All That Is
James Salter, 2013
Knopf Doubleday
304 p.
ISBN-13: 9781400078424
Summary
An extraordinary literary event, a major new novel by the PEN/Faulkner winner and acclaimed master: a sweeping, seductive, deeply moving story set in the years after World War II.
From his experiences as a young naval officer in battles off Okinawa, Philip Bowman returns to America and finds a position as a book editor. It is a time when publishing is still largely a private affair—a scattered family of small houses here and in Europe—a time of gatherings in fabled apartments and conversations that continue long into the night.
In this world of dinners, deals, and literary careers, Bowman finds that he fits in perfectly. But despite his success, what eludes him is love. His first marriage goes bad, another fails to happen, and finally he meets a woman who enthralls him—before setting him on a course he could never have imagined for himself.
Romantic and haunting, All That Is explores a life unfolding in a world on the brink of change. It is a dazzling, sometimes devastating labyrinth of love and ambition, a fiercely intimate account of the great shocks and grand pleasures of being alive. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 10, 1925
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—West Point Military Academy;
M.A., Georgetown University
• Awards—PEN/Faulkner Award; PEN/Malmud Award;
Rea Award for the Short Story
• Currently—lives in New York and Colorado
James Salter is an American novelist and short-story writer. Once a career officer and pilot in the United States Air Force, he abandoned the military profession in 1957 after successful publication of his first novel, The Hunters.
After a brief career at film writing and film directing, Salter became a "writer's writer" in 1979 with publication of the novel Solo Faces. He has won numerous literary awards for his works, including belated recognition of works originally rejected at the time of their publication.
Salter was born James Arnold Horowitz, the son of a moderately wealthy New Jersey real estate consultant/economist, on June 10, 1925. He attended the Horace Mann School, and among his classmates were Julian Beck and William F. Buckley, Jr., while Jack Kerouac attended during the 1939-40 academic year.
Military
He is alternately said to have favored Stanford University or MIT as his choice of college, but entered West Point on July 15, 1942, at the urging of his alumnus father, Col. Louis G. Horowitz, who had gone back into the Corps of Engineers in July 1941 in anticipation of the war. Like his father, Horowitz attended West Point during a world war, when classes sizes were greatly increased and the curriculum drastically shortened. Horowitz graduated in 1945 after just three years, ranked 49th in general merit in his class of 852. He was known among classmates as "Horrible" Horowitz.
He completed flight training during his first class year, with primary flight training at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and advanced training at Stewart Field, New York. On a cross-country navigation flight in May 1945, his flight became scattered, and low on fuel, he mistook a railroad trestle for a runway, crashlanding his T-6 Texan training craft into a house in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Possibly as a result, he was assigned to multi-engine training in B-25s until February 1946, and received his first unit assignment with the 6th Troop Carrier Squadron, stationed at Nielson Field, the Philippines; Naha Air Base, Okinawa; and Tachikawa Air Base, Japan. He was promoted to 1st lieutenant in January 1947.
Horowitz was transferred in September 1947 at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, then entered post-graduate studies at Georgetown University in August 1948, receiving his master's degree in January 1950. He was assigned to the headquarters of the Tactical Air Command at Langley AFB, Virginia, in March, where he remained until volunteering for assignment in the Korean War.
He arrived in Korea in February 1952 after transition training in the F-86 Sabre with the 75th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Presque Isle Air Force Base, Maine. Horowitz was assigned to the 335th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, 4th Fighter-Interceptor Wing, a renowned MiG-hunting unit. He flew more than 100 combat missions between February 12 and August 6, 1952, and was credited with a MiG-15 victory July 4, 1952.
Military books
Horowitz was subsequently stationed in Germany and France, promoted to major, assigned to lead an aerial demonstration team, and became a squadron operations officer, in line to become a squadron commander. In his off-duty time he worked on his fiction, completing a manuscript rejected by publishers and another, which, in 1956, eventually became The Hunters. It was based on his Korean experience.
Despite the responsibilities of a spouse and two small children, he abruptly left active duty with the Air Force in 1957 to pursue his writing. It was a decision he found difficult because of his passion for flying.
In 1958 The Hunters was adapted to film and starred Robert Mitchum. The movie version achieved acclaim for its powerful performances, moving plot, and realistic portrayal of the Korean War. It was, however, was very different from the novel, which dealt with the slow self-destruction of a 31-year-old fighter pilot, was once thought to be a "hot shot" but who found nothing but frustration in his first combat experience. Others around him achieved glory, some of it perhaps invented.
His 1961 novel The Arm of Flesh drew on his experiences flying with the 36th Fighter-Day Wing at Bitburg Air Base, Germany, between 1954 and 1957. An extensively revised version of the novel was reissued in 2000 as Cassada. However, Salter himself later disdained both of his "Air Force" novels as products of youth "not meriting much attention."
After several years in the Air Force Reserve, in 1961 Salter completely severed his connection, resigning his commission after his unit was called to active duty for the Berlin Crisis. He moved back to New York with his family, which included twins born in 1962, and legally changed his name to Salter.
All told, Salter had served twelve years in the U.S. Air Force, the last six as a fighter pilot. His fiction, based on his Air Force experiences, has a fatalistic tone: his protagonists, after struggling with conflicts between their reputations and self-perceptions, are killed in the performance of duties while inept antagonists ranks soldier on.
Later writing career
Salter took up film writing, first as a writer of independent documentary films, winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival in collaboration with television writer Lane Slate (Team, Team, Team). Though disdainful of it, he also wrote for Hollywood. His last script, commissioned and then rejected by Robert Redford, became his novel, Solo Faces.
Widely regarded as one of the most artistic writers of modern American fiction, Salter himself is critical of his own work, having said that only his 1967 novel A Sport and a Pastime comes close to living up to his standards. Set in post-war France, it is a piece of erotica involving an American student and a young French girl, told as flashbacks in the present tense by an unnamed narrator who barely knows the student, who himself yearns for the girl, and who freely admits that most of his narration is fantasy. Many characters in Salter's short stories and novels reflect his passion for European culture and, in particular, France, which he describes as a "secular holy land."
Although some critics see the apparent influence of both Ernest Hemingway and Henry Miller, in interviews with his biographer William Dowie, Salter claims to be influenced by Andre Gide and Thomas Wolfe. His writing is often described by reviewers as "succinct" or "compressed." His prose contains short sentences and sentence fragments, alternating points-of-view, and shifting tenses between past and present. His dialogue is attributed only enough to keep clear who is speaking but otherwise allows the reader to draw inferences from tone and motivation. Salter exhibits this prose style in his memoir Burning the Days.
Salter published a collection of short stories, Dusk and Other Stories in 1988. The collection received the PEN/Faulkner Award, and one of its stories ("Twenty Minutes") became the basis for the 1996 film Boys. He was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2000. In 2012, PEN/Faulkner Foundation selected him for the 25th PEN/Malamud Award as his works show the readers "how to work with fire, flame, the laser, all the forces of life at the service of creating sentences that spark and make stories burn."
Salter's writings—correspondence, manuscripts, and typescript drafts of short stories and screenplays—are archived at The Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas.
Salter and his first wife Ann divorced during his screen-writing period, after which he lived with journalist and playwright Kay Eldredge beginning in 1976. They had a son, Theo Salter, born in 1985, and married in Paris in 1998. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
“I’m a frotteur,” the multiple award-winning Mr. Salter once told The Paris Review, “someone who likes to rub words in his hand, to turn them around and feel them, to wonder if that really is the best word possible.” In this book, he has rubbed them to a high sheen indeed.
Stevie Godson - New York Journal of Books
[Salter] is a master of the sentence so vivid [that] it stuns. His sweeping new All That Is will refresh the canon of one of America’s best living writers.
Chelsea Allison - Vogue
Salter is one of the most celebrated living American writers, and after a seven-year hiatus he returns with possibly his best work yet.” Steph Opitz - Marie Claire
Highly decorated literary hero James Salter burnishes his reputation with All That Is.
Elissa Schappell - Vanity Fair
The 87-year-old PEN/Faulkner Award–winner’s first full-length novel in more than three decades spans some 40 years and follows the accidental life, career, and loves of book editor Philip Bowman....[whose] career is merely a vehicle for his loves and losses, connections made and missed. The women in his life somehow never suit....since Bowman fails to connect with anyone. The number of characters who parade through the book can frustrate...but Salter measures his words carefully, occasionally punctuating his elegant prose with sharp, erotic punches.
Publishers Weekly
PEN/Faulkner winner Salter publishes rarely—this is his first fiction in seven years—but when he does, it's choice. This novel features World War II veteran Philip Bowman, now a book editor, who enjoys the charged and intimate environment of the era's publishing world yet suffers in his emotional life. A real in-house favorite; don't miss.
Library Journal
For decades, Salter has been an artistic standard-bearer.... Naval officer Philip Bowman, virginal and close to his mother, makes it safely home [after World War II], moves to New York, and finds professional contentment as an editor at a small publisher. Even though he falls hard for Vivian, a wealthy southerner, he remains hermetically sealed. Their marriage fizzles quickly, and Bowman is smitten again, but he never gets it right.... Resonant passages bloom, including the one that captures the book’s subdued spirit: "The landscape was beautiful but passive. The emptiness of things rose like the sound of a choir making the sky bluer and more vast." —Donna Seamen
Booklist
[A]cclaimed veteran author chronicles the life and loves of a Manhattan book editor over a 40-year period. Okinawa, 1945. The Americans and Japanese are preparing for the climactic battle of the Pacific. Salter's sweep is panoramic but his eye, God-like, is also on the sparrow, a 20-year-old officer in the U.S. Navy, Philip Bowman. It's a stunning opening, displaying a mastery of scale that will not be repeated.... After Harvard, Bowman is hired by the high-principled owner of a small literary publishing house. He meets Vivian at a bar... Bowman believes the unlettered Vivian, now his bride, is educable; she's not.... In London on a business trip, Bowman meets a married woman...; their affair will fizzle out, like his marriage to Vivian.... Bowman floats above all that....to make matters worse, this thoughtful man fails to examine his conduct. Without his self-knowledge, there is nothing to knit the novel together. There are incidental pleasures here but, overall, a disappointing return.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. All That Is is preceded by an epigraph: “There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.” In what ways does this enigmatic statement illuminate the story that follows? Why would it be that only things preserved in writing are “real”?
2. James Salter has been called “a writer’s writer” and praised for the artistry of his sentences. What are the most appealing qualities of Salter’s prose style? In what ways does his writing differ from that of most contemporary novelists?
3. The novel is told primarily from Bowman’s point of view, but the narrative shifts perspectives, and the narrator reveals things that Bowman can’t know about. What is the effect of Salter switching between viewpoints and keeping a fair authorial distance from his characters?
4. What kind of man is Philip Bowman? What are his most striking attributes? What drives him? In what ways is he both flawed and honorable? Does he change in any essential way over the course of the novel?
5. In All That Is Salter eschews a conventional plot in favor of a more episodic, impressionistic, associative structure. What are the pleasures of reading such a narrative? In what ways does it feel closer to the way life actually happens, or is remembered, than a more tightly structured narrative might seem?
6. Bowman’s proposal to Vivian, which takes place in a crowded bar, is decidedly awkward. “What would you think,” he asks, “about living here [in New York City]? I mean, we’d be married, of course.” Vivian replies: “There’s so much noise in here,” and then asks, “Was that a proposal?” Bowman says, “It was pitiful, wasn’t it? Yes, it’s a proposal. I love you. I need you. I’d do anything for you.” Vivian never directly accepts. Instead, she says, “We’ll have to get Daddy’s permission” [p. 59]. What does Salter suggest in this scene, simply through dialogue, about Bowman and Vivian’s relationship and its chances for success?
7. Why does Bowman’s marriage to Vivian fail? Why is he blind to their incompatibilities?
8. In the chapter titled “Forgiveness,” Bowman has a brief, intense affair with Christine’s daughter, Anet, and then abandons her in Paris. “He had forgiven her mother. Come and get your daughter” [p. 311]. Why does Bowman exact his revenge on Christine through her daughter? Is his cruelty justified given how Christine treated him? What are the consequences of his actions?
9. Enid tells Bowman during their second conversation, “I don’t think you ever really know anybody” [p. 123]. Does the novel itself seem to endorse that view? What instances in the book demonstrate the inability of one person to fully know another?
10. All That Is begins with the final, harrowing battles of WWII, the kamikaze attacks, the bloody invasion of Okinawa. How does his experience of the war affect Bowman? In what ways does the war provide the defining context for the rest of his life?
11. The novel is filled with vivid portraits of minor characters—Bowman’s war buddies, friends in publishing, lovers, in-laws, publishers, etc. What do these minor characters add to the texture of the narrative? Who are some of the most memorable among them?
12. How does Bowman regard women? Is he a romantic? What does erotic experience represent for him? What does he love about Vivian, Enid, Christine?
13. In an interview with the Paris Review, Salter said “I believe there’s a right way to live and to die. The people who can do that are interesting to me. I haven’t dismissed heroes or heroism.” Does All That Is present an ethos or right way of living? Is Philip Bowman heroic?
14. All That Is concludes with Bowman and Ann planning a trip to Venice. “We’ll have a great time,” Bowman says. What is the effect of this open-ended ending? Are there any signs that Bowman’s relationship with Ann will be any more lasting than his others have been?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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Orphan Train: A Novel
Christina Baker Kline, 2013
HarperCollins
278 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061950728
Summary
Between 1854 and 1929, so-called orphan trains ran regularly from the cities of the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest, carrying thousands of abandoned children whose fates would be determined by pure luck. Would they be adopted by a kind and loving family, or would they face a childhood and adoles-cence of hard labor and servitude?
As a young Irish immigrant, Vivian Daly was one such child, sent by rail from New York City to an uncertain future a world away. Returning east later in life, Vivian leads a quiet, peaceful existence on the coast of Maine, the memories of her upbringing rendered a hazy blur. But in her attic, hidden in trunks, are vestiges of a turbulent past.
Seventeen-year-old Molly Ayer knows that a community-service position helping an elderly widow clean out her attic is the only thing keeping her out of juvenile hall. But as Molly helps Vivian sort through her keepsakes and possessions, she discovers that she and Vivian aren't as different as they appear. A Penobscot Indian who has spent her youth in and out of foster homes, Molly is also an outsider being raised by strangers, and she, too, has unanswered questions about the past.
Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful tale of upheaval and resilience, second chances, and unexpected friendship. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1964
• Raised—in Maine and Tennessee, USA, and the UK
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.B., Cambridge University; M.F.A., University of Virginia
• Currently—lives in Montclair, New Jersey
Christina Baker Kline is a novelist, nonfiction writer, and editor. She is perhaps best known for her most recent novels, The Exiles (2020) A Piece of the World (2017) and Orphan Train (2013).
Kline also commissioned and edited two widely praised collections of original essays on the first year of parenthood and raising young children, Child of Mine and Room to Grow. She coauthored a book on feminist mothers and daughters, The Conversation Begins, with her mother, Christina L. Baker, and she coedited About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror with Anne Burt.
Kline grew up in Maine, England, and Tennessee, and has spent a lot of time in Minnesota and North Dakota, where here husband grew up. She is a graduate of Yale, Cambridge, and the University of Virginia, where she was a Hoyns Fellow in Fiction Writing.
She has taught creative writing and literature at Fordham and Yale, among other places, and is a recent recipient of a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation fellowship. She lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her family. (From the pubisher.)
Book Reviews
This superbly composed novel tells two parallel stories of suffering and perseverance, capturing the heart and mind equally and remaining mesmerizing through the intensely heart-wrenching conclusion.
RT Times Review
Kline’s absorbing new novel (after Bird in the Hand) is a heartfelt page-turner.... Seventeen-year-old Penobscot Indian Molly Ayer has spent most of her life in foster care. When...she ends up cleaning out elderly Vivian Daly’s attic[,] Molly learns that Vivian was herself an orphan...put on the Orphan Train in the late 1920s and tossed from home to home in Minnesota. The growing connection leads Molly to dig deeper into Vivian’s life, which allows Molly to discover her own potential and helps Vivian rediscover someone she believed had been lost to her forever.... Kline lets us live the characters’ experiences vividly through their skin, and...[t]he growth from instinct to conscious understanding to partnership between the two is the foundation for a moving tale.
Publishers Weekly
[A] compelling story about loss, adaptability, and courage. Molly is a rebellious 17-year-old foster child sentenced to community service for stealing a copy of Jane Eyre. She finds a position cleaning out the attic of Vivian, an elderly woman in their coastal Maine town. As Molly sorts through old trunks and boxes, Vivian begins to share stories from her past.... [when] she was packed off on one of the many orphan trains intended to bring children to Midwestern families who would care for them. Each orphan's lot was largely dependent on the luck of the draw. In this, Vivian's life parallels Molly's, and an unlikely friendship blossoms. —Christine Perkins, Bellingham P.L., WA
Library Journal
[A] dramatic, emotional story from a neglected corner of American history. Molly is a troubled teen, a foster child bounced from one unsuitable home to another. Vivian is a wealthy 91-year-old widow, settled in a Victorian mansion on the Maine seashore. But Vivian's story has much in common with Molly's.... Vivian's journey west was aboard an "Orphan Train," a bit of misguided 1900s-era social engineering moving homeless, destitute city children, mostly immigrants, into Midwest families.... Kline does a superb job in connecting goth-girl Molly...to Vivian, who sees her troubled childhood reflected in angry Molly.... A deeply emotional story drawn from the shadows.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. On the surface, Vivian's and Molly's lives couldn't be more different. In what ways are their stories similar?
2. In the prologue Vivian mentions that her "true love" died when she was 23, but she doesn't mention the other big secret in the book. Why not?
3. Why hasn't Vivian ever shared her story with anyone? Why does she tell it now?
4. What role does Vivian's grandmother play in her life? How does the reader's perception of her shift as the story unfolds?
5. Why does Vivian seem unable to get rid of the boxes in her attic?
6. In Women of the Dawn, a nonfiction book about the lives of four Wabanaki Indians excerpted in the epigraph, Bunny McBride writes:
In portaging from one river to another, Wabanakis had to carry their canoes and all other possessions. Everyone knew the value of traveling light and understood that it required leaving some things behind. Nothing encumbered movement more than fear, which was often the most difficult burden to surrender.
How does the concept of portaging reverberate throughout this novel? What fears hamper Vivian's progress? Molly's?
7. Vivian's name changes several times over the course of the novel: from Niamh Power to Dorothy Nielsen to Vivian Daly. How are these changes significant for her? How does each name represent a different phase of her life?
8. What significance, if any, does Molly Ayer's name have?
9. How did Vivian's first-person account of her youth and the present-day story from Molly's third-person-limited perspective work together? Did you prefer one story to the other? Did the juxtaposition reveal things that might not have emerged in a traditional narrative?
10. In what ways, large and small, does Molly have an impact on Vivian's life? How does Vivian have an impact on Molly's?
11. What does Vivian mean when she says, "I believe in ghosts"?
12. When Vivian finally shares the truth about the birth of her daughter and her decision to put May up for adoption she tells Molly that she was "selfish" and "afraid." Molly defends her and affirms Vivian's choice. How did you perceive Vivian's decision? Were you surprised she sent her child to be adopted after her own experiences with the Children's Aid Society?
13. When the children are presented to audiences of potential caretakers, the Children's Aid Society explains adoptive families are responsible for the child's religious upbringing. What role does religion play in this novel? How do Molly and Vivian each view God?
14. When Vivian and Dutchy are reunited she remarks, "However hard I try, I will always feel alien and strange. And now I've stumbled on a fellow outsider, one who speaks my language without saying a word." How is this also true for her friendship with Molly?
15. When Vivian goes to live with the Byrnes Fanny offers her food and advises, "You got to learn to take what people are willing to give." In what ways is this good advice for Vivian and Molly? What are some instances when their independence helped them?
16. Molly is enthusiastic about Vivian's reunion with her daughter, but makes no further efforts to see her own mother. Why is she unwilling or unable to effect a reunion in her own family? Do you think she will someday?
17. Vivian's Claddagh cross is mentioned often throughout the story. What is its significance? How does its meaning change or deepen over the course of Vivian's life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
When I Married My Mother: A Daughter's Search for What Really Matters—and How She Found It Caring for Mama Jo
Jo Maeder, 2009
Beulahland Press (2013 Paperback)
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780985548216
Summary
Who would think a New Yorker caring for a declining, doll-collecting, hoarder mother in the South would turn into the adventure of a lifetime? Throw in bingo playin' drag queens, long-standing family feuds, and unresolved guilt in every direction—and you've got When I Married My Mother.
Each eldercare situation is different, but the emotions and decisions that need to be made are similar. Through a hard-to-put-down story this book is a helping hand to deal with "the long goodbye." Don't dread it. Embrace it! You might find love blooms, laughter erupts and self-knowledge grows in the most unlikely of situations.
Even those who have already lost a parent have found a cathartic release in the journey of Mama Jo and Jo Jr. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Washington, D.C., USA
• Education—B.S., Syracuse University; M.B.A,
Columbia University
• Currently—lives in North Carolina
Jo Maeder is the author of the memoir When I Married My Mother (hardcover, paperback, and e-book). Maya Angelou said about it: This book is important to every mother and daughter, and to every woman who wants to be one.”
Jo’s essays have appeared in the New York Times, New York Daily News, More magazine, and on AOL. She is a contributor to O. Henry magazine and the News & Record’s weekly arts and entertainment section Go Triad. She also wrote a column on popular culture for Lifetime TV’s website.
In 2011, she started the Triad BookUP, which promotes “long-form reading in a short-form world.” Inspired by Seattle’s Reading Party, the public is invited to show up where food and beverages are served and B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Book) to read to themselves. (See WXII-TV coverage.)
She holds bragging rights to Best Cookie and Best Overall Yummy Treat at the 2008 Oak Ridge Country Fair. She perfected the recipe while caring for Mama Jo. “I call it my ‘Betty Jo Crocker’ recipe. I take a Betty Crocker mix and don’t follow the directions. I do that a lot, not always with such great results.” But using a mix for a baking contest? “The only rule was: You can’t have walked into a store and walked out with your entry.”
As a DJ, Jo is renowned from her years on South Florida’s Y-100 and I-95, and New York’s WKTU, K-ROCK, and Z100. (She also co-hosted a home improvement talk show on WABC). She created VH1.com’s Black Jack channel, spanning the spectrum of R&B music and has interviewed celebrities from Bob Marley to Michael Jackson. Her encounter with James Brown on Z100 is in the Paley Center for Media, as is her former K-ROCK show devoted to Bob Dylan, “Knockin’ on Dylan’s Door.” Her “Rock and Roll Madame” changeovers with Howard Stern are among the many highlights of her radio career.
Maeder earned a B.S. in Communications from Syracuse University and an M.B.A. from Columbia University. For many years she taught a course on radio at N.Y.U. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Takes an honest yet upbeat look at one family’s experience with intergenerational living and dealing with an aging and dying parent. It’s a story designed to evoke both laughter and tears.
Northwest Observer
Maeder brings sharp wit and a reporter’s investigative skills to her own experience of the growing trend of intergenerational households.
St. Petersburg Times
This account of the universally sad experience of slowly losing a parent is touching and often humorous, in no small part because Maeder understands the importance of telling good stories.
Newark Star-Ledger
Maeder is an engaging storyteller who conjures Alix Kates Shulman's A Good Enough Daughter. For caregivers and those in the sandwich generation coming to terms with their parents’ mortality.
Library Journal
A witty and wily reframing of [the] age-old conflict.... Maeder is insightful and sarcastic, humorous and heartfelt.
New Orleans Times-Picayune
Honest and sweetly funny memoir…Maeder’s sharp wit makes it easy to laugh.... Maeder’s candor and humor may comfort readers who’ve cared for an aging parent.... This memoir [is] nearly impossible to put down.
Women’s Voices for Change
With a wildly compassionate—especially to self—voice, Jo Maeder exhibits the sense of humor that makes her a live wire in the quick thinking world of personality radio, but also the better selves we all hope we embody.... Maeder pitches a tent we can all find solace, acceptance and encouragement under. A genius read, but a life-affirming story.
The Yummy List
Everyone has a story to share about their upbringing. But few can tell a story as hilarious and as down-home as Jo Maeder.... This light-hearted memoir captures your heart, along with the complicated, intergenerational mother-daughter dance of life. Maeder proves it’s never too late to make peace with your mother…and yourself.
This Week’s Most Talked About Books
If you’re looking for a different kind of Mother’s Day gift, or just a nice story on the evergreen subject of mothers, you might want to consider [this] new book by Jo Maeder.... It’s not a radio book per se, but it’s clearly coming from a rock ‘n’ roll radio soul, and its told in a classic radio way—close your eyes and you feel like you’re there.
New York Daily News
The book haunted me, but not in a bad way. Instead, long after I closed the cover, I pictured the moments [Maeder] shared so vividly.... I was moved to tears.
Working Mother
Maeder offers touching book about caring for elderly parent.... A wonderful, witty, happy-and-sad, very touching memoir…Read this book if you have an aging parent. Read this book if you’ve cared for an aging parent or other elderly person. Read this book if you’ve lost your parents. It is well-written and insightful. It is funny and thought-provoking. It is delightful and heartbreaking at the same time. Read this book.
Roxboro Courier-Times
[A] heartfelt and humorous memoir…speaks volumes about the relationship between parent and child.... The reader truly gets a sense of who Mama Jo was, who Jo Maeder is, and the ties that bind them.” For many years she taught a course on radio at N.Y.U.
Yes! Weekly
Discussion Questions
1. What struck you as the hardest part for Jo once she’d made the decision to care for her mother?
2. How did Mama Jo’s divorce from Jo’s father impact the two of them and Jo’s brother thirty years later?
3. What was the biggest change in in Jo over the course of the story? How did her caring for Mama Jo change the rest of the family?
4. What observations did Jo make about southern culture after relocating from New York City? If from the South, do you agree with her? If you’re not from the South, did Jo’s book change any opinions you had about southerners? How would you describe New Yorkers?
5. What parts of the story made you laugh, and why? What parts made you tear up?
6. Did the story change your feelings about taking on a similar responsibility if one should arise? Did it cause you to think about making any changes in your life?
7. What did you think about Jo’s changing attitude toward religion in the book? Did any passages from the Bible come to mind as you were reading?
8. Mama Jo was described as a “world-class hoarder.” Do you know someone with this issue? What do you think causes it? What might you do to help someone with this disorder?
9. Why do you think Mama Jo collected dolls? What role did dolls play through the generations of Jo’s family? Has anyone in your family been a collector of something and passed the tradition down?
10. Jo said, “If you’re not right with your mama, you’re probably not going to be right with anyone.” What did she mean? Do you agree or disagree?
(Questions from the author's website, used here with her kind permission.)
The Fever Tree
Jennifer McVeigh, 2013
Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399158247
Summary
Frances Irvine, left destitute in the wake of her father’s sudden death, has been forced to abandon her life of wealth and privilege in London and emigrate to the Southern Cape of Africa.
1880 South Africa is a country torn apart by greed. In this remote and inhospitable land she becomes entangled with two very different men—one driven by ambition, the other by his ideals. Only when the rumor of a smallpox epidemic takes her into the dark heart of the diamond mines does she see her path to happiness. But this is a ruthless world of avarice and exploitation, where the spoils of the rich come at a terrible human cost and powerful men will go to any lengths to keep the mines in operation. Removed from civilization and disillusioned by her isolation, Frances must choose between passion and integrity, a decision that has devastating consequences.
The Fever Tree is a compelling portrait of colonial South Africa, its raw beauty and deprivation alive in equal measure. But above all it is a love story about how—just when we need it most—fear can blind us to the truth. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Jennifer graduated from Oxford University in 2002 with a First in English Literature. She went on to work in film, television, radio and publishing, before leaving her day job to do an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. She graduated in 2011 with a Distinction. She has travelled in wilderness areas of East Africa and Southern Africa, often in off-road vehicles, driving and camping along the way. The Fever Tree is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] bewitching tale of loss, betrayal and love.
Vogue (UK)
McVeigh’s distinctive first novel is a lush, sweeping tale of willful self-deception set against a political attempt to hush up a smallpox epidemic...in late 19th-century South Africa. Frances Irvine is left destitute by her father’s death.... Frances chooses [to marry] Edwin, though...once in South Africa, Frances refuses to help run the house, is disgusted by her husband’s quest for justice for the Boers, and is easily swayed by pro-colonial arguments. It’s difficult to retain sympathy for Frances, who refuses to face her mistakes for much of the book.... However, the sensory detail and sweep of the novel are exquisite, particularly for a debut.
Publishers Weekly
In Victorian London, only-child Frances Irvine is...marginally accepted into society. However, when her father dies suddenly...Frances is forced to choose between becoming a live-in nurse for her aunt's children or moving halfway around the world to marry her cousin, Edwin Matthews, a man she hardly knows and does not particularly like.... Verdict: McVeigh's debut paints vivid portrait of a part of the world we rarely experience in Victorian-era romance. Although it is crafted around a protagonist who is naive to the point of frustration and, while the story line is slow to get off the ground and requires much patience on the part of the reader, the writing is solid and delivers in the end. Fans of historical fiction with romantic elements will enjoy this one. —Natasha Grant, New York
Library Journal
South Africa's corrupt and disease-riddled diamond industry in the 1880s serves as a gritty setting for newcomer McVeigh's historical novel about a young English woman's journey toward self-enlightenment. When Frances Irvine's father dies and leaves her penniless, she reluctantly accepts a distant cousin's marriage proposal...in South Africa.... Frances sets sail for her new home, but during the voyage, she falls in love with William Westbrook....[who] fails to follow through on their plans to be together after the voyage.... [Frances] slowly realizes there's more to her husband than she first assumed, and she discovers that many people respect him, not only for his work as a medical doctor, but as a human rights advocate.... Forceful and direct, yet surprisingly lyrical, McVeigh's narrative weaves top-notch research and true passion for the material with a well-conceived plot.... Overall, this story's a gem.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Early in the novel, Frances looks into the Wardian case in her uncle’s house and sees the ferns pressed against the glass “as though appealing for escape.” She realizes that “the glass case offered protection—the ferns wouldn’t last a minute exposed to the pollution of London air—but it would also, eventually, suffocate them.” What is the significance of this image?
2. In the first chapter, Edwin Matthews admits that he has never liked domesticated plants. He describes Mr. Irvine’s roses as “monstrosities—deviations from their true form in nature.” Frances reminds him of this conversation in a climactic scene toward the end of the novel when she compares herself to her father’s domesticated roses, unable to survive in the wild. Discuss the motif of “monstrous” domestication in the novel, and its importance to the book as a whole.
3. Frances is an outsider, rejected by her uncle’s family and dismissed by society. To what extent is her desire to belong responsible for the decisions she makes? Can you forgive her for her mistakes?
4. Frances describes the women traveling with the Female Middle Class Emigration Society as “cargo being shipped for export. Women without choices.” How do you feel about the limited choices presented to women in the novel? In what ways has society changed in the last 130 years?
5. Racial prejudice is a constant theme in the novel. The Irish, the Jews, the Boers, and the Africans are all discriminated against. What motivates the various forms of discrimination? What did the novel teach you about racial politics in the nineteenth century? How do these attitudes make you feel about Victorian culture?
6. William Westbrook justifies the presence of English speculators in Africa as “the nature of history, of progress.” How convincing is he when he wants to be, and why? What—if any—moral code does he live by?
7. The novel hinges on a misunderstanding: Frances’s belief that Edwin was desperate to marry her. When Edwin tells her the truth, she is stunned. Were you surprised as a reader? What impact did the revelation have on how you felt about both Edwin and Frances? And how does it bring about a shift in power between the two characters?
8. When Frances discovers the truth about William and her own responsibility for Mariella’s death, McVeigh writes, “it was as if she had woken from a fairy tale and found herself in a world that was starker and more brutal than she could ever have imagined; a world in which she would be held to account.” Discuss the significance of the fairy-tale simile here. For what will Frances be held to account?
9. What is the importance of the landscape of the Karoo in the novel? How does it test Frances? What is the nature and significance of its beauty?
10. Frances tells Edwin about a dream she has, in which a cutting from a tree at Rietfontein has shriveled up into a spiny knot of thorns. “I was upset,” she says, “because it was no longer alive and somehow it was my fault.” What it is the meaning of the dream, and why is she so devastated?
11. In his article for The Diamond Field, Edwin writes: “There is a cancer at the heart of the Europeans’ relationship with Africa, and its nature is self-interest.” What did you find most shocking about the history of diamond mining in South Africa, as it is set out in the book? How relevant is Edwin’s statement today?
12. At first glance, the diamond mines of South Africa and the polite society of upper-class London couldn’t be more different. Yet are there similarities? Are both institutions built on exploitation? In what ways are they similar? In what ways are they different?
13. Discuss the symbolic importance of the fever tree in the novel.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
All You Could Ask For
Mike Greenberg, 2013
HarperCollins
264 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062220752
Summary
Three women are about to find their lives intertwined in ways none of them could ever have imagined.
Brooke has been happily married to her college sweetheart for fifteen years. Even after the C-section, the dog poop, the stomach viruses, and the coffee breath, Scott still always winks at her at just the right moments. That is why, for her beloved, romantic, successful husband's fortieth birthday, she is giving him pictures. Of her. Naked.
Samantha's newlywed bliss is steamrolled when she finds shocking evidence of infidelity on her husband's computer. She has been married for two days. She won't be for much longer.
Katherine works eighteen hours a day for the man who irreparably shattered her heart fifteen years ago. She has a duplex on Park Avenue, a driver, a chef, and a stunning house in Southampton, and she bought it all herself. So what if she has to see Phillip every single workday for the rest of her natural life? Brooke, Samantha, and Katherine don't know one another, but all three are about to discover the conquering power of friendship—and that they have all they could ask for, as long as they have one another. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 6, 1967
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Northwestern University
• Currently—lives in the state of Connecticut
Michael James "Mike" Greenberg is a television anchor, television show host, and radio host for ESPN and ABC. At ESPN, he hosts the weekday evening, most often Monday, SportsCenter and ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning show with Mike Golic. At sister network ABC, he was the host of the now cancelled quiz show Duel. As of 2011, he co-hosts the 6 PM Eastern Monday SportsCenter editions during the National Football League season with Golic.
Greenberg was born to a Jewish family in New York City and graduated from Stuyvesant High School in 1985. In 1989, Greenberg graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University where he started work as a sports anchor and reporter at WMAQ-AM in Chicago. He left WMAQ in 1992 to work for WSCR-Radio as a reporter (covering events such as the World Series and the Super Bowl) and talk show host.
From 1993 to 1995, he also wrote a weekly syndicated column for the California-based Copley News Service. In 1994, he added reporting for SportsChannel Chicago to his resume. In 1995, he left SportsChannel Chicago to work at CLTV, becoming an anchor, reporter, and host of a live call-in show. He left Chicago for ESPN in September 1996, where he became one of the first hosts of ESPNEWS when it began broadcasting in November of that year.
Television
In 1999, with ESPN Radio airing in just four markets, Greenberg was approached about returning to radio to be a part of a morning drive-time show with Mike Golic as co-host. Greenberg agreed, with the understanding that he would continue anchoring SportsCenter on a regular basis. On April 26, 2004, the show started a regular simulcast on ESPNEWS. Because of their continued success, the duo moved to ESPN2 in January 2005.
One of the most popular segments of the entire year on Mike and Mike in the Morning is the annual "Sheet of Integrity" wager, a bracket wager based on the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and the massive ESPN.com bracket contest. The bet originated after Mike Golic told of how he would enter a massive number of sheets into different pools to win the money involved in the pool. Greenberg, believing picks required a sort of integrity, insisted that any such entrant be required to enter only one "Sheet of Integrity." Golic would select one of his (presumably) dozens of sheets against Greenberg, with the loser having to perform a humiliating stunt, usually on the air. The first year, Greenberg won and Golic had to have an eyebrow wax on the air. The next two years, Golic won, and Greenberg had to wear the Notre Dame University Leprechaun mascot costume on the air, the second time on the Notre Dame campus. In the 2007 competition Greenberg, an admitted die-hard New York Jets fan, agreed to wear a New England Patriots jersey to a Jets game and to milk a cow live on-air. Greenberg received advice about milking a cow from ESPN baseball analyst Buster Olney, who grew up on a dairy farm.
Books
In 2006, Greenberg released his first book entitled Why My Wife Thinks I'm An Idiot: The Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad, which reached 14th on the New York Times Bestseller list and was nominated in the 2006 Quill Awards for best sports book. In 2010, Greenberg, along with co-host Mike Golic, released a book entitled Mike and Mike's Rules for Sports and Life. In 2013 Greenberg released his novel All You Could Ask For about a group of women who bond because of their shared experiences with cancer. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
This upbeat, snappy debut novel from ESPN sports talk host Greenberg (Why My Wife Thinks I’m an Idiot) involves three iron-willed, independent-minded ladies who meet and become friends through an online support group for breast cancer patients.... Greenberg’s promising first effort, told partly in the form of message board postings, develops the lead characters well enough for its predictably feel-good conclusion to feel justified.
Publishers Weekly
Sportscaster Greenberg's (Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot) first novel delves with authenticity and compassion into the lives and minds of three female characters.... These women are strangers to one another until they learn something that changes their lives, forever linking them in friendship and courage. Verdict: This well-written page-turner by a surprising author features true-to-life characters who are entertaining and compelling. A must read for fans of smart women's fiction. Fans of Greenberg's show might be curious as well. —Anne M. Miskewitch, Chicago P.L.
Library Journal
The shared adversity these women face is portrayed realistically and tenderly.... The three women are well drawn, and Greenberg displays an admirable ear for realistic dialogue. Fans of Deborah Copaken Konan, Sarah Pekkanen, and contemporary ensemble fiction will enjoy this debut novel.
Booklist
Sports pundit Greenberg tries his hand at chick lit, with somber overtones and mixed results.... The unifying element, intended to lend gravitas to the frivolity, involves cancer. Although the cancer section provides opportunities for the women to discover what is truly important in life, it also affords Greenberg too many pretexts for preachy cliches and oversimplification. Any automatic sympathy conferred by illness will be mitigated, for most readers, by how little we've come to care for these superficial and uber-privileged characters.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Would Samantha have become friends with Katherine and Brooke under different circumstances? What do the three women have in common besides the event that brings them together?
2. Samantha is horrified when she finds those pictures on Robert's laptop, but is she partially to blame for invading his privacy?
3. Why do you think Katherine chose to stay at the company for as long as she did? With her education and experience, she could have found a comparable position elsewhere. Is there a part of her that wants to suffer by witnessing Philip's success? Is there a small part of her that believes she can win him back if she sticks around? Or is it something else entirely?
4. Brooke stakes much of her own happiness on her husband's satisfaction and his perception of her. Is this problematic?
5. Brooke says you need three core girlfriends: one who's like a sister, one who knows everything, and one a generation ahead of you. Do you agree? Who occupies these roles in your own life?
6. Robert seemed genuinely contrite when he went to see Samantha. Would you have taken him back? Why or why not?
7. Samantha is always trying to help people, and she wants to extend her generosity of spirit to Brooke. Do you think she was wrong in forcing Brooke to share her story? Was she at all motivated by guilt?
8. Why do you think Brook decides to do what she does? Do you agree with her choice? Do her loved ones deserve to be included in her decisions?
9. Brooke sees her life as divided into stages – her sweet sixteen, her wedding. What are the stages of your life?
10. Samantha reflects on her evening with Andrew Marks as "the night [she] learned that [she likes] being pretty." Despite confronting a serious life hurdle, she does not abandon her vanity. Is this something many women can relate to? What does being pretty mean to you?
11. When Katherine meets Stephen, she knows she has "met the man who [is] going to change [her] life." Do you believe in love at first sight? Are her strong, serendipitous feelings for Stephen in any way related to this phase of her life?
12. Katherine and Samantha have a few "absolute deal-breakers": a grown-up who calls his mother every day, a man who buys maxi pads for his dog. What are your absolute deal-breakers?
13. In her last person-to-person to Samantha, Brooke writes, "Please leave me alone." She tells her she'll be in touch when she's ready. What do you think ultimately moved her to reach out? What changed?
14. Brooke is the only one with a husband by her side, and yet she does not share her secret with him. Is she motivated by fear? Do you think that has more to do with her or with Scott?
15. In the last chapter, Katherine has run off to Aspen to be with her dream guy, Samantha is dating a pediatrician, and Brooke is laminating meaningful quotes for her fridge. Where do you see them each in five years?
(Questions issued by publisher.)