaphor" and weaves together a powerful allegory of 9/11. The novel has won numerous honours, notably the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. In 2010, McCann and musician Joe Hurley cowrote a song-cycle—“The House That Horse Built (Let the Great World Spin)”—based on the character of Tillie.
On 16 June 2009, McCann published a Bloomsday remembrance of his long-deceased grandfather, whom he met only once, and of finding him again in the pages of James Joyce's Ulysses.
McCann's 2013 novel Transatlantic tells the intertwined stories of Alcock and Brown (the first non-stop transatlantic fliers in 1919), the visit of Frederick Douglass to Ireland in 1845/46, and the story of the Irish peace process as negotiated by Senator George Mitchell in 1998. The book fuses these stories with fictional narratives of women spanning the course of two centuries. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/22/2013.)
Book Reviews
In 1919, two British veterans pilot a Vickers Vimy from Newfoundland to Ireland.... In 1845, escaped American slave Frederick Douglass comes to Ireland at the start of the famine on a speaking tour.... In 1998...American Senator George Mitchell brokers the Good Friday Peace Accords. Darting in, past, and through these stories are generations of women...with sons lost to the civil wars of both continents. This is what interests McCann: lives made amid and despite violence; the hidden braids of places, times, and people.... While each story is interesting, the threads between them...aren’t pulled taut enough by shared meaning.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) A masterful and profoundly moving novel that employs exquisite language to explore the limits of language and the tricks of memory.... [A]udacious in format (hopscotching back and forth across an ocean, centuries, generations)... [McCann] interweaves historical and fictional truth.... The novel's narrative strategy runs deeper than literary gamesmanship, as the blurring of distinctions between past and present, and between one side of the ocean and the other, with the history of struggle, war and emancipation as a backdrop, represents the thematic thread that connects it all.... A beautifully written novel, an experience to savor.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In this novel, Colum McCann writes about four men: Jack Alcock, Teddy Brown, Frederick Douglass, and Senator George Mitchell. Were you familiar with any or all of these figures before reading TransAtlantic? Did what you learn about them surprise you? Do you find their journeys thematically linked?
2. As Alcock and Brown fly across the Atlantic they have several close calls, including a moment when their plane spins out of control and a rough landing, all in the fierce cold and damp. Do you think anyone could, nowadays, make the same sort of journey they did? Why or why not? What sorts of physical challenges remain for adventurers and explorers?
3. Douglass forms relationships with several women in the novel: we see him write home to his wife, Anna, but he also indelibly shapes the maid Lily and becomes friends with Isabel Jennings. What do you think draws these very different people together? How do these small threads eventually create a tapestry?
4. Why do you think Lily follows Douglass to America? What does she hope to find there? Does this novel confront the impossibility of the American dream?
5. Book One is not chronological: after Alcock and Brown’s flight in 1919, we travel back to Douglass’s tour of Ireland in 1845, and then move forward once more to 1998 and Mitchell. How would your reading of the novel change if this section were differently arranged? What would happen to the novel if the sections concerning the women were woven directly into the stories of the men?
6. In the third section of the book, McCann takes us into the mind of Senator George Mitchell during the peace negotiations in Northern Ireland. What do you know about the Irish “Troubles”? How does Mitchell’s story enrich or change what you already knew?
7. The novel is structured so we meet the four men, seemingly unrelated, first—and then learn that women connected to all of them are multiple generations of one family. Why do you think McCann structures TransAtlantic in this way? What do the very male first half of the book and the very female second half tell us about men, women, and how we legislate history?
8. Lily loses most of the men she loves—the father of her first son, Tad; her sons, Tad, Adam, and Benjamin; and her husband, Jon. What do you think gives her the strength to continue on and become a successful merchant? Do you admire her? What does this say about the role of women in history?
9. In the course of TransAtlantic we see many technologies—to which we’re well accustomed today—at the moments they were still new, including airplanes, cameras, and automobiles. What does the novel tell us about these devices and how they bring people together (and tear people apart)?
10. There are two civil wars in the novel: the American Civil War, in which Lily loses her son, and the Troubles in Northern Ireland, which takes Lottie’s grandson, Hannah’s son. What does TransAtlantic show us about war? Who are its victims?
11. Why do you think Hannah leaves the letter behind with her hosts?
12. Some of the characters in the novel are based on real figures; others are entirely fictional. Is it easy to tell the two apart? How do these sets of characters illuminate one another? McCann has said in interviews that “the real is often imagined,” and “the imagined is often real.” What do you think he means by this?
13. The novel begins with an Eduardo Galeano quote that ends, “the time that was continues to tick inside the time that is.” Why do you think McCann chose to open TransAtlantic this way? How do you see the stories in the novel—“the time that was”—relating to today, “the time that is”?
14. As its title suggests, TransAtlantic is about Ireland and North America, and the ideas and people that cross between the two. What do you feel makes this international relationship special? What draws families and individuals back and forth between these countries?
15. What is the function of the Prologue of the novel, set in 2012? How does it frame the novel? How does it tie in with the last line of the book? What is McCann suggesting about the circularity of human experience?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope
Rhonda Riley, 2013
HarperCollins
424 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062099440
Summary
In the waning months of World War II, young Evelyn Roe's life is transformed when she finds what she takes to be a badly burned soldier, all but completely buried in the heavy red-clay soil on her family's farm in North Carolina.
When Evelyn rescues the stranger, it quickly becomes clear he is not a simple man. As innocent as a newborn, he recovers at an unnatural speed, and then begins to change—first into Evelyn's mirror image, and then into her complement, a man she comes to know as Adam.
Evelyn and Adam fall in love, sharing a connection that reaches to the essence of Evelyn's being. But the small town where they live is not ready to accept the likes of Adam, and his unusual origin becomes the secret at the center of their seemingly normal marriage.
Adam proves gifted with horses, and together he and Evelyn establish a horse-training business. They raise five daughters, each of whom possesses something of Adam's supernatural gifts. Then a tragic accident strikes the family, and Adam, in his grief, reveals his extraordinary character to the local community. Evelyn and Adam must flee to Florida with their daughters to avoid ostracism and prying doctors. Adrift in their new surroundings, they soon realize that the difference between Adam and other men is greater than they ever imagined.
Intensely moving and unforgettable, The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope captures the beauty of the natural world, and explores the power of abiding love and otherness in all its guises. It illuminates the magic in ordinary life and makes us believe in the extraordinary. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Rhonda Riley is a graduate of the creative writing program at the University of Florida. This is her first novel. She lives in Gainesville, Florida. (From the publisher.)
More
In her own words
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope is my first published book. When I was in college, I published a few poems, then a couple of essays, but there was one story I could not make fit into a poem, an essay or a short story—the story of my mother’s life.
I attended the University of Florida and received an MFA in fiction writing, then real life distracted me. But still I wanted to write my mother’s story. Finally, after a divorce and the death of my brother, I decided life was too short to wait any longer. I quit my job and bought myself some time to write a very fictional account of my mother’s voice.
Many drafts, three jobs, and two writing groups later, I had a polished novel and the fortune to find a wonderful agent and great editor at Ecco. I live in Gainesville, Florida with a new, good man, two aging and equally good cats, and many frogs. (Visit the author's website.)
Book Reviews
The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope creates a world in which the reader will encounter the full spectrum of emotions… This stunningly beautiful and unforgettable novel, a testament to the possibilities and triumph of love, find a permanent home in the reader’s heart.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Riley’s debut novel fuses a lyrical, tender love story with a sophisticated depiction of a supernatural sentient being.... Riley sometimes overdoes the quotidian minutiae of farm life, but succeeds both in getting the reader to suspend disbelief and fashioning a compelling story.
Publishers Weekly
First-time novelist Riley's exquisite language draws the reader into this improbable, beautifully rendered, somewhat biblical love story with a wildly imaginative premise that is irresistible, tender, and provocative. —Beth E. Andersen, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI
Library Journal
Enhanced by gorgeous depictions, The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope evokes the wonder of being alive, of loving, of finding one’s home. By the end, it feels like you have truly listened in on a life. This should be one of 2013’s most deserving hits.
BookPage
Folkloric elements blend with pure romance in Rhonda Riley’s startling The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope, a debut novel that raises questions about how well we ever know our loved ones--and whether it even matters…. Riley’s unusual meditation on the private worlds we build to shelter our partners and our children is written with earthiness and deep appreciation for the power of the land…. Both dreamily erotic and filled with the relatable minutiae of day-to-day life.
Shelf Awareness
A husband literally made in the image of others teaches Evelyn Roe about enduring love and the equally enduring human distrust of difference in Riley's debut.... [If] Evelyn's love was ever shaken by any real conflicts, this sweet but rather anodyne tale would gain some needed bite. As is, despite a few asides on racism, it's basically a romance with E.T. trimmings. Well-written and stocked with many strong characterizations, but fuzzy in plotting and theme.
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.