The Innocents
Francesca Segal, 2012
Voice
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401341893
Summary
A smart and slyly funny tale of love, temptation, confusion, and commitment; a triumphant and beautifully executed recasting of Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence.
Newly engaged and unthinkingly self-satisfied, twenty-eight-year-old Adam Newman is the prize catch of Temple Fortune, a small, tight-knit Jewish suburb of London. He has been dating Rachel Gilbert since they were both sixteen and now, to the relief and happiness of the entire Gilbert family, they are finally to marry.
To Adam, Rachel embodies the highest values of Temple Fortune; she is innocent, conventional, and entirely secure in her community—a place in which everyone still knows the whereabouts of their nursery school classmates. Marrying Rachel will cement Adam's role in a warm, inclusive family he loves.
But as the vast machinery of the wedding gathers momentum, Adam feels the first faint touches of claustrophobia, and when Rachel's younger cousin Ellie Schneider moves home from New York, she unsettles Adam more than he'd care to admit.
Ellie—beautiful, vulnerable, and fiercely independent—offers a liberation that he hadn't known existed: a freedom from the loving interference and frustrating parochialism of North West London. Adam finds himself questioning everything, suddenly torn between security and exhilaration, tradition and independence. What might he be missing by staying close to home? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1980
• Where—London, England, UK
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Costa First Novel Award (more below)
• Currently—lives in London, England
Francesca Segal is a British writer and author of two well regarded novels, The Innocents (2012) and The Awkward Age (2017). She is one of two daughters of Erich Segal, most widely known as the author of Love Story, the bestseller novel turned blockbuster movie staring Ali McGraw and Ryan O'Neal.
Born in London, Francesca was brought up between the UK and America, where her father taught Greek and Latin at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities. She returned to England to take her degree at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.
Since then, Segal has worked as a journalist and author. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Guardian, and Vogue (both UK and US), among others. She has been a features writer at Tatler, and for three years wrote the Debut Fiction column in The Observer.
Awards
For her first novel, The Innocents, Segal received the Costa First Novel Award, the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction, the Sami Rohr Prize, and a Betty Trask Award. She was also long-listed for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize). Segal lives in London. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved on 5/25/2017.)
Book Reviews
[A] delightful first novel... wise, witty and observant.
London Times
Segal writes with an understated elegance.
Observer (UK)
"With understated wit, empathy and a cinematic eye of detail, Segal brings alive a host of characters so robust that you can easily imagine them onscreen... A winning debut novel.
People
A crafty homage... [Segal] writes with engaging warmth.
Entertainment Weekly
Segal’s debut novel is an example of how one can be influenced by great writers who’ve come before yet not be trapped by them. Nice, reliable Adam is engaged to Rachel, the perfect Jewish girl, in a closely knit North West London Jewish community. But Rachel’s free-spirited cousin Ellie, back from a scandalous time in the U.S., makes him feel not so nice and not so reliable. He falls for Ellie, but the machinations of both his fiancée and his community create obstacles to his desires. Inspired by The Age of Innocence, Segal’s book is warmer, funnier, and paints a more dynamic and human portrait of a functional community that is a wonderful juxtaposition to Wharton’s cold social strata in Gilded Age New York. Adam is just as much of a coward as Newland Archer, more in love with the idea of rebellion than actually capable of committing the act. Rachel echoes May Welland’s passive aggressiveness, yet goes after what she wants with more courage when faced with tough choices. Ellie is far more self-aware and less of a victim than Ellen Olenska, which makes her more interesting and sympathetic. The real hero of the book is Lawrence, Adam’s father-in-law, a man who deeply loves his family, appreciates the community, utilizes his “quiet faith,” and is profoundly grateful for his life. The book is full of delightful moments, such as Lawrence’s comment, “Any Jewish holiday can be described the same way. They tried to kill us. They failed. Let’s eat.” Segal took the theme of a well-known novel and made it her own. Lively and entertaining.
Publishers Weekly
Are communities cocoons sheltering us from the rigors of the world, or are they wet blankets stifling creativity and experimentation? That's the quandary facing Adam Newman, a product of the close-knit Jewish community centered around Temple Fortune, London NW11, an enclave that takes care of its own from cradle to grave...and beyond. For 12 years, he has been engaged to Rachel Gilbert and has been a member of her father's legal firm. When cousin Ellie Schneider appears on the scene, trailing clouds of marijuana and rumors of online pornography, Adam is torn between what seems like an unending succession of lovingly detailed family meals (guaranteed to make you reach for the nearest poppy seed coffee cake) and what Ellie might have to offer. If the story sounds familiar, that's because it is. In the year that marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edith Wharton, this imitation of The Age of Innocence is the sincerest form of flattery. The unexpressed moral might be plus ça change. Verdict: Readers who enjoy fast-paced, gently satirical literary novels, fans of Allegra Goodman, and book group participants will find a Shabbat dinner's worth of noshing in this accomplished debut novel by the daughter of author Erich Segal.—Bob Lunn, formerly with Kansas City P.L., MO
Library Journal
Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence gets a reboot in this novel set in a present-day London Jewish enclave.... Segal isn't the ornate stylist Wharton is, but she writes elegantly and thoughtfully about Adam's growing sense of entrapment, and she excels at showing how a family's admirable supportiveness can suddenly feel like smothering.... Overall this is a well-tuned portrait of a couple whose connection proves to be much more tenuous than expected, and of religious rituals that prove more meaningful than they seem. Segal thoughtfully ties in family Holocaust lore and high-holiday gatherings to show that those long-standing bonds are tough to break. Even if the plot and themes are second-hand, this is an emotionally and intellectually astute debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Segal’s debut novel is a re-telling of the classic novel The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. For those of you who have read the book or seen the movie adaptation of The Age of Innocence, discuss the specific ways in which The Innocents parallels Wharton’s novel, and then consider the important ways in which it departs from her novel. Does knowledge of this parallel add to your understanding of Segal’s novel, or does it complicate it?
2. Apart from Adam’s initial physical attraction to Ellie, what in the beginning of the novel foreshadowed that Adam and Rachel were not, perhaps, as ideally suited to one another as he’d thought for the past 12 years?
3. How did the back-story about Jackie’s death help you to sympathize with Ellie? What aspects of her personality seem most likely a result of her mother’s early death and her father’s subsequent emotional distance?
4. Discuss Ziva’s relationship with Ellie and consider how the two women are similar in terms of being survivors. How much do you think this accounted for their mutual affection for one another? Could any of the others—Jaffa, Rachel, Adam—have truly understood Ziva? Why or why not?
5. Compare Ellie’s character with that of Rachel’s, and discuss Adam’s inability to commit wholly to just one of them for most of the novel. Between the two women, whom did you prefer? With whom did you sympathize the most? Do you think Adam made the right choice, in the end?
6. Also, compare and contrast the novel’s “Evan Goodman” financial scandal with recent events in the financial sector of our own culture—such as the Bernie Madoff scandal. Discuss how the ordeal operates as a catalyst and as a complication of the plot within the novel. Do you think it can also work as a symbol with any of Segal’s themes in the book? Why or why not?
7. How well does Segal portray the social, psychological, religious, and emotional lives of the Jewish community in North London? Do you feel that she conveys a reasonable and realistic portrait of this large and diverse group of people? What were her greatest strengths in her depiction, as well as her weaknesses?
8. Similarly, how did characters like Ziva Schneider help you to understand the Israeli immigrant experience? In particular, what did the novel help to show about the Jewish survivors of World War II, and their difficulties with nationality and assimilation into post-World War II European society?
9. Is Rachel’s character a passive one? Would you call her passive aggressive? Why or why not? By the end of the novel, in what significant ways has her character changed?
10. Discuss how Segal incorporates the subject of death into her novel – would you call her handling of the subject matter sensitive? Objective? Realistic? Consider the many moments in the novel where death is encountered or referenced and discuss Segal’s success when it comes to writing about the end of life and its impact on those who remain.
11. Similarly, discuss Segal’s choice of setting for this adaptation of Wharton’s novel. In what important ways does the Jewish community of North London in the early 2000’s parallel late 19th century New York? Discuss the key characteristics that these communities share, and then discuss their important differences.
12. Discuss the significance of Segal’s title to the characters in her book. Not only does the title recall Wharton’s novel, but it reflects a characteristic of the group of people she’s writing about, as well as specific characters. Discuss the ways in which The Innocents is both a sincere title and an ironic one.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Love Anthony
Lisa Genova, 2012
Simon & Schuster
309 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781439164693
Summary
I’m always hearing about how my brain doesn’t work right.... But it doesn’t feel broken to me.
Olivia Donatelli’s dream of a “normal” life shattered when her son, Anthony, was diagnosed with autism at age three. Understanding the world from his perspective felt bewildering, nearly impossible. He didn’t speak. He hated to be touched. He almost never made eye contact. And just as Olivia was starting to realize that happiness and autism could coexist, Anthony died.
Now she’s alone in a cottage on Nantucket, separated from her husband, desperate to understand the meaning of her son’s short life, when a chance encounter with another woman facing her own loss brings Anthony alive again for Olivia in a most unexpected way.
Beth Ellis’s entire life changed with a simple note: “I’m sleeping with Jimmy.” Fourteen years of marriage. Three beautiful daughters. Yet even before her husband’s affair, she had never felt so alone. Heartbroken, she finds the pieces of the vivacious, creative person she used to be packed away in a box in her attic. For the first time in years, she uncaps her pen, takes a deep breath, and begins to write. The young but exuberant voice that emerges onto the page is a balm to the turmoil within her, a new beginning, and an astonishing bridge back to herself.
In a piercing story about motherhood, autism, and love, New York Times bestselling author Lisa Genova offers us two unforgettable women on the verge of change and the irrepressible young boy whose unique wisdom helps them both find the courage to move on. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 22, 1970
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.S. Bates College; Ph.D, Harvard University
• Currently—lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Lisa Genova is an American neuroscientist and author of fiction. She graduated valedictorian, summa cum laude from Bates College with a BS degree in biopsychology and received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University in 1998.
Genova did research at Massachusetts General Hospital East, Yale Medical School, McLean Hospital, and the National Institutes of Health. She also taught neuroanatomy at Harvard Medical School fall 1996.
Genova married and gave birth to a daughter in 2000. Four years later she and her husband divorced, and Genova began writing full-time. To hear Genova tell it:
When I was 33, I got divorced. I’d been a stay-at-home mom for four years, and I planned to go back to work as a health-care industry strategy consultant. But then I asked myself a question that changed the course of my life: If I could do anything I wanted, what would I do? My answer, which was both exciting and terrifying—write a novel about a woman with Alzheimer’s (Cape Cod Magazine.).
In 2007 she self-published her first novel, Still Alice, which went on to became a major best seller and award winning film. Since then, Genova has written three other fictional works about characters dealing with neurological disorders.
Still Alice
Genova's debut novel follows a woman suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Alice Howland, a 50-year-old woman, is a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a world-renowned linguistics expert. She is married to an equally successful husband, and they have three grown children. The disease takes hold swiftly, changing Alice’s relationship with her family and the world.
Self-published, Genova sold copies of the book out of the trunk of her car. The book was later acquired by Simon & Schuster and published in 2009. It appeared on the New York Times best seller list for more than 40 weeks, was sold in 30 countries, and translated into more than 20 languages.
The book was adapted for the stage by Christine Mary Dunford and performed by Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company in 2013.
A 2014 film adaptation starred Julianne Moore as the lead and co-starred Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, and Kate Bosworth. Moore won an Oscar for Best Actress.
Other books
♦ Left Neglected (2011)
Genova's second novel tells the story of a woman who suffers from left neglect (also called hemispatial or unilateral neglect), caused by a traumatic brain injury. As she struggles to recover, she learns that she must embrace a simpler life. She begins to heal when she attends to elements left neglected in herself, her family, and the world around her.
♦ Love Anthony (2012)
Offering a unique perspective in fiction, this third novel presents the extraordinary voice of Anthony, a nonverbal boy with autism. Anthony reveals a neurologically plausible peek inside the mind of autism, why he hates pronouns, why he loves swinging and the number three, how he experiences routine, joy, and love. And it is the voice of this voiceless boy that guides two women in this powerfully unforgettable story to discover the universal truths that connect us all.
♦ Inside the O'Briens (2015)
In her fourth novel, Genova follows Joe O'Brien, a middle-aged Boston policeman diagnosed with Huntington's. There is no cure, and the disease is progressive and lethal. The story revolves around the fallout on Joe's family, including his daughter who is at risk for carrying the genes.
TV and film
Since her first novel was published, Genova has become a professional speaker about Alzheimer's disease. She has been a guest on the Today Show, Dr. Oz, CNN, PBS News Hour, and the Diane Rehm Show. She appeared in the documentary film To Not Fade Away. It is a follow-up to the Emmy Award-winning film, Not Fade Away (2009), about Marie Vitale, a woman who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at the age of 45. (Adapated from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/6/2015.)
Book Reviews
Lisa Genova's novels ring true. Love Anthony, like Genova's two previous novels, is beautifully written, and poignant to the point of heartbreak.... Anyone who has had even a passing contact with an autistic child will relate.... Try not to weep.
USA Today
Genova's newest (after Left Neglected) tells the tales of two women struggling with a timely topic, but the device she uses to connect their stories—a bland bit of mysticism—obfuscates otherwise compelling narratives. Olivia's life is in shambles—she spent years coming to terms with her son, Anthony, being diagnosed with autism, only to lose him to a subdural hematoma at age 8. Now her husband's filing for divorce. Meanwhile, Beth is reeling from the discovery that her husband has been cheating on her for months. In an effort to cope, she returns to her former passion—writing—and begins a new book inspired by a dream. That story magically turns out to be Anthony's story, as told by him. Eventually, the women come together, and Olivia reads Beth's story and begins to heal. Though each story is engaging in its own right, the plot device that connects Beth and Olivia makes the book read like self-help.
Publishers Weekly
Writing with deep empathy and insight, Genova has created an engaging story that fearlessly asks the big questions.
Booklist
A story about unconditional love, loss and renewal by bestselling author Genova (Left Neglected, 2011, etc.). Nantucket residents Beth Ellis and Olivia Donatelli have both experienced life-shattering events that have left them raw and wounded and questioning everything that they ever believed to be true.... As Olivia turns to photography...Beth picks up a pen and reconnects with a passion she's long forgotten: writing. Ensconced in a comfortable area of the library, Beth writes the story of a young autistic boy with humor and intelligence and exuberance for life, who through her, can voice his thoughts and feelings and allow others to see into his world. And as she shares these words with Olivia, they provide the strength and understanding and purpose that both women need to come to terms with the past and move on with their lives. There's a point in the narrative where one of the characters becomes so engrossed in reading a book that she loses track of time. Readers of Genova's latest excellent offering might very well find the same happening to them.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How much did you know about this condition before starting Love Anthony? Do you know anyone who has autism or an autistic person in their family?
2. What significance does the setting of Nantucket play in this story? Would the story have been different if it had taken place in New York City or Chicago?
3. Beth pulls a box out of her attic, filled with remnants from her old life, and is reminded of the woman she once was. If you were to go through a box from your attic, what items might you find?
4. On the subject of marriage and fidelity, Beth’s friend Courtney muses: “You’re always at the mercy of the people you’re in a relationship with, right?” (p. 171) Do you agree? What do you think of the advice she offers Beth?
5. Do you think the author accurately captured the voice of a young autistic boy in the Anthony chapters? Did these sections enhance Beth’s story for you? What about Olivia’s journal entries?
6. After receiving David’s letter about his impending engagement, Olivia ponders the concept of happiness: “He’s right. I forgot about happiness. At first, it wasn’t a priority. Anthony had autism, and every ounce of energy went into saving him. Her happiness was irrelevant.... And then, just when she was starting to realize that happiness and autism could co-exist in the same room, in the same sentence, in her heart, Anthony died, and happiness was no longer a concept she could fathom.” (p. 283) Do you think happiness is a conscious choice? Do you find it telling that Olivia uses the phrase “saving him” in reference to Anthony and his autism?
7. Toward the end of the story, Olivia has an epiphany when she realizes that “There was more to Anthony’s life than his death. And there was more to Anthony than his autism.” (p. 283) What do you think finally enables Olivia to have this realization? Was it a singular event or a process?
8. When Jimmy and Beth share their homework assignments given to them by Dr. Campbell, were you surprised by Beth’s initial reaction? Why is forgiving Jimmy the one thing Beth can’t do?
9. After reading Beth’s novel, Olivia is convinced Anthony is speaking to her through Beth. Skeptical, Beth discusses the idea with the more spiritual Petra, who feels “we’re all connected, even if we don’t know how. Maybe communicating through you gives you the something you need in this lifetime.” (p. 308) Do you agree or disagree with Petra?
10. Through writing her book, Beth realizes “this story was more about Anthony the boy than Anthony the boy with autism.... She was simply writing about Anthony, a boy worthy of happiness and safety, of feeling wanted and loved. Just like her. The more she wrote about Anthony, the more she realized that she was actually writing about herself.” (p. 331) How so?
11.Beth ultimately decides the lesson of her book is “Find someone to love and love without condition.” (p.332) Do you think this could also apply as an overall theme for Love Anthony? Can you find any others?
12.Which character did you relate to the most and why? Where do you see these characters in five years?
13.What do you think of Beth’s epilogue? Do you think it provides a satisfying ending to her story? To the novel as a whole?
14.Another recurring theme of Love Anthony is faith—having faith, losing faith, and taking a leap of faith. Can you remember a time in your own life when you took a leap of faith?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Beautiful Disaster
Jamie McGuire, 2012
Simon & Schuster
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781476712048
Summary
The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.
Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Jamie McGuire was born in Tulsa, OK. She was raised by her mother Brenda in Blackwell, OK, where she graduated high school in 1997. Jamie attended the Northern Oklahoma College, the University of Central Oklahoma, and Autry Technology Center where she graduated with a degree in Radiography.
Jamie now lives in Enid, OK with her three children and husband Jeff, who is a real, live cowboy. They share their 30 acres with four horses, four dogs, and Rooster the cat.
Books published by Jamie include the Providence trilogy, and The New York Times best seller Beautiful Disaster, a contemporary romance. When she’s not writing, Jamie spends her days letting her four dogs in and out. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
My new favorite romance with a twist of masochism.
Nightly Reading Review
I loved every single character in this book.
Daily Quirk
It just might be possible that this book should come with a warning label. Readers be prepared to be absorbed for the duration of this novel nothing else will get accomplished until you are done with this book. I promise! Officially BookWhisperer would recommend this as a MUST READ.
Bookwhisperer (online)
The author's unusual and talented use of natural "Conversational Style" story telling instantly and convincingly changes the reader's perception that this is simply a writer's imaginary tale of romance! The character portrayal in this story was so richly developed and the dialogue so realistic that it often felt like we were sneaking a peek into pages from some close friend's private diary!
Darkpleasure (NY)
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)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Beautiful Disaster:
1. Readers and reviewers have talked about the addictive quality of Beautiful Disaster. Do you find the book addictive—was it hard to tear yourself away from its pages? Why or why not?
2. What do you think of Travis Maddox? One reviewer (Shiirelyy's Bookshelf) says, "he's hot. He's sweet. He's loyal." Do you agree? What other qualities in him are not so positive?
3. How has Travis earned the nickname "Mad Dog"? Is it an epithet his classmates consider "cool" and something Travis can be proud of? Or is "Mad Dog" used as a pejorative, a nickname reflecting Travis's troubled personality?
4. (Follow-up to Questions 2 & 3): Despite his flaws, do you find yourself liking Travis? If so, how does the author manage to make a character likable who has so many dysfunctionalities?
5. Would you ever—or have you ever—become involved with a "Travis"? Or if you have a daughter, how would you feel if she brought him home?
6. Talk about Abby Abernathy as a character. Is she, as the publisher's summary refers to her, a "good girl"? Has Travis met his match in Abby? If so, in what way? Or do you see Abby as soft and submissive when it comes to Travis?
7. Why does Abby become involved with Travis in the first place? What drew her to him? In what way does Abby's past influence her decision to become involved? What in her history is she trying to outrun?
8. How would you describe Abby and Travis's relationship? Many readers describe it as abusive or unhealthy. Do you agree? Or do you view it as a passionate love story with characters destined to be together? What do you think makes Abby stay with Travis and, in the end, marry him?
9. (Follow-up to Question 8): Is Travis and Abby's relationship, as the title suggests, a "beautiful disaster"? In what way is it beautiful and in what way a disaster?
10. Both characters are young (between 19 and 22). Do their ages make the story less or more believable? Is their behavior as young adults credible?
11. Talk about Abby's friend, America. Do you consider her a true friend to Abby...or is she overly consumed with her relationship with Shepley? If you had a friend in a situation similar to Abby's, what would you advise her to do?
12. What about the gift of the diamond bracelet? Why is it given? Is it appropriate to give such an expensive gift...and is it right of Abby to accept it? Are there obligations that follow from accepting such a gift?
13. Do you find the ending to the novel satisfying? Is it believable? Would you have preferred a different ending?
14. Did you find any inconsistencies in the story?
15. Beautiful Disaster has been compared to Fifty Shades of Grey but, unlike Fifty Shades, this novel is categorized as a Young Adult novel. If you've read Fifty Shades, is there a similarity? How would you classify Beautiful Disaster—as Young Adult or Adult fiction?
16. Jamie McGuire announced that Walking Disaster, a follow-up based on Travis's perspective, will be released in 2013. Does Travis deserve a chance to tell his story? Will you be reading it?
(Questions by Katherine O'Conner at LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Wife 22
Melanie Gideon, 2012
Random House
2012 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345527950
Summary
For fans of Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It comes an irresistible novel of a woman losing herself...and finding herself again...in the middle of her life.
Maybe it was those extra five pounds I’d gained. Maybe it was because I was about to turn the same age my mother was when I lost her. Maybe it was because after almost twenty years of marriage my husband and I seemed to be running out of things to say to each other.
But when the anonymous online study called “Marriage in the 21st Century” showed up in my inbox, I had no idea how profoundly it would change my life. It wasn’t long before I was assigned both a pseudonym (Wife 22) and a caseworker (Researcher 101).
And, just like that, I found myself answering questions.
- 7. Sometimes I tell him he’s snoring when he’s not snoring so he’ll sleep in the guest room and I can have the bed all to myself.
- 61. Chet Baker on the tape player. He was cutting peppers for the salad. I looked at those hands and thought, I am going to have this man’s children.
- 67. To not want what you don’t have. What you can’t have. What you shouldn’t have.
- 32. That if we weren’t careful, it was possible to forget one another.
Before the study, my life was an endless blur of school lunches and doctor’s appointments, family dinners, budgets, and trying to discern the fastest-moving line at the grocery store. I was Alice Buckle: spouse of William and mother to Zoe and Peter, drama teacher and Facebook chatter, downloader of memories and Googler of solutions.
But these days, I’m also Wife 22. And somehow, my anonymous correspondence with Researcher 101 has taken an unexpectedly personal turn. Soon, I’ll have to make a decision—one that will affect my family, my marriage, my whole life. But at the moment, I’m too busy answering questions.
As it turns out, confession can be a very powerful aphrodisiac. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Melanie Gideon is the author of the memoir The Slippery Year: A Meditation on Happily Ever After, an NPR and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2009, and a New York Times bestseller, as well as three young adult novels. Her novel, Wife 22 (translated into 30 languages and currently in development with Working Title Films) was published in May 2012. She has written for the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, More, Shape, Marie Claire, the London Times, the Daily Mail and other publications. She was born and raised in Rhode Island and now lives in the Bay Area with her husband and son. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
This modern-day, mixed-media comedy of manners is as up-to-the-minute as your favorite Twitter feed.… Wife 22 channels the playful but incisive vibe of Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail. Like Ephron, Gideon is especially adept at puncturing contemporary vanities…. In the crowded pool of novels about midlife crises, Wife 22 has the buoyancy of water wings.
Washington Post
Superb.... Comprising a tapestry of traditional narrative, e-mails, Facebook chats, and other digital media, Gideon’s work is an honest assessment of a woman’s struggle to reconcile herself with her desires and responsibilities, as well as a timely treatise on the anonymity and intimacy afforded by digital communiques. Fully formed supporting characters and a nuanced emotional story line make Gideon’s fiction debut shimmer.
Publishers Weekly
Chick-lit fans over the age of 30 will want to rush home from work, kick off their shoes, mix themselves tart cocktails, and settle down to read this wry debut novel.... It will take its rightful place in the chick-lit canon alongside Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, Anna Maxted’s Getting Over It, and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Consider the epigraph by E. M. Forster: “Only connect.” How did this inform your interpretation of the novel before and after reading? What is the significance of this quote in a book that so often satirizes our reliance on technology in achieving immediate and constant connectivity?
2. What do you make of the structure of the novel unraveling in part through Alice’s narrative and elsewhere through Google searches, Facebook status updates, and email and text messages? Did you find this made for an organic reading experience, considering how much social media is enmeshed in our daily lives? What did this mode of storytelling reveal about the characters that you might not have otherwise learned? How about the effect of seeing the answers to the marriage survey without first having read the questions? When you arrived at the appendix, did you then match any of the inquiries to their respective responses? Did you find anything surprising?
3. Of her marriage, Alice says that she and William are “floating around on the surface of our lives like kids in a pool propped up on those Styrofoam noodles.” She longs for a deeper connection to her husband, yet struggles to move beyond the monotonies apparent in everyday life. Why, then, does she find it so natural to be candid with Researcher 101? Do you think it’s that much easier to confess truths about ourselves under a veil of anonymity?
4. Researcher 101 writes,
Waiting is a dying art. The world moves at a split-second speed now and I happen to think that’s a great shame, as we seem to have lost the deeper pleasures of leaving and returning.
Do you agree that our access to people and information comes at the expense of developing meaningful connections over time, through patience and dedication? Is it possible to cultivate this kind of slow-budding relationship in a digital age, or are we too hardwired for instant gratification?
5. Alice’s answer to the question of what she used to do—“run, dive, pitch a tent, bake bread, build bonfires”—is much at odds with what she does now—“make lunches, suggest to family they are capable of making better choices; alert children to BO.” Why is it that Alice, in William’s words, insists on keeping herself from the things she loves? How does she go about reclaiming these pieces of her former self throughout the novel, and in what ways do you think she’s transformed by the end?
6. Alice struggles with crossing the threshold into her tipping point year, when she will turn the same age her mother was when she died. She sees this as having to say goodbye; as facing the fact that her mother will never age, never meet William, never watch Zoe and Peter grow. When, if ever, does she begin to perceive this milestone as not so much leaving something behind, but moving into a new future?
7. At one point, Alice recognizes that she “can be overbearing and intense” when it comes to parenting. In what ways do you think her relationships with Zoe and Peter have been affected by her mother’s untimely death? How does Alice’s realization that she has more than just her children enable her to take responsibility for her own life?
8. Much of the novel deals with Alice’s feelings of displacement, of wandering off the trail and trying to find the lamppost. But whenever she strays, William is always the one to remain on course and bring her back home. Why do you think that in an attempt to save their marriage, he finds it necessary to search for Alice behind a guise and not “in real life?”
9. A principal theme of the novel deals with relationships between mothers and daughters, particularly between Alice and her mother, Zoe, Bunny and the Mumble Bumbles. What do the Mumble Bumbles teach Alice about what being a parent means and how does this uniquely constituted group function in her life in general? Did you detect any instances in which Alice was invited to assume the role of a daughter, and how does she apply the lessons learned therein to her relationship with Zoe?
10. How does Gideon use humor to address the challenges inherent in love, marriage, parenthood, friendship and life?
11. Alice admits that she hopes for a richer life with William—“rich in the ability to feel things as they’re happening, to not constantly be thinking of the next thing.” Do you think she’s achieved this after all?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Little Century
Anna Keesey, 2012
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374192044
Summary
In the tradition of such classics as My Antonia and There Will Be Blood, Anna Keesey’s Little Century is a resonant and moving debut novel by a writer of confident gifts.
Orphaned after the death of her mother, eighteen-year-old Esther Chambers heads west in search of her only living relative. In the lawless frontier town of Century, Oregon, she’s met by her distant cousin, a laconic cattle rancher named Ferris Pickett. Pick leads her to a tiny cabin by a small lake called Half-a-Mind, and there she begins her new life as a homesteader. If she can hold out for five years, the land will join Pick’s already impressive spread.
But Esther discovers that this town on the edge of civilization is in the midst of a range war. There’s plenty of land, but somehow it is not enough for the ranchers—it’s cattle against sheep, with water at a premium. In this charged climate, small incidents of violence swiftly escalate, and Esther finds her sympathies divided between her cousin and a sheepherder named Ben Cruff, a sworn enemy of the cattle ranchers. As her feelings for Ben and for her land grow, she begins to see she can’t be loyal to both.
Little Century maps our country’s cutthroat legacy of dispossession and greed, even as it celebrates the ecstatic visions of what America could become. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Anna Keesey is a graduate of Stanford University and of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has appeared in a number of journals and anthologies, including Best American Short Stories. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and has held residencies at MacDowell, Bread Loaf, Yaddo, and Provincetown. Keesey teaches English and creative writing at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
There are staples we've come to expect in the American frontier novel.... Mishandled, these western standbys can seem like threadbare, dime-novel cliches. Handled deftly, these conventions are the stuff of American myth.... While Anna Keesey's first novel...may walk a well-worn path, the familiar is rendered vividly through fluid and restrained prose, solid plotting and a keen eye for detail…. Keesey…treads this familiar territory competently, imbuing her characters with palpable motives, rich contradictions and fully realized pasts. She also stays atop the rising action of the story, upping the stakes for her characters and the town of Century as she herds us efficiently toward the conclusion. At the same time, she knows not to hurry readers along without letting them soak up the atmosphere.
Jonathan Evison - New York Times Book Review
Keesey's writing is so accomplished and easy-seeming.... Her words are clear as lake water…. "Tender" is a word Keesey uses again and again to describe her characters. She mothers them, cares about them like children, wants to protect them from the hell they have been so intent upon making. She persuades the reader to cherish them, as well.
Carolyn See - Washington Post
[A] briskly romantic, nontraditional Western.... It’s Willa Cather with a sense of humor... Keesey portrays her men and women as deeply flawed but so achingly vulnerable that it is impossible not to identify with them.
O, The Oprah Magazine
There’s not a single sentence in this novel that reads like it took hard work. The characters, sprung from another time, living in a place as removed as another planet, come to life on the page, and all their flaws feel as consistent and true as the flaws of our dearest loved ones in this work of near perfection.
Elizabeth Word Gutting - The Rumpus
Confidently energetic.... While Keesey offers a variety of characters with intriguing stories of their own, it is the richly depicted setting—from desert to dry good store—that showcases her talent.
Publishers Weekly
In the year 1900, at age 18, newly orphaned Esther Chambers leaves Chicago for the high desert of Oregon. Her distant cousin, a cattle rancher named Pick, steers her into claiming a homestead adjoining his land. He assures her that eventually he will buy it from her. At first Esther feels lonely and alienated, but once she gets to know her cousin and their neighbors in the small town of Century, she feels more at home. She learns to ride a horse and takes up typewriting and typesetting. Although Esther tries to stay out if it, she is swept up in escalating tensions between the cattle ranchers and sheep farmers. With an eye toward marriage, Pick begins to appreciate Esther's amicable intelligence. But Esther has started to care for one of the young sheep farmers. Then a murder turns the town inside out. Verdict: How Esther perseveres and finds her place among the buckaroos and an assortment of oddball settlers makes for highly entertaining reading. First novelist Keesey has produced a top-notch novel of Western Americana.—Keddy Ann Outlaw, formerly with Harris Cty. P.L., Houston, TX
Library Journal
The title refers to a little town in the midst of the vastness of Oregon, where at the turn of the 20th century, sheepmen and cattlemen vie for grazing territory as well as for the love of 18-year-old Esther Chambers. Recently orphaned, Esther travels from Chicago in search of Ferris "Pick" Pickett, a distant relative about 10 years older than she is. Pick is friendly but taciturn, and he takes her out to Half-a-Mind, a property that had recently been abandoned by a farmer.... Esther quickly discovers that much of the conflict out West lies in the hatred between cattlemen and sheepmen, for they're constantly fighting about who has the rights to free rangeland.... Amidst this growing violence Esther finds herself attracted to Pick, cautious spokesperson for the cattlemen, and Ben Cruff, a sheepman who almost by definition is hostile to the cattle ranchers.... Keesey writes lyrically and examines the ferocity of frontier life with an unromantic and penetrating gaze.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the setting of frontier Oregon as if it were a character: Is it seductive, comforting, dangerous? How does Esther’s perception of it change throughout the novel?
2. What did Esther’s mother teach her about survival? How did being raised by a woman affect Esther’s sense of self?
3. When Pick takes Esther to Mr. Grist so that she can claim the homestead near Half-a-Mind, what do his actions say about the history of America’s expansion in the Pacific Northwest, and about humanity’s approach to natural resources such as water?
4. What motivates Pick to be a rancher? Is he in it for the power or is he simply attached to the land? What separates him from the buckaroos? How is his relationship to the land different from Esther’s or Ben’s?
5. How is Esther shaped by her talent as a woman of words: a diary writer, typist, typesetter, court reporter, journalist?
6. What gives Jane and Violet authority in their community? What did Jane’s secret past predict about her future? Ultimately, were her actions heroic or shameful?
7. Would you have chosen Pick or Ben? Discuss the differences between rancher and shepherd as they play out in Little Century.
8. How is the story line affected by the major events of the time period, especially the railroad expansion and America’s intervention in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War? How do these events reflect the greed that spurs Century’s range war?
9. How do Esther’s memories of Chicago compare with her life on the frontier? What freedoms and constraints does she experience in each place?
10. Is Delores’s ancestry the sole reason Pick rejects her and Marguerite? How does Esther help him understand his place in Delores and Marguerite’s world?
11. The novel’s animals—sheep, horses, and cats in particular—play important roles. How do their needs and instincts compare with those of humans?
12. Why is Esther concerned enough—even more so than the coroner—to uncover the truth about Joe’s death?
13. The author writes of the “net of cousins” comprising all creatures, in which friend and foe, hunter and hunted, are ultimately related. What prevents humanity from functioning as a generous, vast family?
14. Discuss the closing images of Esther: What were her greatest sources of fulfillment in life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)