Home Front
Kristin Hannah, 2012
St. Martin's Press
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312577209
Summary
In her bestselling novels Kristin Hannah has plumbed the depths of friendship, the loyalty of sisters, and the secrets mothers keep. Now, in her most emotionally powerful story yet, she explores the intimate landscape of a troubled marriage with this provocative and timely portrait of a husband and wife, in love and at war.
All marriages have a breaking point. All families have wounds. All wars have a cost. . . .
Like many couples, Michael and Jolene Zarkades have to face the pressures of everyday life—children, careers, bills, chores—even as their twelve-year marriage is falling apart. Then an unexpected deployment sends Jolene deep into harm’s way and leaves defense attorney Michael at home, unaccustomed to being a single parent to their two girls.
As a mother, it agonizes Jolene to leave her family, but as a solider she has always understood the true meaning of duty. In her letters home, she paints a rose-colored version of her life on the front lines, shielding her family from the truth. But war will change Jolene in ways that none of them could have foreseen. When tragedy strikes, Michael must face his darkest fear and fight a battle of his own---for everything that matters to his family.
At once a profoundly honest look at modern marriage and a dramatic exploration of the toll war takes on an ordinary American family, Home Front is a story of love, loss, heroism, honor, and ultimately, hope. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September, 1960
• Where—Southern California, USA
• Reared—Western Washington State
• Education—J.D., from a school in Washington (state)
• Awards—Awards—Golden Heart Award; Maggie Award; National Reader's Choice
• Currently—lives in Bainbridge Island, Washington
In her words
I was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When I was eight years old, my father drove us to Western Washington where we called home.
After working in a trendy advertising agency, I decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words I will never forget from my mother. I was in my third-and final-year of law school and my mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. I was shocked to discover that she believed I would become a writer. For the next few months, we collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.
After my mom's death, I packed up all those bits and pieces of paper we'd collected and put them in a box in the back of my closet. I got married and continued practicing law.
Then I found out I was pregnant, but was on bed rest for five months. By the time I'd read every book in the house and started asking my husband for cereal boxes to read, I knew I was a goner. That's when my darling husband reminded me of the book I'd started with my mom. I pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time my son was born, I'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred me to try harder, work more. In 1990, I got "the call," and in that moment, I went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and I've never looked back. In all the years between then and now, I have never lost my love of, or my enthusiasm for, telling stories. I am truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. (From the author's website .)
Book Reviews
Jolene Zarkades has dedicated her life to two things: her family and her career as a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. Her 12-year marriage to Michael, however, is crumbling. A defense attorney, Michael has thrown himself into his work to cope with the death of his father and his feelings of distance from Jolene. After he misses their daughter's track meet, Michael and Jolene get into a fight that results in him declaring that he doesn't love her anymore. The next day, Jolene finds out that her unit is being deployed to Iraq; Michael is furious that she is leaving him to juggle single parenthood and his practice, and they part on bad terms. Her letters home to their daughters exclude the harsh truths of war, but while she's away, Michael starts to come to terms with how much he has taken for granted. Jolene's tour of duty is cut short when her helicopter goes down, killing a young man, severely injuring Jolene, and leaving her best friend Tami in a coma. When Jolene returns home, she must cope with her own anger, guilt, fear, and frustration. Michael begins to understand her situation as he defends a Marine whose PTSD made him kill his wife. Slowly, Jolene heals, beginning the process of coming to terms with her life. By reversing traditional expectations, Hannah (Night Road) calls attention to the modern female soldier and offers a compassionate, poignant look at the impact of war on family.
Publishers Weekly
Hannah's (Night Road; Winter Garden) latest is an emotional, honest, and timely read that depicts the life of a military family from a female perspective. Jolene is a mother who protects her two children, Betsy and Lulu, with ubiquitous positivity, but she can't preserve her marriage with Michael and their growing distance and fading love. Michael has never embraced Jolene's job as a helicopter pilot in the Army National Guard, and their relationship grows more strained when Jolene and her best friend are deployed to Iraq. Over the course of her tour, Jolene is understandably changed—she's broken both physically and mentally when she returns home. And Michael, too, has changed. Can they try to love again with this new life before them? Verdict: Hannah has written a remarkable tale of duty, love, strength, and hope that is at times poignant and always thoroughly captivating and relevant. Buy multiples for her many fans. —Anne M. Miskewitch, Chicago P.L
Library Journal
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.... Jolene "Jo" Zarkades...returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear.... Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah's default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war's aftermath.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the prologue of Home Front, we see Jolene’s early life and the incident that leads up to her parents’ deaths. How does this scene lay the groundwork for her personality and her choices in the remainder of the book?
2. When Michael says, “I don’t love you anymore,” he wonders fleetingly if he’d said the words so that Jolene would fall apart or cry or say that she was in love with him. What does this internal question reveal about Michael? About Jolene?
3. When Jolene learns of her deployment, she is conflicted. She thinks that she wants to go (to war), but that she doesn’t want to leave (her family). Can you understand the dichotomy she is experiencing? Discuss a mother’s deployment and what it means from all angles—honor, love, commitment, abandonment. Can you understand a soldier/mother’s duty? Do you think it’s harder for a mother to leave than a father? Is there a double standard?
4. Jolene and Michael’s 12-year marriage is on the rocks when the novel begins. Did you blame both of them equally for the problems in their relationship? Did your assignment of blame change over the course of the novel?
5. Jolene worries that Betsy will see her deployment as abandonment. Do you agree with this? Think of yourself at Betsy and Seth’s age: how would your twelve-year-old-self have reacted to your mother going off to war?
6. When Michael sees Jolene for the first time in Germany, he is so overwhelmed by the magnitude of her injuries that he can’t be strong for her. He reveals both pity and revulsion. Discuss his reaction. How do you think you would handle a similar situation?
7. At home, Jolene can’t cope with her new life. She can’t reconcile the woman she used to be with the woman she has become. She wonders how it could be harder to return from war than to fight in it. What does she mean by this? A soldier gets a lot of training and preparation before going to war. Should there be more preparation for returning home?
8. Early in Jolene’s homecoming, Mila says: “We all knew how hard it would be to have you gone, but no one told us how hard it would be when you came back.” What do you think about this comment? Do we romanticize homecomings and thereby somehow set ourselves up for disappointment? What could her family have done to make Jolene’s return an easier transition?
9. At the beginning of her physical therapy, Jolene asks Conny how she is supposed to forget about her injury if it keeps hurting. What does this question reveal about Jolene’s personality and her attitude toward her injury? How does this attitude hinder her recovery? How does it help her?
10. Dr. Cornflower describes Jolene as a woman who has spent a lifetime in the Army getting what she wants from a system that doesn’t want to give it to her. What does he mean by this? Do you agree? How is a woman’s career in the military different from any other career? How is it similar?
11. During the Keller trial, Michael turns in the middle of his opening address to look at Jolene. Why did he choose this very public forum as the time to address the Iraq War with his wife?
12. Although the dire effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are as timeless as war itself, the counseling and support services provided to military men and women returning from war are often insufficient, and the public is often ill-informed about the vast consequences of the disorder. What did you already know about the disorder, and what insights did you gain from reading Home Front?
13. Discuss the various relationships formed between parent and child—from Michael’s relationship with his daughters and his grief for his father to Jolene’s relationship with Mila. Which struck the most resounding chord for you? Why?
14. On page 177, Jolene thinks about the word “heroes” and all that it means in the shadow of loss. For her, heroes were her fallen comrades. What is the definition of a hero to you? Who is one of your own heroes? How do our heroes reflect our values?
15. This book explores a lot of dramatic situations and powerful emotions. Has reading it changed you in any way? What was the most important thing you learned in reading this book? Who would you like to recommend the book to and why?
(From the author's website.)
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The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
Jan-Philipp Sendker, 2012
Other Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781590514634
Summary
A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of.
Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father’s past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader’s belief in the power of love to move mountains. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
• Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Great Wall, a nonfiction book about China. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is his first novel. He lives in Berlin with his family. (From the publisher.)
• Kevin Wiliarty has a BA in German from Harvard and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. A native of the United States, he has also lived in Germany and Japan. He is currently an academic technologist at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where he lives with his wife and two children. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
This tearful, circuitous German bestseller traces the lost romance between a blind young monk and a poor crippled girl in pre-WWII Burma. Sendker employs an elaborate secondhand flashback device to send Julia, an American lawyer, to Burma on a hunch that she might find clues to the whereabouts of her Burmese father, Tin Win, a prominent New York celebrity lawyer who was blind as a child and vanished four years ago, apparently of his own volition. Julia, born to Win and his American wife in 1968, is a New Yorker used to metropolitan conveniences. She arrives in the village of Kalaw by virtue of a beautiful 1955 love letter from her father to a woman named Mi Mi and immediately bristles at the pace and privation of village life. A stranger named U Ba soon helps Julia unravel the mystery of her father, from his astrologically inauspicious birth and abandonment by a superstitious mother to his ensuing blindness and delivery to Buddhist monks who teach him to use his other senses keenly. When Tin Win meets Mi Mi, a kind, crippled creature, she acts as his eyes as he carries her upon his back. Their love remains unbroken through 50 years of incredible vicissitudes. An epic narrative that requires enormous sentimental indulgence and a large box of tissues.
Publishers Weekly
Four years before the start of the novel, Julia Win's father, Tin Win, vanished. After receiving a copy of an old love letter written by him to a woman named Mi Mi, Julia travels to a remote village in Burma to find him. While at a teahouse in Burma, Julia meets U Ba, who claims to know what happened to her father. But the Tin Win of whom U Ba speaks is nothing like the father Julia remembers. She doubts at first that the story is true. But the more she listens and the more time she spends in Burma, the more she believes. Julia is moved by the tragic love story involving Tin Win, a blind boy in rural Burma, and Mi Mi, whose misshapen feet made it impossible for her to walk. Verdict: The heart of this sentimental novel is the romance between the teenagers Tin Win and Mi Mi in pre-World War II Burma. Recommended for readers who enjoy sweetly tragic romances. —Pamela Mann, St. Mary's Coll. of Maryland
Library Journal
German journalist Sendker's first novel, originally published in German in 2002, is a love story set in Burma and imbued with Eastern spirituality and fairy-tale romanticism. Tin Win, a successful Wall Street lawyer originally from Burma, has been missing since his passport was discovered near the Bangkok airport four years ago. After finding an unmailed love letter he wrote to a Burmese woman named Mi Mi, his daughter Julia, also a Manhattan lawyer, goes in search of her father who never told his American Catholic wife or their two children anything about his life before America. In a teahouse in Kalaw, a small town in Burma—the opening pages are a lovely rendering of her sensory overload—Julia encounters a mysterious older man named U Ba who says he has been waiting for her. He also claims to know Tin Win and asks her one question, "Do you believe in love?" Although the novel is ostensibly being narrated by Julia, her encounter with U Ba is really a framing device for him to tell Tin Win's romantic story: After his father dies and his mother deserts him on his sixth birthday, Tin Win is raised lovingly by his widowed aunt Su Kyi, but by ten years old he has gone blind. Su Kyi takes him to the monastery where the saintly abbot teaches him to follow the wisdom of the heart. At 14 he encounters Mi Mi when, with a newly discovered magical skill to hear and interpret heartbeats, he hears her heart beating. He falls in love immediately. Mi Mi was born with mangled feet and cannot walk but is lovely and has a magical gift for healing song. Their love has a purity of trust and oneness that cannot be destroyed. How Tin Win regains his sight and ends up in America is less important than the love he and Mi Mi maintain in mutual silence for 50 years. Fans of Nicholas Sparks and/or Elizabeth Gilbert should eat this up.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In your opinion, what does the back-and-forth between Julia’s and U Ba’s narratives add to the telling of the love story between Tin Win and Mi Mi? How do these stories interrelate?
2. Tin Win is born to parents who abandon him as a child but Mi Mi is born into a close-knit family. Mi Mi’s mother, especially, adores her daughter. Do you see this developmental difference reflected in the adult each one becomes, or in the way the two relate to one another?
3. After he loses his sight, Tin Win spends several years in a monastery under the tutelage of the abbot, U May. In your opinion, what does U May model for Tin Win? How does Tin Win grow in these years?
4. Tin Win’s wealthy uncle, U Saw, finances Tin Win’s eye operation and subsequent education abroad. But to U Saw’s discredit, his motives are self-interested, and for his own convenience, he obstructs all communication between Tin Win and Mi Mi. Is U Saw portrayed as a villain—or is he even villainous?
5. A portion of the novel is in the form of letters. Does this change the mood or the flow of the novel? The way you see the characters?
6. Tin Win and Mi Mi develop an intense, literally symbiotic relationship: he walks for her; she acts as his eyes. They become inseparable, but then they are separated for decades. Given what you know about each character, how do you think they are able to withstand the time apart?
7. Discuss the role of memory in the novel, both individual and collective.
8. Burma (now known as Myanmar) was occupied by the British from the nineteenth century until 1948. How important is this colonial history to the major events of the novel?
9. Prophecy and superstition play a significant role in Burmese culture. Do you think this belief system inspires a fundamental feeling of security or of anxiety in the main characters of the novel, and why?
10. The novel contrasts Western and Eastern values: individualism and personal achievement versus kinship and transcendence. Where and how are these differences brought to light?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Defending Jacob
William Landay, 2012
Random House
616 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594136238
Summary
Andy Barber has been an assistant district attorney in his suburban Massachusetts county for more than twenty years. He is respected in his community, tenacious in the courtroom, and happy at home with his wife, Laurie, and son, Jacob.
But when a shocking crime shatters their New England town, Andy is blindsided by what happens next: His fourteen-year-old son is charged with the murder of a fellow student. Every parental instinct Andy has rallies to protect his boy. Jacob insists that he is innocent, and Andy believes him. Andy must. He’s his father.
Yet as damning facts and shocking revelations surface, as a marriage threatens to crumble and the trial intensifies, as the crisis reveals how little a father knows about his son, Andy will face a trial of his own—between loyalty and justice, between truth and allegation, between a past he’s tried to bury and a future he cannot conceive.
Award-winning author William Landay has written the consummate novel of an embattled family in crisis—a suspenseful, character-driven mystery that is also a spellbinding tale of guilt, betrayal, and the terrifying speed at which our lives can spin out of control. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1963
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University; J.D. Boston
College
• Awards—New Blood Dagger by British Crime
Writers Assn.
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
William Landay is an American novelist, whose novel, Mission Flats, was awarded the 2003 John Creasey Dagger (now called the New Blood Dagger) as the best debut crime novel of 2003 by the British Crime Writers Association. His second novel, The Strangler, was shortlisted for the Strand Magazine Critics Award as the best crime novel of 2007.
Landay graduated from Yale University and Boston College Law School. Prior to becoming a writer, he served for eight years as an Assistant District Attorney in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Andy Barber, a respected First Assistant DA who lives in Newton, Mass., with his gentle wife, Laurie, and their 14-year-old son, Jacob, must face the unthinkable in Dagger Award–winner Landay’s harrowing third suspense novel. When Ben Rifkin, Jacob’s classmate, is found stabbed to death in the woods, Internet accusations and incontrovertible evidence point to big, handsome Jacob. Andy’s prosecutorial gut insists a child molester is the real killer, but as Jacob’s trial proceeds and Andy’s marriage crumbles under the forced revelation of old secrets, horror builds on horror toward a breathtakingly brutal outcome. Landay (The Strangler), a former DA, mixes gritty court reporting with Andy’s painful confrontation with himself, forcing readers willy-nilly to realize the end is never the end when, as Landay claims, the line between truth and justice has become so indistinct as to appear imaginary. This searing narrative proves the ancient Greek tragedians were right: the worst punishment is not death but living with what you—knowingly or unknowingly—have done.
Publishers Weekly
Andy Barber has been the top district attorney in his small, middle-class, Massachusetts town for 20 years. When a teenage boy is murdered, Andy focuses on a neighborhood pedophile as the chief suspect. There are concerns about a conflict of interest since Andy's teenage son, Jacob, attended the same school as the murdered boy and the investigation seems to be lagging. But after Jacob's best friend provides evidence against him, Jacob is arrested. Andy is taken off the case and suspended, but he is determined to prove his son's innocence. Verdict: This brilliant novel by the author of The Strangler (2007) and the earlier award-winning Mission Flats (2003) is equal parts legal thriller and dysfunctional family saga, culminating in a shocking ending. Skillful plotting and finely drawn characters result in a haunting story reminiscent of Scott Turow's Presumed Innocent. —Stacy Alesi, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., Boca Raton, FL
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. How would you have handled this situation if you were Andy? Would you make the same choices he made? Where would you differ the most?
2. Before and during the trial, how would you have handled the situation if you were Laurie? Do you feel she made strong choices as a mother and a wife?
3. Is Andy a good father? Why or why not?
4. Do you believe Jacob is guilty?
5. Is Jacob a product of his upbringing? Do you think he is he a violent person because his environment makes him violent, or do you think he has violent inclinations since birth?
6. Bullying is such a hot topic in today's media. How did the author incorporate it into the story, and do you think its role had anything to do with Jacob's disposition? How do you think people should stop adolescent bullying?
7. How much of a factor did Jacob's age play into your sympathies for him or lack thereof? If Jacob were seventeen, would you view him differently? What about nine?
8. Do you think Neal Logiudice acts ethically in this novel? What about Andy? What about Laurie?
9. What was the most damning piece of evidence against Jacob? Was there anything that you felt exonerated him?
10. If Jacob hadn't been accused, how do you think his life would have turned out? What kind of a man do you think he would grow up to be?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Norumbega Park
Anthony Giardina, 2012
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374278670
Summary
Richie Palumbo, the most prosaic of men, gets lost one night in 1969 while driving home with his family. He finds himself in the town of Norumbega—hidden, remote, and gorgeous, at the far edges of Boston’s western suburbs. He sees a venerable old house and, without quite knowing why, decides he must have it.
The repercussions of Richie’s wild dream to own a house in this town lead to a forty-year odyssey for his family. For his son, Jack, Norumbega becomes a sexual playground—until he meets one ungraspable girl and begins a lifelong pursuit of her. Joannie, Richie’s daughter, finds that the challenges of living in Norumbega encourage her to pursue the contemplative life. For Stella, Richie’s wife, life in Norumbega leads to surprising growth as both a sexual and a spiritual being.
Norumbega Park—by Anthony Giardina, the critically acclaimed author of White Guys—is about class and parental dreams, sex and spirituality, the way visions conflict with stubborn reality, and a family’s ability to open up for others a world they can never fully grasp for themselves. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Waltham, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—Fordham University
• Currently—lives in Northhampton, Massachusetts
Anthony Giardina is an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and playwright. Anthony Giardina started his professional career as an actor. He switched to playwriting, and eventually began writing novels.
His work is particularly influenced by American culture in the 1950s. He was born in 1950 and grew up on a street in Waltham, Massachusetts, a largely Italian and Irish working class "sleeper" suburb of Boston on the trolley line to Cambridge. The protagonist's childhood neighborhood and schools in his book, Recent History, were largely modeled on Waltham.
According to the author, Recent History (2001) was marketed toward the "gay market." Though Giardina himself is not gay, he possesses a remarkable ability to express the internal dialogue and emotional motivations of a diverse range of characters.
Giardina's plays have been produced in New Haven, New York City, and Washington, D.C. He is a regular contributor to publications such as the New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, and Harper's. His books include Men With Debts (1984), A Boy's Pretensions (1988), The Country of Marriage (stories, 1998), Recent History (2001), and White Guys (2006). His newest novel, Norumbega Park, was released in 2012.
Teaching
He has held teaching positions at Mount Holyoke College, the University of Rochester the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, the University of Texas, Giardina currently teaches at Smith College.
Anthony Giardina says of his writing:
When I write fiction, I become the character I'm writing about, just as an actor becomes a character he's playing. You use parts of yourself, people you have known, things that have happened to you, but you're always aware that these things are being used to create a persona that's distinctly not you. Otherwise it wouldn't be any fun. (Author bio from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Norumbega Park, which moves from the late 1960s to the early 21st century, contains a good deal of graceful writing, especially in its initial sections. The subtle nuances of class; the charged eroticism between siblings, between husband and wife, between parents and children; the examination of faith and its loss — all are explored in rich, believable ways.
Jennifer Gilmore - New York Times Book Review
The beautiful, audacious fifth novel from author and playwright Anthony Giardina, follows the lives of Richie [Palumbo] and his family for 40 years.... Giardina is a master of prose that’s engaging but never seems rushed—he covers four decades in just over 300 pages. But his pacing remains natural and unhurried. His characters are as emotionally rich and complex as any you’ll find in the novels of Richard Ford, John Updike and Richard Yates.... Like Updike, [Giardina] deals with some uncomfortable themes—much of Norumbega Park deals with the delicate, sometimes awkward intersection of family and sexuality—but he handles them beautifully. And while many authors reflexively lapse into despair and pessimism, Giardina sticks with a truer kind of realism. Things might be bad; they might even be worse than they seem; but there’s always at least a chance of redemption.... There are countless emotional pitfalls authors can fall into, but Giardina has avoided every one, and the result is majestic—Norumbega Park is one of the bravest, most memorable American novels in years.
Michael Schaub - National Public Radio
One night in 1969, while driving with his family, Richie Palumbo accidentally discovers the (fictional) New England town of Norumbega, a WASPy enclave west of Boston, and falls in love at first sight with an old house near the town center—as well as what he and his family could become there. So begins Giardina’s contemplative new novel, which weaves the perspectives of the Palumbo family—wife Stella, son Jack, and daughter Joannie—over the course of 40 years as they struggle with faith, desire, and disappointment. Richie’s dreams prove elusive, and the Palumbos are ill-prepared for their new community: “The furniture they’d brought was full of the angles of an imagined future that, he realized now, had already dipped into the past.” Stella resists the town from the beginning, while Jack rebels against the weight of his father’s expectations by channeling his teenage energy and looks into seducing as many girls at Norumbega Regional High as he can. Joannie slips from her father’s grasp and becomes a cloistered nun. There are moments of grace and beauty—a late-night swim on an empty lake, an illicit glide across an iced-over pond—and Giardina (White Guys) effectively portrays the cloistered world of contemporary nuns. However, the characters’ malaise and dissatisfaction becomes claustrophobic.
Publishers Weekly
On an excursion beyond suburban Boston, Richie Palumbo stumbles across the town of Norumbega Park. While there, he has a vision of moving to the town and providing a perfect WASP environment for his children. He imagines himself as a pillar of the community, his wife as a society lady, his son as a popular athlete/scholar, and his daughter as a desirable, smart cheerleader type. Despite protests from his family, he settles them in Norumbega to live his dream. As with most dreams, reality doesn't quite match up. His son excels neither as a scholar nor as an athlete. His daughter joins a convent immediately after high school. His wife dies of cancer. Each character is left wondering how Richie's dream created the life they eventually led. Verdict: Giardina (White Guys) writes clearly and sympathetically about life's journey as he examines the turbulent waters where parental dreams and the aspirations of their children meet. This book will appeal to thoughtful fiction readers. Recommended. —Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
Genuine and deeply felt...Giardina places clauses side-by-side like blocks, no mortar visible, the lines of the structure straight and strong to create solid fiction that can contain and support all of our human longings.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A graceful novel of an American family struggling to find identity and spiritual meaning in an age resistant—and even hostile—to their fumbling attempts... [Norumbega Park] is a superb novel on every level, for Giardina fully fleshes out his characters as he scrutinizes their personal, family and social lives.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Discuss Richie’s obsession with the Greeley house. What did it represent to him, the son of a Sicilian mason who had not wanted him to go to college? How do the novel’s epigraphs (about the land once called Norumbega) echo Richie’s dream? Is there a similar home or locale in your family history?
2. After leaving ComVac, Richie successfully runs a pizza parlor. Is it a step down for him to leave the white-collar world? How does Stella’s vision of success compare to her husband’s? How are Jack and Joan affected by their parents’ expectations?
3. In the closing scene of Part One, “Mr. Want” (pages 28–29), Jack tries to educate his sister about sex. She responds by writing “Jack is the devil” in her notebook. What does she learn from him that night?
4. What is the role of sexuality in the characters’ lives? How do gender and age affect their longing
and their joy, as well as their sense of guilt?
5. Does Joan’s immersion in the contemplative life appeal to you? What does the church seem to
offer her, from the time she was a little girl?
6. Is Elspeth’s father powerful only because he is wealthy? Why is he interested in financing Jack’s future, and in relying on Jack more than on his own children?
7. How does Jack’s attraction to Christina Thayer compare to his desire for Ellen Foley? As a wife and mother, what does Christina discover about herself when she tries to counsel Adam Goldstein (Chapter Two of Part Four, “The Heart’s Desire to Break”)? How does her marriage look from her point of view?
8. What are Angel and his children able to awaken in Joan that no one else could? How does she respond to the fact that his ancestry is different from hers? Why does race matter to Richie?
9. In Chapter Four of Part Five, “The Book of Joan” (page 280), Joan struggles to help Richie as they linger outside the house. Anthony Giardina writes, “This was the hardest, had always been the hardest, the way love was offered when you felt you least deserved it, despised yourself the most, how you had to rise to it. Love, that egomaniacal force, insisted on its rights. He wanted to push her away.” Do the characters in this novel believe they deserve to be loved? Do they overestimate their sins?
10. What relationship patterns are repeated across the generations in Norumbega Park? Are Zoe, Joe, and Julian poised to find more satisfaction than their parents had?
11. As Stella confronts mortality, why is Jack determined to find aggressive treatment for her? Is it as simple as wanting his mother to stay in his life? What drew her back to the pediatric unit at the chemotherapy center?
12. How does the setting of Norumbega and its lakes affect the characters? How does it set a different tone compared to the scenes in New York or Boston? What keeps the Palumbos from abandoning the house in Norumbega?
13. What does the novel say about the consequences of the American Dream? Should Richie feel guilty about the tactics he used to buy his dream house? In the end, how does he measure the value of his life?
14. Compare Norumbega Park to Anthony Giardina’s previous fiction that you have read. What themes of estrangement and belonging recur in his story lines? What aspects of love and power does his fiction help us understand?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Death Comes to Pemberley
P.D. James, 2011
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307950659
Summary
A rare meeting of literary genius: P. D. James, long among the most admired mystery writers of our time, draws the characters of Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice into a tale of murder and emotional mayhem.
It is 1803, six years since Elizabeth and Darcy embarked on their life together at Pemberley, Darcy’s magnificent estate. Their peaceful, orderly world seems almost unassailable. Elizabeth has found her footing as the chatelaine of the great house. They have two fine sons, Fitzwilliam and Charles. Elizabeth’s sister Jane and her husband, Bingley, live nearby; her father visits often; there is optimistic talk about the prospects of marriage for Darcy’s sister Georgiana. And preparations are under way for their much-anticipated annual autumn ball.
Then, on the eve of the ball, the patrician idyll is shattered. A coach careens up the drive carrying Lydia, Elizabeth’s disgraced sister, who with her husband, the very dubious Wickham, has been banned from Pemberley. She stumbles out of the carriage, hysterical, shrieking that Wickham has been murdered. With shocking suddenness, Pemberley is plunged into a frightening mystery.
Inspired by a lifelong passion for Austen, P. D. James masterfully re-creates the world of Pride and Prejudice, electrifying it with the excitement and suspense of a brilliantly crafted crime story, as only she can write it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 3, 1920
• Where—Oxford, England, UK
• Education—left school at 16
• Awards—member, International Crime Writing Hall
of Fame (see below for awards)
• Currently—lives in both Oxford and London, England
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, commonly known as P. D. James, is an English crime writer and Conservative life peer in the House of Lords, most famous for a series of detective novels starring policeman and poet Adam Dalgliesh.
James was born in Oxford, the daughter of Sidney James, a tax inspector, and educated at the British School in Ludlow and Cambridge High School for Girls.
James had to leave school at age sixteen to work: her family did not have much money and her father did not believe in higher education for girls. She worked in a tax office for three years, and later found a job as an assistant stage manager for a theater group. In 1941, she married Ernest Connor Bantry White, an army doctor, and had two daughters, Claire and Jane.
When White returned from World War II, he suffered from illness and James was forced to provide for the whole family until her husband's death in 1964. She studied hospital administration, and from 1949 to 1968, worked for a hospital board in London, England.
James began writing in the mid-1950s. Her first novel, Cover Her Face, featuring the investigator and poet Adam Dalgliesh of New Scotland Yard, named after a teacher at Cambridge High School, was published in 1962. Many of James's mystery novels take place against the backdrop of the UK's bureaucracies, such as the criminal justice system and the health services, arenas in which James had worked for decades starting in the 1940s.
Two years after the publication of Cover Her Face, James's husband died and she took a position as a civil servant within the criminal section of the Home Office. James worked in government service until her retirement in 1979.
She is an Anglican and a Lay Patron of the Prayer Book Society. Her 2001 work, Death in Holy Orders, displays her familiarity with the inner workings of church hierarchy. Her later novels are often set in a community closed in some way, such as a publishing house or barristers' chambers, a theological college, an island or a private clinic. Over her writing career James has also written many essays and short stories for periodicals and anthologies, which have yet to be collected. She revealed in 2011 that The Private Patient was the final Dalgliesh novel.
James 2011 book, Death Comes to Pemberley, is a "sequel" to Jane Austen's classic, Pride and Prejudice.
Film and television
During the 1980s, many of James's mystery novels were adapted for television in the UK. These productions have been broadcast in other countries, including the USA on its PBS channel. These productions featured Roy Marsden as Adam Dalgliesh. The BBC has since adapted Death in Holy Orders (2003) and The Murder Room (2004) as one-off dramas starring Martin Shaw as Dalgliesh.
Her 1992 novel The Children of Men was the basis for a 2006 feature film of the same name, directed by Alfonso Cuarón and starring Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine. Despite substantial changes from the book, James was reportedly pleased with the adaptation and proud to be associated with the film.
Awards
1971 Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction (Crime Writers' Association): Shroud for a Nightingale
1975 Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction: The Black Tower
1986 Macallan Silver Dagger for Fiction: A Taste for Death
1987 Cartier Diamond Dagger Lifetime Achievement Award (Crime Writers' Association)
1992 Deo Gloria Award: The Children of Men
1999 Grandmaster Award (Mystery Writers of America)
(From Wikiipedia.)
Book Reviews
[James's] innovation has been to transplant the dramatis personae from Austen into her own suspenseful universe, preserving their likenesses and life force…The greatest pleasure of this novel is its unforced, effortless, effective voice. James hasn't written in florid cod-Regency whorls, the overblown language other mimics so often employ. Not infrequently, while reading Death Comes to Pemberley, one succumbs to the impression that it is Austen herself at the keyboard.
Liesl Schillinger - New York Times Book Review
While many writers have composed sequels to the various Austen masterpieces, James manages to preserve the flavor of Pride and Prejudice while also creating a fairly good whodunit…This is a novel one reads for its charm, for the chance to revisit some favorite characters, for the ingenious way James reworks—or resolves—old elements from Austen…It is a solidly entertaining period mystery and a major treat for any fan of Jane Austen.
Michael Dirda - Washington Post
(Starred review.) Historical mystery buffs and Jane Austen fans alike will welcome this homage to the author of Pride and Prejudice from MWA Grand Master James, best known for her Adam Dalgliesh detective series (The Private Patient, etc.). In the autumn of 1803, six years after the events that closed Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Darcy, the happily married mistress of Pemberley House, is preparing for Lady Anne's annual ball, "regarded by the county as the most important social event of the year." Alas, the evening before the ball, Elizabeth's sister Lydia, who married the feckless Wickham, bursts into the house to announce that Captain Denny, a militia officer, has shot her husband dead in the woodland on the estate. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, who purists may note behaves inconsistently with Austen's original, head out in a chaise to investigate. Attentive readers will eagerly seek out clues to the delightfully complex mystery, which involves many hidden motives and dark secrets, not least of them in the august Darcy family. In contrast to Pride and Prejudice, where emotion is typically conveyed through indirect speech, characters are much more open about their feelings, giving a contemporary ring to James's pleasing and agreeable sequel.
Publishers Weekly
Readers of Pride and Prejudice know that Wickham is a thorough scoundrel, but can he really have murdered his only friend?... Most of [the] developments, cloaked in a pitch-perfect likeness of Austen's prose, are ceremonious but pedestrian. The final working-out, however, shows all James' customary ingenuity. The murder story allows only flashes of Austenian wit, and Lizzy is sadly eclipsed by Darcy. But the stylistic pastiche is remarkably accomplished, and it's nice to get brief updates on certain cast members of Persuasion and Emma as a bonus.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Death Comes to Pemberley:
(Dear Reader: Some questions, though not all, assume a knowledge of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Also, there are a few spoiler questions at the end. Be careful.)
1. Compare the "Prologue" of Death Comes to Pemberley with the "Epilogue" of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Are the two similar? Different? In what ways does James expand on Austen's version of the several years following Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage?
2. Can you point to some echoes of the original language from Pride and Prejudice in the descriptions and/or dialogue of James's sequel? Start, perhaps, with the first lines of both books.
3. What about the characters of Death Comes to Pemberley? Has James maintained their essential natures and personalities...or changed them in some way? How consistent are they with Austen's originals? Consider Elizabeth and Darcy, the Bingleys, the Wickhams, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
4. Follow-up to Question 3: James provides greater access to Fitzwilliam Darcy's state of mind than Austen permitted her readers. What do you learn about Darcy that you didn't know before? Does your opinion of him change...or remain the same as it did after reading Pride and Prejudice? If you haven't read P & P, what conclusions do you reach regarding Darcy's character?
5. When the murder is first discovered, Wickham utters, "I killed him.... It's my fault." How did you interpret his confession? Were you ready to believe in his guilt?
6. Good crime writers like P.D. James embed clues early on in their stories. What seemingly inconsequential clues are dropped that later turn out to be decisive in solving the mystery. How cleverly does James bury her clues?
7. Mystery writers also like to throw in red-herrings. Are there any false clues in Death Comes to Pemberley that fooled you, leading you to expect a different outcome?
8. In what ways does P.D. James highlight class distinctions in this work? Why, for instance, does the Magistrate Selwyn Hardcastle not wish to waste his time at Pemberley? How are servants treated at Pemberley; compare that to how they're treated at Mrs. Hurst's in London?
9. Why does the colonel speak to Elizabeth rather than to Darcy about his desire to marry Georgiana?
10. Elizabeth watches Georgiana and Alveston interact and realizes the two are in love. She reflects on "that enchanting period of mutual discovery, expectation and hope. It was enchantment she had never known." Why does Elizabeth think this? Is she not in love with her husband?
11. Follow-up to Question 10: When Elizabeth gazes down at Wickham, who is sleeping with "his dark hair tumbled on the pillow, his shirt open to show the delicate line of the throat," she thinks he looks "like a young knight wounded in battle." Is Elizabeth a bit in love with Wickham? She wonders whether she would "have married him if he had been rich instead of penniless." This is the second time Elizabeth has questioned her motives for marrying Darcy: wondering if she had been attracted to Darcy primarily for his wealth and position. What do you think?
12. Why does Darcy never wish to speak of the incident in which Wickham had attempted to elope with Georgiana? Why does Georgiana wish the two of them would talk about it?
13. Darcy knows that this latest scandal will threaten the family reputation. Yet he seems almost relieved that, as a result, his cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, will not make an offer for Georgiana's hand. Why is he relieved? It would be a brilliant marriage for Georgiana; she would eventually become a countess.
14. An existential dread hangs over the characters at Pemberley even before the murder takes place. Elizabeth, especially, feels a deep unease, a "turmoil in her own mind." Looking from the vantage of historical hindsight, how might James be using the violent wind at the beginning of the novel as a symbol of something threatening the aristocracy?
15. How are women generally viewed in this society? How does Alveston's ideas challenge those views? Alveston mentions Mary Wollstonecraft. Who is she? You might do a little research on Wollstonecraft—a vital figure in the 18th century, whose ideas influenced future generations. (You also may be surprised to learn the identity of her daughter.)
16. Why is Lydia Wickham never questioned about what happened in the carriage between her husband and Captain Denny? Might the fact that she isn't questioned have anything to do with Questions 8 and 15?
17. Aside from ignoring Lydia, what other holes occur in the investigation—gaps that seem like missteps to modern readers steeped in police procedural novels and TV-serials? (Don't neglect the ironic quip regarding 18th-century science's inability to distinguish blood types.) What about the inquiry and ensuing trial—how does the justice system fail there? What safeguards, present today, seem to be missing in Wickham's court trial?
18. How does Darcy see his role as a great landowner? What responsibilities do the upper classes have in his society? As Darcy reflects back on his decision to marry to Elizabeth, does he believe it was a wise choice for a man in his position? How might his marriage have undermined his family's position?
19. When Darcy meets Wickham at the Gardiner's London house, what conflict does he hold with regards to proper social behavior vs. his own feelings toward Wickham? Why, in Darcy's mind, is social etiquette necessary? What was his mother's explanation for good manners? What role do manners play in modern society? Has today's culture dispensed with, or maintained, good manners?
20. What is Louisa Bidwell's chance for happiness? Is her fate a fair one? The Reverend Oliphant considers her "a highly intelligent" girl" who...
had been given a glimpse of a different and more exciting life, but undoubtedly the best had been done for her child and probably for her.
Do you agree? Why does Elizabeth, a few lines later, feel "a twinge of regret" when she considers Louisa's future as parlormaid at Highmarten?
21. What do you think the future holds for Wickham and Lydia?
22. Can you pick out the allusions to two other Austen novels—Persuasion and Emma?
23. Were you surprised by the revelations at the end of the mystery?
24. Is Death Comes to Pemberley a good mystery? Is it a good sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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