Americanah
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
588 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307455925
Summary
From the award-winning author of Half of a Yellow Sun, a dazzling new novel: a story of love and race centered around a young man and woman from Nigeria who face difficult choices and challenges in the countries they come to call home.
As teenagers in a Lagos secondary school, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love. Their Nigeria is under military dictatorship, and people are leaving the country if they can. Ifemelu—beautiful, self-assured—departs for America to study. She suffers defeats and triumphs, finds and loses relationships and friendships, all the while feeling the weight of something she never thought of back home: race. Obinze—the quiet, thoughtful son of a professor—had hoped to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London.
Years later, Obinze is a wealthy man in a newly democratic Nigeria, while Ifemelu has achieved success as a writer of an eye-opening blog about race in America. But when Ifemelu returns to Nigeria, and she and Obinze reignite their shared passion—for their homeland and for each other—they will face the toughest decisions of their lives.
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today’s globalized world: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s most powerful and astonishing novel yet. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 15, 1977
• Where—Enugu, Enugu State, Nigeria
• Education—B.A., Eastern Connecticut State University; M.A.
(creative writing), Johns Hopkins University; M.A. (African
Studies), Yale University
• Awards—Orange Prize; Best First Book Award from the
Commonwealth Writers' Prize; O.Henry Prize
• Currently—divides her time between the US and Nigeri
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer. She is Igbo, one of the largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria. Adichie has been called "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors" that have succeeded "in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature."
Education
Born in the town of Enugu, she grew up in the university town of Nsukka in southeastern Nigeria, where the University of Nigeria is situated. While she was growing up, her father was a professor of statistics at the university, and her mother was the university registrar.
Adichie studied medicine and pharmacy at the University of Nigeria for a year and a half. During this period, she edited The Compass, a magazine run by the university's Catholic medical students. At the age of 19, Adichie left Nigeria and moved to the United States for college. After studying communications and political science at Drexel University in Philadelphia, she transferred to Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) to live closer to her sister, who had a medical practice in Coventry. She received a bachelor's degree from ECSU, where she graduated summa cum laude in 2001.
In 2003, she completed a master's degree in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University. In 2008, she received a Master of Arts in African studies from Yale University.
Adichie was a Hodder fellow at Princeton University during the 2005-2006 academic year. In 2008 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. She has also been awarded a 2011-2012 fellowship by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
Adichie, who is married, divides her time between Nigeria, where she teaches writing workshops, and the United States.
Writing
In 1997 Adichie published Decisions, a collection of poems, and in 1998, a play For Love of Biafra. She was shortlisted in 2002 for the Caine Prize[ for her short story "You in America."
In 2003, her story "That Harmattan Morning" was selected as joint winner of the BBC Short Story Awards, and she won the O. Henry prize for "The American Embassy." She also won the David T. Wong International Short Story Prize 2002/2003 (PEN Center Award), for "Half of a Yellow Sun."
Her first novel, Purple Hibiscus (2003), received wide critical acclaim; it was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction (2004) and was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (2005). Her second novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, named after the flag of the short-lived nation of Biafra, is set before and during the Biafran War. It was awarded the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Her third book, The Thing Around Your Neck (2009), is a collection of short stories. In 2010 she was listed among the authors of The New Yorker′s "20 Under 40" Fiction Issue. Adichie's story "Ceiling" was included in the 2011 edition of The Best American Short Stories. Her third novel Americanah was published in 2013. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/22/2013.)
Book Reviews
Adichie...is an extraordinarily self-aware thinker and writer, possessing the ability to lambaste society without sneering or patronizing or polemicizing. For her, it seems no great feat to balance high-literary intentions with broad social critique. Americanah examines blackness in America, Nigeria and Britain, but it’s also a steady-handed dissection of the universal human experience—a platitude made fresh by the accuracy of Adichie’s observations.... Americanah is witheringly trenchant and hugely empathetic.... It never feels false.
Mike Peed - New York Times Book Review
Adichie’s new novel takes root in the vagaries and murmured promises of a love story like much of her other work.... Her writing hits a nerve. [She] doesn’t hold back on criticizing [Nigeria’s] culture that fosters widespread government corruption. Or what she perceives as the excessive, neutered politeness of "political-correct language" in the U.S.
Jon Gambrell - Philadelphia Sunday Sun/Associated Press
Americanah is one of the freshest pieces of fiction of the year...and the fact that its subject isn’t instantly recognizable does not make it any less of an engrossing, all-encompassing read. Americanah is quite explicitly a book about race and African identity, but there are many moments when it transcends these themes. Adichie’s style of writing is familiar and personal, and her depiction of the African diaspora scathingly casts many of her main characters as a particularly loathsome type of East Coast intellectual. . . . Her success comes at the level of sentences, the way she can bring a character to life on the strength of a few words.... This book is absolutely essential.
Drew Grant - New York Observer
Adichie has written a big knockout of a novel about immigration, American dreams, the power of first love, and the shifting meanings of skin color.... Americanah is a sweeping story that derives its power as much from Adichie’s witty and fluid writing style as it does from keen social commentary.... Americanah works in so many different genres—coming-of-age novel, romance, comic novel of social manners, up-to-the-minute meditation on race, as well as the aforementioned immigrant saga—that I’m shortchanging its bounty by only mentioning some of the main characters’ adventures here. Like Ifemelu’s hairdo, Adichie’s novel tightly braids together multiple ideas and storylines. It’s a marvel of skilled construction and imagination.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR
Powerful.... If you think racism expired when President Obama was elected, this is perhaps not—or absolutely is—the book for you. [Americanah] is a story of relocation, far-flung love and life as an alien, spread across three continents. It’s also about the lonely but privileged perspective a stranger gains by entering a new culture. Ifemelu experiences America both as a black woman and as an African woman. In the U.S., those two identities combine, for experiences dark and light that Adichie skillfully renders in gray scale.... Adichie’s evocative power, transporting my imagination while keeping my feet firmly on the ground, has me looking forward to [her] books for years to come.
Rosecrans Baldwin - NPR
Americanah is that rare thing in contemporary literary fiction: a lush, bighearted love story that also happens to be a piercingly funny social critique. . . . Adichie writes with insight. A scene in a braiding salon, which unfolds over the course of the book, has more to say about the politics of self-image than any novel in recent memory.... Both for Adichie and [Ifemelu], her alter ego, coming in to oneself is ultimately about coming home, and to the place that—and to the person who—understands you, no explanation required. And love remains the last great hope for solving America’s complicated relationship with race.... A love story for our time.”
Megan O’Grady, Vogue
Glorious...a saga of a young couple’s efforts to escape their troubled homeland and seek their fortune abroad that bears comparison to the classical canon of the social novel.... Americanah provides Adichie with a fictional vehicle for pithy, sharply sensible commentary on race and culture—and us with a symphonic, polyphonic, full-immersion opportunity to think outside the American box and commune with the wholly global sensibility of Adichie, an author who truly contains multitudes.
Ben Dickson, Elle
(Starred review.) Adichie['s]...compelling and important new novel follows the lives of that country’s postwar generation as they suffer endemic corruption and poverty under a military dictatorship. An unflinching but compassionate observer, Adichie writes a vibrant tale about love, betrayal, and destiny; about racism; and about a society in which honesty is extinct and cynicism is the national philosophy. She broadens her canvas to include both America and England, where she illuminates the precarious tightrope existence of culturally and racially displaced immigrants.... [A] touching love story and an illuminating portrait of a country still in political turmoil.
Publishers Weekly
MacArthur fellow Adichie is a word-by-word virtuoso with a sure grasp of social conundrums in Nigeria, East Coast America, and England; an omnivorous eye for resonant detail; a gift for authentic characters; pyrotechnic wit; and deep humanitarianism. Americanah is a courageous, world-class novel about independence, integrity, community, and love—and what it takes to become a "full human being.” —Donna Seaman
Booklist
(Starred review.) FIfemelu, the Nigerian expat and Princeton lecturer at the heart of this novel....writes biting, dead-on blog posts taking aim at the cultural schism between non-African blacks, Africans, and everyone else.... But one day...Ifemelu senses that she has lost her way.... Verdict: Witty, wry, and observant, Adichie is a marvelous storyteller who writes passionately about the difficulty of assimilation and the love that binds a man, a woman, and their homeland. Her work should be read by anyone clutching at the belief that we're living in a post-racial United States. —Sally Bissell, Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Estero, FL
Library Journal
Ifemelu, beautiful and naturally aristocratic, has the good fortune to escape Nigeria during a time of military dictatorship.... Ifemelu's high school sweetheart, Obinze...has been denied a visa to enter post-9/11 America,...and now he is living illegally in London, delivering refrigerators and looking for a way to find his beloved.... The years pass, and Ifemelu is involved in the usual entanglements, making a reunion with Obinze all the more complicated. Will true love win out? Can things be fixed and contempt disarmed?... Soap-operatic in spots, but a fine adult love story with locations both exotic and familiar.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The first part of Ifemelu’s story is told in flashback while she is having her hair braided at a salon before she returns to Nigeria. Why might Adichie have chosen this structure for storytelling? What happens when the narrator shifts to Obinze’s story? How conscious are you as a reader about the switches in narrative perspective?
2. The novel opens in the Ivy League enclave of Princeton, New Jersey. Ifemelu likes living there because “she could pretend to be someone else, ...someone adorned with certainty” (3). But she has to go to the largely black city of Trenton, nearby, to have her hair braided. Does this movement between cities indicate a similar split within Ifemelu? Why does she decide to return to Nigeria after thirteen years in America?
3. How much does your own race affect the experience of reading this or any novel? Does race affect a reader’s ability to identify or empathize with the struggles of Ifemelu and Obinze? Ifemelu writes in her blog that “black people are not supposed to be angry about racism” because their anger makes whites uncomfortable (223). Do you agree?
4. Aunty Uju’s relationship with the General serves as an example of one mode of economic survival for a single woman: she attaches herself to a married man who supports her in return for sexual access. But Uju runs into a serious problem when the General dies and political power shifts. Why, given what you learn of Uju’s intelligence and capabilities later, do you think she chose to engage in this relationship with the General instead of remaining independent?
5. Ifemelu feels that Aunty Uju is too eager to capitulate to the demands of fitting in. Uju says, “You are in a country that is not your own. You do what you have to do if you want to succeed” (120). Is Uju right in compromising her own identity to a certain extent? How is Dike affected by his mother’s struggles?
6. In the clothing shop she visits with her friend Ginika, Ifemelu notices that the clerk, when asking which of the salespeople helped her, won’t say, “Was it the black girl or the white girl?” because that would be considered a racist way to identify people. “You’re supposed to pretend that you don’t notice certain things,” Ginika tells her (128). In your opinion and experience, is this a good example of American political correctness about race? Why does Ifemelu find it curious? Do you think these attitudes differ across the United States?
7. For a time, Ifemelu is a babysitter for Kimberly, a white woman who works for a charity in Africa. Adichie writes that “for a moment Ifemelu was sorry to have come from Africa, to be the reason that this beautiful woman, with her bleached teeth and bounteous hair, would have to dig deep to feel such pity, such hopelessness. She smiled brightly, hoping to make Kimberly feel better” (152). How well does Kimberly exemplify the liberal guilt that many white Americans feel toward Africa and Africans?
8. Ifemelu’s experience with the tennis coach is a low point in her life. Why does she avoid being in touch with Obinze afterward (157–58)? Why doesn’t she read his letters? How do you interpret her behavior?
9. In her effort to feel less like an outsider, Ifemelu begins faking an American accent. She feels triumphant when she can do it, and then feels ashamed and resolves to stop (175). Which aspects of her becoming an American are most difficult for Ifemelu as she struggles to figure out how much she will give up of her Nigerian self?
10. Ifemelu realizes that naturally kinky hair is a subject worth blogging about. She notices that Michelle Obama and Beyoncé never appear in public with natural hair. Why not? “Because, you see, it’s not professional, sophisticated, whatever, it’s just not damn normal” (299). Read the blog post “A Michelle Obama Shout-Out Plus Hair as Race Metaphor” (299–300), and discuss why hair is a useful way of examining race and culture.
11. What does Ifemelu find satisfying about her relationships with Curt and Blaine? Why does she, eventually, abandon each relationship? Is it possible that she needs to be with someone Nigerian, or does she simply need to be with Obinze?
12. Ifemelu’s blog is a venue for expressing her experience as an African immigrant and for provoking a conversation about race and migration. She says, “I discovered race in America and it fascinated me” (406). She asks, “How many other people had become black in America?” (298). Why is the blog so successful? Are there any real-life examples that you know of similar to this?
13. Obinze goes to London, and when his visa expires he is reduced to cleaning toilets (238); eventually he is deported. On his return home, “a new sadness blanketed him, the sadness of his coming days, when he would feel the world slightly off-kilter, his vision unfocused” (286). How does his experience in London affect the decisions he makes when he gets back to Lagos? Why does he marry Kosi? How do these choices and feelings compare to Ifemelu’s?
14. While she is involved with Curt, Ifemelu sleeps with a younger man in her building, out of curiosity. “There was something wrong with her. She did not know what it was but there was something wrong with her. A hunger, a restlessness. An incomplete knowledge of herself. The sense of something farther away, beyond her reach” (291–92). Is this a common feeling among young women in a universal sense, or is there something more significant in Ifemelu’s restlessness? What makes hers particular, if you feel it is?
15. When reading Obinze’s conversations with Ojiugo, his now-wealthy friend who has married an EU citizen, did you get the sense that those who emigrate lose something of themselves when they enter the competitive struggle in their new culture (Chapter 24), or is it more of a struggle to maintain that former self? Does Adichie suggest that this is a necessary sacrifice? Are all of the characters who leave Nigeria (such as Emenike, Aunty Uju, Bartholomew, and Ginika) similarly compromised?
16. Aunty Uju becomes a doctor in America but still feels the need to seek security through an alliance with Bartholomew, whom she doesn’t seem to love. Why might this be? How well does she understand what her son, Dike, is experiencing as a displaced, fatherless teenager? Why might Dike have attempted suicide?
17. Is the United States presented in generally positive or generally negative ways in Americanah?
18. The term “Americanah” is used for Nigerians who have been changed by having lived in America. Like those in the novel’s Nigerpolitan Club, they have become critical of their native land and culture: “They were sanctified, the returnees, back home with an extra gleaming layer” (408). Is the book’s title meant as a criticism of Ifemelu, or simply an accurate word for what she fears she will become (and others may think of her)?
19. How would you describe the qualities that Ifemelu and Obinze admire in each other? How does Adichie sustain the suspense about whether Ifemelu and Obinze will be together until the very last page? What, other than narrative suspense, might be the reason for Adichie’s choice in doing so? Would you consider their union the true homecoming, for both of them?
20. Why is it important to have the perspective of an African writer on race in America? How does reading the story make you more alert to race, and to the cultural identifications within races and mixed races? Did this novel enlarge your own perspective, and if so, how?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Looking for Me
Beth Hoffman, 2013
Pamela Dorman Books
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780670025831
Summary
Beth Hoffman’s bestselling debut, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, won admirers and acclaim with its heartwarming story and cast of unforgettable characters. Now her unique flair for evocative settings and richly drawn Southern personalities shines in her compelling new novel, Looking for Me.
Teddi Overman found her life’s passion for furniture in a broken-down chair left on the side of the road in rural Kentucky. She learns to turn other people’s castoffs into beautifully restored antiques, and eventually finds a way to open her own shop in Charleston. There, Teddi builds a life for herself as unexpected and quirky as the customers who visit her shop. Though Teddi is surrounded by remarkable friends and finds love in the most surprising way, nothing can alleviate the haunting uncertainty she’s felt in the years since her brother Josh’s mysterious disappearance. When signs emerge that Josh might still be alive, Teddi is drawn home to Kentucky. It’s a journey that could help her come to terms with her shattered family—and to find herself at last. But first she must decide what to let go of and what to keep.
Looking for Me brilliantly melds together themes of family, hope, loss, and a mature once-in-a-lifetime kind of love. The result is a tremendously moving story that is destined to make bestselling author Beth Hoffman a novelist to whom readers will return again and again as they have with Adriana Trigiani, Fannie Flagg, and Joshilyn Jackson. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Ohio, USA
• Currently—lives in Newport, Kentucky
Beth Hoffman was president and co-owner of a major interior design studio in Cincinnati, Ohio, before selling her business to write full time. (From the publisher.)
More
In her own words:
I was born on an elevator during a snowstorm, a story my father often enjoyed telling whenever the opportunity arose. For the first five years of my life, I lived (along with my mom, dad, and older brother) on my grandparents’ farm in northern Ohio. It was a rural area, and other than a few tolerant garden toads, a highly social chicken, and Midnight, our family dog, there wasn’t anyone to play with. So I created imaginary friends. I’d draw pictures of them and build them homes out of shoeboxes—replete with interiors furnished by pictures I’d cut from a Sears & Roebuck catalog. Eventually I wrote stories about my friends, giving them interesting names and complex lives.
From earliest memory, there were two things I loved above all else: writing and painting. I wrote my first short story when I was eleven and sold my first painting at the age of fourteen. I believed the sale of the painting was a sign of what direction I should take in life. So I chose a career in art that eventually segued into interior design, but I still kept writing and dreaming of becoming a novelist. Life sent me on many creative journeys and I ultimately landed in Cincinnati, Ohio, becoming the president and co-owner of an interior design studio.
Years went by, long hours and hard work brought success, and with it came the inevitable stresses of business ownership. During the busiest year of my professional life, I nearly died from the same infection that took puppeteer Jim Henson’s life—group A streptococcal infection that resulted in septic shock. After finally being discharged from the hospital, I returned home to convalesce. I spent weeks reevaluating my life—the good, the bad, and the downright painful. As I struggled to regain my health and find spiritual ballast, my dream of writing a novel resurfaced. But no matter how I looked at it, there simply weren’t enough hours in the day to fulfill the demands of my career and write a novel. So I let the dream go.
Then, on a snowy morning in January of 2004, a complete stranger said something to me. And like an unexpected gust of fresh air, his words blew the door wide open. In an eye-blink I knew if I were to write a novel, it had to be now or never. I chose now. I sold my portion of the design business, and after a month of sleeping and meditating and realigning my energies, I plunked down at my computer. Day after day my fingers blazed over the keyboard, and I didn’t come up for air until I typed “The End” nearly four years later.
If there’s a moral to my story, it’s this: take a chance, embrace your dreams, forgive, let go, move on. And if life gives you a big smackdown, there’s a reason—and it just might lead toward your own little piece of the rainbow.
Oh, and there’s one more thing: be mindful of the words of strangers. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Upon graduating from high school, Theodora “Teddi” Overman leaves her childhood home in rural Kentucky to pursue her passion for restoring old furniture.... One item from her past, however, continues to haunt her: the still-unexplained disappearance of her brother, Josh.... Though readers may question certain plot turns, these less plausible moments won’t detract too much from the enjoyment to be found in Teddi’s story.
Publishers Weekly
Hoffman has a good ear for dialogue, and Teddie and her friends are realistic, appealing characters. Perfect for fans of family-centered women’s fiction, this book will have special appeal to readers interested in antiques and 'shabby chic' style.
Booklist
Self-taught furniture restorer and successful business owner Teddi Overman has built a good life. Yet a mystery from her past lingers.... Just as love begins to nudge at the edges of Teddi's life, she is forced to reckon with [her brother] Josh's disappearance and her mother's dashed expectations. Hoffman's...novel confusingly mingles a charming Southern-girl romance with a weighty mystery. The romance resolves predictably, yet the mystery leaves far too many loose threads.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Teddi follows her dream to work with furniture despite her mother's lack of support, and she works hard to make her vision a reality. Do you have a similar passion or drive?
2. Why did Hoffman choose birds as the animals that mean the most to Josh? What does a bird represent?
3. On page 197, Teddi's grandmother says, "Sometimes it's not what we hold onto that shapes our lives but what we let go of." How does this apply to Teddi? To your own life?
4. Teddi finds a beautiful silk nightgown in her mother's dresser. Why do you think her mother kept it for so many years?
5. The novel is filled with colorful characters. Besides Teddi, who was your favorite and why?
6. Hoffman writes that the difficulty of returning home is that "a piece of us stays behind when we leave-a piece we can never reclaim, one that awaits our next visit and demands that we remember" (page12). Do you agree?
7. Teddi struggles to get her mother to see her for what she really is. Did she succeed? Did you have a similar situation with your own parents? With your own children?
8. Do you think that Josh killed the poacher?
9. Looking beyond the events of the novel, do you imagine that Teddi and Josh will be reunited?
10. In the hospital, Teddi nearly tells her mother that she loves her but decides against it. Why? If she had, how do you think her mother would have reacted?
11Why does Hoffman end the novel with the word "Menewa"?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Unwritten
Charles Martin, 2013
Center Street
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781455503957
Summary
An actress running from her past finds escape with a man hiding from his future.
When someone wants to be lost, a home tucked among the Ten Thousand Islands off the Florida coast is a good place to live. A couple decent boats, and a deep knowledge of fishing and a man can get by without ever having to talk to another soul. It's a nice enough existence, until the one person who ties him to the world of the living, the reason he's still among them even if only on the fringes, asks him for help.
Father Steady Capri knows quite a bit about helping others. But he is afraid Katie Quinn's problems may be beyond his abilities. Katie is a world-famous actress with an all too familiar story. Fame seems to have driven her to self-destruct. Steady knows the true cause of her desire to end her life is buried too deeply for him to reach. But there is one person who still may be able to save her from herself.
He will show her an alternate escape, a way to write a new life. But Katie still must confront her past before she can find peace. Ultimately, he will need to leave his secluded home and sacrifice the serenity he's found to help her. From the Florida coast, they will travel to the French countryside where they will discover the unwritten story of both their pasts and their future. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 3, 1969
• Education—B.A., Florida State University; M.A., Ph.D.,
Regent University
• Currently—Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Charles Martin is the author of Where the River Ends, Chasing Fireflies, Maggie, When Crickets Cry, Wrapped in Rain, The Dead Don't Dance, and The Mountain Between Us.
He earned his B.A. in English from Florida State University, and his M.A. in Journalism and Ph.D. in Communication from Regent University. He served one year at Hampton University as an adjunct professor in the English department and as a doctoral fellow at Regent. In 1999, he left a career in business to pursue his writing.
He and his wife, Christy, live a stone's throw from the St. John's River in Jacksonville, Florida, with their three boys: Charlie, John T. and Rives. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Martin has an incredible gift for characterization and writing that tugs at the emotions without being overly melodramatic. This is the type of novel you will want to read quickly, because it is so engrossing, yet want to savor because the prose is meaningful and poignant.
RT Book Reviews
A kind-hearted priest brings together two celebrities who have faked their own deaths in Martin's ninth novel (after Thunder and Rain).... The novel reads as much like a mystery as a romance since neither main character reveals their past until the final third of the book. Unfortunately, this lack of back story, as well as the fact that they both have achieved a degree of wealth and fame...can leave the reader feeling like they've stumbled upon a modern day romantic allegory instead of a character-driven work of fiction.... [B]ut for those who like their romances on the fantastical side there's more than enough of the lives of the rich and famous to keep one engaged.
Publishers Weekly
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the title of the book is Unwritten? In what ways is that theme conveyed in the book?
2. Shortly after meeting Peter, Katie confesses to Steady, “I don't like the way I treat people.” Why do you think she behaves the way she does? Is her behavior justified?
3. Why would Steady believe that Peter and Katie are more capable of helping each other than he is of helping either of them?
4. Do you think Peter did the right thing in helping Katie through Door #3?
5. Were Katie’s fans truly mourning her after her death? Is the act of mourning about the person lost, or the person who is mourning?
6. In what ways are Peter and Katie similar? How does it impact their relationship?
7. Why do you think Katie had so many disguises? Were they a help to her or a hindrance?
8. In what ways is Katie influenced by the opinion of society throughout her life? How has it shaped who she is?
9. Peter stops writing after he loses Jodie, even though there are many children who love his stories. Why is that? Was it really about Jodie?
10. Discuss the theme of forgiveness in the novel.
11. In what way does Katie help Peter?
12. What do you think would have happened to Katie and Peter if Steady had not pushed them together? Could they have healed on their own?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Jo Joe
Sally Wiener Grotta, 2013
Pixie Hall Press
312 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780988387119 (paperback); 9780988387157 (ebook)
Summary
Jo Joe is a mystery of the heart about Judith Ormand who learned hate and bigotry early in life. As a child, she was the only Black—and the only Jew—in a small insular mountain village where she was raised by her white Christian grandparents. Now, she must reluctantly break her vow to never return to the town she learned to hate.
During her one week visit, she buries and mourns her beloved grandmother, is forced to deal with the white boy who cruelly broke her heart, and is menaced by an old enemy. But with her traumatic discovery of a long buried secret, Judith finds more questions than answers about the prejudice that scarred her childhood. (From the publisher.)
Read an excerpt.
Author Bio
Whether she is writing books or taking photographs, Sally Wiener Grotta is the consummate storyteller. Her words and pictures reflect her deep humanism and appreciation for the poignancy of life. As an award-winning, internationally respected journalist, she has authored literally many hundreds of articles, columns and reviews for scores of glossy magazines, newspapers and online publications, plus numerous non-fiction books. Her features, columns, reviews and books are marked by a narrative style that entertains as well as informs.
Having traveled on assignment throughout the world to all continents (including three visits to Antarctica) and numerous exotic islands (such as Papua New Guinea), Sally’s work has appeared a wide range of publications including: Woman’s Day, American Heritage, Islands, The Robb Report, Popular Science, and others.
Her numerous non-fiction books were published by John Wiley, McGraw-Hill and other major houses. Her short fiction has appeared in The North Atlantic Review. She is also the photographer/storyteller behind the widely acclaimed American Hands narrative portrait project (www.AmHands.com), which has received over three dozen grants and other honors.
Jo Joe is Sally’s first novel; her next one The Winter Boy will be published by Pixel Hall Press in the last quarter of 2013.
Sally Wiener Grotta is a popular speaker on the business and art of writing at conferences and other events, as well as on photography and the traditional tradespeople of American Hands. Sally welcomes invitations to participate in discussions with book clubs (sometimes in person, more often via Skype or phone), and to do occasional readings. To arrange a discussion, please visit Sally's website—where you can also connect with her through Facebook, Twitter and Linked in. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The book is too new to have been reviewed by mainstream press. The publishers have sent the following samples of reader reviews found online.
Brilliant!... Skillfully woven.
Peter Simpson
Thought provoking and inspiring.
Margo Crispino Azzarelli
A riveting read. Astute, psychologically believable and movin
Rabbi Peg Kershenbaum
I read it through in a single sitting.... masterfully developed. –
Professor Claire Herschfeld
Storytelling at its Best! This is one of those books that will stay with me for a long time.
Dottie Resnick
Beautifully written prose with a compelling style, emotional descriptions hit with a visceral punch, and stay long after the book is shelved.
Gaele Hince
Ultimately, this fine book, with its deliciously descriptive passages of life on the Schmoyer farm and suspense simmering throughout each page, is quite interesting to read.
Joanne Manuel
Engaging… both simple & complex… brought me to tears…. A page turner for sure.
L.E. Ryan
Heartwarming, sad, insightful, and encouraging.
Pat Viera
So realistic. I couldn't stop reading—I needed to know how it ended.
Bonnie Fladung
Discussion Questions
1. Is there a difference between prejudice and bigotry?
2. Do you know anyone of mixed race and/or religion? How do you think their lives are different?
3. Do you think Joe made the right choice when they were children? Why?
4. If Joe and Judith had married, would it have lasted? Why? What do you think their life together would have been like?
5. [spoiler] Why didn't Joe become like his father and brother? Is bigotry and hatred inherited?
6. Would the story have been different if they had gone to high school today rather than 20 years ago? In what way?
7. Would the story have been different if it had been before or after President Obama's election? In what way?
8. Does being black affect Judith's Judaism? Does being Jewish affect her heritage as a black woman?
9. How would Judith's life have been different if she had been raised a Christian?
10. What do you honestly think of the grandmother? In what ways was she right and/or wrong?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Murder as a Fine Art
David Morrell, 2013
Mulholland Books
358 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316216791
Summary
Thomas De Quincey, infamous for his memoir Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, is the major suspect in a series of ferocious mass murders identical to ones that terrorized London forty-three years earlier.
The blueprint for the killings seems to be De Quincey's essay "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts." Desperate to clear his name but crippled by opium addiction, De Quincey is aided by his devoted daughter Emily and a pair of determined Scotland Yard detectives.
In Murder as a Fine Art, David Morrell plucks De Quincey, Victorian London, and the Ratcliffe Highway murders from history. Fogbound streets become a battleground between a literary star and a brilliant murderer, whose lives are linked by secrets long buried but never forgotten. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 24, 1943
• Where—Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., St. Jerome's University; M.A., Ph.D.,
University of Pennsylvania
• Awards—Thrill Master Award from International Thriller
Writers
• Currently—lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
David Morrell is a Canadian-American novelist, best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, which would later become the successful Rambo film franchise starring Sylvester Stallone. He has written 28 novels, and his work has been translated into 26 languages. He also wrote the 2007-2008 Captain America comic book miniseries, The Chosen.
Early life and career
Morrell decided to become a writer at the age of 17, after being inspired by the writing in the classic television series Route 66. In 1966, Morrell received his B.A. in English from and moved to the United States to study with Hemingway scholar Philip Young at Pennsylvania State University, where he would eventually receive his M.A. and Ph.D. in American literature. During his time at Penn State he also met science fiction writer Philip Klass, better known by the pseudonym William Tenn, who taught the basics of writing fiction.
Morrell began work as an English professor at the University of Iowa in 1970. In 1972, his novel First Blood was published; it would eventually be made into the 1982 film of the same name starring Sylvester Stallone as Vietnam veteran John Rambo. Morrell continued to write many other novels, including The Brotherhood of the Rose, the first in a trilogy of novels, which was adapted into a 1989 NBC miniseries starring Robert Mitchum. Eventually tiring of the two professions, he gave up his tenure at the university in 1986 in order to write full time.
Morrell's teenaged son Matthew died of Ewing's Sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer in 1987. The trauma of his loss influenced Morrell's work, in particular in his creative fiction memoir about Matthew, Fireflies. The protagonist of Morrell's novel Desperate Measures also experiences the loss of a son.
Memberships
Morrell is the co-president of the International Thriller Writers organization from which he was presented with the 2009 ThrillerMaster Award. He is a graduate of the National Outdoor Leadership School for wilderness survival as well as the G. Gordon Liddy Academy of Corporate Security. He is also an honorary lifetime member of the Special Operations Association and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers.
According to his website, he has been trained in firearms, hostage negotiation, assuming identities, executive protection, and anti-terrorist driving, among numerous other action skills that he describes in his novels. He recently received his FAA licence to pilot his own small plane.
Morrell lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 05/13/2013.)
Book Reviews
As might be expected from the creator of Rambo, Morrell writes action scenes like nobody's business.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times
[Morrell's] 26th [novel] and surely one of his best—introduces a new hero.... He’s the real-life writer Thomas De Quincey, best remembered for Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, who, as this story unfolds in 1854, is 69 years old, five feet tall, frail and hopelessly addicted to the opium-based drink laudanum—yet able enough to use his intellectual powers to lead the search for a serial killer who fancies himself an artist.... Murder as a Fine Art may or may not be fine art, but it's an inspired blend of innovation, history and gore. Murder is rarely this much fun.
Patrick Anderson - Washington Post
The drama feels shockingly real because Morrell’s thorough and erudite research of the people and culture of the British Empire’s heyday informs every page of the novel.
Associated Press
(Starred review.) A killer copying the brutal 1811 Ratcliffe Highway murders terrorizes 1854 London in this brilliant crime thriller from Morrell. The earlier slaughters, attributed to a John Williams, were the subject of a controversial essay by Thomas De Quincey entitled “On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts.” ... The similarities send the police after De Quincey, who, aided by his able daughter Emily, must vindicate himself and catch the killer.... [A]n epitome of the intelligent page-turner.
Publishers Weekly
Three sleuths...hunt for a killer who has replicated a pair of 40-year-old massacres.... Verdict: Morrell hooks the reader early and moves the action along swiftly. He also effectively captures a long-gone London and details how the city was changing as it moved into the industrial age. This diverting thriller will please the many readers who enjoy historical crime fiction. —David Keymer, Modesto, CA
Library Journal
In 1854, a series of senseless killings in London so closely echo the literary work of [real-life] Thomas De Quincey that he becomes the principal suspect.... De Quincey is quite convincing, but most of his other characters lack the same depth.... In trying too hard to bring certain threads full circle, the book's climax comes across as a bit contrived. But the charming central conceit—a laudanum-chugging De Quincy chasing a killer through fog-shrouded Victorian London—goes a long way toward making up for the novel's glaring shortcomings, as do several tense, well-paced action sequences.
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.