The Sandcastle Girls
Chris Bohjalian, 2012
Knopf Doubleday
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307743916
Summary
In his fifteenth book, The Sandcastle Girls, Chris Bohjalian takes us to a time and place—Syria, 1915—that left haunting legacies for his Armenian heritage, making this his most personal novel to date.
A sweeping historical love story, The Sandcastle Girls introduces us to Elizabeth Endicott, an adventure-seeking graduate of Mount Holyoke College who travels to Syria just as the Great War has begun to spread across Europe. With only a crash course in nursing, Elizabeth has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the genocide.
She soon befriends a striking Armenian engineer. He is young, but he has already lost his wife and infant daughter to Turkish brutality. When Armen leaves Aleppo to join the British army in Egypt, he and Elizabeth begin a daring correspondence, bridging their very different worlds with words of love and hope.
Interwoven with their tale is the story of Laura Petrosian, a contemporary novelist living in suburban New York. Although her grandparents' ornate Pelham home was affectionately nicknamed “The Ottoman Annex,” Laura has never really given her Armenian heritage much thought.
But when an old friend calls, claiming to have seen a newspaper photo of Laura's grandmother promoting an exhibit at a Boston museum, Laura embarks on a journey back through her family's history that reveals love, loss—and a wrenching secret that has been buried for generations.
An epic story of love and war, The Sandcastle Girls will captivate your reading group. We hope this guide will enrich your discussion. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—White Plains, New York, USA
• Education—Amherst College
• Awards—Anahid Literary Award, 2000; New England Book Award, 2002
• Currently—lives in Lincoln, Vermont
Christopher Aram Bohjalian, who goes by the pen name Chris Bohjalian, is an American novelist. Bohjalian is the author of 15 novels, including New York Times bestsellers Midwives, Secrets of Eden, The Law of Similars, Before You Know Kindness, The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and The Night Strangers.
Bohjalian is the son of Aram Bohjalian, who was a senior vice president of the New York advertising agency Romann & Tannenholz. Chris Bohjalian graduated summa cum laude from Amherst College, where he was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In the mid-1980s, he worked as an account representative for J. Walter Thompson advertising agency in New York.
He and his wife lived in a co-op in Brooklyn until March 1986, when the two were riding in a taxicab in which the driver refused to let them out of the car for 45 minutes, ignoring all traffic lights and stop signs. Around midnight, the driver dropped them off at a near-deserted street in front of a crack house, where the police were conducting a raid and Bohjalian and his wife were forced to drop to the ground for their protection. The incident prompted the couple to move from Brooklyn; Bohjalian said, "After it was all over, we just thought, "Why do we live here?" A few days later, the couple read an ad in The New York Times referencing the "People's Republic of Vermont," and in 1987 the couple moved to Lincoln, Vermont.
Early career
After buying their house, Bohjalian began writing weekly columns for local newspaper and magazine about living in the small town, which had a population of about 975 residents. The Concord Monitor said of Bohjalian during this period, "his immersion in community life and family, Vermont-style, has allowed him to develop into a novelist with an ear and empathy for the common man." Bohjalian continued the column for about 12 years, writing about such topics as his own daily life, fatherhood and the transformation of America. The column has run in the Burlington Free Press since 1992. Bohjalian has also written for such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Reader's Digest and the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.
Bohjalian's first novel, A Killing in the Real World, was released in 1988. Almost two decades after it was released, Bohjalian said of the book, "It was a train wreck. I hadn't figured things out yet." His third novel, Past the Bleachers, was released in 1992 and adapted as a Hallmark Channel television movie in 1995.
In 1998, Bohjalian wrote his fifth book, Midwives, a novel focusing on rural Vermont midwife Sibyl Danforth, who becomes embroiled in a legal battle after one of her patients died following an emergency Caesarean section. The novel was critically acclaimed and was selected by Oprah Winfrey as the October 1998 selection of her Oprah's Book Club, which helped push the book to great financial success. It became a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. Victoria Blewer has often described her husband as having "a crush" on the Sybil Danforth character. In 2001, the novel was adapted into a Lifetime Movie Network television film starring Sissy Spacek in the lead role. Spacek said the Danforth character appealed to her because "the heart of the story is my character's inner struggle with self-doubt, the solo road you travel when you have a secret."
Later career
Bohjalian followed Midwives with the 1999 novel The Law of Similars, about a widower attorney suffering from nameless anxieties who starts dating a woman who practices alternative medicine. The novel was inspired by Bohjalian's real-life visit to a homeopath in an attempt to cure frequent colds he was catching from his daughter's day care center. Bohjalian said of the visit, "I don't think I imagined there was a novel in homeopathy, however, until I met the homeopath and she explained to me the protocols of healing. There was a poetry to the language that a patient doesn't hear when visiting a conventional doctor." The protagonist, a father, is based in part on Bohjalian himself, and his four-year-old daughter is based largely on Bohjalian's daughter, who was three when he was writing the book., Liz Rosenberg of The New York Times said the novel shared many similarities with Midwives but that it paled in comparison; Rosenberg said, "Unlike its predecessor, it fails to take advantage of Bohjalian's great gift for creating thoughtful fiction featuring characters in whom the reader sustains a lively interest." Megan Harlan of The Boston Phoenix described it as "formulaic fiction" and said Bohjalian focused too much on creating a complex plot and not enough of complex characterizations. The Law of Similars, like Midwives, made the New York Times bestsellers list.
He won the New England Book Award in 2002, and in 2007 released "The Double Bind," a novel based on Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.
In 2008, Bohjalian released Skeletons at the Feast, a love story set in the last six months of World War II in Poland and Germany. The novel was inspired by an unpublished diary written by German citizen Eva Henatsch from 1920 to 1945. The diary was given to Bohjalian in 1998 by Henatsch's grandson Gerd Krahn, a friend of Bohjalian, who had a daughter in the same kindergarten class as Bohjalian's daughter. Bohjalian was particularly fascinated by Henatsch's account of her family's trek west ahead of the Soviet Army, but he was not inspired to write a novel from it until 2006, when he read Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, Max Hastings' history of the final years of World War II. Bohjalian was struck not only by how often Henatsch's story mirrored real-life experiences, but also the common "moments of idiosyncratic human connection" found in both. Skeletons of the Feast was considered a departure for Bohjalian because it was not only set outside of Vermont, but set in a particular historical moment.
His 2010 novel, Secrets of Eden, was also a critical success, receiving starred reviews from three of the four trade journals (Booklist, Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly), as well as many newspapers and magazines. It debuted at # 6 on The New York Times bestseller list.
His next novel, The Night Strangers, published in 2011, represents yet another departure for Bohjalian. The is both a gothic ghost story and a taut psychological thriller.
He has written a weekly column for Gannett's Burlington Free Press since February 1992 called "Idyll Banter." His 1,000th column appeared in May 2011.
Personal comments
In a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview, Bohjalian offered up these personal comments:
I was the heaviest child, by far, in my second-grade class. My mother had to buy my pants for me at a store called the "Husky Boys Shop," and still she had to hem the cuffs up around my knees. I hope this experience, traumatizing as it was, made me at least marginally more sensitive to people around me.
I have a friend with Down syndrome, a teenage boy who is capable of remembering the librettos from entire musicals the first or second time he hears them. The two of us belt them out together whenever we're driving anywhere in a car.I am a pretty avid bicyclist. The other day I was biking alone on a thin path in the woods near Franconia Notch, New Hampshire, and suddenly before me I saw three bears. At first I saw only two, and initially I thought they were cats. Then I thought they were dogs. Finally, just as I was approaching them and they started to scurry off the path and into the thick brush, I understood they were bears. Bear cubs, to be precise. Which is exactly when their mother, no more than five or six feet to my left, reared up on her hind legs, her very furry paws and very sharp claws raised above her head in a gesture that an optimist might consider a wave and guy on a bike might consider something a tad more threatening. Because she was standing on a slight incline, I was eye level with her stomach—an eventual destination that seemed frighteningly plausible. I have never biked so fast in my life in the woods. I may never have biked so fast in my life on a paved road.
I do have hobbies—I garden and bike, for example—but there's nothing in the world that gives me even a fraction of the pleasure that I derive from hanging around with my wife and daughter.
He lives with his wife and daughter in Lincoln, Vermont, where he is active in the local church and the Vermont theater community—always off-stage, never on.
Writing style
Bohjalian novels often focus on a specific issue, such as homelessness, animal rights and environmentalism, and tend to be character-driven, revolving around complex and flawed protagonists and secondary characters. Bohjalian uses characteristics from his real life in his writings; in particular, many of his novels take place in fictional Vermont towns, and the names of real New Hampshire towns are often used throughout his stories. Bohjalian said, "Writers can talk with agonizing hubris about finding their voices, but for me, it was in Vermont that I discovered issues, things that matter to me." His novels also tend to center around ordinary people facing extraordinarily difficult situations resulting from unforeseen circumstances, often triggered by other parties. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Bohjalian's powerful novel...depicts the Armenian genocide and one contemporary novelist's quest to uncover her heritage.... His storytelling makes this a beautiful, frightening, and unforgettable read.
Publishers Weekly
Repeatedly (and embarrassingly accurately) referred to here as "The Slaughter You Know Next to Nothing About," the Armenian genocide of 1915-16 takes center stage in Bohjalian's intergenerational novel. Elizabeth Endicott, a recent Mount Holyoke graduate, accompanies her Bostonian banker father on his philanthropic mission to Aleppo, Syria, to aid Armenian refugees fleeing atrocities committed by the Ottoman government. Her friendship with Armenian engineer Armen, who has lost his wife and baby daughter, flourishes when they are apart and can only communicate in letters. Years later, Laura Petrosian, seeking out a photograph of a woman rumored to be her Armenian grandmother, uncovers these letters among a wealth of documents—a treasure trove for an Armenian American novelist searching for pieces of her family history. Verdict: Bohjalian powerfully narrates an intricately nuanced romance with a complicated historical event at the forefront. With the centennial of the Armenian genocide fast approaching, this is not to be missed. Simply astounding. —Julie Kane, Sweet Briar Coll. Lib., VA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A powerful and moving story based on real events seldom discussed. It will leave you reeling. —Elizabeth Dickie
Booklist
(Starred review.) An unforgettable exposition of the still too-little-known facts of the Armenian genocide and its multigenerational consequences.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Though The Sandcastle Girls is a novel, author Chris Bohjalian (and fictional narrator Laura Petrosian) based their storytelling on meticulous research. What can a novel reveal about history that a memoir or history book cannot? Before reading The Sandcastle Girls, what did you know about the Armenian genocide? How does this history broaden your understanding of current events in the regions surrounding Armenia?
2. What lies at the heart of Armen and Elizabeth’s attraction to each other, despite their seemingly different backgrounds? What gives their love the strength to transcend distance and danger?
3. The novel includes characters such as Dr. Akcam, Helmut, and Orhan, who take great risks opposing the atrocities committed by their superiors; Bohjalian does not cast the “enemy” as uniformly evil. What do these characters tell us about the process of resistance? What separates them from the others, who become capable of horrific, dehumanizing acts?
4. Discuss the bond between Nevart and Hatoun. What do they demonstrate about the traits, and the trauma, of a survivor? How do they redefine motherhood and childhood?
5. Bohjalian is known for creating inventive, authentic narrators for his novels, ranging from a midwife to a foster child. Why was it important for The Sandcastle Girls to be told primarily from the point of view of a woman? How was your reading affected by the knowledge that the author is a man?
6. In chapter 9, Elizabeth courageously quotes the Qur’an to appeal to the conscience of the Turkish lieutenant. What diplomacy lessons are captured in that moment? For the novel’s characters—from aid workers to Armenians who tried to convert—what is the role of religion?
7. When Laura describes the music of her 1960s youth, her steamy relationship with Berk, her belly-dancing aunt, and other cultural memories, what is she saying about the American experience of immigration and assimilation? Culturally, what did her grandfather sacrifice in order to gain security and prosperity in America?
8. Discuss the various aid workers depicted in the novel. What motivated them to assist in this particular cause? Do Alicia, Sister Irmingard, and Elizabeth achieve similar outcomes despite their different approaches? What overseas populations would you be willing to support so courageously?
9. Does Ryan Martin use his power effectively? How does Elizabeth gain power in a time period and culture that was marked by the oppression of women?
10. The vivid scenes of Gallipoli bring to life the global nature of war over the past century. As Armen fights alongside Australians, what do we learn about the power and the vulnerabilities of multinational forces? What did it mean for his fellow soldiers to fight for a cause so far removed from their own homelands, and for his own countrymen to rely on the mercy of outsiders?
11. At the end of chapter 19, does Elizabeth make the right decision? How would you have reacted in the wake of a similar tragedy?
12. How do Laura’s discoveries enrich her sense of self? Discuss your own heritage and its impact on your identity. How much do you know about your parents’ and grandparents’ upbringing? What immigration stories are part of your own family’s collective memory?
13. As she tries to explain why so few people are aware of the Armenian genocide, Laura cites the fact that the victims perished in a remote desert. The novel also describes the problem of trying to document the atrocities using the cumbersome photography equipment of the day. Will the Information Age spell the end of such cover-ups? For future generations, will genocide be unimaginable?
14. Which aspects of The Sandcastle Girls remind you of previous Bohjalian novels you have enjoyed?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Gold
Chris Cleave, 2012
Simon & Schuster
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451672732
Summary
What would you sacrifice for the people you love? Kate and Zoe met at nineteen when they both made the cut for the national training program in track cycling—a sport that demands intense focus, blinding exertion, and unwavering commitment.
They are built to exploit the barest physical and psychological edge over equally skilled rivals, all of whom are fighting for the last one tenth of a second that separates triumph from despair.
Now at thirty-two, the women are facing their last and biggest race: the 2012 Olympics. Each wants desperately to win gold, and each has more than a medal to lose.
Kate is the more naturally gifted, but the demands of her life have a tendency to slow her down. Her eight-year-old daughter Sophie dreams of the Death Star and of battling alongside the Rebels as evil white blood cells ravage her personal galaxy—she is fighting a recurrence of the leukemia that nearly killed her three years ago. Sophie doesn’t want to stand in the way of her mum’s Olympic dreams, but each day the dark forces of the universe seem to be massing against her.
Devoted and self-sacrificing Kate knows her daughter is fragile, but at the height of her last frenzied months of training, might she be blind to the most terrible prognosis?
Intense, aloof Zoe has always hovered on the periphery of real human companionship, and her compulsive need to win at any cost has more than once threatened her friendship with Kate—and her own sanity. Will she allow her obsession, and the advantage she has over a harried, anguished mother, to sever the bond they have shared for more than a decade?
Echoing the adrenaline-fueled rush of a race around the Velodrome track, Gold is a triumph of superbly paced, heart-in-throat storytelling. With great humanity and glorious prose, Chris Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1973
• Where—London, England, UK
• Where—raised in both Buckinghamsire (UK) and Cameroon
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Somerset Maughm Award; Prix des Lecteurs
• Currently—lives in London
Chris Cleave is a British author of four novels and has been a journalist for London's Guardian newspaper, where from 2008 until 2010 he wrote the column "Down With the Kids."
Novels
His first novel, Incendiary, was published in 2005 and released in 20 countries. It won the 2006 Somerset Maugham Award and the Prix Special du Jury at the 2007 French Prix des Lecteurs. In 2008, the novel was adapted to film starring Ewan McGregor and Michelle Williams.
His second novel, Little Bee, was inspired by his childhood in West Africa. It was shortlisted for the prestigious Costa Award for Best Novel. Gold, his third novel, came out in 2012, and his fourth, Everyone Brave Is Forgiven, was published in 2016. That novel is based on his grandparents' experience during the London Blitz of World War II.
Cleave lives in London with his French wife and three mischievous Anglo-French children. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/24/2016.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Like the best-selling Little Bee, Cleave’s new book, Gold, is highly emotionally charged.... Cleave immersed himself in the world of track cycling and makes the most of his research in scenes of stunning athletic endurance, but it’s the trials of the human spirit that are his real material in a novel meant to move you. And it does.
New York Daily News
Cleave kick-starts his stories from the first breath and never takes his feet off the pedals.
Washington Post
If Olympic medals were awarded for dramatic stories about what drives athletes to compete and succeed, Cleave would easily ascend the podium. Gold does for sport racing what Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild did for high-risk adventure: It demystifies its allure, giving readers an inside track on a certain type of compulsive mindset. But Gold is also about time, ambition and love, three life forces continuously jockeying for supremacy. Novels, like racing, depend on careful pacing, and Cleave calibrates his performance with the skill of a real pro, carefully ratcheting up the intensity as he finesses curves and heads into his final laps.... Cleave spins a doozy of a plot, with enough drama and sentiment to sustain a soap opera. His characters are humanized by their struggle with their personal demons.... With Gold, Cleave unleashes megawatts of power in yet another triumphant dash toward literary success.
NPR
Cleave again displays a remarkable aptitude for rendering female characters with startling realism, one of the strengths of his previous novels (particularly 2009’s Little Bee). He conjures Sophie’s traumatized yet resilient young mind as deftly as he does the complex interior narratives of high-strung Zoe and the more philosophical Kate... In these breathless portrayals of sport and spirit, Gold illuminates the stories of courage, loss, and commitment that are behind each of the seemingly invincible Olympians we root for every four years.
Elle
Emotionally arresting (and exquisitely timed). Cleave shines when he focuses on the cyclists’ sacrifices, including training sessions in which they push themselves to the brink of blacking out.... Cleave’s fine novel will give you an appreciation for all that London’s Olympians have gone through as you watch them contort their bodies, leap for the heavens or pedal round and round and round.
Sports Illustrated
Chris Cleave’s latest novel lives and breathes, sweats and suffers at the harrowing place where ambition collides with sacrifice. That it arrives on the eve of the 2012 Olympic Games in London is perfect timing..., but Gold would be first class anytime, anywhere. It’s an adrenaline-fueled drama about winning and losing, in the velodrome and daily existence, an explosive exploration of the cost of success and the way sports competition can spill unhappily into life. It will force you to reconsider the definition of “victory,” and it will leave you breathless.... Cleave proves again that if writing were an Olympic sport, he’d be vying for a medal.
Miami Herald
Gold wins a medal for impressive timing: Chris Cleave’s adrenalized novel—which breathlessly tracks the complicated friendship and furious competition between two speed cyclists, Kate and Zoe, as they train for a fictional London 2012 Olympics—arrives just a month before the opening of the actual London 2012 Olympics... As Cleave demonstrated in his best-seller Little Bee, he is a full-hearted writer.
Entertainment Weekly
Cleave (Little Bee) goes for the gold and brings it home in his thrillingly written and emotionally rewarding novel about the world of professional cycling. Zoe Castle and Kate Meadows met at age 19 trying out for the British Cycling Team and have been friends and rivals for 13 years now. Kate might have more natural ability, but Zoe is the more driven of the two. Kate is married to a fellow racer, Jack Argall, and they have an eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who suffers from leukemia. Zoe is pursued by her own demons and has a tabloid reputation for sleeping around, which doesn’t sit well with her agent. Things begin to heat up when the International Olympic Committee changes its rules so that only one cyclist, either Zoe or Kate, will be eligible to compete in the 2012 London Games. Cleave expertly cycles through the characters’ tangled past and present, charting their ever-shifting dynamic as ultra-competitive Zoe and Kate are forced to decide whether winning means more to them than friendship, building to a winner-take-all race at the Manchester Velodrome. Cleave likewise pulls out all the stops getting inside the hearts and minds of his engagingly complex characters. The race scenes have true visceral intensity, leaving the reader feeling as breathless as a cyclist. From start to finish, this is a truly Olympic-level literary achievement.
Publishers Weekly
Timed to publish with the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Cleave's latest novel demonstrates the determination of three extraordinary athletes in a story about true sacrifice. Kate and Jack Argall are Olympic-level cyclists from Manchester, England, gearing up for the 2012 Olympic Games. Kate and her close friend Zoe Castle share a coach, Tom Voss, who had a shot at the gold in cycling in the 1968 Olympics but lost by one-tenth of a second. Now in his sixties, with bad knees and false teeth, he knows London is their last Olympics. However, Kate and Jack have the added responsibility of caring for their eight-year-old daughter, Sophie, who was diagnosed with leukemia four years before when they were all competing in the Beijing games. Sophie, now bald and frail, but with championship grit, blocks out her illness by imagining herself a part of Star Wars scenarios. The life of these three committed athletes is so intertwined, so complex, that the outcome is sure to be a surprise. Verdict: Close on the heels of his international best seller Little Bee, British author Cleave has written another story so riveting that it is impossible to put down. —Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO
Library Journal
British author Cleave turns to the world of Olympic speed cyclists to explore the shifting sands of ambition, loyalty and love. Tom, who just barely missed his own medal in 1968, is coaching Kate and Zoe to represent Britain at the 2012 Olympics, which the 32-year-old women know will be their last. They are best friends but fierce rivals.... Tom must choose whether Kate or Zoe is going to the Olympics. In weaker hands this would seem a bit contrived, but Cleave knows how to captivate with rich characters and nimble plotting.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss the opening scene of Gold where Kate and baby Sophie are watching Zoe win the gold at the 2004 Olympics. What did you learn about Kate’s personality as a wife, mother, and athlete in this one scene? How does this scene set the stage for the rest of the novel?
2. According to Sophie, “You could play boys’ games like Star Wars that had fighting and spaceships and made you look tough, even if you weren’t tough enough to ride a bike.” Consider Sophie’s obsession with Star Wars. What attracts her to these movies? What does she have to prove by playing “tough” boys’ games?
3. Consider Tom’s first impressions of his two star athletes: “Bit by bit, race by race, year by year, a girl like Zoe would stay afloat in the sport while Kate slowly sank under the weight of real life. Tom had seen it a hundred times.” How well does Tom predict their career successes and failures? In what ways does he underestimate Kate?
4. When Tom watches his group of teen recruits, he notices “Kate’s latent strength, and Zoe’s perfect flow, and Jack’s incandescent energy.” Compare Kate, Zoe, and Jack’s athletic strengths to their personalities. How do Kate’s strength, Zoe’s flow, and Jack’s energy help them face everyday life off the track?
5. Compare how Zoe and Kate handle the costs and benefits of being Olympic athletes. How does the press treat each of them? How do Zoe and Kate handle the media attention? What could they learn from the other about fame?
6. Discuss Zoe and Kate’s competition for Jack’s attention. Why does Zoe pursue Jack when he is in the hospital? Do you think it was just another opportunity to compete? Were you surprised by Jack and Zoe’s relationships?
7. If you were in Kate’s situation, would you forgive Jack for his affair with Zoe? Would you be able to raise Sophie as your own, knowing about the affair? Explain your answer.
8. Zoe realizes, “It was ordinary days now that frightened her—the endless Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons of real life, the days you had to steer through without the benefit of handlebars.” How does Zoe handle real life? What is she afraid will happen to her when her racing career is over?
9. Discuss the lasting impact of Adam’s death on Zoe. Why hasn’t she forgiven herself for her brother’s accident? How does she punish herself? How does she finally come to terms with his death?
10. When Jack decides to let Kate race Zoe without knowing that Sophie is in the hospital, “He smiled because he had given her something rarer than gold: an hour outside time.” Did you agree with his decision? In what ways have these characters been racing against time their entire life?
11. During their final race, Zoe waits for Kate after Kate crashes on the track. How is that decision out of character for Zoe? Would you expect Kate to do the same for Zoe, if the situation were reversed? Why or why not?
12. At the end of the novel, Zoe’s role is as Sophie’s coach, not her mother. What kind of coach do you imagine Zoe to be? What kind of mother do you think she would have been to Sophie? Do you think she could have handled Sophie’s illness?
13. After winning gold in Athens, Zoe realizes, “Gold came out of the ground, and she had felt the weight of it dragging her back down there.” What does “gold” mean to Zoe, Kate, Jack, and Tom? What other types of gold (besides Olympic medals) do each of these characters strive for? Do they achieve it?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Gathering of Waters
Bernice L. McFadden, 2012
Akashic Books
250 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781617750311
Summary
Gathering of Waters is a deeply engrossing tale narrated by the town of Money, Mississippi—a site both significant and infamous in our collective story as a nation. Money is personified in this haunting story, which chronicles its troubled history following the arrival of the Hilson and Bryant families.
Tass Hilson and Emmett Till were young and in love when Emmett was brutally murdered in 1955. Anxious to escape the town, Tass marries Maximillian May and relocates to Detroit.
Forty years later, after the death of her husband, Tass returns to Money and fantasy takes flesh when Emmett Till's spirit is finally released from the dank, dark waters of the Tallahatchie River. The two lovers are reunited, bringing the story to an enchanting and profound conclusion.
Gathering of Waters mines the truth about Money, Mississippi, as well as the town's families, and threads their history over decades. The bare-bones realism—both disturbing and riveting—combined with a magical realm in which ghosts have the final say, is reminiscent of Toni Morrison's Beloved. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Education—NYC Fashion College - Laboratory Institute of
Merchandising; Marymount College, Fordham University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York
Bernice L. McFadden is the author of seven critically acclaimed novels, including the classic Sugar, Nowhere Is a Place, (a 2006 Washington Post Best Fiction title), and Gathering of Waters in 2012.
She is a two time Hurston/Wright award fiction finalist as well as the recipient of two fiction honor awards from the BCALA. McFadden lives in Brooklyn, New York. (From the publisher.)
More
Bernice L. McFadden was born, raised and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is the eldest of four children and the mother of one daughter, R'yane Azsa. Ms. McFadden attended grade school at P.S. 161 in Brooklyn and Middle School at Holy Spirit, also in Brooklyn. She attended high school at St. Cyril Academy an all-girls boarding school in Danville, Pa.
In the Fall of 1983 she enrolled in the noted NYC fashion college: Laboratory Institute of Merchandising, with dreams of becoming an international clothing buyer.
She attended LIM for two semesters and then took a position at Bloomingdale's and later with Itokin, a Japanese owned retail company.
Disillusioned and frustrated with her job, she signed up for a Travel & Tourism course at Marymount College where she received a certificate of completion. After the birth of her daughter in 1988, Bernice McFadden obtained a job with Rockresorts a company then owned by the Rockefeller family.
The company was later sold and Ms. McFadden was laid off and unemployed for one year. She sights that year as the turning point in her life because during those twelve months Ms. McFadden began to dedicate herself to the art of writing. During the next nine years she held three jobs, always looking for something exciting and satisfying. Forever frustrated with corporate America and the requirements they put on their employees, Ms. McFadden enrolled at Fordham University. Her intention was to obtain a degree that would enable her to move up another rung on the corporate ladder.
She signed up for courses that concentrated on Afro-American history and literature, as well as creative writing, poetry and journalism. She credits the two years spent under the guidance of her professors as well as the years spent lost in the words of her favorite author's, to the caliber of writer she has become.
During those years, Ms. McFadden made a conscious effort to write as much as possible and began to send out hundreds of query letters to agents and publisher's attempting to sell one of her short stories or the novel she was working on.
In 1997, Ms. McFadden quit her job and dedicated seven months to re-writing the novel that would become, Sugar. In May of 1998, after depleting her savings, she took her last and final position within corporate America.
On Feb 9th, 1999, her daughter's eleventh birthday (and Alice Walker's birthday—one of Ms. McFadden's favorite author's) she sent a query letter to an agent who signed her two weeks later and the rest is literary history!
Bernice L. McFadden also writes racy, humorous fiction under the pseudonym, Geneva Holliday. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Read it aloud. Hire a chorus to chant it to you and anyone else interested in hearing about civil rights and uncivil desires, about the dark heat of hate, about the force of forgiveness."
Alan Cheuse - All Things Considered, NPR
McFadden works a kind of miracle—not only do [her characters] retain their appealing humanity; their story eclipses the bonds of history to offer continuous surprises.... Beautiful and evocative, Gathering of Waters brings three generations to life.... The real power of the narrative lies in the richness and complexity of the characters. While they inhabit these pages they live, and they do so gloriously and messily and magically, so that we are at last sorry to see them go, and we sit with those small moments we had with them and worry over them, enchanted, until they become something like our own memories, dimmed by time, but alive with the ghosts of the past, and burning with spirits.
New York Times Book Review
In this fierce reimagining, the actual town of Money, MS narrates the story about the ghost of Emmett Till and his from-the-other-side reunification with the girl he loved as a child in Gathering of Waters by Bernice L. McFadden.
Ebony
McFadden combines events of Biblical proportions—from flooding to resurrection—with history to create a cautionary, redemptive tale that spans the early twentieth century to the start of Hurricane Katrina. She compellingly invites readers to consider the distinctions between 'truth or fantasy'.... In McFadden's boldly spun yarn, consequences extend across time and place. This is an arresting historical portrait of Southern life with reimagined outcomes, suggesting that hope in the enduring power of memory can offer healing where justice does not suffice.
Publishers Weekly
The rich text is shaped by the African American storytelling tradition and layered with significant American histories. Recalling the woven spirituality of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, this work will appeal to readers of mystic literature.
Library Journal
McFadden makes powerful use of imagery in this fantastical novel of ever-flowing waters and troubled spirits.
Booklist
With a light touch and utterly believable characters, Close’s...appealing debut manages to capture the humor, heartache and cautious optimism of her protagonists.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What is the meaning of the novel's title? What does "Gathering of Waters" mean within the context of the book?
2. Discuss the importance of water as a symbol in the novel. What does water have in common with the life, both literally and metaphorically?
3. Why did the author choose to have the town (Money) narrate the story? Did this help or hinder the story? How would the story have been different with a third person narrator?
4. What are the purposes and effects of the story's fantastic and magical elements? How does the fantastic operate in the characters' everyday lives and personalities? How is the magical interwoven with elements drawn from history?
5. What varieties of love occur in the novel? Does any kind of love transcend or transform the ravages of everyday life, history, and time itself?
6. The novel deals with the adverse effects of white racism on the black population. What themes are explored through these interactions?
7. In the classic epic multigenerational novel, several pivotal scenes define the basic character of the entire work. Which scenes in Gathering of Waters best exemplify its core themes? What are those core themes?
8. Bernice McFadden's decision to not only re-create the days preceding Emmett Till's murder, but also include a love interest by using the format of a historical novel is her artistic response to the tragedy. Does her artistic decision work for you?
9. In Gathering of Waters, McFadden re-creates, in vivid scenes, two incidents of racially motivated hate crimes. Which incidents stayed with you the most powerfully? Why?
10. What does Gathering of Waters as a whole, suggest about the relationships among history, family, race, and gender? How are the individuals in the novel affected by these larger forces? What does the novel reveal about the particular historical moment in which it is set?
(Questions used with kind permission of the author.)
The Shoemaker's Wife
Adriana Trigiani, 2012
HarperCollins
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061257094
Summary
The majestic and haunting beauty of the Italian Alps is the setting of the first meeting of Enza, a practical beauty, and Ciro, a strapping mountain boy, who meet as teenagers, despite growing up in villages just a few miles apart. At the turn of the last century, when Ciro catches the local priest in a scandal, he is banished from his village and sent to hide in America as an apprentice to a shoemaker in Little Italy. Without explanation, he leaves a bereft Enza behind. Soon, Enza's family faces disaster and she, too, is forced to go to America with her father to secure their future.
Unbeknownst to one another, they both build fledgling lives in America, Ciro masters shoemaking and Enza takes a factory job in Hoboken until fate intervenes and reunites them. But it is too late: Ciro has volunteered to serve in World War I and Enza, determined to forge a life without him, begins her impressive career as a seamstress at the Metropolitan Opera House that will sweep her into the glamorous salons of Manhattan and into the life of the international singing sensation, Enrico Caruso.
From the stately mansions of Carnegie Hill, to the cobblestone streets of Little Italy, over the perilous cliffs of northern Italy, to the white-capped lakes of northern Minnesota, these star-crossed lovers meet and separate, until, finally, the power of their love changes both of their lives forever.
Lush and evocative, told in tantalizing detail and enriched with lovable, unforgettable characters, The Shoemaker's Wife is a portrait of the times, the places and the people who defined the immigrant experience, claiming their portion of the American dream with ambition and resolve, cutting it to fit their needs like the finest Italian silk.
This riveting historical epic of love and family, war and loss, risk and destiny is the novel Adriana Trigiani was born to write, one inspired by her own family history and the love of tradition that has propelled her body of bestselling novels to international acclaim. Like Lucia, Lucia, The Shoemaker's Wife defines an era with clarity and splendor, with operatic scope and a vivid cast of characters who will live on in the imaginations of readers for years to come. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Big Stone Gap, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., St. Mary’s College, Indiana, USA
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
As her squadrons of fans already know, Adriana Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, a coal-mining town in southwest Virginia that became the setting for her first three novels. The "Big Stone Gap" books feature Southern storytelling with a twist: a heroine of Italian descent, like Trigiani, who attended St. Mary's College of Notre Dame, like Trigiani. But the series isn't autobiographical—the narrator, Ave Maria Mulligan, is a generation older than Trigiani and, as the first book opens, has settled into small-town spinsterhood as the local pharmacist.
The author, by contrast, has lived most of her adult life in New York City. After graduating from college with a theater degree, she moved to the city and began writing and directing plays (her day jobs included cook, nanny, house cleaner and office temp). In 1988, she was tapped to write for the Cosby Show spinoff A Different World, and spent the following decade working in television and film. When she presented her friend and agent Suzanne Gluck with a screenplay about Big Stone Gap, Gluck suggested she turn it into a novel.
The result was an instant bestseller that won praise from fellow writers along with kudos from celebrities (Whoopi Goldberg is a fan). It was followed by Big Cherry Holler and Milk Glass Moon, which chronicle the further adventures of Ave Maria through marriage and motherhood. People magazine called them "Delightfully quirky... chock full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."
Critics sometimes reach for food imagery to describe Trigiani's books, which have been called "mouthwatering as fried chicken and biscuits" (USA Today) and "comforting as a mug of tea on a rainy Sunday" (New York Times Book Review). Food and cooking play a big role in the lives of Trigiani's heroines and their families: Lucia, Lucia, about a seamstress in Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and The Queen of the Big Time, set in an Italian-American community in Pennsylvania, both feature recipes from Trigiani's grandmothers. She and her sisters have even co-written a cookbook called, appropriately enough, Cooking With My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes, from Bari to Big Stone Gap. It's peppered with anecdotes, photos and family history. What it doesn't have: low-carb recipes. "An Italian girl can only go so long without pasta," Trigiani quipped in an interview on GoTriCities.com.
Her heroines are also ardent readers, so it comes as no surprise that book groups love Adriana Trigiani. And she loves them right back. She's chatted with scores of them on the phone, and her Web site includes photos of women gathered together in living rooms and restaurants across the country, waving Italian flags and copies of Lucia, Lucia.
Trigiani, a disciplined writer whose schedule for writing her first novel included stints from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. each morning, is determined not to disappoint her fans. So far, she's produced a new novel each year since the publication of Big Stone Gap.I don't take any of it for granted, not for one second, because I know how hard this is to catch with your public," she said in an interview with The Independent. "I don't look at my public as a group; I look at them like individuals, so if a reader writes and says, 'I don't like this,' or, 'This bit stinks,' I take it to heart.
Extras
From a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:
• I appeared on the game show Kiddie Kollege on WCYB-TV in Bristol, Virginia, when I was in the third grade. I missed every question. It was humiliating.
• I have held the following jobs: office temp, ticket seller in movie theatre, cook in restaurant, nanny, and phone installer at the Super Bowl in New Orleans. In the writing world, I have been a playwright, television writer/producer, documentary writer/director, and now novelist.
• I love rhinestones, faux jewelry. I bought a pair of pearl studded clip on earrings from a blanket on the street when I first moved to New York for a dollar. They turned out to be a pair designed by Elsa Schiaparelli. Now, they are costume, but they are still Schiaps! Always shop in the street—treasures aplenty.
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, here is what she said:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. When I was a girl growing up in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, I was in the middle of a large Italian family, but I related to the lonely orphan girl Jane, who with calm and focus, put one foot in front of the other to make a life for herself after the death of her parents and her terrible tenure with her mean relatives. She survived the horrors of the orphanage Lowood, losing her best friend to consumption, became a teacher and then a nanny. The love story with the complicated Rochester was interesting to me, but what moved me the most was Jane's character, in particular her sterling moral code. Here was a girl who had no reason to do the right thing, she was born poor and had no connections and yet, somehow she was instinctively good and decent. It's a story of personal triumph and the beauty of human strength. I also find the book a total page turner- and it's one of those stories that you become engrossed in, unable to put it down. Imagine the beauty of the line: "I loved and was loved." It doesn't get any better than that! (Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Within the pages of this novel, Trigiani’s 10th, is a gloriously romantic yet sensible world that seamlessly blends practicality and beauty...built around the staggering cultural and social changes the war years swept in.... Trigiani’s very best...exquisite writing and a story enriched by the power of abiding love.
USA Today
If you want to learn how to craft a happy life, skip the self-help books and study the characters in The Shoemaker's Wife. Here, as she does in much of her writing, Adriana Trigiani focuses on love, friendship and family, the kind you're born into and the kind you create when your own family isn't available.... As we learn from her story, we're responsible for our creating our own happiness.... Trigiani gives us a road map to a happy life. You'll have trouble putting this novel down.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Italian teenagers Ciro Lazzari and Enza Ravanelli feel an instant romantic connection when they first meet in the Alps in 1908, but their budding relationship is interrupted when Ciro must quickly leave Italy after learning a local priest's shameful secret. The two meet again years later in New York City, where Ciro works as an apprentice to a shoemaker and Enza enjoys the elegant life of a seamstress at the opulent Metropolitan Opera. The couple's trials continue as the story takes them to the harsh winters of Minnesota and through the horrors of two world wars, helping them both finally to realize fully the true value of love and family. While her plot is somewhat predictable, popular novelist Trigiani (Lucia, Lucia) has created two immensely likable main characters, and it's a particular pleasure to root for Enza, a caring but independent woman who loves Ciro but also has dreams of her own. Verdict: Trigiani's gift for using vivid details to create a strong sense of place and her warm affection for her characters will make this a satisfying read for her many fans. —Mara Bandy, Champaign P.L., IL
Library Journal
This expansive epic, which seems tailor-made for a miniseries, manages to feel both old-fashioned and thoroughly contemporary...[an] irresistible love story.
Booklist
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 The Shoemaker's Wife:
1. One of the overarching themes of The Shoemaker's Wife is the interconnectedness of human lives and events:
Ciro had begun to notice the...seemingly disparate pieces of his experience weren't so separate after all.... He figured that all the threads of his experience would eventually be sewn together, taking shape in harmony and form to create a glorious work of art.
a) Talk about the way this connectedness plays out in the novel.
b) Does it play out in your own life? Do you see life as a series of random experiences—or is there a larger scheme in place that eventually connects people and events?
2. Ciro's motto is "Beware the things of this world that can mean everything or nothing." What does he mean? How does one discern the difference between things that mean "everything"...and things that mean "nothing"?
3. How would you describe the Lazzari brothers? Outwardly they seem very different—in what ways are they also similar? What do you make of their mother's decision to turn them over to the convent—is it "abandonment"? What lasting effect, emotionally, does her leaving them have on their lives?
4. Why does Ciro become a favorite of the nuns? What character traits does he display as a boy that he will come to depend on as he makes his way in America?
5. Why does the corrupt priest have so much power—why do the nuns feel they are unable to confront him? Does the author's use of this incident—as a key turning point in the novel—disturb you? Is she interjecting a personal attitude toward the Church? Or is this a legitimate, viable plot point? What do you make of the fact that Eduardo later becomes a priest?
6. Talk about Enza? What kind of young woman is she? What do you find admirable about her?
7. Why are Enza and Ciro drawn to one another? Enza "had something that Ciro had not seen in any girl before—she was curious." Why would curiosity appeal to Ciro? What does Enza see in Ciro?
8. The novel is told through the twin perspectives of Ciro and Enza. Do you appreciate the alternating point of view...or find it distracting? Why might Adriana Trigiani have chosen to tell the story through two characters rather than a single omniscient narrator?
9. Describe the friendship that develops between Enza and Laura when the two meet as factory workers? What does each do for the other?
10. How would you describe the role of family in this book? To what degree have the traditions and values of the family changed today? Do you believe family ties and commitments, especially for 2nd and 3rd generation of immigrants, remain as strong as they were 100 years ago?
11. Talk about the struggles of the Lazzaris and the Ravanellis—a mother must give up her sons, and a young woman must leave her family and country. How typical were those hardships in lives of families and individuals who eventually emigrated to America? Do any of those stories mirror events in your own family history? In what way did hardship shape the ambitions of immigrants and their pursuit of the American dream?
12. Talk about the way in which the author portrays immigrant life in America at the turn of the 20th century. What struck you most about how immigrants lived in New York and elsewhere?
13. The novel takes place during a time of monumental cultural and societal changes—the automobile, telephone, electricity, airplanes, and two great wars fought on a worldwide scale. How did those changes affect the characters' lives...or the ways in which the characters thought about their lives? What would the cumulative effect of those changes have felt like to you?
14. What is the significance of the novel's cover, the woman in the strapless red gown? The photo ran in a 1949 issue of Harper's Bazaar—how does it relate to the story?
15. PLOT SPOILER. If you didn't know this story was inspired by the author's own grandparents, did you believe that Enza and Ciro would eventually become reunited? Did you find the frequency of their meetings and separations drawn-out and tiresome...or did their separations build suspense and create a vicarious longing on your part?
16. Do you find the details about opera interesting, particularly the behind-the-scene view? Are you familiar with opera—have you come away with a greater appreciation of the art form...or not?
17. Have you read other works by Adriana Trigiani? If so, which ones, and how does The Shoemaker's Wife compare? Do you foresee a sequel to this novel? If so, what direction would it take?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Midwife of Venice
Robert Rich, 2012
Gallery
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451657470
Summary
Hannah Levi is renowned throughout Venice for her gift at coaxing reluctant babies from their mothers—a gift aided by the secret “birthing spoons” she designed.
But when a count implores her to attend to his wife, who has been laboring for days to give birth to their firstborn son, Hannah is torn. A Papal edict forbids Jews from rendering medical treatment to Christians, but the payment he offers is enough to ransom her beloved husband, Isaac, who has been captured at sea. Can Hannah refuse her duty to a suffering woman?
Hannah’s choice entangles her in a treacherous family rivalry that endangers the baby and threatens her voyage to Malta, where Isaac, believing her dead in the plague, is preparing to buy his passage to a new life. Not since The Red Tent or People of the Book has a novel transported readers so intimately into the complex lives of women centuries ago or so richly into a story of intrigue that transcends the boundaries of history. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Buffalo, New York, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada and Colima, Mexico.
In her words
I was born on January 9th. Not the best time to be born if your birthplace happens to be the buckle on the snow belt, Buffalo, New York. Buffalo remained my home until I struck out on my own and managed to get 73 miles down the New York State Freeway to Rochester. My life took a turn for the better- better climate, better opportunities....
I live in Vancouver, B.C. and in Colima, Mexico. I have one husband, one daughter, three step-children, a German Shepherd, tropical fish and many over sexed parakeets. When in Mexico, I nurture my husband, and my vanilla vines. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Roberta Rich introduces a unique heroine, and her wry humour leavens a serious subject. Not wholly an intense social drama or an over-the-top adventure, The Midwife of Venice is a quirky blend of both.
Toronto Globe & Mail
Rich skillfully incorporates a wealth of historical detail into her riveting tale of a heroine who won't give up on her marriage.
Chicago Tribune
Rich paints vivid imagery...The Midwife of Venice offers much for readers to learn in the ways of Renaissance-era midwifery, the slave trade and even the diabolical tricks of 16th century courtesans.
Winnipeg Free Press
compelling... those who are curious about religion, birthing or 16th century history will enjoy this book.
Vancouver Sun
In her U.S. debut, Rich successfully captures the seedy side of 16th-century Venice—the Jewish ghetto, the plague, the confluence of religious and legal authority—but stumbles with unevenly rendered main characters. Hannah, a midwife, and Isaac Levi are Venetian Jews. Isaac, a trader, is captured at sea and held for ransom in Malta by the Knights of St. John. Hannah is legally forbidden to treat Christians, but as a healer—and a woman suddenly in need of money—she cannot refuse the request of a high-born Venetian to help his wife give birth. Though she delivers the baby safely, the infant faces mortal danger and Hannah’s involvement deepens, leaving her susceptible to charges of murder and witchcraft. To evade authorities, she must rely on her estranged sister, a courtesan. Meanwhile, Isaac languishes on Malta. His kidnappers sell him as a slave to a nun, who in turn sells him to a brutish peasant. Using his wits to survive (selling his writing skills and helping woo a beautiful woman), he escapes captivity, but his and Hannah’s harrowing efforts to reunite are stymied at every turn. Both characters demonstrate intelligence, but only Isaac comes to full life: his thoughts, feelings, humor, and behavior leap off the page.
Publishers Weekly
It's one crisis after another for a 16th-century Italian-Jewish midwife and her merchant husband struggling to be reunited. Religious persecution, sexism, pestilence and murderous, scheming siblings are just a few of the hurdles confronting Hannah Levi and her husband Isaac.... [A]fter multiple plot twists, the story screeches to a breathless halt. Overstuffed is an understatement for this heavily researched but lightweight historical adventure.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does Rich bring the worlds of sixteenth-century Venice and Malta to life, using the senses of sound, smell, and taste? What passages were most viscerally powerful for you?
2. Do you think the Conte’s love of his wife is genuine? Why or why not?
3. Rabbi Ibraiham warns Hannah that by choosing to save the life of her husband, she is endangering the life of the entire ghetto. (p 15) What do you think of this statement? Is she making the right choice? What would you do?
4. Discuss the uneasy truce between the Venetian Jews and Christians. Do you get a sense that the ghetto gates are there to keep the Jews in, or the Christians out?
5. As he is being auctioned, Isaac stands up to taunts, with the rationale that “He who tolerates insults invites injury.” (p 28) What do you think of this sentiment?
6. Sister Assunta offers Isaac a slice of apple as she attempts to coerce him into conversion. (p 62) Hannah inhales the scent of oranges in the bedclothes as a means of conjuring Isaac’s memory. (p 3) Discuss these and other passages in which Rich employs the symbolism of fruit.
7. Discuss the character of Sister Assunta. Did you feel she was a sympathetic character, or a villain, or something in between? Do you think her business deal with Isaac will succeed? Why or why not?
8. Who do you think is the wealthy benefactor who has collaborated with Rabbi Ibraiham to ransom Isaac, as long as he divorces Hannah?
9. Discuss the means by which Hannah and Isaac cling to their faith, despite the many temptations to convert. How are their approaches to the Jewish faith similar, in your opinion? How are they different, and why?
10. The title of the book, as well as the location, period, and other details (such as the character of Jessica) appear to be a spin on Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. If you have read this play, discuss some of the ways Rich mines this literary territory.
11. When terrified about his escape, Isaac considers the words of the philosopher Maimonides: “The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.” (p 273) What do you think of this idea?
12. Hannah hangs the shadai around Matteo’s neck at his birth, as an amulet of protection. Does it ultimately work? If so, how?
13. What do you think the future holds for Hannah and her family?
14. Can you imagine this book translated into film? What details would you keep, and what would you change? If you were casting the film, what actors would you choose?
(Questions from author's website.)