The Custodian of Paradise
Wayne Johnston, 2006
Knopf Canada / W.W. Norton & Co.
582 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385495431
Summary
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Wayne Johnston’s breakthrough novel based on the life of Newfoundland’s first premier, Joe Smallwood, was published internationally and earned him nominations for the highest fiction prizes in Canada. One of the most highly praised elements of the novel is the character Sheilagh Fielding, with whom Smallwood shares a lifelong love-hate relationship.
The Custodian of Paradise is a riveting narrative with Fielding at its heart. Fielding—advancing on middle age, hobbled by disfigurement and personal demons—is headed for Loreburn, a deserted island off the south coast of Newfoundland. She has borne a lifetime of estrangement and heartbreak by setting herself apart from the rest of St. John’s society. By cultivating her isolation, she’s been able to write, both in her journals and for the Telegram. By skirting Prohibition laws, she’s also been able to dull the pain of her early years. Alone she remains—except for the mysterious stranger she calls her Provider.
As Fielding revisits her articles, letters and journals, we are swept up in her tumultuous life’s journey and the mystery of this Provider’s identity. From the downtrodden streets of New York’s immigrant neighbourhoods to the sanatorium where she fights TB, from the remote workers’ shacks of the Bonavista rail line to the underbelly of wartime St. John’s, the Provider seems to have devoted himself to charting Fielding’s every move and to sending her maddeningly cryptic letters about his role in her life. Yet he has also protected her at times. While she fears that he may have followed her to Loreburn, she fears even more that he may not be able to find her there.
With The Custodian of Paradise, Wayne Johnston continues his masterful exploration of life in pre-Confederation Newfoundland, and of the powerful forces that give rise to great character—individualism, circumstance, and secrecy; memory, loss, and regret. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 22, 1958
• Where—Goulds, Newfoundland, Canada
• Education—B.A., memorial University of
Newfoundland; M.A. University of New
Brunswick
• Awards—Charles Taylor Prize for Nonfiction
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Ontario
Wayne Johnston was born and raised in Goulds, Newfoundland. After a brief stint in pre-Med, Wayne obtained a BA in English from Memorial University. He worked as a reporter for the St. John's Daily News before deciding to devote himself full-time to writing.
En route to being published, Wayne earned an MA (Creative Writing) from the University of New Brunswick. Then he got off to a quick start. His first book, The Story of Bobby O'Malley, published when he was just 27 years old, won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel award for the best first novel published in the English language in Canada in that year.
Subsequent books consistently received critical praise and increasing public attention. The Divine Ryans was adapted to the silver screen in a production starring Academy Award winner Pete Postlethwaite—Wayne wrote the screenplay. Baltimore's Mansion, a memoir dealing with his grandfather, his father and Wayne himself was tremendously well received and won the most prestigious prize for creative non-fiction awarded in Canada—the Charles Taylor Prize.
Both The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York spent extended periods of time on bestseller lists in Canada and have also been published in the US, Britain, Germany, Holland, China and Spain. Colony was identified by the Globe and Mail newspaper as one of the 100 most important Canadian books ever produced (for both fiction and non-fiction).
Wayne has always been something of a natural athlete—for example, he was once part of a championship ball-hockey team. Luckily (in retrospect) when he was still in the formative stages of considering future career paths, his ice hockey equipment, which was carefully stowed in a garbage bag in the basement was accidentally put out with the trash. The world of literature benefited; is is possible that the National Hockey League lost a star in the process? (From the author's website & Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Biting wit and brilliant puns.... Worth the attention of anyone who delights in Johnston's imagination and the riches of the English language.
Ottawa Citizen
Marks perhaps his greatest achievement in conveying the emotional state and psychology of tackling one's past and culture.
Telegraph-Journal (Canada)
Written with Johnston's accustomed verve and humour.
National Post (Canada)
Meet Fielding. The heroine of Wayne Johnston's sensitive, beautifully written new novel is far too self-aware for her own good and, for that matter, far too tall for it.... [T]his is a far more somber novel than The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, and a less satisfying one, too. The earlier book had the sweep, ambition and narrative drive of Robertson Davies, the great Canadian master who clearly influenced its plot; The Custodian of Paradise is lyrical to the point of languor, and the revelations take their good time in unfolding. Those who have long adored Fielding, of course, will be unable to resist this stately, flawed book; those who have not yet met her should rush to pick up The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and let its riches warm them in ways no hooch ever could.
Washington Post
Sheilagh Fielding—a striking, unconventional, six-foot-three Newfoundland woman with a limp—returns from prolific Johnston's The Colony of Unrequited Dreams for this highly atmospheric sequel. Near the end of WWII, Fielding (as she is known), a notorious St. John's columnist, holes up on the nearby deserted island of Loreburn after her mother dies and leaves her a small inheritance. There, Fielding senses the presence of her mysterious "Provider," who has shadowed her all her life and whom she has never met face-to-face. As Fielding tells her story—abandoned by her mother at six; raised by a father who insinuates she's not his—Fielding's Provider draws closer to her solitary retreat. But Fielding has long kept another secret: she gave birth to twins at the age of 15, who were raised as her half-siblings by her mother in New York City. Johnston's descriptive prose can be exhilarating, from the windswept island to a dingy Manhattan, and he has a sure hand with historical nuggets. There's little tension over the 500-plus pages, and the denouement (her father's identity; her children's fate) is overblown. But Fielding is a fascinating character: she courts her own estrangement as much as she is tormented by it.
Publishers Weekly
Award-winning Canadian author Johnston's seventh novel, which builds on the story he began in The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, opens against the backdrop of World War II, when a gifted woman of great wit and inner strength seeks refuge on a deserted island off the coast of Newfoundland. An only child haunted since age six by her mother's abandonment, Sheilagh Fielding was raised in the city of St. John's by her physician father, a man still devastated by his wife's departure and tormented by the suspicion that Sheilagh is not his offspring. Further anguish occurs when, at age 16, Sheilagh becomes pregnant and is sent to stay with her estranged mother, now remarried and living in New York City. Eventually, Sheilagh returns to St. John's and lives an eccentric life that includes writing a satiric newspaper column and drinking heavily. When a mysterious man calling himself her "Provider" claims to know both her and her mother's secrets, Sheilagh slowly learns the truth. With humor and pathos, Johnston unravels the story in fascinating layers and a compelling tone, revealing how mistakes, betrayal, and revenge can plague people's entire lives. Recommended for all library fiction collections.
—Maureen Neville
Library Journal
Suspend your disbelief and sit back for a gripping read in the vein of a nineteenth-century romantic novel but featuring a twentieth-century woman. Feisty, iconoclastic, and extremely ironic, Sheilagh Fielding was originally introduced in Johnston's award-winning historical novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams (1999). There she was featured as the fictitious companion of Joey Smallwood, first premier of Newfoundland. Now, however, she is the star, and her story is a riveting one.... [The book] would make for a rousing discussion in a book club. —Maureen O'Connor
Booklist
One of contemporary fiction’s most memorable characters...Sheilagh Fielding....retreat[s], during the waning days of WWII, to the uninhabited island of Loreburn, off Newfoundland’s western coast...where she...is forced into a confrontation with the ghosts of her past that even this consummate pessimist could not have foreseen. Johnston may be the best of all the 21st century’s neo-Victorian novelists, and this riveting three-decker is not to be missed.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Though she’s from a “quality” family, not “scruff,” Sheilagh lives in rundown places like the boarding house on New York’s Lower East Side, the shack on the Bonavista line, and the Cochrane Street Hotel Why do you think she does this? Talk as well about the class differences that rule St. John’s and how they affect Johnston’s main characters.
2. Why is Sheilagh so abrasive to others, even to the extent of hurting and pushing away those she loves? Does Sheilagh take pride in the persona she has created for herself, and in her local infamy? Or is it truly just a regrettable consequence of being herself?
3. Sheilagh’s Provider writes to her of making a game of devising synonyms for “God,” including “custodian of paradise.” He said to his delegate, “We are all three of us, you and I and Miss Fielding, custodians...withdrawn from the world to preserve, to keep inviolate, something that would otherwise be lost.” What are these characters preserving, and are they right or misguided in doing so? In what ways is the Provider playing God?
4. How does the backdrop of the Second World War permeate The Custodian of Paradise? Even at Loreburn, it’s often at the forefront of Sheilagh’s mind. How is Newfoundland affected by the war (e.g. considering its strategic location, and the great losses of its young men)? Is there a comparison to be made between going off to war and going out on the seal hunts?
5. Throughout the novel are references to Sheilagh’s need to be indoors, to her late-night walks, to her need for “sanctuary.” Discuss the importance of sanctuary and isolation in this novel, both physical and mental.
6. Why does the Provider keep his identity and his relationship with Sheilagh’s mother a secret, yet write such cryptic letters, for two decades?
7. From the missives the Provider sends to Sheilagh, to the Forgeries she publishes, to the scrap of paper reading only “Their names are David and Sarah,” correspondence serves as the backbone of communication in this novel. Discuss the ways in which letters and notes guide the main characters. How does writing relate to truth (or fiction) in the novel? To memory?
8. At the time this novel is set, Newfoundland has yet to join Confederation, and has a remoteness from the rest of Canada that is both geographical and psychological. Talk about how Newfoundland is portrayed, and how Fielding and Smallwood feel about their home.
9. Is there any significance to names such as the S.S. Newfoundland (the sealing boat Smallwood travels on) or the Newfoundland Hotel (where Smallwood and Fielding stay in New York)?
10. Johnston has said that one of the main themes explored in this story is “the attempt to overcome the temptation of vengeance.” How do Sheilagh, the Provider, and even Dr. Fielding fare in their efforts?
11. An entirely fictional character, Sheilagh Fielding made her first appearance in Johnston’s The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, his renowned novel based on real-life political figure Joe Smallwood. If you’ve read the earlier novel, discuss the differing views of and narrative roles of Smallwood and Fielding. How has this novel enriched your memory of Colony?
12. As Sheilagh leaves New York for the first time, she writes, “It is as if, when my children were born, my soul followed theirs into the world and now is lost. It seems there is nothing left of me but matter, mortal matter.” How is this attitude reflected in her life afterwards? Does anything change when she meets David?
13. In the final chapter, on her journey back to wartime St. John’s and to society, Sheilagh thinks, “I am returning to a war that I have never really left,” and even calls her Provider’s apartment in New York a “book-lined trench.” In what ways do Sheilagh and others view life as a battle to be fought, or as a war to be survived?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
Wayne Johnston, 1998
Knopf Canada / Knopf Doubleday
592 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385495431
Summary
A mystery and a love story spanning five decades, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams is an epic portrait of passion and ambition, set against the beautiful, brutal landscape of Newfoundland.
In this widely acclaimed novel, Johnston has created two of the most memorable characters in recent fiction: Joey Smallwood, who claws his way up from poverty to become New Foundland's first premier; and Sheilagh Fielding, who renounces her father's wealth to become a popular columnist and writer, a gifted satirist who casts a haunting shadow on Smallwood's life and career.
The two meet as children at school and grow to realize that their lives are irreversibly intertwined, bound together by a secret they don't know they share. Smallwood, always on the make, torn between love of country and fear of failure, is as reluctant to trust the private truths of his heart as his rival and savior, Fielding—brilliant, hard-drinking, and unconventionally sexy. Their story ranges from small-town Newfoundland to New York City, from the harrowing ice floes of the seal hunt to the lavish drawing rooms of colonial governors, and combines erudition, comedy, and unflagging narrative brio in a manner reminiscent of John Irving and Charles Dickens.
A tragicomic elegy for the "colony of unrequited dreams" that is Newfoundland, Wayne Johnston's masterful tribute to a people and a place establishes him as a novelist who is as profound as he is funny, with an impeccable sense of the intersection where private lives and history collide. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 22, 1958
• Where—Goulds, Newfoundland, Canada
• Education—B.A., Memorial University of
Newfoundland; M.A. University of New
Brunswick
• Awards—Charles Taylor Prize for Nonfiction
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Ontario
Wayne Johnston was born and raised in Goulds, Newfoundland. After a brief stint in pre-Med, Wayne obtained a BA in English from Memorial University. He worked as a reporter for the St. John's Daily News before deciding to devote himself full-time to writing.
En route to being published, Wayne earned an MA (Creative Writing) from the University of New Brunswick. Then he got off to a quick start. His first book, The Story of Bobby O'Malley, published when he was just 27 years old, won the WH Smith/Books in Canada First Novel award for the best first novel published in the English language in Canada in that year.
Subsequent books consistently received critical praise and increasing public attention. The Divine Ryans was adapted to the silver screen in a production starring Academy Award winner Pete Postlethwaite—Wayne wrote the screenplay. Baltimore's Mansion, a memoir dealing with his grandfather, his father and Wayne himself was tremendously well received and won the most prestigious prize for creative non-fiction awarded in Canada—the Charles Taylor Prize.
Both The Colony of Unrequited Dreams and The Navigator of New York spent extended periods of time on bestseller lists in Canada and have also been published in the US, Britain, Germany, Holland, China and Spain. Colony was identified by the Globe and Mail newspaper as one of the 100 most important Canadian books ever produced (for both fiction and non-fiction).
Wayne has always been something of a natural athlete—for example, he was once part of a championship ball-hockey team. Luckily (in retrospect) when he was still in the formative stages of considering future career paths, his ice hockey equipment, which was carefully stowed in a garbage bag in the basement was accidentally put out with the trash. The world of literature benefited; is is possible that the National Hockey League lost a star in the process? (From the author's website & Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[T]his prodigious, eventful, character-rich book is a noteworthy achievement: a biting, entertaining and inventive saga.... [Its] themes include love and betrayal but also the remorseless contest for power that takes place in both the psychic and the political spheres..... It all adds up to a brilliant and bravura literary performance by Johnston.
Richard Bernstein - New York Times
Johnston...has set out to write the definitive Newfoundland novel, and yes, he is well aware of how that phrase will ring in the ears of outsiders.... [T]he book has about it an aura of something akin to magic realism, or its northern equivalent—nothing remotely supernatural occurs, and yet...causes and effects often seem to have been paired off by a particularly whimsical deity.... A novel of cavernous complexity that nevertheless doesn't overwhelm the reader, who can repose in pure narrative without second thoughts—[an] eloquent anti-epic.
Luc Sante - New York Times Book Review
Throughout Joe's narrative of his unlikely rise, the author interrupts with selections from Fielding's hysterically sarcastic Condensed History of Newfoundland, her brutal newspaper columns, and her emotional diary. The friction between all these voices generates a tremendous degree of light and heat in this icebound story.... Joe says, "Newfoundland stirred in me, as all great things did, a longing to accomplish or create something commensurate with it." Clearly, Johnston has done just that.
Ron Charles - Chistian Science Monitor
Treating the history of Newfoundland as a bad joke—whose punch line is finally delivered on April 1, 1949, when the in-limbo British territory joins in confederation with Canada—Johnston's most compelling character (in a book that teems with eccentrics, drunks, swindlers and snobs), Sheilagh Fielding, writes a condensed version of the classic History of Newfoundland. The terse and mordant chapters of this masterwork, to which she devotes all her energies...are interleaved in the narrative to great effect. The bulk of the book comprises the autobiographical musings of historical figure Joe Smallwood, whose rise through local socialist activism to international political eminence culminates in his orchestration of the treaty with Canada. It is dwarf-sized Smallwood's tireless ambition, as well as his crippling romantic insecurity, that keep him forever at arm's length from his childhood love and best friend Fielding....each harboring the shame and fury of a secret from their school days that has gone unresolved. In a book of this magnitude and inventiveness—some of Fielding's quips are hilarious, and Johnston proves himself cunning at manipulating and animating historical fact—it is perhaps the device of this lifelong secret that most tests the reader's faith: that full disclosure resolves all the complicated mysteries of this book is slightly disappointing. Nonetheless, the variety provided by Fielding's writings is delightful, and this brilliantly clever evocation of a slice of Canadian history establishes Johnston as a writer of vast abilities and appeal.
Publishers Weekly
Angela's Ashes meets Moby Dick meets All the King's Men! Famed and feted in Canada, this fictional biography of Joe Smallwood, Liberal first premier of Britain's former colony of Newfoundland, and his longtime (fictional) love, Shelagh Fielding, is sure to set off sparks here. Smallwood governed for 23 years; the story of how he achieved his elevated position after a childhood of poverty and want, and what he surrendered along the way, is mesmerizing. The central scenes of class warfare are preceded and followed by a beautiful and horrifying set piece about a sealing voyage. Joe's story is interspersed with hilarious excerpts from the Condensed History of Newfoundland by Shelagh Fielding, easily one of the more original characters in fiction. Carrying a "purely ornamental" cane since girlhood, almost constantly sipping from a flask of Scotch, she is a TB victim, a political writer with no visible principles, and a railroad worker who won't join a union to keep her job—and ends up being fascinating whatever she does. Johnston's first novel to be published here, this is recommended for all fiction collections.
—Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll. Lib., Bronxville, NY
Library Journal
The subject of this immensely satisfying neo-Victorian is ...the generously imagined fictional biography of a real historical figure, Joseph Smallwood, the self-styled Father of Confederation who shepherded the former British dominion into full union with Canada in 1949. Johnston's rich narrative is presented in three forms: Joe Smallwood's own detailed recall of his life is punctuated by excerpts from the Journal of Shelagh Fielding, his lifelong friend and enemy...and also by snippets from her hilarious Condensed History of Newfoundland, a mock-heroic and episodic chronicle.... Smallwood is a wonderfully convincing tragicomic figure, and Fielding an even better one: an embittered alcoholic enslaved to a secret she withholds throughout the pair's 40-year love-hate relationship. Only in the parallel secret harbored by Smallwood...does Johnston's superb plot deviate from its overall power and originality. As absorbing as fiction can be and a marvelous introduction to the work of one of our continent's best writers.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Both Joe and his father suffer from the fact that their last name adorns a large iron boot hanging at the entrance to the harbor, advertising the family shoe store. Why is the boot so oppressive that both Joe and his father sometimes dream about it? Why does Joe finally take it down?
2. Joe is haunted by the sense of his own insignificance: "It seemed to me that unless I did something that historians thought was worth recording, it would be as if I had never lived, that all the histories in the world together formed one book, not to warrant inclusion in which was to have wasted one's life" [p. 454]. Why does he feel this way? What is the relationship between the ambitions of Joe Smallwood and his paternal heritage of small-time shopkeeping, alcoholism, and failure? How do his experiences at Bishop Feild school affect his ideas about himself?
3. Johnston has created the structure of the book by interspersing Joe Smallwood's first-person narrative with excerpts from Fielding's journal, her History of Newfoundland, and her "Field Day" newspaper columns. What is the effect, as you read, of the interplay of these parts?
4. Smallwood's conversion to socialism takes place after his haunting vision of the frozen bodies of the sealers who died on the ice. Would you say that his walk across the island to unionize the men is Smallwood's most heroic act in the novel? How does the rest of his career compare with the scale of this exploit?
5. Returning to Newfoundland after five years in New York, Joe says, "It was as if I saw, for a fleeting second, the place as it had been while I was away, and as it would be after I was gone, separate from me, not coloured by my past or my perceptions.... A kind of hurt surged up in my throat, a sorrow that seemed to have no object and no cause, which I tried to swallow down but couldn't" [pp. 211-12]. Why is this such a painful moment for him?
6. Johnston has given Joe Smallwood the role of protagonist and the main first-person narrative, but some reviewers have expressed the opinion that Sheilagh Fielding is a more compelling character. Is Fielding ultimately more admirable than Smallwood? Whose life story is more interesting?
7. Joe Smallwood is not mentioned in Fielding's History, which ends in 1923 when Sir Richard Squires is prime minister. Why does Fielding end her history there?
8. Why does Smallwood's marriage proposal to Fielding go awry? When he next sees her, she tells him with her customary irony that she has been "reduced to hermiting because you broke my heart" [p. 228]. How true is this statement? Why does Smallwood marry Clara Oates and not Fielding?
9. Freezing to death on the Bonavista branch line, Smallwood imagines his own obituary [p. 225]. What makes this scene so touching and so comical? Joe is saved by Fielding, who here as at other crucial moments makes herself indispensable. Does Smallwood perform the same function in her life? Is their relationship, on the whole, reciprocal in terms of giving and receiving?
10. Sir Richard Squires tells Joe, "Power is what you want, though I'll never get you to admit it. You picked socialism because you thought it was your best way of getting ahead.... You're not an artist, you're not a scientist, you're not an intellectual. All that's left to you is politics" [p. 270]. How accurate is Sir Richard's assessment of Joe's character? Joe responds that "the distinguishing characteristic of the true socialist...was selflessness" [p. 271]. Do selflessness and self-interest necessarily conflict?
11. Some Canadian readers have been troubled by the liberties that Wayne Johnston has taken with the life of Newfoundland's first premier. Is the book more purely fictional, and therefore more purely enjoyable, for American readers, for whom Smallwood is not a known entity? It appears, for instance, that Johnston created the character of Fielding wholly from his own imagination. Why do you suppose he decided that Fielding was needed as a counterpart to Joe Smallwood? What would the novel have been like without the presence of Fielding? What are the particular complications and pleasures of fiction that is based on, but not entirely true to, historical reality?
12. The mystery of the anonymous letter to The Morning Post is not solved until the end of the novel, and it keeps Smallwood in the dark about some of the motivations of Fielding's character as well as her true feelings for him. How satisfying is the resolution of this issue? Does the revelation about Fielding's father highlight aspects of her character, or explain in part why she has conducted her life as she has?
13. Why does Joe bring Judge Prowse's A History of Newfoundland with him to New York City? What is the symbolic significance of this book for various characters in the novel?
14. Why does Johnston wait until late into the novel to reveal Fielding's secret about what happened when she was sixteen? How does this revelation affect your understanding of Fielding's character and her motivations up to this point? Would you say that Fielding is a selfless character?
15. Is confederation a defeat for Newfoundland? Would it have been possible for such a bleak and economically unpromising land to survive as an independent nation? Was Smallwood right to think that, since socialism had failed, confederation was the only way to improve the lives of the outlanders?
16. How would you compare the political ideals of the young Smallwood to those of the man who becomes premier of the island after confederation? Has his character changed? What about his core ethical beliefs? Why is he so susceptible to people like Valdmanis?
17. Several reviews have commented on the skill with which Johnston has succeed in creating a novel that is reminiscent of the work of Charles Dickens. If you have read David Copperfield or Great Expectations, how does The Colony of Unrequited Dreams compare with them? What aspects of this book make it so compelling and so memorable?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Newlyweds
Nell Freudenberger, 2012
Knopf Doubleday
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307388971
Summary
A powerful, funny, richly observed tour de force by one of America’s most acclaimed young writers: a story of love and marriage, secrets and betrayals, that takes us from the backyards of America to the back alleys and villages of Bangladesh.
In The Newlyweds, we follow the story of Amina Mazid, who at age twenty-four moves from Bangladesh to Rochester, New York, for love. A hundred years ago, Amina would have been called a mail-order bride. But this is an arranged marriage for the twenty-first century: Amina is wooed by—and woos—George Stillman online.
For Amina, George offers a chance for a new life and a different kind of happiness than she might find back home. For George, Amina is a woman who doesn’t play games. But each of them is hiding something: someone from the past they thought they could leave behind. It is only when they put an ocean between them—and Amina returns to Bangladesh—that she and George find out if their secrets will tear them apart, or if they can build a future together.
The Newlyweds is a surprising, suspenseful story about the exhilarations—and real-life complications—of getting, and staying, married. It stretches across continents, generations, and plains of emotion. What has always set Nell Freudenberger apart is the sly, gimlet eye she turns on collisions of all kinds—sexual, cultural, familial.
With The Newlyweds, Freudenberger has found her perfect subject for that vision, and characters to match. She reveals Amina’s heart and mind, capturing both her new American reality and the home she cannot forget, with seamless authenticity, empathy, and grace. At once revelatory and affecting, The Newlyweds is a stunning achievement. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 21, 1975
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard Univeristy
• Awards—PEN/Malamud Award; Whiting Writer's Award; Guggenheim Fellowship
• Currently—lives in New York City (Brooklyn)
Nell Freudenberger is the author of three novels—Lost and Wanted (2019), The Newlyweds (2012), and The Dissident (2006). Her 2003 story collection, Lucky Girls, was winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and a Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Fellowship from the New York Public Library, she was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists and one of The New Yorker’s "20 Under 40." She lives in Brooklyn with her family. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The Newlyweds...gradually opens out into a genuinely moving story about a woman trying to negotiate two cultures, balancing her parents' expectations with her own aspirations, her ambition and cynical practicality with deeper, more romantic yearnings.... The Amina-Nasir relationship and Amina's relationship with her aging parents are the nucleus of this novel and reveal the contradictions deep within Amina's own heart. Unlike her synthetic partnership with George, these are real, complex, deeply felt connections that have both endured and changed over time, and in depicting them Ms. Freudenberger demonstrates her assurance as a novelist and her knowledge of the complicated arithmetic of familial love and the mathematics of romantic passion.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
[T]ruths are indeed present in this novel—in its cleareyed openness and compassion toward the world, in its nuanced and human representation of Muslim characters and their varying Islams, and in the understanding and sympathy it displays for the nostalgia of migrants, which is to say for all human beings, even those who are born and die in the same town and travel only in time.
Mohsin Hammad - New York Times Book Review
[A] delight, one of the easiest book recommendations of the year.... The cross-cultural tensions and romance so well drawn here recall the pleasures of Monica Ali's Brick Lane and Helen Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand... [Freudenberger]'s that rare artist who speaks fluently from many different cultural perspectives, without preciousness or undue caution.... [She] knows Amina as well as Jane Austen knows Emma, and despite its globe-spanning set changes, The Newlyweds offers a reading experience redolent of Janeite charms: gentle touches of social satire, subtly drawn characters and dialogue that expresses far more than its polite surface.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Captivating.... Freudenberger’s latest novel explores the unexpected consequences when two distinct cultures collide.... This engaging story, with its page after page of effortless prose, ultimately offers up a deeper narrative of the protagonist’s yearning.
S. Kirk Walsh - Boston Globe
The Newlyweds crosses continents, cultures and generations.... It’s funny, gracefully written and full of loneliness and yearning. It’s also a candid, recognizable story about love—the real-life kind, which is often hard and sustained by hope, kindness, and pure effort.
USA Today
The Newlyweds...[is] really, really good. As always, [Freudenberger] is fascinated by culture clash, here encapsulated in the marriage of a young woman from Bangladesh and an American engineer from Rochester, New York, who’s 10 years her senior.... [T]he novel, which roams in a twisting, lavish storyline between America and Bangladesh, explores the strong and sometimes disastrous pull of....earlier attachments. The Newlyweds also tackles the promise of America and the payment—practical and psychic—it demands of immigrants.... [A] luscious and intelligent novel that will stick with you... Freudenberger keep[s] the wonderfulness coming.
Maureen Corrigan - NPR
Freudenberger’s delicately observed second novel is another account of cross-cultural confusion in the tale of a Bangladeshi woman, 24-year-old Amina Mazid, who becomes the email-order bride of 34-year-old George Stillman, an electrical engineer in Rochester, N.Y. Arriving in snowy Rochester in 2005 is a culture shock for Amina, but within three years she has her green card, is married to George, and is taking college courses when not pulling espresso at Starbucks. Her marriage, though, has its problems. Sex is awkward, George loses his job, and Amina discovers something that makes her doubt his sincerity. She eventually returns to Bangladesh to bring her parents to the U.S., but a problem with her father’s visa keeps Amina there and forces her back into the morass of her extended family’s resentments and petty jealousies, all of which she’d hoped to escape in marriage. Add to her troubles an old suitor, Nasir, waiting not so patiently in the wings. Freudenberger (The Dissident) does an excellent job of portraying the plight of a young Muslim woman not totally comfortable in either of the worlds she inhabits. But Amina’s passivity may frustrate many readers, and George is a complete cipher. In the end, Freudenberg’s anatomy of a modern arranged marriage is somewhat too dependent on cultural cliches to entirely satisfy.
Publishers Weekly
Mary is a serious lawyer, married with two kids, whose husband is a perennial mama's boy incapable of grocery shopping on his own. Mixed in with the trials and tribulations of the protagonists are humorous vignettes from the lives of some of their other friends and acquaintances—many of whom
Library Journal
Freudenberger (The Dissident, 2006, etc.) examines a marriage arranged via the Internet.... [She] does well in capturing the off-kilter feelings of a young woman in a country so unlike her birthplace, and the cultural differences prompt some enjoyably wry humor. The characters are all well drawn, if a trifle pallid, which points to a larger problem. Freudenberger's tone is detached and cool throughout, even when violent incidents are described, which makes it difficult to emotionally engage with the story. The novel is carefully researched rather than emotionally persuasive. Well executed but a bit too obviously studied—more willed than felt.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Amina thinks, “Their courtship had more in common with her grandparents’—which had been arranged through a professional matchmaker in their village—than with her parents’, who’d had a love marriage” (p. 28). Are there fundamental differences between finding a partner on the Internet and traditional matchmaking methods? What might make a traditional arranged marriage or one made online appealing to men and women in the twenty-first century?
2. What does Amina and George’s online correspondence reveal about their respective personalities and expectations? In what ways are they well suited to each other despite their different backgrounds? What do their decisions to seek a spouse online indicate about their approaches to and ideas about marriage? How do their personal motivations influence the information they offer—and hold back?
3. “In spite of all the preparation, there was something surprising about actually finding herself in Rochester, waiting for a green card in the mail” (pp. 7–8). What aspects of Amina’s new life does she find puzzling, pleasing, or difficult to accept? Consider, for example, the dinner at George’s mother’s house (p. 18); the wedding preparations and ceremony (pp. 38–40); and her various work experiences. What presents the greatest psychological challenges? What compromises does she make and why?
4. Spurred by “Amina’s anxiety about the Muslim ceremony, without which they wouldn’t really be married” (p. 34), the couple searches for an imam to marry them. Why does Amina decide against getting married at the Islamic Center of Rochester? What does the decision reflect about the role religion plays in her life? What does it convey about her complicated attachment to her past? How does she reconcile her decision with the promises she made to her parents?
5. “She struggled to find some connection between the girl she so often imagined at home in her parents’ apartment and this American wife. . . . The task was made more difficult by the fact that there was no one in Rochester who’d known that past-Munni, and no one back at home who knew the present one” (p. 59). How does this passage capture the isolation and sense of displacement that is often part of the immigrant experience? Are there parallels between Amina’s feelings and the feelings of any young wife (or husband) in the early years of marriage?
6. How would you characterize the friendship between Kim and Amina? What does each of them find appealing in the other? Is their relationship built on genuine affection or on false premises and selfish interests?
7. How do Kim’s experiences in India (pp. 122–26) and her life with Ashok in post-9/11 New York (p. 151–55) relate to the themes of the novel? What do their stories reveal about the effects of cultural and religious prejudices on ordinary people? How do their ordeals compare to Amina’s?
8. “She and George didn’t disagree very often, but when they did it was always because of ‘cultural differences’—a phrase so useful in forestalling arguments that she felt sorry for those couples who couldn’t employ it” (p. 66). To what extent are the problems or misunderstandings in their marriage attributable to “cultural differences”? What role do the emotional differences between them play?
9. Is Amina’s search of Kim’s apartment justifiable (pp. 141–42)? Why doesn’t she confront Kim directly? Are the conclusions Amina draws about George’s family as clear-cut as she assumes (p. 143)? Is her observation, made in a moment of bitterness—“You might cheat, steal, lie, but if you confessed, you could be instantly forgiven” (p. 147)—a valid assessment of American behavior?
10. What impact does Amina’s discovery about George’s past have on the dynamics of their marriage? Does his explanation of his deception (pp. 148–49) and his subsequent behavior (pp. 156–57) change your feelings about him? In light of his confession, are Amina’s demands reasonable, or do they amount to emotional blackmail? Consider her own interpretation: “What a strange thing, she thought, to find out one day that you had built your whole life on a mistake, and the next day to discover that this fact would allow you to have your dearest wish. She wondered if this was a unique predicament, something related to the unusual circumstances of her life, or a more general human condition” (p.156). Discuss your responses to this in terms of the novel and your own experiences.
11. When she arrives in Bangladesh, Amina thinks, “You thought you were the permanent part of your own experience, . . . until you discovered that there were many selves, dissolving into one another” (p. 207). Is Amina’s experience unusual, or is this a common reaction to returning home after a long absence?
12. How does Freudenberger bring the atmosphere and social milieu of Bangladesh to life in the narrative? Which details best evoke the emotional pull Amina feels toward her homeland?
13. During a lighthearted flirtation with Nasir, Amina thinks of the past and realizes, “She had the same feelings, sweeter because they’d been dormant for so long, but her wish from that time had been granted: she was a grown woman, with everything she would need to attract a man like Nasir” (pp. 250–51). Why are she and Nasir so drawn to each other? What part does nostalgia, the comfort of the familiar, and the loneliness they experienced—Nasir in London, Amina in America—have in the awakening of their feelings? What do you think would have happened had she chosen to pursue Nasir instead of returning home to George?
14. How do their families’ examples, opinions, and advice shape Amina and George’s relationship? Compare the influences of various family members (Amina’s parents and extended family in Bangladesh; George’s mother, Eileen Stillman, and his aunt Cathy and cousin Jessica). What does the novel show about the qualities, good and bad, shared by families from every culture or country?
15. Freudenberger often moves from a scene in Rochester to a past event or conversation in Dhaka. How does this affect the flow of the plot? What does it contribute to your understanding of Amina and the forces and feelings that have shaped her?
16. “She had escaped a broken country, and George a broken heart; they had chosen each other in spite of warnings from both sides. . . . Even if neither of their motives had been pure, wasn’t it possible that something pure had come of them now?” (pp. 174–75). Does Amina and George’s commitment to each other ever evolve into genuine love? Cite specific moments in the novel to support your point of view.
17. Freudenberger ends the novel with a twist: Amina’s “Reach for the Stars” essay, which has actually been composed by Kim for a writing competition sponsored by Starbucks. As Mohsin Hamid noted in his front-cover review of The Newlyweds in The New York Times Book Review (April 29, 2012), this essay has a certain parallel to Freudenberger’s own role as author—and it poses a larger question about authenticity and storytelling. What pitfalls might Freudenberger have faced, if any, in writing Amina’s story? Do you agree with Hamid’s statement that, for fiction “the question of authenticity...is a red herring: nationalities, ethnicities, genders and even species do not ‘own’ the right to fictional narratives spoken in what purport to be their voices”? To what extent is Amina in her new American life crafting a persona different from the “authentic” self she knew at home?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Weight of Heaven
Thrity Umrigar, 2009
HarperCollins
386 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061472558
Summary
The Weight of Heaven is an emotionally charged story about unexpected death, unhealed wounds, and the price one father will pay to protect himself from pain and loss. Additionally, it offers unique perspectives, both Indian and American, on the fragmented nature of globalized India.
When Frank and Ellie Benton lose their only child, seven-year-old Benny, to a sudden illness, the perfect life they had built is shattered.
Filled with wrenching memories, their Ann Arbor home becomes unbearable, and their marriage founders. Then an unexpected job half a world away in Girbaug, India, offers them an opportunity to start again. But Frank's befriending of Ramesh—a bright, curious boy who quickly becomes the focus of his attentions—will lead the grieving man down an ever-darkening path with stark repercussions.
A devastating look at cultural clashes and divides, Thrity Umrigar's The Weight of Heaven is a rare glimpse of a family and a country struggling under pressures beyond their control. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Mumbai, India
• Education—B.A., Bombay, University; M.A., Ohio State
University; Ph.D., Kent State University
• Awards—Neiman Fellowship to Harvard
• Currently—lives in Cleveland, Ohio, USA
A journalist for seventeen years, Thrity Umrigar has written for the Washington Post, Cleveland Plain Dealer, and other national newspapers, and contributes regularly to the Boston Globe's book pages. She teaches creative writing and literature at Case Western Reserve University.
The author of The Space Between Us; Bombay Time, the memoir First Darling of the Morning: Selected Memories of an Indian Childhood, and The Weight of Heaven, she was a winner of the Nieman Fellowship to Harvard University. She has a Ph.D. in English and lives in Cleveland, Ohio. (From the publisher.)
Learn more about Umrigar from an interview on author's website.
Book Reviews
Powerful.... Twisty, brimming with dark humor and keen moral insight, The Weight of Heaven packs a wallop on both a literary and emotional level.... Umrigar...is a descriptive master.
Christian Science Monitor
Umrigar (The Space Between Us) continues her exploration of cultural divides in this beautifully written and incisive novel about an American couple's experience in India. Frank and Ellie Benton, grappling with the death of their seven-year-old son, move from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Girbaug, India, where Frank takes a job running a factory. While he tackles the barriers faced by an educated, wealthy American in charge of a Third World work force, Ellie, a psychologist, makes inroads with the impoverished locals at a health clinic. Frank has a difficult time adjusting at work, and at home he takes an interest in their housekeepers' son, Ramesh, and begins tutoring him. While Frank buries his grief by helping Ramesh, he ends up in competition with the boy's bitter father, Prakash, and further damaging his already troubled marriage. Umrigar digs into the effects of grief on a relationship and the many facets of culture clash-especially American capitalism's impact on a poor country-but it is the tale of how Frank's interest in Ramesh veers into obsession and comes to a devastating end that provides the gripping through line. Umrigar establishes herself as a singularly gifted storyteller.
Publishers Weekly
Frank and Ellie are two attractive people who have basically led charmed lives. Frank's absent father notwithstanding, they each grew up in fairly secure surroundings and attended college and professional school, meeting and marrying and living in bliss. Suddenly, the world spins out of control when their seven-year-old son dies from meningitis. Soon afterward, they have an opportunity to make a work-related move to a seaside town in India, providing the panacea that will help them heal from their loss. As educated, liberal, progressive Americans, they cannot anticipate how they will react as they become part of the class struggle within Indian society; nor can they know how attached they will become to the son of their servants. Although it may be risky to latch on to bright young Ramesh, they convince themselves that they are helping the boy by providing him with things that his parents could never afford. Self-deception runs rampant, and Frank is eventually overcome by emotional turmoil, which leads him to make a fatal error in judgment. Umrigar (The Space Between Us) finely plumbs the depths of the human heart, from the heights of joy and passion to the very deepest despair. Recommended for all fiction collections. —Susanne Wells
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Umrigar (First Darling of the Morning, 2008) renders melancholy novels that resonate with rich prose and vibrant depictions of India, where she spent the first 21 years of her life before moving to the States. The Weight of Heaven is a bold, beautifully rendered tale of cultures that clash and coalesce. —Allison Block
Booklist
Sorrow turns to obsession when Ellie and Frank Benton move from Ann Arbor, Mich., to India shortly after the death of their seven-year-old son.... Umrigar's portrait of Frank's descent into obsessive madness is well paced, as are her descriptions of the couple's loneliness together, but the novel stumbles with two long flashbacks—one describing Frank and Ellie's courtship and the other Benny's death—that add little. By the end, Frank's preoccupation turns to wickedness and violence. Not as unified as Umrigar's previous novels...but an unflinching portrait of parental bereavements.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What does the title The Weight of Heaven mean?
2. Who are Ellie and Frank Benton? What kind of people are they? What do they believe in? What were they like before and after their son Benny's death?
3. When Ellie learns of the job in Girbaug, India, she sees it as "a chance to save her marriage. To start clean in new place." Is this a false hope? Is it possible to start again after suffering a terrible tragedy?
4. What are Ellie and Frank's perceptions of India before they moved? How do their ideas compare with the real India they discover?
5. How does their adopted culture change the American couple? Though they live in the same house, interact with many of the same people, do they experience the same India? How do their experiences affect their behavior?
6. Consider Edna and Prakash, the housekeeper and cook. How do they compare to Ellie and Frank? If you were in Edna and Prakash's place, how would you feel about Frank's interest in Ramesh?
7. How did Frank's money and attention affect Ramesh? Is Frank wrong to want to give the boy a better life?
8. What kind of a father is Frank? What about Prakash? How do their childhood experiences influence the men—and the fathers—they are?
9. In The Weight of Heaven, Thrity Umrigar explores interwoven themes of marriage, love, family, home, jealousy, fear, guilt, responsibility, class, power. How do these themes drive the story?
10. The conflict between rich and poor is central to the novel. How is the struggle between Frank and Prakash reflective of the battle between the factory workers and the executives who run HerbalSolutions? Between America and India?
11. The ideas of Eden and paradise are interwoven throughout The Weight of Heaven. How are they manifested in the stories of Ellie and Frank and Edna and Prakash? How do ignorance and knowledge guide their happiness and despair?
12. What is the role of Ellie and Frank's friends, Shashi and Nandita?
13. What are your impressions of Gulab Singh? Why do you think he was so willing to side with Frank against his own people?
14. Think about Ellie and Frank's experiences as foreigners adapting to a strange new land. Can you imagine the reverse—what it might be like for Edna, Prakash, and Ramesh to make a new life in America?
15. When a young Indian journalist interviews Frank, she asks, "Do you think it is ethical for a foreign company to own natural resources in another country?" How would you answer this? What if another nation owned some of America's natural resources?
16. The journalist also raises the notion of moral responsibility. Does the West have a moral obligation to developing nations? How does moral responsibility differ from legal responsibility?
17. Frank questions and redefines his faith, first when he learns that Benny is seriously ill, and later when he has pneumonia in India. How do these philosophical crises influence his actions?
18. Frank offered the promise of a different life for Ramesh. What do you think will ultimately happen to the boy? What do you think the future holds for Frank?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Never Knowing
Chevy Stevens, 2012
St. Martin's Press
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250009319
Summary
All her life, Sara Gallagher has wondered about her birth parents. As an adopted child with two sisters who were born naturally to her parents, Sara did not have an ideal home life. The question of why she was given up for adoption has always haunted her. Finally, she is ready to take steps and to find closure. But some questions are better left unanswered.
After months of research, Sara locates her birth mother — only to be met with horror and rejection. Then she discovers the devastating truth: Her mother was the only victim ever to escape a killer who has been hunting women every summer for decades. But Sara soon realizes the only thing worse than finding out about her father is him finding out about her.
What if murder is in your blood?
Never Knowing is a complex and compelling portrayal of one woman’s quest to understand herself, her origins, and her family. That is, if she can survive. (From the publisher.)
Read an excerpt.
Watch the trailer.
Author Bio
• Born—1973
• Where—Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada
• Education—N/A
• Awards—International Thriller Writers Award
• Currently—lives on Vancouver Island, B.E.
Chevy Stevens grew up on a ranch on Vancouver Island and still calls the island home. For most of her adult life she worked in sales, first as a rep for a giftware company and then as a Realtor.
At open houses, waiting between potential buyers, she spent hours scaring herself with thoughts of horrible things that could happen to her. Her most terrifying scenario, which began with being abducted, was the inspiration for Still Missing. After six months Chevy sold her house and left real estate so she could finish the book.
Chevy enjoys writing thrillers that allow her to blend her interest in family dynamics with her love of the west coast lifestyle. When she’s not working on her next book, she’s hiking with her husband and dog in the local mountains. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
If you love racing through a psychological thriller, or if you’re interested in writing within this genre, read both of these novels back to back and witness the development of a talented new storyteller.
National Post
The action is non-stop and the story flows without a bump.
Seattle Post Intelligencer
Stevens's unnerving stand-alone thriller about a woman's search for her birth parents matches the intensity of her impressive debut, Still Missing. Growing up on Vancouver Island, Sara Gallagher felt emotionally detached from her adoptive family. Now 33, Sara finally locates her birth mother, university professor Julia Laroche, but is devastated when Julia wants nothing to do with her. Sara learns that she was conceived when her birth mother was attacked by the Campsite Killer, a serial killer responsible for a 40-year reign of terror, who has never been caught. When the circumstances of Sara's birth become public, her biological father contacts her, demanding to meet her and her six-year-old daughter. If she refuses, he will continue to kill. Stevens chillingly portrays a woman searching for her identity who's not just horrified by the results but fearful she or her child has inherited violent tendencies. While the plot flirts with cliches, the skillful storytelling never flags.
Publishers Weekly
Stevens's debut, Still Missing, was a word-of-mouth (and critical) success. Her second thriller once again uses a flashback structure to set a suspenseful mood. Her protagonist, Sara Gallagher, tells her story in sessions with a therapist. Given up for adoption as a newborn, Sara has always felt the abandonment keenly, not least because her adoptive father seems to value her less than his two biological daughters. Now Sara has the chance to learn who her birth mother is. Though she is happily engaged and the mother of a six-year-old daughter, Sara needs to know—to an annoying degree. But her birth mother wants nothing to do with her and in fact seems somehow frightened of Sara. Undeterred, Sara continues to investigate and opens up a hornet's nest when she learns her birth father is a serial killer still on the loose. Verdict: Still Missing was such a strong debut, but everything that worked in that first novel has the opposite effect this time around, making the plot feel forced and the heroine unlikable. That said, this is a book fans will be anticipating, so some copies are a must. —Jane Jorgenson, Madison P.L., WI
Library Journal
Sara Gallagher has never exactly been comfortable in her adopted family.... So it's no wonder that she'd want to celebrate her nuptials...by tracking down the mother who gave her up as a baby. All too soon, Sara learns that the art-history professor who calls herself Julia Laroche is actually her mother. So why does Julia demand that Sara stay far away from her? For that matter, why did she change her name from Karen Christianson?... As finely calculated in its escalating suspense as Stevens' grueling debut (Still Missing,2010). Only the last twist disappoints.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Never Knowing is a novel about discovering who you are, where you come from, and what influences have shaped you. Sara worries that she inherited her anger management problems from her biological father and that her daughter may be affected as well. This fear implicitly raises the question of nature vs. nurture. Which do you think exercises the greater influence over an individual's behavior? Or is it a combination of both? Or something else entirely?
2. This novel deals with the issue of adoption rights, specifically the right of the birth parents to anonymity vs. the right—and occasionally the need—of the adopted children to the knowledge of who they have come from and how. Do you have any thoughts on how those frequently competing interests can be balanced?
3. If you were Sara Gallagher, would you want to find out who your birth parents were? Do you think this question would change for her if she'd had a happier upbringing?
4. When confronted with her birth mother's reaction, Sara does not give up. Would you have given up? How would you feel in her shoes?
5. Do you believe in pure evil? Do you believe Sara's father is evil or is there a sense of humanity in him? Why or why not?
6. Describe the dynamics of the three sisters. Did anything feel familiar to you? Do you believe one sister was more damaging than the other? Why or why not?
7. Even though the police use Sara as bait to lure her father, do you think there was something else at play, perhaps, in the dynamics between Sara and John?
8. Do you believe the police always act in the best interest of justice? In this case, when did you suspect that something might be amiss?
9. Do you agree or disagree with Shakespeare's famous statement: What is past is prologue"?
10. Under what circumstances could you take someone's life? Under what circumstances is it ever justified?
11. Were there plot twists in this book you did not see coming? What surprised you the most?
12. In the end, who lost the most from these events? Who gained the most? Who will be able to move on? Who will not?
(Questions issued by publisher.)