Rivak's War
Marilyn Oser, 2013
Mill City Press
268 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781626520509
Summary
Russia, 1914. Rivka, daughter of a prosperous boot maker, seems destined by tradition for marriage and the humdrum rounds of shtetl life.
Then war breaks out, and things go badly for the tsar’s army. When demoralized troops begin deserting their posts in the trenches, one unlikely officer recruits a battalion of girls to set an example for the men.
Rivka seizes upon this chance for adventure as her once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something great in the world. She signs on, never suspecting the terrors that await her, or the trials that will test her, or the mishaps that will take her from the frozen steppes of Siberia to the hot, dusty hills of Palestine.
Based on actual events, Rivka’s War is a riveting tale of loss and survival. In vivid detail, it portrays the impact of the Great War on Jewish life, re-creating a vanished world. (From the author.)
Author Bio
Marilyn Oser lives in New York’s Hudson Valley and on Long Island. A Ph.D. in language and literature, she has taught English and history and has raised funds for arts, environmental and community organizations. Author of the novel Playing for Keeps and the blog Streets of Israel, she is a recipient of the University of Michigan’s coveted Avery Hopwood Prize for excellence in writing. (From tha author .)
Book Reviews
A figure steps forward from history and shows herself to be a strong and courageous character. In Rivka's War, Marilyn Oser gives us a hero to cheer. A thoughtful and inspiring novel.
Susan Issacs
Outstanding....Five stars.
Fran Lewis, Just Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Many of the chapters in Rivka’s War are named for characters in the story. How does Rivka change and grow from her encounter with each of them? Which ones become role models for her?
2. One chapter is called “The Land.” How is the land also a kind of character that has its affect on Rivka?
3. Rivka wonders how she and Mischa have ended up on opposite sides of a political divide. How do you account for this?
4. Twice in Rivka's War, Rivka plunges into a deep depression. What are the factors that cause this? What factors help her overcome it?
5. Yashka is based on a historical figure. What attributes do you admire in her? What do you find less than admirable, even reprehensible?
6. Did biblical references in the novel enlarge your understanding of the events as they unfold?
7. Many horrifying scenes are portrayed in this novel, though these are mild compared to what actually occurred in Russia and Palestine during the war and its aftermath. Are such scenes appropriate in this novel? In any novel?
8. The story is based on events that happened a hundred years ago. What relevance does it have for our lives today?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)
A Nearly Perfect Copy
Allison Amend, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385536691
Summary
Elm Howells has a loving family and a distinguished career at an elite Manhattan auction house. But after a tragic loss throws her into an emotional crisis, she pursues a reckless course of action that jeopardizes her personal and professional success.
Meanwhile, talented artist Gabriel Connois wearies of remaining at the margins of the capricious Parisian art scene, and, desperate for recognition, he embarks on a scheme that threatens his burgeoning reputation. As these narratives converge, with disastrous consequences, A Nearly Perfect Copy boldly challenges our presumptions about originality and authenticity, loss and replacement, and the perilous pursuit of perfection. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 04, 1972 (guesstimate)
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford Uiversity; M.F.A., Iowa
Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Allison Amend was born in Chicago, Illinois, on a day when the Cubs beat the Mets 2-0. In high school, she lived for a year with a Spanish family in Barcelona and now speaks fluent Catalan. She attended Stanford University, and, though she dropped out three times, managed to graduate with honors in Comparative Literature. She spent her junior year pretending to attend the Sorbonne in Paris.
After college, she returned to France on a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship in Lyon, where she taught high school English and mistranslated documents for the Lyon Opera. Allison then attended the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, receiving a Maytag and a Teaching/Writing Fellowship. While there, she learned never to live downwind from a pig farm and how to put English on the cue ball.
Allison’s debut short story collection, Things That Pass for Love (2008) won a bronze Independent Publisher’s award. Stations West, a historical novel, was published by Louisiana State University Press as part of its Yellow Shoe Fiction series in March 2010 and was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the Oklahoma Book Award.
Her second novel, A Nearly Perfect Copy was published in 2013.
Allison lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing at Lehman College in the Bronx and for Red Earth MFA. (From the author's website .)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [C]lever, wry.... American art expert Elm Howells enjoys her work at Tinsley’s, the auction house her great-grandfather founded, but the recent loss of her young son has become an obsession she can’t shake. When she learns at a party that the hosts plan to clone their dead dog in Europe, Elm sets off on an unlikely path to get her precious son back—literally....but cloning isn’t cheap and she enters into a complicated moral dilemma. Amend makes her characters immediately real, depicting their complicated desires and decisions in a highly enjoyable, nearly perfect novel.
Publishers Weekly
Amend presents a tangled tale of two unrelated characters under grave emotional duress whose actions affect each other indelibly, though they remain strangers for the duration of the novel.... Verdict: Although the story line is provocative and intriguing, and some fine characterization develops, eventually, this book will appeal more to readers in the know regarding the art world than to a more general audience. —Joyce Townsend, Pittsburg, CA
Library Journal
[Written] with supple command, caustic wit, and a deep fascination with decent people who lose their moral compass ... As Amend tracks the descent of her two wounded and alienated innocents into lies, desperation, and crime, her visual acuity, fluent psychology, venture into the shadow side of the art world, and storytelling verve make for a blue-chip novel of substance and suspense.
Booklist
Gabriel--a gifted copyist and mimic who owes his start in the art world to his perfect replica of a painting by his famous forebear that hung in his childhood house--gets tempted, bit by bit, into a scheme that seems simultaneously to lay waste to and to fulfill his ambitions...and Elm, too, is swept into the conspiracy, at the other end, by her desperation to replace the son she lost. Amend provides a fizzy, entertaining insider's look at the conjunction of visual art and commerce—especially the world of art auctions.... A few preposterous plot points, but overall, this is a quick, provocative and likable read
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What role does provenance play in the novel, in terms of both art and people? What are Elm and Gabriel’s origins and how do their family legacies affect them? How do wealth and/or birthright contribute to Elm and Gabriel’s feelings of entitlement?
2. Family can be, by turns, a blessing and a burden. How do the characters reflect these attitudes?
3. The novel is told in alternating narratives. How do the two stories mirror each other? How are they different?
4. When Gabriel suggests to his mother that they sell the Febrer painting, his mother likens the painting to “a part of our family,” while Gabriel counters that it’s “a piece of cloth with some decorative oil.” Which sentiment do you agree with? Does art have intrinsic value, or only the value we assign it?
5. On page 134, Klinman says to Gabriel, “Say you borrow twenty euros from someone. Then you pay them back. Does it have to be the same twenty euros? Of course not.” How does this analogy hold up when applied to fine art?
6. How does Gabriel’s sense of alienation affect him? When people are marginalized—whether by choice or circumstance—do you think they’re more likely to behave dishonorably?
7. As a society, we are increasingly concerned with authenticity, and yet advancements in technology and science have made duplication easier than ever. What are some examples of this? When is copying objectionable and when is it beneficial?
8. Deception is a recurring motif in the novel. Which characters commit deceit and which characters are deceived? Did Colin’s admission to Elm change your feelings about him? About her own duplicity?
9. Klinman justifies his dishonesty by sharing the proceeds of his forgeries with victims of the Nazis. Does this make his crime morally defensible?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Amity & Sorrow
Peggy Riley, 2013
Little, Brown & Co.
312 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316220880
Summary
A mother and her daughters drive for days without sleep until they crash their car in rural Oklahoma. The mother, Amaranth, is desperate to get away from someone she's convinced will follow them wherever they go—her husband.
The girls, Amity and Sorrow, can't imagine what the world holds outside their father's polygamous compound. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Bradley, a farmer grieving the loss of his wife. At first unwelcoming to these strange, prayerful women, Bradley's abiding tolerance gets the best of him, and they become a new kind of family. An unforgettable story of belief and redemption, Amity & Sorrow is about the influence of community and learning to stand on your own. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Bridport Highly Commended Prize
• Currently—lives on the North Kent coast, UK
Peggy Riley is an American writer and playwright living in England. She recently won a Highly Commended prize in the 2011 Bridport Prize. Her short fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio and has been published in "New Short Stories 4," Mslexia Magazine, and as an app on Ether Books. Her plays have been commissioned and produced off-West End (London), regionally and on tour. She has been a festival producer, a bookseller, and writer-in-residence at a young offender's prison.
Originally from Los Angeles, Peggy now lives on the North Kent coast in Britain. She is currently working on her second novel, which will be set in the women's internment camp on the Isle of Man during WWII. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Peggy Riley...has an engaging way of raising mysteries, then deferring their answers. How exactly does a man talk a wife into sharing him? Who set the temple fire just before the escape? Why is Amaranth grateful for Sorrow’s miscarriage?... One of the conceits and pleasures of an escape-to-society story—cutting across genres from memoir to novels like Emma Donoghue’s Room—lies in lifting the escapee’s blindfold and watching her relish the dailiness of life...like a foreigner to Earth.... A shimmering first novel...delicately stitched, finely patterned and poetic.
Dylan Landis - New York Times Book Review
A literary page-turner.... Her writing is clear, crisp, chilling.
Reader's Digest
(Starred review.) [A] harsh but compassionate look at nature vs. nurture through the lens of a polygamous cult. Sisters Amity and Sorrow were born and raised by their mother, Amaranth, the first of the 50 wives of a self-proclaimed prophet, the leader...of a doomsday sect. When a confrontation with the law results in gunshots and a fire, Amaranth grabs her teenage daughters, steals a car, and drives for four days....explor[ing] this new world, meeting people and making...choices for the first time.... Riley’s mastery keeps this unusual tale from descending into melodrama, and she makes no easy choices.... A fierce and disturbing novel.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [An] accomplished, harrowing debut.... Riley's descriptive prose is rich in metaphor.... [and] the haunting literary drama simmers to a boil as it deftly navigates issues of family, faith, community, and redemption. —Ann Kelley
Booklist
The eponymous title refers to the daughters of Amaranth, the first wife (out of 50) of Zachariah, Messianic leader of a Doomsday cult. The novel opens with Amaranth on the lam with her two daughters, trying desperately to put some distance between herself and Zachariah.... Amaranth has recently become so spooked by Zachariah's growing megalomania that she feels she no longer has a home.... Through flashbacks we get glimpses into the lives Amaranth, Sorrow and Amity have led with Zachariah, shielded from the world and subject to his apocalyptic paranoia.... Simple in style but complex in tone, this book raises troubling questions about the power of doomladen cults, and their leaders and followers.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How are names used as metaphors in the novel?
2. What is the meaning behind how names are given (i.e., attribute names for the children and the family name shared by the Bradleys of Oklahoma), and do you think they serve a purpose?
3. How does the writer explore the bond between Sorrow and Amity? In what ways is their relationship typical of the bond between sisters?
4. The children in the polygamous community were illiterate. What are the implications and impact of that type of ignorance? Is a faith that is designed to keep its believers ignorant and isolated a "true" faith?
5. How can blind faith be dangerous? Was Sorrow brainwashed or devout?
6. Who defines what makes a family, and is there a true definition of family anymore? Do you think these polygamous women are a "true" family?
7. Are there scenarios that can justify a polygamous lifestyle? What are the benefits of a polygamous community to the wives in Amity & Sorrow? Do you think Amity will be drawn to live a polygamous lifestyle?
8. What role did meth play in the story? What did that add to the plot or reveal about the community?
9. Is it a fair exchange to join a faith and a family to "get clean"? Who gets more out of the exchange—the individual women or the family in total? Does a faith that offers a safe place of healing appeal to you, or is it a kind of con?
10. One of the hardest decisions a mother can make is to turn against her child. How does Amaranth struggle with this decision? Do you think she makes the right choice?
Caution: Spoiler Alert
11. To what extent was Sorrow a victim? Or did she become a willing participant when she returned "home"? At what age should children be responsible for their actions?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend – pg. 2 |
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Excerpt (cont.)
__________ FIVE
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Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend – pg. 3 |
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Excerpt (cont'd.)
__________ Max is the only boy I have ever seen who makes toy soldiers retreat or surrender. Every other boy makes them die instead.
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