The Good House
Ann Leary, 2013
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250043030
Summary
How can you prove you're not an alcoholic? You can’t. It's like trying to prove you're not a witch.
Hildy Good is a townie. A lifelong resident of an historic community on the rocky coast of Boston’s North Shore, she knows pretty much everything about everyone. Hildy is a descendant of one of the witches hung in nearby Salem, and is believed, by some, to have inherited psychic gifts.
Not true, of course; she’s just good at reading people. Hildy is good at lots of things. A successful real-estate broker, mother and grandmother, her days are full.
But her nights have become lonely ever since her daughters, convinced their mother was drinking too much, staged an intervention and sent her off to rehab. Now she’s in recovery—more or less.
Alone and feeling unjustly persecuted, Hildy needs a friend. She finds one in Rebecca McCallister, a beautiful young mother and one of the town’s wealthy newcomers. Rebecca feels out-of-step in her new surroundings and is grateful for the friendship. And Hildy feels like a person of the world again, as she and Rebecca escape their worries with some harmless gossip, and a bottle of wine by the fire—just one of their secrets.
But not everyone takes to Rebecca, who is herself the subject of town gossip. When Frank Getchell, an eccentric local who shares a complicated history with Hildy, tries to warn her away from Rebecca, Hildy attempts to protect her friend from a potential scandal.
Soon, however, Hildy is busy trying to cover her own tracks and protect her reputation. When a cluster of secrets become dangerously entwined, the reckless behavior of one threatens to expose the other, and this darkly comic novel takes a chilling turn.
The Good House, by Ann Leary is funny, poignant, and terrifying. A classic New England tale that lays bare the secrets of one little town, this spirited novel will stay with you long after the story has ended. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—Syracuse, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Connecticut
Ann Leary is the author of the memoir An Innocent, A Broad (2004) and three novels, Outtakes From a Marriage (2008) and The Good House (2013), and The Children (2016).
She has written fiction and nonfiction for various publications and media outlets, including New York Times, Ploughshares, National Public Radio, Redbook, and Real Simple, among other publications
Leary was born in Syracuse, N.Y., but moved around with her family, living in various parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Wisconsin. She finally landed in Marblehead, Massachusetts, where she graduated from high school.
With short-lived friendships in so many places, Anne turned to books early on. She especially loved stories about animals—A Jungle Book, Black Beauty, Lassie come Home, My Friend Flicka, and all the Black Stallion books (her love for all things equestrian continues to this day).
She believes that the first non-animal book she ever read was while babysitting at age thirteen, when she picked up Anais Nin's Delta of Venus. From that point she switched her allegiance from books about four-legged creatures to books about two-legged ones, in particular inspiring stories about beautiful, opium-addicted nymphomaniacs!
Leary attended Bennington College in Vermont for two years then switched to Emerson College in Boston. It was there that she met her to-be husband, actor-comedian Dennis Leary, who was teaching a comedy-writing course. The two married in 1989 and have two now grown children.
Leary competes in equestrian sports and has been a volunteer EMT. She and her husband live with dogs, cats, and horses on their farm in northwestern Connecticut. (Author bio adapted from the publisher and Freshfiction.com.)
Book Reviews
The Good House has a plot packed with small-town intrigues: extramarital affairs, feuding mothers, a missing child and psychic powers that trace back to the Salem witch trials, to name a few. But the book’s real strength lies in its evocation of Hildy’s inner world.... Leary writes with humor and insight, revealing both the pure pleasure of drinking and the lies and justifications of alcoholism, the warmth Hildy feels toward others when she drinks and the desperation that makes her put alcohol before the people she loves. The result is a layered and complex portrait of a woman struggling with addiction, in a town where no secret stays secret for long.
J. Courtney Sullivan - New York Times Book Review
Leary... gleefully peels back the pretensions that so often accompany portraits of ye olde Americana.
USA Today
A sophisticated turn on guilty-pleasure reading that is so well-written it won't make you feel guilty after all, except maybe about reaching for that third glass of pinot noir.
The Huffington Post
Fresh, sharp and masterfully told. Hildy’s tale is as intoxicating as it is sobering.
People
Superstition, drama, and intrigue unspool at a perfect pace in Ann Leary’s irresistible new novel, The Good House, a tale steeped in New England character and small-town social tumult.
Redbook
One of the best works of Massachusetts fiction in recent memory.
Boston Magazine
Hildy Good is a realtor in Wendover, the little Massachusetts town where she's lived her entire life.... Leary creates a long-winded and melodramatic Peyton Place, but convincingly displays the corrosive and sometimes dire consequences of denial and overconfidence
Publishers Weekly
Leary’s powerfully perceptive and smartly nuanced portrait of the perils of alcoholism is enhanced by her spot-on depiction of staid New England village life and the redemption to be found in traditions and community.
Booklist
Hildy is an original, irresistibly likable and thoroughly untrustworthy...a genuinely funny novel about alcoholism.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Hildy Good is a complex and layered character—some might say an “unreliable narrator.” Is there a point at which you questions Hildy’s dependability? Is there a point at which she redeemed herself?
2. Hildy likes to entertain others with her “psychic powers” and yet she also informs people that she really doesn’t have any special intuition, that she “just knows a few tricks.” Does this duality show up in other parts of her personality?
3. The New England setting is very much part of The Good House. And yet the author doesn’t spend a lot of time on the description of the area. What makes this book so quintessentially New England?
4. What do you think of Hildy’s assertion that she can tell everything about a person just by walking through his or her house?
5. Wendover, Massachusetts, is being taken over by hedge-fund managers who “want it old, but want it new.” Do you think there will ever be a point at which they are accepted by the “townies?”
6. Why do you think Hildy and newcomer Rebecca McAllister become such fast friends?
7. What do you think of the author’s portrayal of alcoholism and its effects on the drinker and those around them?
8. What happens to Hildy’s attitudes about others when she drinks?
9. Frank Getchell seems an unlikely romantic figure. Why do you think he has carried a torch for Hildy all these years?
10. Hildy claims to be unsentimental about relationships and things. Do you believe this is true about her personality?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
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Family Pictures
Jane Green, 2013
St. Martin's Press
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312591830
Summary
Jane Green delivers a riveting novel about two women whose lives intersect when a shocking secret is revealed.
From the author of Another Piece of My Heart comes Family Pictures, the gripping story of two women who live on opposite coasts but whose lives are connected in ways they never could have imagined.
Both women are wives and mothers to children who are about to leave the nest for school. They're both in their forties and have husbands who travel more than either of them would like. They are both feeling an emptiness neither had expected. But when a shocking secret is exposed, their lives are blown apart.
As dark truths from the past reveal themselves, will these two women be able to learn to forgive, for the sake of their children, if not for themselves? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 31, 1968
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—University of Wales
• Currently—lives in Westport, Connecticut, USA
Jane Green is the pen name of Jane Green Warburg, an English author of women's novels. Together with Helen Fielding she is considered a founder of the genre known as chick lit.
Green was born in London, England. She attended the University of Wales, Aberystwyth and worked as a journalist throughout her twenties, writing women's features for the Daily Express, Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan and others. At 27 she published her first book, Straight Talking, which went straight on to the Bestseller lists, and launched her career as "the queen of chick lit".
Frequent themes in her most recent books, include cooking, class wars, children, infidelity, and female friendships. She says she does not write about her life, but is inspired by the themes of her life.
She is the author of more than 15 novels, several (The Beach House, Second Chance, and Dune Road) having been listed on the New York Times bestseller list. Her other novels Another Piece of My Heart (2012), Family Pictures (2013), and Tempting Fate (2014) received wide acclaim.
In addition to novels, she has taught at writers conferences, and writes for various publications including the Sunday Times, Parade magazine, Wowowow.com, and Huffington Post.
Green now lives in Connecticut with her second husband, Ian Warburg, six children, two dogs and three cats. Actively philanthropic, her foremost charities are The Hole in the Wall Gang Camp (Paul Newman's camp for children with life-threatening illnesses), Bethel Recovery Center, and various breast cancer charities. She is also a supporter of the Westport Public Library, and the Westport Country Playhouse. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/20/2014.)
Book Reviews
Told in alternating points of view...[t]he first section introduces Sylvie's, as she deals with her ill, demanding mother, her daughter Eve's developing anorexia, and her husband's prolonged work trips.... The next section shifts to Maggie who lives on the other side of the country,...a society wife...[who] sedulously hides her humble origins. When Eve meets Grace through a mutual friend in New York, a life-changing secret is revealed.... Verdict: This gripping story is ultimately one of redemption. Green's many fans won't be disappointed. —Kristen Stewart, Pearland Lib., Brazoria Cty. Lib. System, TX
Library Journal
...Sylvie has a good life. Her daughter Eve will head off to college soon, and her second husband, Mark, may be ready to settle down into a sales manager position.... Yet all is not well, not well at all.... One fateful weekend, Eve goes to an all-girls party in New York City, where she meets a kindred spirit, Grace, and the two girls swiftly abandon the others to their partying. Grace takes Eve home, where...Eve sees a photograph that will ruin two families. Riddled with coincidences and unlikely secrets, Green's (Another Piece of My Heart, 2012, etc.) latest still manages to explore complex family dynamics with warmth. An inverted fairy tale in which the happily-ever-after occurs without the prince.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. First, a show of hands: Who among you knows someone who appeared to have picture-perfect life—only to see it all come crashing down? Take a moment to talk about perception versus reality in marriage and in family life. Did reading Family Pictures force you to take a closer look at the lives of your friends, your neighbors, yourselves? And if so, what did you see?
2. When we first meet Sylvie, she is contemplating what her life will be like once Eve goes away to college and she is on her own. Do you think it’s common for mothers to feel this way? Discuss the ways in which the female characters in Family Pictures struggle to find and define themselves in the domestic realm and beyond. You may wish to share your own personal experiences as well.
3. In an early scene with Sylvie and their friends, Mark tells a story about how his identity was stolen years ago. “That’s why I’m paranoid,” he said. “I know that people aren’t necessarily who they say they are.” This is a recurring theme throughout the book; it’s also an example of how the author uses foreshadowing to set the stage for the eventual, shocking truth about Mark. What other examples can you recall? Could you predict any of the plot points? What were the most powerful “aha!” moments in Family Pictures for you?
4. Sylvie performs exhaustive online searches to locate photographs of Mark and his other family. Maggie’s landlords learn everything about her scandalous past via Google. Eve chats on Facebook to make new friends and Grace and Buck do the same to stay in touch. Talk a bit about the characters’ “virtual reality” in Family Pictures. What issues of privacy and/or oversharing do we all face in the Internet era? Are we closer to each other than ever before? Or does living in the second dimension allow us to carefully curate our identities…and lead double lives?
5. In the marital realm “we’re flawed,” says Sylvie. “None of us is infallible.” Do you agree? Do you view the laws of marriage in black and white? Or do you tend to see them in shades of gray? (E. L. James pun not intended!)
6. After Mark’s deception tears their lives apart, Sylvie is shielded by her friend Angie’s fierce love and loyalty; Maggie finds comfort in the company of Patty, Barb, and Mrs. W; and, in the end, Sylvie and Maggie are healed by one another. Talk about the power of female friendships in Family Pictures. (You may choose to bring Eve and Claudia/ Grace, into the discussion as well.)
7. “I have lost everything,” Maggie says. “But in doing so, I can’t help but start to wonder what ‘everything’ meant.” How would you define Maggie’s everything? What is your own definition of “having it all?”
8. Eve’s eating disorder is one of the darker elements of the novel. Why do you think she starved herself? What was she trying to show or hide, control or let go of? Moreover, how did Eve’s illness function—for better or for worse—as a narrative device to bring all the characters closer together?
9. Another show of hands: Even though they’re obviously not related by blood—and did not know one another at all until they were young adults—do you find the love affair between Eve and Chris acceptable? Or too close for comfort? Discuss your reasons.
10. The real definition of a “modern family” is as good as anyone’s guess. What is your impression of the final snapshot we are left with in the novel? Is everybody in this family happier, as Sylvie suggests, than when Mark was in it? How do the losses measure against the gains? Do the ends justify the means?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Beautiful Mystery (Inspector Gamache series, 8)
Louise Penny, 2012
St. Martin's Press
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312655464
Summary
No outsiders are ever admitted to the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, hidden deep in the wilderness of Quebec, where two dozen cloistered monks live in peace and prayer.
They grow vegetables, they tend chickens, they make chocolate. And they sing. Ironically, for a community that has taken a vow of silence, the monks have become world-famous for their glorious voices, raised in ancient chants whose effect on both singer and listener is so profound it is known as “the beautiful mystery.”
But when the renowned choir director is murdered, the lock on the monastery’s massive wooden door is drawn back to admit Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Surete du Quebec. There they discover disquiet beneath the silence, discord in the apparent harmony. One of the brothers, in this life of prayer and contemplation, has been contemplating murder.
As the peace of the monastery crumbles, Gamache is forced to confront some of his own demons, as well as those roaming the remote corridors. Before finding the killer, before restoring peace, the Chief must first consider the divine, the human, and the cracks in between. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1958
• Where—Toronto, Canada
• Education—B.A, Ryerson University
• Awards—Agatha Award (4 times) "New Blood" Dagger Award;
Arthur Ellis Award; Barry Award, Anthony Award; Dilys Award.
• Currently—lives in Knowlton, Canada (outside of Montreal)
In her words
I live outside a small village south of Montreal, quite close to the American border. I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in Toronto in 1958 and became a journalist and radio host with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, specializing in hard news and current affairs. My first job was in Toronto and then moved to Thunder Bay at the far tip of Lake Superior, in Ontario. It was a great place to learn the art and craft of radio and interviewing, and listening. That was the key. A good interviewer rarely speaks, she listens. Closely and carefully. I think the same is true of writers.
From Thunder Bay I moved to Winnipeg to produce documentaries and host the CBC afternoon show. It was a hugely creative time with amazingly creative people. But I decided I needed to host a morning show, and so accepted a job in Quebec City. The advantage of a morning show is that it has the largest audience, the disadvantage is having to rise at 4am.
But Quebec City offered other advantages that far outweighed the ungodly hour. It's staggeringly beautiful and almost totally French and I wanted to learn. Within weeks I'd called Quebecers "good pumpkins", ordered flaming mice in a restaurant, for dessert naturally, and asked a taxi driver to "take me to the war, please." He turned around and asked "Which war exactly, Madame?" Fortunately elegant and venerable Quebec City has a very tolerant and gentle nature and simply smiled at me.
From there the job took me to Montreal, where I ended my career on CBC Radio's noon programme.
In my mid-thirties the most remarkable thing happened. I fell in love with Michael, the head of hematology at the Montreal Children's Hospital. He'd go on to hold the first named chair in pediatric hematology in Canada, something I take full credit for, out of his hearing.
It's an amazing and blessed thing to find love later in life. It was my first marriage and his second. He'd lost his first wife to cancer a few years earlier and that had just about killed him. Sad and grieving we met and began a gentle and tentative courtship, both of us slightly fearful, but overcome with the rightness of it. And overcome with gratitude that this should happen to us and deeply grateful to the family and friends who supported us.
Fifteen years later we live in an old United Empire Loyalist brick home in the country, surrounded by maple woods and mountains and smelly dogs.
Since I was a child I've dreamed of writing and now I am. Beyond my wildest dreams (and I can dream pretty wild) the Chief Inspector Gamache books have found a world-wide audience, won awards and ended up on bestseller lists including the New York Times. Even more satisfying, I have found a group of friends in the writing community. Other authors, booksellers, readers—who have become important parts of our lives. I thought writing might provide me with an income—I had no idea the real riches were more precious but less substantial. Friendships.
There are times when I'm in tears writing. Not because I'm so moved by my own writing, but out of gratitude that I get to do this. In my life as a journalist I covered deaths and accidents and horrible events, as well as the quieter disasters of despair and poverty. Now, every morning I go to my office, put the coffee on, fire up the computer and visit my imaginary friends, Gamache and Beauvoir and Clara and Peter. What a privilege it is to write. I hope you enjoy reading the books as much as I enjoy writing them.
Chief Inspector Gamache was inspired by a number of people, and one main inspiration was this man holding a copy of En plein coeur. Jean Gamache, a tailor in Granby. He looks slightly as I picture Gamache, but mostly it was his courtesy and dignity and kind eyes that really caught my imagination. What a pleasure to be able to give him a copy of En plein coeur!(From the author's website with permission.)
Book Reviews
[A]n original variation on the "no exit" whodunit…Penny writes with grace and intelligence about complex people struggling with complex emotions. But her great gift is her uncanny ability to describe what might seem indescribable—the play of light, the sound of celestial music, a quiet sense of peace.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times
With enormous empathy for the troubled human soul—and an ending that makes your blood race and your heart break—Penny continues to raise the bar of her splendid series.
People
(Starred review.) Religious music serves as the backdrop for bestseller Penny’s excellent eighth novel featuring Chief Insp. Armand Gamache of the Quebec Surete (after 2011’s A Trick of the Light). Gamache and his loyal number two, Insp. Jean-Guy Beauvoir, travel to the isolated monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, which produced a CD of Gregorian chants that became a surprise smash hit, to investigate the murder of its choirmaster, Frere Mathieu, found within an enclosed garden in a fetal position with his head bashed in. Gamache soon finds serious divisions among the outwardly unified and placid monks, and begins to encourage confidences among them as a first step to catching the killer. Traditional mystery fans can look forward to a captivating whodunit plot, a clever fair-play clue concealed in plain view, and the deft use of humor to lighten the story’s dark patches. On a deeper level, the crime provides a means for Penny’s unusually empathic, all-too-fallible lead to unearth truths about human passions and weaknesses while avoiding simple answers.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Penny's (A Trick of the Light) eighth elegant entry in her Agatha Award-winning series is a locked-room mystery set in a remote monastery deep in the wilderness of northern Québec. There are 24 cloistered monks. One is dead. There are only 23 suspects. The monks have taken a vow of silence, except that they made the most beautiful recording of Gregorian chant ever heard. And it caused a schism. And then a murder. Chief Inspector Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir of the Surete du Quebec come to investigate the murder and the difficulties in this formerly peaceful order that caused it. It also brings the viper within the Surete to this remote place and exposes the rot inside Gamache's own house. Verdict: This heart-rending tale is a marvelous addition to Penny's acclaimed series. Fans won't be disappointed. —Marlene Harris, Reading Reality LLC, Atlanta
Library Journal
(Starred review.) An entire mystery novel centering on Gregorian chants (whose curiously hypnotic allure is called the “beautiful mystery”)? Yes, indeed, and in the hands of the masterful Penny, the topic proves every bit as able to transfix readers as the chants do their listeners.
Booklist
Elliptical and often oracular… also remarkably penetrating and humane. The most illuminating analogies are not to other contemporary detective fiction but to The Name of the Rose and Murder in the Cathedral.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does "the beautiful mystery" of the title refer to? What are the powers and/or limitations of music throughout the novel?
2. As we get to know the inner workings of the monastery, how do you come to regard the community of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups and the individuals who choose to devote their lives to it?
3. To solve the crime Gamache needs "to think about the Divine, the human, and the cracks in between." How do all of these qualities manifest themselves in the story?
4. What do you see as Gamache's greatest strengths as a detective and as a man? Does he also have weaknesses?
5. How do you view Jean-Guy Beauvoir throughout the book? What do you think will become of him?
6. Because the monastery is so cut off from most methods of communication, text messages take on unusual importance for Gamache and Beauvoir. How does Louise Penny use them to convey the tone of real-world relationships?
7. What do you make of Francoeur's fierce hatred for Gamache? What does the novel tell us about good and evil, and is the distinction between them always clear? For example, see page 318, where Gamache sits through the service in the Blessed Chapel amid "peace and rage, ilence and singing. The Gilbertines and the Inquisition. The good men and the not-so-good."
8. The abbot tells Gamache, "That's the difference between us, Chief Inspector. You need proof in your line of work. I don't." What role does faith play for various characters in the novel?
9. At one point Gamache finds himself wondering if the abbot's private garden "existed on different planes. It was both a place of grass and earth and flowers. But also an allegory. For that most private place inside each one of them. For some it was a dark, locked room. For others, a garden." How might that allegory apply to particular characters in The Beautiful Mystery?
10. When Gamache quotes the line from Murder in the Cathedral, "Some malady is coming upon us," Frere Sebastien replies, "Modern times. That’s what came upon the Gilbertines." Do you feel that the monks could or should have remained in isolation from the outside world forever?
11. How is The Beautiful Mystery similar to/different from the books set in Three Pines?
Outtakes from a Marriage
Ann Leary, 2008
Crown Publishing
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307405883
Summary
Julia and Joe Ferraro are living the good life in Manhattan now that Joe’s finally made it; he’s the star of a hit TV show and has just been nominated for a Golden Globe award. After many lean years, they’ve got a grand Upper West Side apartment and an Amagansett beach house, and their two kids go to elite private schools.
Even better, Julia and Joe are still madly in love.
Or so Julia thinks until the fateful evening when she accidentally hears a voice mail on Joe’s phone—a message left by a sultry-sounding woman who clearly isn’t just a friend. Suddenly Julia is in a tailspin, compulsively checking Joe’s messages, stalking him in cyberspace, and showing up unannounced on his sets, wondering all along if she should confront him.
Julia’s search forces her to consider the possibility that in the long process of helping Joe become something, she has become a bit of a “nothing,” as her daughter once described her to her class on career day. A big husband-stalking nothing.
When Julia and Joe first met, she was an edgy East Village girl who wrote music reviews for the Village Voice and threw famed parties in a gritty downtown loft with her friends. Joe was a shy, awkward drama student who followed her around like a lovesick spaniel.
After he won her heart, Julia helped Joe evolve into a roguishly handsome charmer who became increasingly obsessed with his looks and his career. Julia, meanwhile, settled into doting motherhood and a new life of comfy clothes and parenting associations.
Now, faced with the looming awards show and the possibility of a destroyed marriage, Julia embarks on an accelerated self-improvement routine of Botox, hair extensions, and erotically charged shrink sessions while dodging the sancti-mommies who lie in wait for her at her son’s preschool each day.
A unique take on the perennially popular issue of women trying not to lose themselves in matrimony and motherhood, Outtakes from a Marriage is expertly and humorously set against the Manhattan preschool mafia, the Hollywood machine, and the ticking clock of a waiting red carpet. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—Syracuse, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Connecticut
Ann Leary is the author of the memoir An Innocent, A Broad (2004) and three novels, Outtakes From a Marriage (2008) and The Good House (2013), and The Children (2016).
She has written fiction and nonfiction for various publications and media outlets, including New York Times, Ploughshares, National Public Radio, Redbook, and Real Simple, among other publications
Leary was born in Syracuse, N.Y., but moved around with her family, living in various parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Wisconsin. She finally landed in Marblehead, Massachusetts, where she graduated from high school.
With short-lived friendships in so many places, Anne turned to books early on. She especially loved stories about animals—A Jungle Book, Black Beauty, Lassie come Home, My Friend Flicka, and all the Black Stallion books (her love for all things equestrian continues to this day).
She believes that the first non-animal book she ever read was while babysitting at age thirteen, when she picked up Anais Nin's Delta of Venus. From that point she switched her allegiance from books about four-legged creatures to books about two-legged ones, in particular inspiring stories about beautiful, opium-addicted nymphomaniacs!
Leary attended Bennington College in Vermont for two years then switched to Emerson College in Boston. It was there that she met her to-be husband, actor-comedian Dennis Leary, who was teaching a comedy-writing course. The two married in 1989 and have two now grown children.
Leary competes in equestrian sports and has been a volunteer EMT. She and her husband live with dogs, cats, and horses on their farm in northwestern Connecticut. (Author bio adapted from the publisher and Freshfiction.com.)
Book Reviews
After years as a struggling actor, Joe Ferraro is starring on a hit TV show—and has a Golden Globe nod. But when his stay-at-home mom wife Julia hears a sexy-voice phone-message congratulations from a woman clearly more than a pal, her life is turned upside down. Leary, wife of actor Denis Leary, mines the laughs with her knowing New York-set story. She insists it's all fiction.
New York Post
[S]parkling debut novel…. Keenly observant of celeb culture,...Leary pens a bittersweet tale about love, marriage and the perils of fame.
People
The prose is sprightly...you’ll keep reading.
Entertainment Weekly
Memoirist Leary (An Innocent, a Broad) follows in her fiction debut the unraveling of Julia Ferraro after she accidentally discovers a racy message in her Golden Globe—nominee husband's voice mail. As the doubts about her husband, Joe, mount, Julia begins examining other areas of her life with closer scrutiny, and her behavior becomes increasingly erratic as her paranoia grows: she dabbles in Restylane and Botox, attempts to seduce her shrink and plants rumors about her husband on Gawker. In addition to Julia's marital angst, she is also managing a shaky relationship with her entitled, adolescent daughter, Ruby, and is wracked with anxiety over her own lack of a career. Julia is a sharp and self-aware narrator, though there are moments when she seems too much a romantic, particularly for someone with otherwise worldly and wry sensibilities. Leary, the wife of actor Denis Leary, has an eye for the comedy of manners of the rich and idle. As Julia's daughter observes, "You don't really have to do anything." Julia responds: "I know. You have no idea how stressful that is."
Publishers Weekly
How does a free spirit turned wife and mother cope with her actor husband's infidelity?.... Julia Ferraro's husband Joe has been nominated for a Golden Globe for best actor in a TV series. Weeks before the ceremony, Julia innocently uses Joe's phone to check her messages and punches in his code by mistake. The raunchy, suggestive message she hears sends her near-perfect world into a tailspin.... As the Golden Globes near, Julia plunges into a maelstrom of insecurities about her marriage, her parenting skills and her weight, and she struggles to steer a course between pushover and avenging First Wife. The outcome is satisfying without being sappy. A witty take on marital survival in Manhattan-with heart.
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 specfic questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.
The Dinner
Herman Koch, 2009 (the Netherlands), 2013 (USA)
Crown Publishing
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385346856
Summary
An internationally bestselling phenomenon: the darkly suspenseful, highly controversial tale of two families struggling to make the hardest decision of their lives—all over the course of one meal.
It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse—the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays.
But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened.
Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children.
As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple show just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.
Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy. (From the publisher.)
See the 2017 film with Richard Gere and Laura Linney.
Listen to our Movies Meet Book Club Podcast as Hollister and O'Toole discuss the movie and book.
Author Bio
• Birth—September 5, 1953
• Raised—Amsterdam, the Netherlands
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Publieksprijs (the Netherlands)
• Currently—lives in Amsterdam
Herman Koch is a Dutch writer and actor. He has written short stories, novels, and columns. His best-selling novel The Dinner (2009) has been translated into 21 languages. He has acted for radio, television, and film. He co-created the long-running TV series Jiskefet (1990–2005).
Koch was born in Arnhem, Netherlands. His family moved to Amsterdam when he was two years old. He went to the Montessori Lyceum Amsterdam from which he was expelled. Although his native language is Dutch, he also speaks English, German, and Spanish.
Acting
Koch is an actor for radio, television, and film. He contributed to the comedy show Borat (1984–1989) for radio. Together with Kees Prins and Michiel Romeyn, Koch created the long-running absurdist and satiric series Jiskefet (1990–2005; Trash Can) for television, in which he also acted. And he played minor roles in the movie The Flying Liftboy (1998), the 2000 TV series of the same name, and Voetbalvrouwen (2007; Footballers' Wives).
Writing
Koch is the author of short stories, novels, and columns. His debut was De voorbijganger (1985; The Passerby) a collection of short stories. His first novel was Red ons, Maria Montanelli (1989; Save Us, Maria Montanelli). In 2005, Koch wrote the text for the Grand Dictation of the Dutch Language.
His sixth novel was Het diner (2009; The Dinner), which was translated into 21 languages including English, has sold over one million copies throughout Europe and won the 2009 NS Audience award (Dutch: NS Publieksprijs). A Dutch play of The Dinner was in theaters in 2012, and a Dutch movie version was released in 2013. An English language adaptation to be directed by Cate Blanchett was announced in 2013.
Kock released Summer House with Swimming Pool in 2014.
Personal life
Koch is married to Amalia Rodriguez, and they have a son Pablo. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/1/2014.)
Book Reviews
A European Gone Girl…. The Dinner, a sly psychological thriller that hinges on a horrific crime and its consequences for two families, has become one of spring’s most anticipated suspense novels.
Wall Street Journal
[The Dinner] proves how powerful fiction can be in illuminating the modern world.... The reader does not rise from his table happy and replete so much as stand up suddenly, pale and reeling. Bored with Fifty Shades of Grey and all that brouhaha? Read The Dinner—and taste the shock.
Economist
(Starred review.) [A] witty look at contemporary manners...before turning into a take-no-prisoners psychological thriller.... With dark humor, Koch dramatizes the lengths to which people will go to preserve a comfortable way of life. Despite a few too-convenient contrivances, this is a cunningly crafted thriller that will never allow you to look at a serviette in the same way again
Publishers Weekly
An international best seller as winner of the Publieksprijs prize, this book features two couples at a posh restaurant in Amsterdam chatting politely before finally addressing the real issue: their teenage sons have been caught on film in a gruesome criminal act that has shaken the nation.
Library Journal
Mesmerizing and disturbing…fast-paced and addictive…The Dinner, already a bestseller in Europe, is sure to find an enthusiastic American readership as well.
BookPage
A high-class meal provides an unlikely window into privilege, violence and madness. Paul, the narrator of this caustic tale...prepare[s] for a pricey dinner with his brother and sister-in-law.... The mood is mysteriously tense in the opening chapters, as the foursome talk around each other.... Koch's slow revelation of the central crisis is expertly paced, and he's opened up a serious question of what parents owe their children, and how much of their character is passed on to them. At its best, a chilling vision of the ugliness of keeping up appearances.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How did your opinion of Paul and Serge shift throughout the novel? How might the story line have unfolded if it had been told from a mother’s point of view?
2. In what way do the courses of a meal—from aperitif to digestif—echo the experience of savoring a suspenseful novel? As the waiter described each delicacy in The Dinner, did the food appeal to you, or did you share Paul’s belief that it was pretentious?
3. What do you think of the sympathy Paul and Claire feel for their son? As a parent, how far would you go to defend your child?
4. Do Michel and Rick represent the indifference of their generation, or are teenagers more socially conscious in the Information Age?
5. How much influence do Claire and Babette have over their husbands? How do they define good mothering?
6. The novel opens with Paul’s commentary on how much Serge irritates him. What accounts for their attitude toward each other? Does Paul’s animosity run deeper than typical sibling rivalry?
7. Discuss Paul’s and Serge’s career paths. What does it take to succeed in politics compared with succeeding in the classroom? What skills do the Lohman brothers share?
8. Ultimately, who is to blame for the homeless woman’s death? What does the novel indicate about the responsibilities (or irresponsibility) of the upper class? What separates sympathetic souls from heartless ones?
9. Discuss the portrait of a marriage that Paul paints as he recalls Claire’s illness and confronts the possibility of losing his family. Why is Claire so protective of Paul? What keeps their relationship going?
10. In chapter 30, we see the details of Paul’s approach to history and humanity. As you watched him lose his teaching job, did you perceive him as someone who is ill or simply selfish? Or rational?
11. What does the story of cousins Michel and Rick say about nature versus nurture? How do you think Beau/Faso sees his adoptive family? What have they taught him about getting ahead?
12. How did you react to Claire and Michel’s “solution”?
13. What commentary does the novel offer about the author’s homeland? What aspects of The Dinner would change if it were set in Washington, DC, rather than in the Netherlands?
(Guide written by Amy Clements and issued by the publisher.)