Bury Your Dead (Inspector Gamache series, 6)
Louise Penny, 2010
St. Martin's Press
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312626907
Summary
It is Winter Carnival in Quebec City, bitterly cold and surpassingly beautiful. Chief Inspector Armand Gamache has come not to join the revels but to recover from an investigation gone hauntingly wrong.
But violent death is inescapable, even in the apparent sanctuary of the Literary and Historical Society—where an obsessive historian's quest for the remains of the founder of Quebec, Samuel de Champlain, ends in murder. Could a secret buried with Champlain for nearly four hundred years be so dreadful that someone would kill to protect it?
Meanwhile, Gamache is receiving disquieting letters from the village of Three Pines, where beloved Bistro owner Olivier was recently convicted of murder. "It doesn't make sense," Olivier's partner writes every day. "He didn't do it, you know."
As past and present collide in this astonishing novel, Gamache must relive a terrible event from his own past before he can begin to bury his dead. (From the publisher.)
See all our Reading Guides for Chief Inspector Gamache novels by Louise Penny.
Author Bio
• Birth—1958
• Where—Toronto, Canada
• Education—B.A, Ryerson University
• Awards—Agatha Award (4 times) "New Blood" Dagger Award;
Arthur Ellis Award; Barry Award, Anthony Award; Dilys Award.
• Currently—lives in Knowlton, Canada (outside of Montreal)
In her words
I live outside a small village south of Montreal, quite close to the American border. I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself. I was born in Toronto in 1958 and became a journalist and radio host with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, specializing in hard news and current affairs. My first job was in Toronto and then moved to Thunder Bay at the far tip of Lake Superior, in Ontario. It was a great place to learn the art and craft of radio and interviewing, and listening. That was the key. A good interviewer rarely speaks, she listens. Closely and carefully. I think the same is true of writers.
From Thunder Bay I moved to Winnipeg to produce documentaries and host the CBC afternoon show. It was a hugely creative time with amazingly creative people. But I decided I needed to host a morning show, and so accepted a job in Quebec City. The advantage of a morning show is that it has the largest audience, the disadvantage is having to rise at 4am.
But Quebec City offered other advantages that far outweighed the ungodly hour. It's staggeringly beautiful and almost totally French and I wanted to learn. Within weeks I'd called Quebecers "good pumpkins", ordered flaming mice in a restaurant, for dessert naturally, and asked a taxi driver to "take me to the war, please." He turned around and asked "Which war exactly, Madame?" Fortunately elegant and venerable Quebec City has a very tolerant and gentle nature and simply smiled at me.
From there the job took me to Montreal, where I ended my career on CBC Radio's noon programme.
In my mid-thirties the most remarkable thing happened. I fell in love with Michael, the head of hematology at the Montreal Children's Hospital. He'd go on to hold the first named chair in pediatric hematology in Canada, something I take full credit for, out of his hearing.
It's an amazing and blessed thing to find love later in life. It was my first marriage and his second. He'd lost his first wife to cancer a few years earlier and that had just about killed him. Sad and grieving we met and began a gentle and tentative courtship, both of us slightly fearful, but overcome with the rightness of it. And overcome with gratitude that this should happen to us and deeply grateful to the family and friends who supported us.
Fifteen years later we live in an old United Empire Loyalist brick home in the country, surrounded by maple woods and mountains and smelly dogs.
Since I was a child I've dreamed of writing and now I am. Beyond my wildest dreams (and I can dream pretty wild) the Chief Inspector Gamache books have found a world-wide audience, won awards and ended up on bestseller lists including the New York Times. Even more satisfying, I have found a group of friends in the writing community. Other authors, booksellers, readers—who have become important parts of our lives. I thought writing might provide me with an income—I had no idea the real riches were more precious but less substantial. Friendships.
There are times when I'm in tears writing. Not because I'm so moved by my own writing, but out of gratitude that I get to do this. In my life as a journalist I covered deaths and accidents and horrible events, as well as the quieter disasters of despair and poverty. Now, every morning I go to my office, put the coffee on, fire up the computer and visit my imaginary friends, Gamache and Beauvoir and Clara and Peter. What a privilege it is to write. I hope you enjoy reading the books as much as I enjoy writing them.
Chief Inspector Gamache was inspired by a number of people, and one main inspiration was this man holding a copy of En plein coeur. Jean Gamache, a tailor in Granby. He looks slightly as I picture Gamache, but mostly it was his courtesy and dignity and kind eyes that really caught my imagination. What a pleasure to be able to give him a copy of En plein coeur! (From the author's website with permission.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) At the start of Agatha-winner Penny's moving and powerful sixth Chief Insp. Armand Gamache mystery (after 2009's The Brutal Telling), Gamache is recovering from a physical and emotional trauma, the exact nature of which isn't immediately disclosed, in Quebec City. When the body of Augustin Renaud, an eccentric who'd spent his life searching for the burial site of Samuel de Champlain, Quebec's founder, turns up in the basement of the Literary and Historical Society, Gamache reluctantly gets involved in the murder inquiry. Meanwhile, Gamache dispatches his longtime colleague, Insp. Jean Guy Beauvoir, to the quiet town of Three Pines to revisit the case supposedly resolved at the end of the previous book. Few writers in any genre can match Penny's ability to combine heartbreak and hope in the same scene. Increasingly ambitious in her plotting, she continues to create characters readers would want to meet in real life.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Penny’s first five crime novels in her Armand Gamache series have all been outstanding, but her latest is the best yet, a true tour de force of storytelling. When crime writers attempt to combine two fully fleshed plots into one book, the hull tends to get a bit leaky; Penny, on the other hand, constructs an absolutely airtight ship in which she manages to float not two but three freestanding but subtly intertwined stories.... Penny hits every note perfectly in what is one of the most elaborately constructed mysteries in years. —Bill Ott
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. What are the three story lines, and how do they feed into each other? What are the connections?
2. What do you think of the structure of the story, with the shifting time frames and points of view? How did the gradual unfolding of what really happened to Agent Morin and Chief Inspector Gamache affect your view of those events?
3. How do you feel about the resolution of the crime in Three Pines?
4. Why does the Battle of the Plains of Abraham have such an impact on Gamache?
5. Both Gamache and Agent Morin greatly valued their relationships with their mentors, Emile Comeau and Gamache himself. Do you think they were right to do so?
6. Does the relationship between the French and the English in Quebec have any parallels in your community? How do you feel about such relationships—both in the book and in your own experience?
7. Rene Dallaire calls Quebec “a rowboat society.... We move forward, but we’re always looking back.” Does your community have a strong sense of the past? How dangerous is it to remember history, and how dangerous is it not to?
8. Throughout the book, Gamache is haunted by his own mistakes. How do you view those mistakes, and the way he deals with the aftermath?
9. Gamache is also haunted by the line from an old song, avec le temps: “with the passage of time.” What do you think about the healing powers of time?
10. If you have read some or all of Louise Penny’s earlier books, how do you see both the books and the characters evolving?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Jerusalem Maiden
Talia Carner, 2011
William Morrow
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062004376
Summary
Esther Kaminsky knows that her duty is to marry young and produce many sons to help hasten the Messiah’s arrival: that is what expected of young ultra-Orthodox women in Jerusalem at the end of the Ottoman Empire’s rule.
But when a teacher catches Esther's extraordinary doodling and gives her art lessons, Esther wonders if God has a special destiny for her: maybe she is meant to be an artist, not a mother; maybe she is meant to travel to Paris, not stay in Jerusalem. However, Esther sacrifices her own yearnings and devotes herself instead to following God’s path as an obedient “Jerusalem maiden.”
In the coming years, Esther struggles between comfort and repression in God’s decrees, trusting the rituals of faith while suppressing her desires—until a surprising opportunity forces itself into her pre-ordained path. As her beliefs clash with the passions she has staved off her entire life, Esther must confront the hard questions: What is faith? Is there such thing as destiny? And to whom must she be true, to God or to herself? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Tel Aviv, Israel
• Education—B.A. ,Hebrew University (Jerusalem); M.A.,
State University of New York, Stony Brook
• Awards—Forward National Literature Award
• Currently—lives in Bridgehampton, Long Island and New
York City, NY
Before turning to fiction writing, Talia Carner worked for Redbook magazine and served as the publisher of Savvy Woman magazine. An adjunct professor of marketing at Long Island University and a marketing consultant to Fortune 500 companies, she was a volunteer counselor and lecturer for the Small Business Administration and a member of United States Information Agency missions to Russia, teaching women entrepreneurial skills.
Carner’s activities in women’s organizations led to her participation at the 1995 International Women’s Conference in Beijing, where she learned of the atrocities of The Dying Rooms—the Chinese orphanages where the documented death rate was 80%—and about the U.S.’s courts betrayal of molested children.
Helping African women to develop a campaign against clitoridectomy, she was exposed to the plight of women in societies that subjected millions of girls to this brutal mutilation. Her education about violence against women continued when she assisted Indian women in a campaign to end the burning of brides over dowry disputes. A sought-after keynote lecturer at renowned organizations, Carner speaks on both universal and culture-specific issues facing today’s women across the globe.
As Carner researched and wrote about the difficulties women face, she examined her own family’s ten-generation history in Jerusalem. Because her grandmother, with whom she had been close, had been blocked from developing her extraordinary artistic talent, Carner set out to explore the religious world in which obedient 12- to 14-year-olds were expected to hasten the Messiah’s arrival and save the world Jewry by procreating. Her novel Jerusalem Maiden (2011) depicts a woman’s struggle for self-expression against her society’s religious dictates.
In the early 1980s, while at Redbook magazine, Carner was the first to define the characteristics of female baby-boomers as having a later marriage-age and being more educated, career-oriented, and health- and civic-conscious than their older counterparts. While the publisher of Savvy Woman magazine—then one of only four females to head a major American magazine—she was the first to document the demographics of female business owners.
Launching her own marketing consulting firm to Fortune 500 companies, Carner commissioned independent research and challenged both public perceptions and the U.S. government’s definition of entrepreneurship, a debate that ultimately established the White House Oversight Committee and brought changes to the way the Office of Labor Statistics gathered and analyzed data about husband-wife business ownership.
In 1993, on Carner’s second U.S. Information Agency (USIA) mission to Russia, she was caught in the uprising of the parliament against then-president Boris Yeltsin. Her report to the USIA about her escape was the seed for her first (unpublished) novel and the start of her fiction-writing career.
Carner’s first published novel, Puppet Child, launched The Protective Parent Reform Act, a law now passed in several stares and under consideration in many others, and has become the platform of two State Senatorial candidates. Her second novel, China Doll, was the platform for her 2007 presentation at the U.N. about infanticide in China—the first in U.N. history.
In addition to published articles on issues of family court, infanticide in China, and women’s plights in developing societies, Carner’s award-winning personal essays have appeared in the New York Times, Chocolate for Women, Cup of Comfort and Chicken Soup anthologies, as well as The Best Jewish Writing 2003.
Her short stories have been published in literary magazines such as Midstream, Lynx Eye, River Sedge, Moxie, Lilith, Rosebud, Confrontation, North Atlantic Review, Litro, and Midwest Literary Magazine. An excerpt from Jersusalem Maiden is included in The Best New Writing 2011 as the “Editor’s Choice Award” and was nominated to the prestigious Pushcart Prize. The book-length novel Jerusalem Maiden won the Forward National Literature Award in the “historical fiction” category.
A 7th generation Sabra born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Ms. Carner served in the Israel Defense Force (IDF.) She received a B.A. degree from Hebrew University in Jerusalem in Psychology and Sociology and a Master's degree in Economics from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Talia Carner is a board member of Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, (HBI) the Jewish women research center at Brandeis University. She is also an honorary board member of several anti-domestic violence and child abuse intervention organizations.
She and her husband, Ron Carner, (president of Maccabi USA) have four grown children. The couple lives in Bridgehampton, Long Island and in Manhattan, New York. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A fascinating look at a little-known culture and time.... Tuck Jerusalem Maiden in your beach bag.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Talia Carner uses beautiful language, exquisite storytelling, and detailed research to transport the reader into the world of old Jerusalem.... This is a book to savor and discuss.
Jewish Book World
Engaging.... Carner renders Esther’s world with great authority and detail, revealing intimate familial rituals within the larger political and socioeconomic context.
Publishers Weekly
A welcome glimpse into a little-understood world.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. “The Greenwald girl” represents a concept of a young woman who followed her heart—and her non-Jewish lover—and brought a chain of disasters upon her family. Discuss Esther's action in light of this concept. Did she become “A Greenwald girl?”
2. Girls’ innocence and purity are sacred in the ultra-Orthodox world of Jerusalem Maiden. Even today, many women in religious societies—Jewish, Christian, Hindu or Islam—live in even worse oppressive enclaves both in the West and in the Middle East, Asia and Africa. What are the tools used to control them in various places? Do these women share responsibility for their own insulation? Can they change their fate? Should we interfere in their cultural or religious practices?
3. In Esther's ultra-Orthodox society, adherence to all Commandments and decrees is paramount. Discuss the difference with what you know of today’s Jewish Orthodox societies in the USA—their child-rearing practices, education and the status of women.
4. Esther does not desert her faith. She only rebels against the religious establishment. Have you experienced that gap?
5. What kind of medical practices were available at the time of the story? Discuss the role of the midwife as a medical practitioner.
6. Discuss the relationship between Esther and her mother during Esther's adolescence—and her view of that relationship as an adult. What were her mother’s expectations, and what were Esther's?
7. When Aba recites Woman of Valor from the Book of Proverbs, Esther finds the expectations unattainable. What expectations exist today that reflect an unfeasibility similar to that of the Woman of Valor?
8. Esther felt she never belonged in her world—neither in Me’ah She’arim, nor in Jaffa. Was there anything she should have done differently? Was it “her, or them,” as Nathan asks?
9. Twice in the novel Esther physically emerges from a dark place where she connected with her ancestors—at Rachel’s Tomb and at Hezekiah Tunnel. Discuss the physical and spiritual illumination. Have you had similar experiences?
10. Was Mlle. Thibaux an early feminist, or was she just a “back-street” mistress? Discuss her character and her life’s choices. Would she have been a different person had she been married?
11. Esther's marriage to Nathan was not a bad one. She was comfortable and safe. Yet she was willing to throw it all away. Discuss her character and her dissatisfaction with what would have been many women’s dream.
12. Esther’s relationship with guilt fluctuates as she ages, accompanying rebellion, acquiescence, indignation and impetuousness. Throughout her life, how do her desires produce guilt, and how does she reconcile it at each step?
13. Chaim Soutine is the one true-to-life character in this novel. Read about him and check out his art—and if possible travel the Philadelphia-based Barnes Collection.
14. Esther's sojourn in Paris is supposed to be a vacation. Discuss the point at which it turns to abandonment of her children. Also, is her settling in Paris a betrayal of the Holy Land?
15. Even in today’s open, free society, many women do not follow their hearts or their dreams to discover “The Primordial Light.” Why? Discuss what it takes for a woman to focus and to fully develop her talents.
16. Relationship between sisters can be complex. Discuss Esther and Hanna’s, starting in their childhood and how their different personalities and choices played a role.
17. In the end, Esther gives up the only two things she loves and which let her be who she is. Discuss her double sacrifice. What kind of a woman will she be in Jaffa and what life will she have back there?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Chasing Amanda
Melissa Foster, 2011
Solstice Publishing
378 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780615477527
Summary
Nine years ago, Molly Tanner witnessed a young girl’s abduction in the busy city of Philadelphia, shifting her occasional clairvoyance into overdrive. Two days later, the girl’s body was found, and Molly’s life fell apart.
Consumed by guilt for not acting upon her visions, and on the brink of losing her family, Molly escaped the torturous reminders in the city, fleeing to the safety of the close-knit rural community of Boyds, Maryland.
Molly’s life is back on track, her son has begun college, and she and her husband have finally rekindled their relationship. Their fresh start is shattered when a seven-year-old girl disappears from a local park near Molly’s home. Unable to turn her back on another child and troubled by memories of the past, Molly sets out to find her, jeopardizing the marriage she’d fought so hard to hold together.
While unearthing clues and struggling to decipher her visions, Molly discovers another side of Boyds, where the residents—and the land itself—hold potentially lethal secrets, and exposes another side of her husband, one that threatens to tear them apart. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Melissa Foster is the award-winning author of three International bestselling novels, Megan's Way, Chasing Amanda, and Come Back to Me. She has also been published in Indie Chicks, an anthology.
She is the founder of the Women's Nest, a social and support community for women, and the World Literary Cafe (previously WoMen's Literary Cafe), a cross-promotional site for authors, reviewers, bloggers, and readers. Melissa is currently collaborating in the film production of Megan's Way.
Melissa hosts an annual Aspiring Authors contest for children, she's written for Calgary's Child magazine and Women Business Owners magazine, and has painted and donated several murals to The Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. Melissa lives in Maryland with her family. Melissa's interests include her family, reading, writing, painting, friends, helping women see the positive side of life, and visiting Cape Cod. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A story of madness and mystery that drew me in from the first paragraph...a tale of love, retribution, hope and betrayal...a page turner that will leave you breathless.
Readers Round Table
Foster captures the terror and fear of an abducted child as well as the passion and resolve of the woman who is driven to rescue her before it's too late in this riveting, polished page-turner.
IndieReader.com
Chasing Amanda is a fine psychic thriller, highly recommended.
Midwest Book Review
"[Foster's] newest release captivated me...a subject that is every parent's nightmare. The story had me hooked and shocked. The characters are well written.
Jeanette Stingley - Bella Online
Secrets make this tale outstanding.
Hagerstown Magazine
Foster's writing reminds me of Ted Dekker. The suspense is so strong I'm waiting for the theme music to jump out and scare me as I turn the pages.
The Surrendered Scribe
Discussion Questions
1. Given what was at risk—her marriage, friends, sanity—if you were in Molly's position, would you have continued searching for Tracey? Would you have gone down the tunnels after Cole's ultimatum?
2. Pastor Lett carried with her the burden of living in a small town where her brother had been beaten. Do you think that would have had an impact on her relationship with congregation members, or do you see her as the type of person who would have been able to separate the two? Would you have been able to?
3. Cole was supportive to Molly in many ways, yet he was skeptical of her clairvoyant abilities—maybe rightfully so. How do you feel about the way he treated Molly throughout the book?
4. Tracey experienced Stockholm Syndrome, which became increasingly evident toward the end of the book. As a parent, would you have allowed your daughter to visit the woman who had abducted her given the non-malicious nature of the crime?
5. What are your thoughts on the Boyds Boys, and what should happen them now?
6. Erik was afraid of his ability to have visions, afraid of becoming like Molly had been after Amanda was killed, and yet he was compelled to follow them and try to find Tracey. What support would you offer your own child in that same situation?
7. Did this book make you think differently about parents/children that you see in public
places? Question reasons behind crying children (I hope so!)?
(Questions from author's website.)
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The Kitchen Daughter
Jael McHenry, 2011
Simon & Schuster
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451648508
Summary
After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes.
But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning (“do no let her…”) before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish. A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister, Amanda, (aka “Demanda”) insists on selling their parents’ house, the only home Ginny has ever known.
As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs.
The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Michigan and Iowa, US
• Education—M.F.A., American University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Jael McHenry is a talented and enthusiastic amateur cook who grew up in Michigan and Iowa before moving from city to city along the East Coast: Boston, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and now New York, where she blogs about food and cooking at the Simmer blog.
She is a monthly pop culture columnist and Editor-in-Chief of Intrepid Media, online at intrepidmedia.com. Her work has appeared in publications such as the North American Review, Indiana Review, and the Graduate Review at American University, where she earned her MFA in Creative Writing. The Kitchen Daughter is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
An Asperger's-afflicted woman finds the keys to life and her family history in the kitchen after her parents die in McHenry's inspired if uneven debut. Ginny Selvaggio has lived a sheltered life: unable to maintain eye contact, make friends, or finish college due to her undiagnosed condition, the 26-year-old lives in her parents' home, surfing the Internet and perfecting recipes. But after her parents die, Ginny and her sister, Amanda, disagree about what to do with the family home—Amanda wants to sell, Ginny doesn't. As they bicker about what to do with the house and the problems caused by Ginny's awkwardness, Ginny comforts herself by cooking and soon learns that the dishes she prepares can conjure spirits. The ghosts, including her grandmother, leave clues about possible family secrets, as do a box of photographs Ginny discovers tucked away. McHenry's idea of writing an Asperger's narrator works well for the most part, but the supernatural touches undermine her admirable efforts and add a silly element to what is otherwise an intelligent and moving account of an intriguing heroine's belated battle to find herself.
Publishers Weekly
This fresh, sharp story has as many layers as a good pate a choux.
Oprah Magazine
When Ginny's parents die unexpectedly, she is left on her own for the first time in her 26-year-old life. Unable to cope, Ginny turns her focus to cooking various recipes from the family collection. When the ghosts of the recipe's creators start to appear, seemingly called forth by the rich aromas of Ginny's cooking, does it mean she's going crazy, or is it just her private way of seeking advice and comfort? Ginny's been considered painfully shy and awkward since childhood, but it turns out she's gone undiagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. Her well-meaning parents protected and did everything they could for her, but now that they are gone, her sister wants her finally to get the help she needs. The question is, does she really need help? Verdict: McHenry's debut novel is a sensitive and realistic portrait of someone living with Asperger's. Readers looking for good family-themed women's fiction will enjoy this novel, and the magical element of the cooking ghosts will appeal to fans of Sarah Addison Allen.—Rebecca Vnuk, Forest Park, IL.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Ginny undergoes a great transformation through the course of the novel. Compare the early version of Ginny with the woman she is by the end. Do you feel she has changed? In what ways?
2. "Food has power. Nonna knew that. Ma did too. I know it now. And though it can’t save me, it might help me, in some way." (p. 45) Do you agree with Ginny that food has power? What did food and the kitchen do for Ginny? Is there something you turn to such as cooking, cleaning, or organizing as a means of coping with your emotions? Or is there a place you go to (as Ginny goes to the kitchen) that makes you feel safe?
3. Many times throughout the story, Amanda appears domineering and high-handed. But do you think Ginny is also quick to judge her sister? Did you relate more to one or the other? Why do you think Amanda feels she has to assume the role of the older sister?
4. Ginny observes, “They say you learn by doing, but you don’t have to. If you only learn from your own experience, you’re limited.” (p. 38) If Ginny had applied this advice outside of the kitchen, do you think she might have had an easier time relating to her sister? Do you agree with her observation, or do you think avoiding mistakes others have made is a different way of limiting yourself?
5. Discussing Elena’s death, David remarks that it might have been better if he had never met her. He says, “I wouldn’t have ever loved her, and that would’ve been my loss, but how bad is a loss you don’t know about? You can’t mourn all the people you could’ve loved but didn’t. You mourn the ones you loved and lost.” (p. 245) Do you agree with his statement? Why or why not?
6. Gert warns Ginny not to summon the spirit of Elena, but Ginny doesn’t listen. Would you have done the same? Why or why not? If you were in David’s shoes, would you want to see the spirit of someone you loved? If Elena had appeared the first time Ginny cooked her dish, do you feel things might have ended differently?
7. Do you think Ginny asked the right questions of the spirits she summoned? What would you have asked if you were in her place?
8. How did you feel about the way Amanda tricked Ginny into going to see Dr. Stewart? Do you think Ginny would have gone to see someone eventually, if Amanda hadn’t forced her? Is it a situation where the end justifies the means? Why do you think communication between the two sisters was so difficult?
9. Along with the kitchen, Ginny often turns to the Normal Book to calm herself. She tells David, "See? Normal means a lot of things to a lot of people. You’re normal. Don’t worry. It’s okay." (p. 269) Do you agree with her? Do you think normal is a term that has a single definition, or not? Do you think we try too hard to label people as one thing or another?
10. The theme of appearance, in opposition to reality, is central to the book. What are some of the obvious, and not so obvious, examples of this idea? What does Ginny come to understand about the way things appear versus the way they truly are?
11. Ginny’s father hid a very important secret from his family. Do you feel he was right to keep both his and Ginny’s condition a secret from Ginny and Amanda? Do you think by trying to protect her, he ultimately did her a greater disservice?
12. The title of the novel is The Kitchen Daughter. Discuss the significance in relation to the story. What does the kitchen teach Ginny? How does trust, both in and out of the kitchen, play a part in Ginny’s shifting perspectives?
Book Club Extras
1. Ginny has certain recipes that specifically conjure certain family members. Prepare and bring a dish special to you to the meeting—if the scent could bring a ghost back, who would it be? What’s the story behind the dish?
2. Check out author Jael McHenry’s Simmer blog at simmerblog.typepad.com. Pick a recipe or two to try after you’ve finished discussing the book!
3. Compare this novel to other novels that share themes of food and self-discovery such as Julie and Julia or Under the Tuscan Sun. How are they similar? How are they different? If The Kitchen Daughter was made into a movie, who would you cast?
4. Research Asperger’s Syndrome and autism and have each member present an interesting fact. Are you surprised by what you learn?
5. Do you have an item that is to you what the Normal Book is to Ginny? Have each member bring their “Normal Book” to the bookclub and discuss!
(Questions and "Extras" issued by publisher.)
Where We Belong
Emily Giffin, 2012
St. Martin's Press
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312554187
Summary
The author of five blockbuster novels, Emily Giffin, delivers an unforgettable story of two women, the families that make them who they are, and the longing, loyalty and love that binds them together.
Marian Caldwell is a thirty-six year old television producer, living her dream in New York City. With a fulfilling career and satisfying relationship, she has convinced everyone, including herself, that her life is just as she wants it to be. But one night, Marian answers a knock on the door... only to find Kirby Rose, an eighteen-year-old girl with a key to a past that Marian thought she had sealed off forever.
From the moment Kirby appears on her doorstep, Marian’s perfectly constructed world—and her very identity—will be shaken to its core, resurrecting ghosts and memories of a passionate young love affair that threaten everything that has come to define her.For the precocious and determined Kirby, the encounter will spur a process of discovery that ushers her across the threshold of adulthood, forcing her to re-evaluate her family and future in a wise and bittersweet light.
As the two women embark on a journey to find the one thing missing in their lives, each will come to recognize that where we belong is often where we least expect to find ourselves—a place that we may have willed ourselves to forget, but that the heart remembers forever. (From the publisher.)
Read an excerpt • See the video
Author Bio
• Birth—March 20, 1979
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Raised—Naperville, Illinois
• Education—B.A., Wake Forest University; J.D., University of Virginia
• Currenbtly—lives in Atlanta, Georgia
Emily Giffin is the bestselling American author of eight novels commonly categorized as "chick lit." More specifically, Giffin writes stories about relationships and the full array of emotions experienced within them.
Giffin earned her undergraduate degree at Wake Forest University, where she also served as manager of the basketball team, the Demon Deacons. She then attended law school at the University of Virginia. After graduating in 1997, she moved to Manhattan and worked in the litigation department of Winston & Strawn. But Giffin soon determined to seriously pursue her writing.
In 2001, she moved to London and began writing full time. Her first young adult novel, Lily Holding True, was rejected by eight publishers, but Giffin was undaunted. She began a new novel, then titled Rolling the Dice, which became the bestselling novel Something Borrowed.
2002 was a big year for Emily Giffin. She married, found an agent, and signed a two-book deal with St. Martin's Press. While doing revisions on Something Borrowed, she found the inspiration for a sequel, Something Blue.
In 2003, Giffin and her husband left England for Atlanta, Georgia. A few months later, on New Year's Eve, she gave birth to identical twin boys, Edward and George.
Something Borrowed was released spring 2004. It received unanimously positive reviews and made the extended New York Times bestsellers list. Something Blue followed in 2005, and in 2006, her third, Baby Proof, made its debut. No new hardcover accompanied the paperback release of in 2007. Instead, Giffin spent the year finishing her fourth novel and enlarging her family. Her daughter, Harriet, was born May 24, 2007.
More novels:
2008 - Love the One You're With
2010 - Heart of the Matter
2012 - Where We Belong
2014 - The One & Only
2016 - First Comes Love
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Emily on Twitter.
Book Reviews
Book clubs will have a field day with this one. Thorny mother-daughter relationships and secrets we keep from loved ones burn up the pages.
USA Today
After five charming relationship-themed hits, Emily Giffin had a lot to live up to with Where We Belong. Luckily, the author executes with a thoughtful finesse that makes this easily her best work yet. [Where We Belong] is that special type of story that takes priority over getting to bed on time. And the payoff is well worth it.
Boston Globe
The issue about secrets isn’t about keeping them. It’s the reveal and its consequences. That’s the challenge faced by the characters in Emily Giffin’s new, briskly paced…Where We Belong. Taking a somewhat more somber tone than she did in her [previous] bestselling novels, Giffin’s approach and style mature in this latest effort.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Emily Giffin ranks as a grand master. Over the course of five best-selling novels, she has traversed the slippery slopes of true love, lost love, marriage, motherhood, betrayal, forgiveness and redemption that have led her to be called ‘a modern-day Jane Austen.’ With Giffin’s use of humor, honesty, originality and, like Austen, a biting social commentary, this modern-day ‘woman’s novel’ sits easily on nightstands and in beach bags. Even Austen would find it hard to put down.
Chicago Sun-Times
Emily Giffin’s Where We Belong is a literary Rorschach test. The book, while thoroughly entertaining, will also prod readers to examine choices they’ve made in their lives. It will compel them to muse about things they’d like to do over, to do differently, to do better…[and] gracefully examines themes of identity, family and forgiveness.
Miami Herald
Emily Giffin has a wonderful way with words. [Where We Belong] is an emotionally powerful story that will ring true with women who have given a child away and with those who grew up wondering where they came from. Giffin may be working with a premise and plot that is fairly simple, but there’s nothing lightweight about the emotional turbulence she creates.
Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
Emily Giffin’s new novel about the legacy of adoption, Where We Belong, imagines what happens when an 18-year-old girl tracks down her birth mother…the latest in a string of provocative, imaginative novels that began in 2004 with SOMETHING BORROWED. All the characters [here] are on a journey to find ‘where we belong,’ and Giffin knits together their journeys with a masterly hand.
Seattle Times
[T]oo suspenseful to be called chick lit and too relationship-centered to be labeled a thriller. But most readers will have little time to think of a genre for Emily Giffin’s latest novel as they race through this gripping story about the reunion of a high school senior and the woman who put her up for adoption 18 years earlier.
Connecticut Post
Graceful and inviting prose, careful plotting and vivid characterizations…The coming together of two people who share a genetic heritage and little else is dramatically and emotionally risky. But Giffin makes the most of the opportunity, and Where We Belong had me riveted.
Winston-Salem Journal
Kirby Rose turns 18, hops on a Greyhound bus from St. Louis to Manhattan and with no warning, knocks on the Fifth Avenue apartment door of her birth mother, Marian Caldwel.... Giffin's moving storyline offers great pacing, believable, disparate characters and a plot that could easily careen into maudlin territory, unlikable stereotypes or over-the-top emotionalism but never does: a sweet, even-keeled winner
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. One of the themes in Where We Belong is what happens when we keep secrets. Discuss the reasons people keep secrets. Describe the secrets in this book and the reasons various characters had for keeping them. Do you think secrets and lies are one in the same? How do the characters in the novel accept or come to terms with the secrets they've kept or the ones that have been kept from them?
2. Discuss the issue of forgiveness in the book. Which character has the most to forgive? Do you think Conrad will ever be able to fully forgive Marian? Has Marian forgiven her parents? Has Kirby forgiven hers?
3. Kirby and Marian both change over the course of this story. What are the most significant ways they've changed? What risks do they each take? Was there any decision or action you disagree with on the part of Marian or Kirby?
4. Are people more influenced by their genes or their upbringing? How does this question relate to the events in the novel? How do you think the various characters in this book might define family?
5. Why do you think the author chose the title "Where We Belong"? What meaning, or meanings, does the title have in relation to the story and characters?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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