Schroder
Amity Gaige, 2013
Twelve, Inc.
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781455512133
Summary
A lyrical and deeply affecting novel recounting the seven days a father spends on the road with his daughter after kidnapping her during a parental visit.
Attending a New England summer camp, young Eric Schroder—a first-generation East German immigrant—adopts the last name Kennedy to more easily fit in, a fateful white lie that will set him on an improbable and ultimately tragic course.
Schroder relates the story of Eric's urgent escape years later to Lake Champlain, Vermont, with his six-year-old daughter, Meadow, in an attempt to outrun the authorities amid a heated custody battle with his wife, who will soon discover that her husband is not who he says he is. From a correctional facility, Eric surveys the course of his life to understand—and maybe even explain—his behavior: the painful separation from his mother in childhood; a harrowing escape to America with his taciturn father; a romance that withered under a shadow of lies; and his proudest moments and greatest regrets as a flawed but loving father.
Alternately lovesick and ecstatic, Amity Gaige's deftly imagined novel offers a profound meditation on history and fatherhood, and the many identities we take on in our lives—those we are born with and those we construct for ourselves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1972
• Where—Charlotte, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in West Hartford, Connecticut
Amity Gaige is the author of four novels, O My Darling (2005), The Folded World (2007), and Schroder (2013), and Sea Wife (2020).
Schroder, Gaige's third novel, was short-listed for the Folio Prize in 2014. Published in eighteen countries, it was named one of best books of 2013 by The New York Times Book Review, Huffington Post, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews, Cosmopolitan, Denver Post, Buffalo News, and Publisher's Weekly, among others.
Gaige is the recipient of many awards for her other novels, including Foreword Book of the Year Award for 2007; and in 2006, she was named one of the "5 Under 35" outstanding emerging writers by the National Book Foundation.
She has a Fulbright and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo. Her work has appeared in The Guardian, New York Times, Literary Review, Yale Review, and One Story. She lives in Connecticut with her family. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[The book's previoius] escapades are so unthreatening that it’s genuinely jolting when Schroder tilts toward a police chase and criminal prosecution. To her credit, Ms. Gaige has delicately mentioned the plot point that could potentially destroy Eric. But she hasn’t harped on it, so it resurfaces as a terrible surprise. And the reader is left to dissect a book that works as both character study and morality play, filled with questions that have no easy answers.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Fiction is all about experimental selves, so it’s not hard to see what drew Amity Gaige to the title character of her third novel, Schroder.... The essence of the ersatz Rockefeller/Kennedy character is of course an epic, pathological narcissism, and this Gaige gets impressively right.... The novel’s climactic chapter is also its best conceived: the item that brings about Schroder’s downfall is perfect, both dramatic and mundane. The reader will realize that he or she has been given every detail necessary to see what was coming, yet didn’t, which is plot-making of the highest order.
Jonathan Dee - New York Times Book Review
The entire book is a testimony, written in prison, by a divorced dad to his ex-wife. Equal parts plea, apology and defense, this enthralling letter rises up from a fog of narcissism that will cloud your vision and put you under his spell…Gaige displays an unnerving insight into the grandiosity and fragility of the middle-aged male ego…With its psychological acuity, emotional complexity and topical subject matter, [Schroder] deserves all the success it can find.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
On occasion...a novel will provoke a host of tangled and disconcertingly conflicted reactions—revulsion and affection; blame and understanding; a connection that goes beyond surface sympathy to a deeper, and possibly unwanted, emotional recognition. These were among the things I experienced while reading Amity Gaige's astoundingly good novel Schroder.
Wall Street Journal
Brilliantly written....What could be a hackneyed novelistic trope--the confessional letter--is completely transformed in Gaige's sure and insightful hands....Schroder is a haunting look at the extreme desire for love and family, and how the mind can justify that need to possess what it cannot have. Almost, just almost, Schroder has us rooting for him.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
(Four stars.) Like Nabokov's Humbert Humbert, Schroder is charming and deceptive, likable and flawed, a conman who has a clever way with words. Schroder's tale is deeply engaging, and Gaige's writing is surprising and original, but the real pull of this magnetic novel is the moral ambiguity the reader feels.
People
Gaige (The Folded World) revisits the fragility of family life in her newest, based broadly on the Clark Rockefeller child custody kidnapping case. The book—written as an apology (in both the Socratic and emotional sense) to the narrator’s ex-wife as he awaits trial—is quiet and deeply introspective. Erik Schroder was born in East Berlin, but escaped with his father to working-class Boston. Recreating himself as Eric Kennedy, raised in a fictional town by a patrician family, the narrator distances himself from his past to gain entree into American aristocracy. But his marriage—based on lies—goes sour, and in the midst of the resultant unfavorable custody arrangement, Eric takes his six-year-old daughter, Meadow, on an unsanctioned road trip through New England, seizing the opportunity to reconnect with her, even as he realizes that this idyllic time is as illusory as his past. Although Eric is often unreliable, Gaige conjures a groundswell of sympathy for an otherwise repugnant character. Tender moments of observation, regret, and joy—all conveyed in unself-consciously lyrical prose—result in a radiant meditation on identity, memory, and familial love and loss
Publishers Weekly
Gaige creates a fascinating and complex character in Erik, as he moves from the eccentric and slightly irresponsible father to a desperate man at the end of his rope...[an] expert exploration of the immigrant experience, alienation, and the unbreakable bond between parent and child.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. Have you ever told a lie that grew beyond your control? What did you decide to do when the lie became more than you could handle?
2. Schroder is written as a confessional letter from Eric to his wife, Laura. Have you ever written a confession? About what and to whom?
3. In the novel, Eric tells his first lie when he is five years old. Do you remember your first lie or a time when you witnessed a young child lie? Why do you think you—or the child you witnessed—told this lie?
4. If you could change something about your family history, what would it be?
5. Which famous family might you pretend to be part of? Why?
6. Eric and Laura’s marriage began with a lie about Eric’s identity. How much of ourselves do we keep from our loved ones? Can omissions ultimately doom a relationship? Or is there room for secrets between spouses and in families?
7. Meadow is often the only voice of reason in the novel. What about a child’s mind allows Meadow to trust her father, but to be honest with him at the same time?
8. Were you ever worried for Meadow’s safety? If not, why not?
9. How does Eric’s immigrant status shape the way he sees the world—and the specific parts of his world, such as Laura, Meadow, and Albany?
10. Do you think Eric is mentally ill or just a confused man who doesn’t want to lose his daughter? How far would you go to hold on to someone you love?
11. Can someone who has made mistakes or done bad things in one part of their life still be a good parent?
12. Are you able to forgive the flaws in your own parents? Do you think Meadow will be able to?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
A Week in Winter
Maeve Binchy, 2012
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307273574
Summary
Stoneybridge is a small town on the west coast of Ireland where all the families know one another. When Chicky Starr decides to take an old, decaying mansion set high on the cliffs overlooking the windswept Atlantic Ocean and turn it into a restful place for a holiday by the sea, everyone thinks she is crazy. Helped by Rigger (a bad boy turned good who is handy around the house) and Orla, her niece (a whiz at business), Chicky is finally ready to welcome the first guests to Stone House’s big warm kitchen, log fires, and understated elegant bedrooms.
John, the American movie star, thinks he has arrived incognito; Winnie and Lillian are forced into taking a holiday together; Nicola and Henry, husband and wife, have been shaken by seeing too much death practicing medicine; Anders hates his father’s business, but has a real talent for music; Miss Nell Howe, a retired schoolteacher, criticizes everything and leaves a day early, much to everyone’s relief; the Walls are disappointed to have won this second-prize holiday in a contest where first prize was Paris; and Freda, the librarian, is afraid of her own psychic visions.
Sharing a week with this unlikely cast of characters is pure joy, full of Maeve’s trademark warmth and humor. Once again, she embraces us with her grand storytelling. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 28, 1940
• Where—Dalkey (outside Dublin), Ireland
• Death—July 30, 2012
• Where—Dalkey, Ireland
• Education—B.A., University College, Dublin
• Awards—see below
Maeve Binchy Snell was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker. She is best known for her humorous take on small-town life in Ireland, her descriptive characters, her interest in human nature and her often clever surprise endings. Her novels, which were translated into 37 languages, sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, and her death, announced by Vincent Browne on Irish television late on 30 July 2012, was mourned as the passing of Ireland's best-loved and most recognisable writer.
Her books have outsold those of other Irish writers such as Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Samuel Beckett, W. B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Edna O'Brien and Roddy Doyle. She cracked the U.S. market, featuring on the New York Times best-seller list and in Oprah's Book Club. Recognised for her "total absence of malice" and generosity to other writers, she finished ahead of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Stephen King in a 2000 poll for World Book Day.
Early life
Binchy was born in Dalkey, County Dublin (modern-day Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown), Ireland, the oldest child of four. Her siblings include one brother, William Binchy, Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College, Dublin, and two sisters: Renie (who predeceased Binchy) and Joan Ryan. Her uncle was the historian D. A. Binchy (1899–1989). Educated at the Holy Child Convent in Killiney and University College Dublin (where she earned a bachelor's degree in history), she worked as a teacher of French, Latin, and history at various girls' schools, then a journalist at the Irish Times, and later became a writer of novels, short stories, and dramatic works.
In 1968, her mother died of cancer aged 57. After Binchy's father died in 1971, she sold the family house and moved to a bedsit in Dublin.
Israel
Her parents were Catholics and Binchy attended a convent school. However, a trip to Israel profoundly affected both her career and her faith. As she confided in a Q&A with Vulture:
In 1963, I worked in a Jewish school in Dublin, teaching French with an Irish accent to kids, primarily Lithuanians. The parents there gave me a trip to Israel as a present. I had no money, so I went and worked in a kibbutz—plucking chickens, picking oranges. My parents were very nervous; here I was going out to the Middle East by myself. I wrote to them regularly, telling them about the kibbutz. My father and mother sent my letters to a newspaper, which published them. So I thought, It’s not so hard to be a writer. Just write a letter home. After that, I started writing other travel articles.
Additionally, one Sunday, attempting to locate where the Last Supper is supposed to have occurred, she climbed a mountainside to a cavern guarded by a Brooklyn-born Israeli soldier. She wept with despair. The soldier asked, “What’ya expect, ma’am—a Renaissance table set for 13?” She replied, “Yes! That’s just what I did expect.” Binchy was no longer a Catholic.
Marriage
Binchy, described as "six feet tall, rather stout, and garrulous", confided to Gay Byrne of the Late Late Show that, growing up in Dalkey, she never felt herself to be attractive; "as a plump girl I didn't start on an even footing to everyone else", she shared. After her mother's death, she expected to a lead a life of spinsterhood, or as she expressed: "I expected I would live at home, as I always did." She continued, "I felt very lonely, the others all had a love waiting for them and I didn't."
She ultimately encountered the love of her life, however; when recording a piece for Woman's Hour in London, she met children's author Gordon Snell, then a freelance producer with the BBC. Their friendship blossomed into a cross-border romance, with her in Ireland and him in London, until she eventually secured a job in London through the Irish Times. She and Snell married in 1977 and after living in London for a time, moved to Ireland. They lived together in Dalkey, not far from where she had grown up, until Binchy's death. She told the Irish Times:
[A] writer, a man I loved and he loved me and we got married and it was great and is still great. He believed I could do anything, just as my parents had believed all those years ago, and I started to write fiction and that took off fine. And he loved Ireland, and the fax was invented so we writers could live anywhere we liked, instead of living in London near publishers.
Ill health...and death
In 2002, Binchy "suffered a health crisis related to a heart condition," which inspired her to write Heart and Soul. The book about (what Binchy terms) "a heart failure clinic" in Dublin and the people involved with it, reflects many of her own experiences and observations in the hospital.
Towards the end of her life, Binchy had the following message on her official website: "My health isn't so good these days and I can't travel around to meet people the way I used to. But I'm always delighted to hear from readers, even if it takes me a while to reply."
She suffered with severe arthritis, which left her in constant pain. As a result of the arthritis she had a hip operation.
Binchy died on 30 July 2012 after a short illness. She was 72.] Gordon was by her side when she died in a Dublin hospital. Immediate media reports described Binchy as "beloved", "Ireland's most well-known novelist" and the "best-loved writer of her generation". Fellow writers mourned their loss, including Ian Rankin, Jilly Cooper, Anne Rice, and Jeffrey Archer. Politicians also paid tribute. President Michael D. Higgins stated: "Our country mourns." Taoiseach Enda Kenny said, “Today we have lost a national treasure.” Minister of State for Disability, Equality and Mental Health Kathleen Lynch, appearing as a guest on Tonight with Vincent Browne, said Binchy was, for her money, as worthy an Irish writer as James Joyce or Oscar Wilde, and praised her for selling so many more books than they managed.
In the days after her death tributes were published from such writers as John Banville, Roddy Doyle, and Colm Tóibín. Banville contrasted Binchy with Gore Vidal, who died the day after her, observing that Vidal "used to say that it was not enough for him to succeed, but others must fail. Maeve wanted everyone to be a success." Numerous tributes appeared in publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including the Guardian and CBC News.
Shortly before her death, Binchy told the Irish Times:
I don't have any regrets about any roads I didn't take. Everything went well, and I think that's been a help because I can look back, and I do get great pleasure out of looking back ... I've been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.
Just before dying, she read her latest short story at the Dalkey Book Festival.
She once said she would like to die "... on my 100th birthday, piloting Gordon and myself into the side of a mountain." She was cremated that Friday in Mount Jerome. It was a simple ceremony, as she had requested.
Journalism
The New York Times reports: Binchy's "writing career began by accident in the early 1960s, after she spent time on a kibbutz in Israel. Her father was so taken with her letters home that "he cut off the ‘Dear Daddy’ bits,” Ms. Binchy later recounted, and sent them to an Irish newspaper, which published them." Donal Lynch observed of her first paying journalism role: the Irish Independent "was impressed enough to commission her, paying her £16, which was then a week-and-a-half's salary for her."
In 1968, Binchy joined the staff at the Irish Times, and worked there as a writer, columnist, the first Women's Page editor then the London editor, later reporting for the paper from London before returning to Ireland.
Binchy's first published book is a compilation of her newspaper articles titled My First Book. Published in 1970, it is now out of print. As Binchy's bio posted at Read Ireland describes: "The Dublin section of the book contains insightful case histories that prefigure her novelist's interest in character. The rest of the book is mainly humorous, and particularly droll is her account of a skiing holiday, 'I Was a Winter Sport.'"
Literary works
In all, Binchy published 16 novels, four short-story collections, a play and a novella. Her literary career began with two books of short stories: Central Line (1978) and Victoria Line (1980). She published her debut novel Light a Penny Candle in 1982. In 1983, it sold for the largest sum ever paid for a first novel: £52,000. The timing was fortuitous, as Binchy and her husband were two months behind with the mortgage at the time. However, the prolific Binchy—who joked that she could write as fast as she could talk—ultimately became one of Ireland's richest women.
Her first book was rejected five times. She would later describe these rejections as "a slap in the face [...] It's like if you don't go to a dance you can never be rejected but you'll never get to dance either".
Most of Binchy's stories are set in Ireland, dealing with the tensions between urban and rural life, the contrasts between England and Ireland, and the dramatic changes in Ireland between World War II and the present day. Her books were translated into 37 languages.
While some of Binchy's novels are complete stories (Circle of Friends, Light a Penny Candle), many others revolve around a cast of interrelated characters (The Copper Beech, Silver Wedding, The Lilac Bus, Evening Class, and Heart and Soul). Her later novels, Evening Class, Scarlet Feather, Quentins, and Tara Road, feature a cast of recurring characters.
Binchy announced in 2000 that she would not tour any more of her novels, but would instead be devoting her time to other activities and to her husband, Gordon Snell. Five further novels were published before her death—Quentins (2002), Nights of Rain and Stars (2004), Whitethorn Woods (2006), Heart and Soul (2008), and Minding Frankie (2010). Her final work, A Week in Winter, was published posthumously in 2012.
Binchy wrote several dramas specifically for radio and the silver screen. Additionally, several of her novels and short stories were adapted for radio, film, and television.
Awards and honours
- In 1978, Binchy won a Jacob's Award for her RTÉ play, Deeply Regretted By. A second award went to the lead actor, Donall Farmer.
- A 1993 photograph of her by Richard Whitehead belongs to the collection of the National Portrait Gallery (London) and a painting of her by Maeve McCarthy, commissioned in 2005, is on display in the National Gallery of Ireland.
- In 1999, she received the British Book Award for Lifetime Achievement.
- In 2000, she received a People of the Year Award.
- In 2001, Scarlet Feather won the W H Smith Book Award for Fiction, defeating works by Joanna Trollope and then reigning Booker winner Margaret Atwood, amongst other contenders.
- In 2007, she received the Irish PEN Award, joining such luminaries as John B. Keane, Brian Friel, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor, John McGahern and Seamus Heaney.
- In 2010, she received a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Book Awards.
- In 2012, she received an Irish Book Award in the "Irish Popular Fiction Book" category for A Week in Winter.
- There have been posthumous proposals to name a new Liffey crossing Binchy Bridge in memory of the writer Other writers to have Dublin bridges named after them include Beckett, Joyce and O'Casey.
- In 2012 a new garden behind the Dalkey Library in County Dublin was dedicated in memory of Binchy. (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
The late great Binchy’s last novel is an appropriately heartwarming and spirit restoring swan song. In classic Binchy-style, the gentle story is populated with a large cast of often eccentric, always endearing characters.... Stone House, a country inn on the West Coast of Ireland serves as the cozy setting for these interrelated tales of love, loss, friendship, and community.... Pour yourself a cup of tea, put your feet up, and prepare to savor this bit of comfort food for the soul
Booklist
The beloved, prolific Binchy's posthumous last novel is classic Binchy (Minding Frankie, 2011, etc.), peeking into the lives of characters from various walks of life brought together at a newly opened inn on the West Coast of Ireland. After 20 years in America and pretending she's been widowed by an American husband she never actually married, Chicky returns to her hometown of Stoneybridge to turn an elderly spinster's run-down cliffside mansion into an inn.... While Binchy's stories are sketchier than usual, perhaps understandably rushed, her fans will find solace as hearts mend and relationships sort themselves out one last time.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why is Chicky attracted to Walter? Why does she defy her mother’s doubts and admonitions about going to New York [p. 6]? “Reality was, for Chicky, this whole fantasy world that she had invented of a bustling, successful Manhattan lifestyle” [p. 9]. Do Chicky’s deceptions blind her to Walter’s true character? Does she love him? What other feelings might explain her pleas to him to stay [p. 11]?
2. After Walter leaves, Chicky vows she will never go back to Stoneybridge. Is she motivated by pride and stubbornness or does her decision reflect realistic concerns about the reactions her return is likely to generate? How do her periodic visits home influence her feelings about her family and Stoneybridge [p. 15]?
3. Step-by-step, Chicky takes charge of her life in New York. What character traits help her succeed? Discuss Mrs. Cassidy’s observations when Chicky leaves for Stoneybridge after twenty years in New York [p. 22-23]. In what ways does Chicky’s temperament, as well as her skills, prepare her for life as an innkeeper?
4. In Winnie and Lillian’s antagonistic relationship, which woman initially has the upper hand and why? How does Teddy’s behavior affect their opinions and interactions? What do they learn about each other when they are trapped in the cave? What do they learn about themselves?
5. Why is John eager to hide his true identity during his stay at Stone House? What advantages does he enjoy as an actor and what toll has his career taken on his personal life? Do you think he represents a majority of celebrities? Are Orla’s insights about the nature of fame persuasive [pp. 155-60]?
6. Henry and Nicola are shaken by the deaths they have seen as doctors. Why have their attempts to create satisfying careers been futile? What does the prospect of practicing in Stoneybridge offer them both personally and professionally?
7. What does Anders’s story convey about the difficulties of making a choice when one is faced with a conflict between duty and desire? How do his mother’s and Erika’s actions and advice, as well as his relationship with his father, influence him? What aspects of his experiences in Ireland help him to clarify his goals? What does his conversation with Chicky reveal about the way we ultimately make decisions [pp. 226-27]?
8. The description of the Walls and their obsession with contests is at once humorous and touching. What does their story demonstrate about the foundations of a loving long-term marriage? How do their enthusiasms change and enrich the experiences of the group at the inn?
9. Nell Howe is the only guest unmoved by the charms of Stone House. What accounts for her resistance to the atmosphere at the inn and her critical opinions of her fellow guests? What do her conversations with Rigger [pp. 271-72] and Carmel [pp. 296-98] reveal about her and the reasons she is unable or unwilling to bond with other people? Does her stay at Stone House change her in any way?
10. Why does Freda try to ignore or repress the visions she has? How do they interfere with her everyday life and her hopes and plans for the future? Even without her special “feelings,” is she foolish to embark on a love affair with Mark? Why does she decide to tell a “group of strangers” [p. 323] about her psychic powers? Reread the predictions she makes [p. 324]. Which of them do you think will come true?
11. Talk about how Binchy introduces each of the guests at Stone House. How does she pique your interest in them? Which character makes the strongest first impression? Which one takes the longest to get to know?
12. Anders tells himself, “Problems don’t solve themselves neatly like that, due to a set of coincidences. Problems are solved by making decisions” [p. 224]. Discuss how the various stories in A Week in Winter confirm or belie this observation.
13. Minor characters are an important part of A Week in Winter. What do Miss Queenie, Orla, and Rigger and Carmel contribute to the novel? What insights do their behavior, attitudes, and ambitions provide into the connections as well as the conflicts between traditional and contemporary Irish culture and society? Why does Nuela refuse to see her son, Rigger? What makes her change her mind?
14. Binchy is well known for making the landscape of rural Ireland as vital as the characters in her novels. What descriptions of the countryside and the coast in the wintertime are particularly vivid or evocative? How do they help set the mood of the narrative?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The House Girl
Tara Conklin, 2013
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062207395
Summary
The House Girl, the historical fiction debut by Tara Conklin, is an unforgettable story of love, history, and a search for justice, set in modern-day New York and 1852 Virginia.
Weaving together the story of an escaped slave in the pre–Civil War South and a determined junior lawyer, The House Girl follows Lina Sparrow as she looks for an appropriate lead plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking compensation for families of slaves. In her research, she learns about Lu Anne Bell, a renowned prewar artist whose famous works might have actually been painted by her slave, Josephine.
Featuring two remarkable, unforgettable heroines, Tara Conklin's The House Girl is riveting and powerful, literary fiction at its very best. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—St. Croix, US Virgin Islands
• Raised—Stockbridge, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; M.A.L.D., Tufts Univesity; J.D., New York University
• Currently—lives in Seattle, Oregon
Tara Conklin was born on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands and raised in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Yale University and received her Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as well as a law degree from New York University School of Law.
Conklin's first novel, The House Girl, published in 2013, was a New York Times bestseller. The Last Romantics, her second, was released in 2019.
A joint US-UK citizen, Tara now lives with her family in Seattle. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Lawyer-turned-writer Conklin debuts with a braided novel of two intersecting tales separated by 150 years. In 2004, Lina Sparrow is a first-year associate at a prestigious New York law firm; in 1852, Josephine Bell is the titular "house girl," a slave on a Virginia farm. Assigned to work on a class-action suit involving slavery reparations, Lina searches out a suitable plaintiff for the case, hoping to find a descendant of slaves with an especially compelling story. Lina's father, an artist, suggests that Lina research the story of Josephine, speculated to be the real artist behind paintings attributed to Lu Anne Bell, her white master, and Lina embarks on a search that finds her retracing the footsteps of a runaway slave. The tragedy of Josephine leads Lina deeper into not only Josephine's history but her own, which helps her to make sense of her mother, a woman Lina never knew. Alternating between Lina and Josephine, this novel is unfortunately trite, predictable, and insensitive at its core: the lives of a 19th-century black slave and a 21st-century white lawyer are not simply comparable but mutually revealing, fodder for healing. Striving for affecting revelations, Conklin manages nothing more than unsatisfying platitudes and smugly pat realizations.
Publishers Weekly
First-year law firm associate Lina Sparrow must find someone to serve as the face of a historic class-action lawsuit worth a fortune in reparations for descendants of American slaves. Since it's now suspected that antebellum artist Lu Anne Bell's empathetic depictions of slaves were the work of her house slave, Josephine, Lina is determined to track down one of Josephine's descendants.
Library Journal
Luminous.... The rare novel that seamlessly toggles between centuries and characters and remains consistently gripping throughout.... Powerful.
BookPage
Conklin persuasively intertwines the stories of two women separated by time and circumstances but united by a quest for justice...Stretching back and forth across time and geography, this riveting tale is bolstered by some powerful universal truths.
Booklist
[O]verlapping contemporary and historical fictions—in this case, the lives of a young lawyer defining herself in 21st-century New York and a young slave with secret talents in 19th-century Virginia. In 1852, on a failing Virginia farm, 17-year-old Josephine cares for her dying mistress Lu Anne,... [who] taught the girl to read and to paint.... Cut to 2004. Lu Anne's art is highly prized as the work of a protofeminist artist sensitive to the plight of slaves. But...[s]ome art critics wonder if paintings attributed to Lu Anne were really completed by Josephine.... As the focus shifts back and forth between the centuries, Josephine evolves into a wonderfully fresh character whose survival instinct competes with her capacity for love as she tries to reach freedom. But...lawyer, Lina, comes across more as a sketch than a portrait, and the choices she makes are boringly predictable. Provocative issues of race and gender intertwine in earnest if uneven issues-oriented fiction.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. As a servant in the Bell's home Josephine is literally "The House Girl." But how does this title also apply to Lina's character? What is the significance of Lina leaving her father's house at the close of the story?
2. The definition of "family" is unclear in this story: Lina's mother is absent for all of her life, Josephine's son is fathered by her married master. As Lina reflects on her mother's artwork she wonders whether you can create family connections: "What is blood and what is decision?" What is your response?
3. Separated by more than two centuries, Lina and Josephine's characters never meet, but Conklin's narrator tells this story through each of their perspectives. What similarities do you find between these two women? What would each character be able to teach the other?
4. On an empty page in her favorite book, Grace Sparrow writes "who is free?" We know that Josephine, Lottie and the others at the Bell plantation are literally enslaved. But who else experiences a lack of freedom in this story? Do you think these characters achieve freedom by the close of the novel?
5. Lu Anne Bell's relationship to Josephine is intense. She allows this slave, who gave birth to a boy fathered by her own husband, to remain in their home. She shares the most intimate moments of vulnerability with her when her illness is at its worst. But how does Josephine feel towards Lu Anne? How does she perceive her role in Lu Anne's life?
6. Taking us back and forth between Josephine and Lina's worlds, the narrator gives us an intimate look into the lives of both women. But Conklin also introduces Caleb Harper and Dorothea Rounds as additional narrators, speaking through their letters. What did their narrations add to the story? How did they change your understanding of Josephine and others living and working in the Bell's community?
7. Josephine "keeps" her memories in Mr. Jefferson's chest of drawers. How is this similar to Oscar's paintings of Grace? How do these characters confront the loss and pain they've experienced? How do they hide things away?
8. In the final pages of the novel, Lina decides to call her mother, asking Jasper to dial the phone number. What do you think Lina will say? Is she ready to build a relationship? Has she forgiven her mother for leaving?
9. Many people ask Lina why she has chosen to become a lawyer. Does she ever give a satisfying answer? Lina's law professor had taught her that the "law is the bastion of reason…there is no place for feeling." Why does a career like this appeal to Lina, the artist's daughter? How does this appeal wane throughout the story?
10. Many of the characters are trying to atone for acts committed in the past—Caleb, for his work with the slave catcher, Dorothea for her brother Percy's death, Oscar for not being a "good husband" to Grace. Do you think they are successful?
11. What is the role of religion in Josephine's world? How does religious belief both help and hinder Lottie?
12. Lina and Dorothea are both women seeking to excel in areas dominated by men—Lina, at a corporate law firm; Dorothea, in the abolitionist movement, what her father calls "not work for women." How do their experiences differ? How are they the same?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Touch & Go
Lisa Gardner, 2013
Penguin Group USA
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451465849
Summary
This is my family: Vanished without a trace...
Justin and Libby Denbe have the kind of life you’d find in the pages of a glossy magazine. A beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter. A gorgeous brownstone on a tree-lined street in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood. A great marriage, admired by all. A perfect life.
This is what I know: Pain has a flavor...
When investigator Tessa Leone arrives at the crime scene in the foyer of the Denbes’ home, she finds scuff marks on the floor and a million tiny pieces of bright green Taser confetti. The family appears to have been abducted, with only a pile of their cell phones and electronic devices remaining. No witnesses, no ransom demands, no motive. Just a perfect little family, gone.
This is what I fear...
The worst is yet to come... Tessa knows better than anyone that flawless fronts can hide the darkest secrets. Now she must race against the clock to uncover the Denbes’ innermost dealings, a complex tangle of friendships and betrayal, big business and small sacrifices. Who would want to kidnap such a perfect little family? And how far would such a person be willing to go?
This is the truth: Love, safety, family...it’s all touch and go. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• AKA—Alicia Scott
• Birth—ca. 1971-72
• Where—Hillsboro, Oregon, USA
• Education—University of Pennsylvania
• Awards—Best Hardcove (Int'l. Thriller Writers); France's Grand Prix des lectrices
de Elle, prix du policie; Daphne du Maurier Award (Romances Writers of America)
• Currently—lives in New Hampshire
Lisa Gardner is an American author of fiction. She is the author of 30 some novels, including thriller-suspense works such as The Killing Hour, The Next Accident, Catch Me, and most recently Find Her. She also has written romance novels using the pseudonym Alicia Scott. With over 22 million books in print, Lisa is published in 30 countries. Four of her novels have been adapted as TV movies.
Her work as a research analyst for a consulting firm spurred her interest in police procedure, cutting edge forensics and twisted plots—a fascination she parlayed into more than 16 bestselling suspense novels.
Raised in Hillsboro, Oregon, she graduated from the city's Glencoe High School. As of 2007, Gardner lives in New Hampshire. (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia and the author's website.)
Book Reviews
This no-holds-barred stand-alone...opens with the brutally efficient kidnapping of the Denbe family.... Gardner effectively alternates between the physical and emotional disintegration of the family...and the efforts...to locate the Denbes. The suspense builds as the action races to a spectacular conclusion and the unmasking of the plot’s mastermind.
Publishers Weekly
What does a perfect life look like? On the surface, Justin and Libby Denbe seem to have found it.... The Denbes' lives are turned upside down when they are brutally abducted from their home.... [In a] race to find the Denbes before it’s too late....page-turning suspense...leads to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion. —Cynthia Price, Francis Marion Univ. Lib., Florence, SC
Library Journal
Gardner’s depiction of a woman in the midst of emotional chaos is spot on, as usual, and she proves herself just as capable when it comes to creating intriguing men. Readers will want to see more of Wyatt, just as they grew to appreciate Bobby Dodge in Gardner’s earlier books
Booklist
What does a perfect life look like? On the surface, Justin and Libby Denbe seem to have found it.... The Denbes' lives are turned upside down when they are brutally abducted from their home.... [In a] race to find the Denbes before it’s too late....page-turning suspense...leads to a thoroughly satisfying conclusion. —Cynthia Price, Francis Marion Univ. Lib., Florence, SC.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What was your initial impression of each character of the Denbe family at the beginning of the book? How did those impressions evolve or change throughout the novel?
2. In Touch & Go there are two “family units” throughout most of the book, the Denbes and their captors. Do you see any similarities between these two units? Do these groups mirror each other in any way?
3. The Denbe family faces some loaded issues throughout the novel. Do you think that the way they handle these issues in captivity is similar (albeit amplified) to how they would have handled them in their normal life?
4. What did you consider the most torturous aspect of the Denbes' captivity? Physical? Mental?
5. Radar is a complex character. Do you think he redeems himself by helping the Denbes while in captivity?
6. Z is portrayed as a villain with a moral code. Does that make him admirable, or does the fact that he’s adamant about some rules—he always keeps his word—make it more heinous that he’s willing to cross other lines?
7. Do you blame Justin for his family’s situation—both their captivity and their broken nature—or do you see their predicament as a joint effort?
8. Children are a strong theme throughout the book. Tessa is concerned for her daughter as are the Denbes for their daughter, but sometimes the children seem to have more insight than the adults. Do you think Lisa Gardner did this on purpose?
9. Libby Denbe turns to prescription drug use as an escape from her husband’s infidelity. Because of this, is it possible to view Libby as a hero?
10. Many of the characters in this book appear innocent but turn out to be extremely flawed. Which characters (if any) were you surprised by when you found out their darkest secrets?
11. What do you think will happen with Tessa and Wyatt?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Yellow Crocus
Laila Ibrahim, 2010
Flaming Chalice Press
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 0984502203
Summary
Mattie was never truly mine. That knowledge must have filled me as quickly and surely as the milk from her breasts. Although my family "owned" her, although she occupied the center of my universe, her deepest affections lay elsewhere. So along with the comfort of her came the fear that I would lose her some day. This is our story...
So begins Lisbeth Wainwright’s compelling tale of coming-of-age in antebellum Virginia. Born to white plantation owners but raised by her enslaved black wet nurse, Mattie, Lisbeth’s childhood unfolds on the line between two very different worlds.
Growing up under the watchful eye of Mattie, the child adopts her surrogate mother’s deep-seated faith in God, her love of music and black-eyed peas, and the tradition of hunting for yellow crocuses in the early days of spring. Yet Lisbeth has freedoms and opportunities that Mattie does not have, though the color of the girl’s skin cannot protect her from the societal expectations placed on women born to privilege. As Lisbeth grows up, she struggles to reconcile her love for her caregiver with her parent's expectations, a task made all the more difficult as she becomes increasingly aware of the ugly realities of the American slavery system.
When the inequality of her two worlds comes to a head during an act of shocking brutality, Lisbeth realizes she must make a choice, one that will require every ounce of the courage she learned from her beloved Mattie. This compelling historical novel is a richly evocative tale of love and redemption set during one of the darkest chapters of American history. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Whittier, California, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., Mills College
• Currently—lives in Berkeley, California
In her own words:
I live in Berkeley California in a small co-housing community. I was born in Whittier California and moved to the Bay Area to go to Mills College where I studied psychology and human development. I went on to get a Master's Degree in human development with a special interest in attachment theory. br />
I owned my own preschool for 13 years. I sold it in 2007 in order to travel around the world with my kids when they were 12 and 15. It sounds more glamorous than it was because out goal was to expose them to the real lives of real people which meant that we mostly rented apartments, shopped in local stores and quickly learn how to find clean drinking water every where we went. When we returned from the trip I became a professional birth doula.
Writing Yellow Crocus was a labor of love. I resisted the call to write the novel for many, many years. In 1998, I was with a group of people talking about Tiger Woods. Someone mentioned that he identifies as much as an Asian person as an African-American person. I thought to myself, "Of course he does, his mother is Asian. You form your core identity in relationship to your primary caregivers. It's a basic part of the attachment process."
Then the image of Lisbeth, a white baby, breastfeeding in the loving arms of Mattie, an enslaved wetnurse came to me in a flash. I thought about what it would be like for Lisbeth to dearly love Mattie and then be taught by society that she wasn't a full person. I wondered how it would feel for Mattie to be forced to abandon Samuel, her own child, in the slave Quarters. Then I imagined what the experience would be like for Miss Anne, the birth mother, to have her own child twist away from her to get into Mattie's arms.
These characters started to haunt me. Various scenes popped into my head. Though I had never written anything, I was being called to tell this story. Finally, for my fortieth birthday, I began the personal marathon of writing my first novel. I hope you will come to love these characters as much as I have. (Visit the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Ibrahim balances the story well, crafting immensely complex and multi-faceted characters and putting them in an atmosphere as tense as the air before a thunderstorm. Yellow Crocus is an engaging, thought-provoking story. It's a must-read for anyone who enjoys Antebellum historical fiction or is looking for a compelling story to add to their book club reading list. In fact, practically anyone who enjoys period reading will find this book as wonderful as discovering freshly bloomed crocuses poking through the snow. —Katerie Prio, ForeWord Clarin
If you loved The Help, The Secret Life of Bees or The Color Purple, you'll adore Yellow Crocus! —JustaGeekGirl
Once I started reading this book I couldn’t put it down—CoCo
Laila Ibrahim brings her characters to life and makes you feel all their anguish, fear, hope and love. —Natski
This book among many other stories of early American life is a must read. —JustTiffany
One of the best books I have read in a long time! I will definitely read it again. —Cjutte
Wow wow wow. What a strong, powerful, gut-wrenching book! I loved every second of this story and the main characters. This author knows women. Thank you for writing such an amazing novel. —Angel
WOW! I was so moved by this story. I started with a dim view since I am a black women. But I did enjoy this. —R & C
Discussion Questions
1. Who is your favorite character and why?
2. Mother-child relationships are a central theme in Yellow Crocus. How do you think the setting affected that relationship for all people?
3. In your family history, did anyone have a close relationship with a nanny or caregiver?
4. What, if any, parallels do you see between the culture and the central conflicts of the narrative in Yellow Crocus and in our current society?
5. What were some of the key experiences that Lisbeth had that changed her understanding of the world in which she lived?
6. Lisbeth reaction to Edward’s raping the field hand was naive. Miss Anne’s reaction was nonchalant. Who’s reaction was more surprising to you?
7. Early in the book, Mattie seemed certain she would never try to escape, yet by the end she did. What do you think changed for her?
8. Most people born into Lisbeth’s situation would have gone on with the status quo. If she had not seen Edward rape the field hand, do you think she would have married him?
9. What was surprising to you? Was there anything you could not believe?
10. What specific themes did the author emphasize throughout the novel? What do you think he or she is trying to get across to the reader?
11. Did certain parts of the book make you uncomfortable? If so, why did you feel that way? Did this lead to a new understanding or awareness of some aspect of your life you might not have thought about before?
12. Did the book affect the way you think about slavery? If so, how?
13. How did you feel about the ending? Did it seem realistic to you? Were there any other endings you could imagine?
(Questions provided courtesy of the author.)