Mathilda Savitch
Victor Lodato, 2009
Macmillan : Picador
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312430030
Summary
I have a sister who died. Did I tell you this already? I did but you don’t remember, you didn’t understand the code.... She died a year ago, but in my mind sometimes it’s five minutes. In the morning sometimes it hasn’t even happened yet. For a second I’m confused, but then it all comes back. It happens again.
Fear doesn’t come naturally to Mathilda Savitch. She prefers to look right at the things nobody else can bring themselves to mention: for example, the fact that her beloved older sister is dead, pushed in front of a train by a man still on the loose. Her grief-stricken parents have basically been sleepwalking ever since, and it is Mathilda’s sworn mission to shock them back to life. Her strategy? Being bad.
Mathilda decides she’s going to figure out what lies behind the catastrophe. She starts sleuthing through her sister’s most secret possessions—e-mails, clothes, notebooks, whatever her determination and craftiness can ferret out. More troubling, she begins to apply some of her older sister’s magical charisma and powers of seduction to the unraveling situations around her. In a storyline that thrums with hints of ancient myth, Mathilda has to risk a great deal—in fact, has to leave behind everything she loves—in order to discover the truth.
Mathilda Savitch bursts with unforgettably imagined details: impossible crushes, devastating humiliations, the way you can hate and love your family at the same moment, the times when you and your best friend are so weak with laughter that you can’t breathe. Startling, funny, touching, odd, truthful, page-turning, and, in the end, heartbreaking, Mathilda Savitch is an extraordinary debut. Once you make the acquaintance of Mathilda Savitch, you will never forget her. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Victor Lodato is am American playwright and novelist. His 2009 book, Mathilda Savitch was deemed a "Best Book of the Year" by the Christian Science Monitor, Booklist, and Globe and Mail. The novel won the PEN USA Award for Fiction and the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize, and has been published in sixteen countries. His second novel, Edgar and Lucy was published in 2017.
His short fiction and essays have been published in The New Yorker, New York Times, and Best American Short Stories. Victor was born and raised in New Jersey, and currently divides his time between Ashland, Oregon and Tucson, Arizona. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
As Mathilda secretly investigates the details of Helene's life and death, she's on shaky emotional ground herself, but she never loses her eye for bleak absurdities…the vulnerable black humor permeating this Salingeresque wonder of a first novel.
Cameron Martin - New York Times
The first novel from poet and playwright Lodato is a stunning portrait of grief and youthful imagination. Narrator Mathilda Savitch is an adolescent girl negotiating life after the death of her older sister, Helene. Her parents, especially her alcoholic mother, are too traumatized to give her the comfort she needs, so she lives in an elaborate world of her own invented logic. Mathilda evaluates sex, religion and national tragedy in language that is constantly surprising, amusing and often heartbreaking. She speaks with the bold matter-of-factness of a child, but also reveals a deep understanding of life far beyond her years: "I wondered why god would unlock a door just to show you emptiness," she says. "It made me wonder if maybe he was in cahoots with infinity." Lodato chooses every word with extreme care; Mathilda's observations read like a finely crafted epic poem, whose themes and imagery paint an intricate map of her inner life. She's a metaphysical Holden Caulfield for the terrifying present day.
Publishers Weekly
Mathilda is rebelling against everything and making up her own version of reality, hoping to come upon something more meaningful and less painful than the world in which she lives. Along with her parents, this intelligent and hyper-imaginative young teenager is trying to come to grips with the death of her older sister a year earlier. Presented in a first-person, present-tense onslaught of conversations, fantasies, and confrontations, the novel follows Mathilda as she begins the new school year and immediately gets into trouble with the principal. Later, she invites friends to her house for an all-night survival exercise in her basement, since this a world in which sisters incomprehensibly die and terrorists attack. Mathilda carries on a personal investigation of her sister's life, hacking into the sister's former email account and messaging a boy she figureds was involved with her sister. Verdict: Engaging and humorous yet grappling with serious issues, this novel details a girl's distorted view of events and the people around her. The treatment is mature and literary, but this title could almost be a YA novel. —Jim Coan, SUNY Coll. Lib., Oneonta.
Library Journal
A wildly precocious adolescent girl searches for the truth behind her sister's death in playwright Lodato's creative and engaging debut novel. The author crafts a singular voice that combines the disjointed confessional tone of Holden Caulfield with the ethereal sadness of Susie Salmon in The Lovely Bones. The13-year-old narrator's matter-of-fact reflections on her dysfunctional family hold the whole amazing concoction together. Mathilda Savitch is blessed with a unique point of view. "I've been told I have an `artistic temperament,' " she confides, "which means I have thoughts all over the place and not to be concerned." A year after the mysterious death of her sister Helene, crushed under a train, Mathilda is on the trail of the killer, breaking into Helene's e-mail account to flush out a suspect among her sister's many boyfriends. Simultaneously she's deceiving her shrink; trying to hold together the remains of her parents' fractured marriage; and balancing her affections for best friend Anna McDougal with their mutual interest in a handsome young classmate. The story Lodato tells, while compulsively readable, isn't the main selling point. It's the way he occupies Mathilda so completely, giving her marvelous lines like, "Sometimes I'd think I'd like to be a person with brain damage, with nothing but the whale of joy jumping around inside of me," or, "The thing is, I don't want to end up like Ma and Da. In a house with books and dust and all the love gone out of it." His portrait of a damaged but hopeful girl stands up to classics like Walter Tevis' Queen's Gambit (1983). Crossover potential could be limited by some PG-13 material, but both mature adolescents and adult readers will find much to love in Lodato's remarkable creation.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What was it like to read Mathilda's story in her own words, with phrases directed at you? Why does Mathilda sometimes lie to the reader? Do you think she is consciously manipulative, or do you believe she is lying to herself?
2. Reread the book's epigraph. Do you agree with G. K. Chesterton's statement that the desire for justice is related to innocence, while the desire for mercy is related to wickedness? How do Mathilda's feelings about justice and mercy evolve over the course of the book?
3. What makes Mathilda's friendship with Anna so unpredictable? Who was your best friend when you were their age? How was that relationship different from the friendships you have now?
4. What do you think lies behind Mathilda's desire to be "awful"? What does she seem to want? Do you sympathize with her? What were the most irrational thoughts you had as a teenager?
5. What does the current relationship between Ma and Da, combined with the legacy of their passionate younger days, teach Mathilda about love?
6. Mathilda has heard a lot about sex and has many beliefs about its power and pleasures. How does she want to use sex? What type of gratification is she looking for when she pursues Kevin? Discuss Mathilda's understanding of Helene's sexuality. In your opinion, how accurate are her perceptions about her sister?
7. Is Mathilda wise to stop trusting adults? What kind of role models are they in regard to dealing with her sister's death? Do you believe, as Mathilda states, that "Grief is an island"?
8. Why is it important for Mathilda to believe that Helene was pushed? What do you think lies behind Mathilda's brutal fantasies?
9. What drives Mathilda's compulsion to save strands of hair? Discuss other instances of her magical thinking. How do these thoughts serve her? Are they helpful or debilitating?
10. An award-winning playwright, Victor Lodato makes his debut as a novelist with Mathilda Savitch. Does it affect your reading to know that a man created Mathilda's voice? Can you think of other instances where a male writer convincingly renders a female interior life?
11. Try to see the adults in this novel—including parents, teachers, and the Tree—apart from Mathilda's views and judgments. Are they doing the best they can? Do you think Mathilda misunderstands, at times, their behavior and intentions?
12. Discuss Mathilda's feelings of responsibility in regard to her sister's death. How much does self-blame drive her actions?
13. How did your image of Helene change throughout the novel? Why does Mathilda have such mixed feelings in regard to her sister? Do you think her version of Helene's life is a fantasy, or did she know her sister better than anyone else in the family did?
14. What do you think Mathilda is looking for when she decides to go to Desmond? How is she different when she returns?
15. Why doesn't Mathilda tell Louis the truth? What is she trying to accomplish in her last moments with him? Why doesn't she tell her parents what she uncovered about Helene?
16. Discuss the backdrop of terrorism running throughout the novel. How does it affect Mathilda's perception of the world? How does it shape the emotional state of a new generation of teenagers?
17. How does dark comedy enhance Mathilda's storytelling? What passages made you laugh out loud (even if laughter seemed inappropriate)?
18. Discuss the final scene between Ma and Mathilda. What common ground do they share? Why are they silent when they are reunited? What do they communicate to each other without words?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Peony in Love
Lisa See, 2007
Random House, 2007
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812975222
Summary
I finally understand what the poets have written. In spring, moved to passion; in autumn only regret.
For young Peony, betrothed to a suitor she has never met, these lyrics from The Peony Pavilion mirror her own longings. In the garden of the Chen Family Villa, amid the scent of ginger, green tea, and jasmine, a small theatrical troupe is performing scenes from this epic opera, a live spectacle few females have ever seen. Like the heroine in the drama, Peony is the cloistered daughter of a wealthy family, trapped like a good-luck cricket in a bamboo-and-lacquer cage. Though raised to be obedient, Peony has dreams of her own.
Peony’s mother is against her daughter’s attending the production: “Unmarried girls should not be seen in public.” But Peony’s father assures his wife that proprieties will be maintained, and that the women will watch the opera from behind a screen. Yet through its cracks, Peony catches sight of an elegant, handsome man with hair as black as a cave—and is immediately overcome with emotion.
So begins Peony’s unforgettable journey of love and destiny, desire and sorrow—as Lisa See’s haunting new novel, based on actual historical events, takes readers back to seventeenth-century China, after the Manchus seize power and the Ming dynasty is crushed.
Steeped in traditions and ritual, this story brings to life another time and place—even the intricate realm of the afterworld, with its protocols, pathways, and stages of existence, a vividly imagined place where one’s soul is divided into three, ancestors offer guidance, misdeeds are punished, and hungry ghosts wander the earth. Immersed in the richness and magic of the Chinese vision of the afterlife, transcending even death, Peony in Love explores, beautifully, the many manifestations of love. Ultimately, Lisa See’s new novel addresses universal themes: the bonds of friendship, the power of words, and the age-old desire of women to be heard. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 18, 1955
• Where—Paris, France
• Education—B.A., Loyola Marymount University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Lisa See is an American writer and novelist. Her Chinese-American family (See has one Chinese great-grandparent) has had a great impact on her life and work. Her books include On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family (1995) and the novels Flower Net (1997), The Interior (1999), Dragon Bones (2003), Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005), Peony in Love (2007), Shanghai Girls (2009), which made it to the 2010 New York Times bestseller list, and China Dolls (2014).
Flower Net, The Interior, and Dragon Bones make up the Red Princess mystery series. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love focus on the lives of Chinese women in the 19th and 17th centuries respectively. Shanghai Girls chronicles the lives of two sisters who come to Los Angeles in arranged marriages and face, among other things, the pressures put on Chinese-Americans during the anti-Communist mania of the 1950s. See published a sequel titled Dreams of Joy.
Writing under the pen name Monica Highland, See, her mother Carolyn See, and John Espey, published three novels: Lotus Land (1983), 110 Shanghai Road (1986), and Greetings from Southern California (1988).
Biography
Lisa See was born in Paris but has spent many years in Los Angeles, especially Los Angeles Chinatown. Her mother, Carolyn See, is also a writer and novelist. Her autobiography provides insight into her daughter's life. Lisa See graduated with a B.A. from Loyola Marymount University in 1979.
See was West Coast correspondent for Publishers Weekly (1983–1996); has written articles for Vogue, Self, and More; has written the libretto for the opera based on On Gold Mountain, and has helped develop the Family Discovery Gallery for the Autry Museum, which depicts 1930s Los Angeles from the perspective of her father as a seven-year-old boy. Her exhibition On Gold Mountain: A Chinese American Experience was featured in the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, and the Smithsonian. See is also a public speaker.
She has written for and led in many cultural events emphasizing the importance of Los Angeles and Chinatown. Among her awards and recognitions are the Organization of Chinese Americans Women's 2001 award as National Woman of the Year and the 2003 History Makers Award presented by the Chinese American Museum. See has served as a Los Angeles City Commissioner. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/21/2014.)
Book Reviews
Peony in Love, is—for the reader willing to venture a crucial suspension of disbelief—a complex period tapestry inscribed with the age-old tragedy of love and death and bordered round with vignettes from Chinese metaphysics, dynastic history and the intimate chamber tales of women s friendship and rivalry.... See is gifted with a lucid, graceful style and a solid command of her many motifs. These—like the fascination of "The Peony Pavilion" and the inscription of commentary, first by Peony in her feverish last days and later by the ill-fated Tan Ze and then Qian Yi, both Wu Ren's wives—are worked through with care; the historical panorama, meanwhile, encompasses everything from governmental politics to foot-binding procedures
Sven Birkerts - New York Times
A novel whose protagonist hangs, after death, from a room's rafters and climbs inside a rival's womb to untangle a child's umbilical cord, who dies of self-starvation and communes with the ghosts of her mother and grandmother, who pens a major commentary on a seemingly seditious text and ends up reconciled with both of her successor-wives—well, suffice it to say that the pleasures of Peony in Love are neither those of logic nor chronology. Years pass in a paragraph; realms are traversed in a line. This reader felt, from time to time, almost literally transported and commends the willing suspension of Western disbelief. There's much here to be savored and a great deal to be learned.
Washington Post
Set in 17th-century China, See's fifth novel is a coming-of-age story, a ghost story, a family saga and a work of musical and social history. As Peony, the 15-year-old daughter of the wealthy Chen family, approaches an arranged marriage, she commits an unthinkable breach of etiquette when she accidentally comes upon a man who has entered the family garden. Unusually for a girl of her time, Peony has been educated and revels in studying The Peony Pavilion, a real opera published in 1598, as the repercussions of the meeting unfold. The novel's plot mirrors that of the opera, and eternal themes abound: an intelligent girl chafing against the restrictions of expected behavior; fiction's educative powers; the rocky path of love between lovers and in families. It figures into the plot that generations of young Chinese women, known as the lovesick maidens, became obsessed with The Peony Pavilion, and, in a Werther-like passion, many starved themselves to death. See (Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, etc.) offers meticulous depiction of women's roles in Qing and Ming dynasty China (including horrifying foot-binding scenes) and vivid descriptions of daily Qing life, festivals and rituals. Peony's vibrant voice, perfectly pitched between the novel's historical and passionate depths, carries her story beautifully-in life and afterlife..
Publishers Weekly
Teenaged Peony lives in late 16th-century China, protected by her wealthy family, her entire life arranged for marriage and the birth of sons. Prior to her marriage, she overhears passages from the famous opera The Peony Pavilion and has a brief but life-altering conversation with a very handsome man-both strictly forbidden to an unmarried maiden. The "love-sickness" brought on by these secrets leads to Peony's death by self-starvation, as she pines for the man whose name she does not know. After her death, owing to a lapse in protocol, Peony is condemned to wander the earth as a "hungry ghost." The descriptions of her ghostly existence over the decades are interwoven with her devotion to the poet she could have married, the women he later marries, other wanderers, and The Peony Pavilion itself. As the book reveals, during the Manchu Dynasty women were oppressed severely, even in death; the foot-binding process depicted here is truly horrible. The writing is compellingly exotic and vivid, and listeners are drawn into this world by the beautiful voice of Janet Song, who brings Peony's journey to life. Highly recommended for public libraries, especially those with collections for young adults. —Barbara Valle, El Paso P.L., TX
Library Journal
Foot-binding, opera and anorexia are feminist statements in See's (Snowflower and the Secret Fan, 2005, etc.) ghost story set in 17th-century China. The monumental (55-scene) opera Peony Pavilion, written in the twilight of the Ming Dynasty, tells the tale of Liniang, who defies convention by seeking to choose her own mate, then wastes away of lovesickness. Peony, coddled teenage daughter of the Chen clan, is not the only aristocratic maiden to be love-struck by the opera (still considered outre in China today). Although promised in an arranged marriage, Peony observes a "man-beautiful" poet from behind a screen at a performance of Pavilion, and she falls in love. Risking ruin, she meets him for chaste garden trysts to discuss poetry and qinq (emotion-ruled life). As her marriage approaches, Peony emulates Liniang's self-starvation, devoting her time to annotating the pages of various editions of Pavilion. Through a tragedy of errors, Peony learns, on her deathbed, that her betrothed Wu Ren is her poet. After death, someone hides Peony's ancestor tablet, condemning her to wander the earth as a "hungry ghost." She visits Ren in dreams and pens more Pavilion marginalia. On a limbo-like "Viewing Terrace" she meets her grandmother, killed during the "Cataclysm," the carnage marking the advent of the Manchu Dynasty. Horrified, Peony witnesses Ren's marriage to her spoiled rival, Tan Ze. She molds Ze into an ideal wife, daughter-in-law and fellow Pavilion annotator. But Ze dies while pregnant, and is consigned to the Blood-Gathering Lake, special hell of women who fail at childbirth. In a world where women are punished in life and afterlife, the Manchus threaten more oppression, toward female literati who organize writing groups and publish their poetry. Peony atones for Ze's fate by helping peasant girl Yi advance socially and buck the Manchu regime—by binding her feet. As Ren's third wife, Yi joins Ze and Peony in coauthoring the groundbreaking Three Wives Commentary, which examines Peony Pavilion. See's gossamer weave of cultural detail and Chinese afterlife mythology forms an improbably inspiring tapestry of love and letters.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. On page 76, Lisa See quotes the poet Han Yun, who wrote, “All things not at peace will cry out.” What do you think he meant by that? And in what ways does this inspire Peony and the other women writers in the novel?
2. What are the different kinds of love that Peony experiences? How does her love for Ren (as well as for her mother, father, grandmother, Yi, and even Willow) change through the years? Have you had similar experiences in your life?
3. Anticipating her first meeting with Ren in the Moon-Viewing Pavilion, Peony states: “Monthly bleeding doesn’t turn a girl into a woman, nor does betrothal or new skills. Love had turned me into a woman” (p. 49). Is Peony’s statement true?
4. Peony is filled with doubt after meeting Ren–doubt about their relationship, doubt about ever finding love, and doubt about being a good mother. What is the source of this doubt and how does it grow within Peony?
5. In the nights of watching The Peony Pavilion, Peony has many visions of the man she will marry, and many visions of “her poet.” Why isn’t she able to make the connection that both men are one and the same? What signs does she overlook and why?
6. On page 94, Peony thinks she’s being dressed for her wedding, but instead she’s taken to the courtyard to die. Peony is certainly surprised by this turn of events. Were you? How does this moment affect Peony’s future actions and her feelings about her family? How do you feel about this practice?
7. Many men have told Lisa See that they don’t like the idea of the Chinese afterworld, where your relatives are still your relatives and your position remains the same as it was in life. Many women, on the other hand, have told her that they find the idea of the Chinese afterworld comforting. They want to be united with their families in the afterworld and still be able to interfere in the living world. What are the differences and similarities between the Chinese afterworld and Western religions’ concept of heaven and hell? Which would you prefer—for yourself and for your loved ones—and why?
8. We see a difference in Peony’s actions after Ze marries Ren and again after Ze dies. Do you see redemption here for Peony?
9. In what ways is mother love, from both a mother’s perspective and a daughter’s perspective, explored? What does Peony learn about mother love, and in what ways does she experience it herself? What aspects of mother love still hold true for mothers and daughters today?
10. How does what happened during the Cataclysm change depending on who’s telling the story?
11. Peony in Love shows the strength of women and women’s friendship, but in what ways does it also show the dark shadow side of women, whether in the women’s chambers, between a mother and daughter, between wives, or even between friends?
12. Peony in Love is very much a tale of secrets and the power secrets can exercise over others. What are the secrets? Who is affected by the secrets and how do they change through the story?
13. You have read about three generations of women, and also about the people around them—both male and female. Of all the characters, which do you feel you are most like, and why? Are there any people like these characters in your life today?
14. Often what we hate most about ourselves–our weight, our tendency toward selfishness, our vanity, etc.—is what we are most critical of in others. Trace the progress of Peony’s relationship with Tan Ze—through life together in the Chen Family Villa and then in the afterlife. In what ways are Peony and Tan Ze alike, and in what ways are they different? Why do they need each other, and how do they serve one another? Do you have similar symbiotic relationships in your life, and in what ways would you expect those relationships to change in the afterlife?
15. How do Peony’s experiences as a living girl and then as a hungry ghost parallel Liniang’s experiences in The Peony Pavilion?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Tenth Circle
Jodi Picoult, 2006
Simon & Schuster
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743496711
Summary
Trixie Stone is fourteen years old and in love for the first time. She's also the light of her father's life—a straight-A student; a freshman in high school who is pretty and popular; a girl who's always looked up to Daniel Stone as a hero. Until, that is, her world is turned upside down with a single act of violence...and suddenly everything Trixie has believed about her family—and herself—seems to be a lie.
For fifteen years, Daniel Stone has been an even-tempered, mild-mannered man: a stay-at-home dad to Trixie and a husband who has put his own career as a comic book artist behind that of his wife, Laura, who teaches Dante's Inferno at a local college. But years ago, he was completely different: growing up as the only white boy in an Eskimo village, he was teased mercilessly for the color of his skin. He learned to fight back: stealing, drinking, robbing, and cheating his way out of the Alaskan bush. To become part of a family, he reinvented himself, channeling his rage onto the page and burying his past completely...until now. Could the young boy who once made Trixie's face fill with light when he came to the door have been the one to end her childhood forever? She says that he is, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a man with a history he has hidden even from his family, venture to hell and back in order to protect his daughter.
The Tenth Circle looks at that delicate moment when a child learns that her parents don't know all of the answers and when being a good parent means letting go of your child. It asks whether you can reinvent yourself in the course of a lifetime or if your mistakes are carried forever—if life is, as in any good comic book, a struggle to control good and evil, or if good and evil control you. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 19, 1966
• Where—Nesconset (Long Island), New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Princeton University; M.Ed., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Hanover, New Hampshire
Jodi Lynn Picoult is an American author. She was awarded the New England Bookseller Award for fiction in 2003. Picoult currently has approximately 14 million copies of her books in print worldwide.
Early life and education
Picoult was born and raised in Nesconset on Long Island in New York State; when she was 13, her family moved to New Hampshire. Even as a child, Picoult had a penchant for writing stories: she wrote her first story— "The Lobster Which Misunderstood"—when she was five.
While still in college—she studied writing at Princeton University—Picoult published two short stories in Seventeen magazine. To pay the bills, after graduation she worked at a variety of jobs, including copy writing and editing textbooks; she even taught eighth-grade English and attained a Masters in Education from Harvard University.
In 1989, Picoult married Timothy Warren Van Leer, whom she met in college, and while pregnant with their first child, wrote her first book. Song of the Humpbacked Whale, her literary debut, came out in 1992. Two more children followed, as did a string of bestseller novels. All told, Picoult has more than 20 books to her name.
Writing
At an earlier time in her life, Picoult believed the tranquility of family life in small-town New England offered little fodder for writing; the truly interesting stuff of fiction happened elsewhere. Ironically, it is small-town life that has ended up providing the settings for Picoult's novels. Within the cozy surroundings of family and friends, Picoult weaves complex webs of relationships that strain, even tear apart, under stress. She excels at portraying ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Disoriented by some accident of chance, they stumble, whirl, and attempt to regain a footing in what was once their calm, ordered world.
Nor has Picoult ever shied from tackling difficult, controversial issues: school shooting, domestic violence, sexual abuse, teen suicide, and racism. She approaches painful topics with sympathy—and her characters with respect—while shining a light on individual struggles. Her legions of readers have loved and rewarded her for that compassion—and her novels have been consistent bestsellers.
Personal life
Picoult and her husband Timothy live in Hanover, New Hampshire. They have three children and a handful of pets. (Adapted from a 2003 Barnes and Noble interview and from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/28/2016.)
Book Reviews
As Picoult notes, one in six American women will be the victim of a rape or attempted rape during her lifetime. Those who have survived a sexual assault will recognize Trixie's subsequent dissociation, the cold horror of the emergency room and police interview, the sense of a life being irrevocably broken, as well as the rage and guilt of Trixie's parents. Trixie accuses Jason of rape, but when her name is leaked to local media, she's ostracized and tormented by her schoolmates, who accuse her of having been a willing participant.
Elizabeth Hand - The Washington Post
Some of Picoult's best storytelling distinguishes her twisting, metaphor-rich 13th novel (after Vanishing Acts) about parental vigilance gone haywire, inner demons and the emotional risks of relationships. Comic book artist Daniel Stone is like the character in his graphic novel with the same title as this book—once a violent youth and the only white boy in an Alaskan Inuit village, now a loving, stay-at-home dad in Bethel, Maine—traveling figuratively through Dante's circles of hell to save his 14-year-old teenage daughter, Trixie. After she accuses her ex-boyfriend of rape, Trixie—and Daniel, whose fierce father-love morphs to murderous rage toward her assailant—unravel in the aftermath of the allegation. At the same time, wife and mother Laura, a Dante scholar, tries to mend her and Daniel's marriage after ending her affair with one of her students. Picoult has collaborated with graphic artist Dustin Weaver to illustrate her deft, complex exploration of Daniel and his beast within, but the drawings, though well-done, distract from the powerful picture she has drawn with words. Laura and Daniel follow their runaway daughter to Alaska, at which point Picoult drives the story with the heavy-handed Dante metaphor—not the characters. Still, this story of a flawed family on the brink of destruction grips from start to finish.
Publishers Weekly
When a comic book artist married to a Dante scholar writes a graphic novel, what better title than The Tenth Circle? Of course, Daniel Stone feels he's descended into hell when his 14-year-old daughter, Trixie, is date raped by Jason Underhill. Despite his soft and gentle Maine demeanor, Daniel had a wild and violent past growing up in Alaska, and letting the police investigation proceed is setting off a rage he had long suppressed. The night of the attack, he also learns his wife, Laura, is having an affair. Hell would be preferable. Picoult's (Vanishing Acts) latest novel actually features Daniel's artwork in a tale that parallels his real life, and readers are drawn into the mystery surrounding the events of the rape and its subsequent effects on all concerned. What truths will be revealed? And who, ultimately, will find justice? Picoult had this reader up until the very end of this fast-paced tale. As with her previous novels (e.g., My Sister's Keeper), Picoult doesn't guarantee a happy ending, but something here just missed its mark. Still, this best-selling author is going to be in demand. Recommended for most public libraries. —Bette-Lee Fox
Library Journal
Picoult fumbles in this 13th novel of, predictably, a family in crisis. To all outward appearances, the family Stone seems a happy trio: Mother Laura teaches Dante at the local university; her 14-year-old Trixie is popular, dating the town's high school hockey hero Jason Underhill; and Daniel, a stay-at-home dad, has finally hit it big with the debut of his own comic book, The Tenth Circle. Inspired by his wife's work, Daniel's hero Duncan/Wildclaw descends into hell in search of his kidnapped daughter (sections of the comic book, illustrated by Dustin Weaver, appear at the end of each chapter). As his alter ego tours the circles of hell with Virgil, Daniel's family begins to unravel: On the night that Trixie is raped by her boyfriend, Daniel discovers Laura has been having an affair with a student. Picoult usually infuses a bit of suspense into her dramas, and this effort is no different as Trixie's testimony comes into question—is Trixie just out for revenge on the boyfriend who dumped her? As the DA and detective try to build a rape case, Trixie becomes ostracized at school, continues to self-mutilate and then finally attempts suicide. She's saved in time, but soon after her recovery, Jason is found dead, and it's beginning to look like Trixie killed him. Afraid she'll be charged with Jason's murder, Trixie runs away to the Alaskan Eskimo village where Daniel was raised (and tormented as the only white boy), forcing Daniel to confront his past, save his daughter, save his marriage and make everything okay in the universe, as every superhero should. As a third-act whodunit—the culprit is an easy guess—the story fails. Picoult, who is so often an inventive and compelling storyteller, relies here on convention and sentimentality.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Fourteen-year-old Trixie has been a ghost for fourteen days, seven hours, and thirty-six minutes now, not that she is officially counting. Trixie's protective father has been consumed with attempts to shield her from a new life, one that includes a boy with a proprietary hand around his daughter's waist. But Daniel Stone never for a moment suspected that the same boy might inflict upon his daughter the worst possible harm. Could the boy who once made Trixie's face fill with light when he came to the door have drugged and then raped her? She says that he did, and that is all it takes to make Daniel, a man with a past hidden even from his family, consider taking matters into his own hands in order to protect his daughter.
This is a novel about the unbreakable bond between parent and child, the temptation to play God, and its dangerous repercussions. Using her sensitive, wise touch, Jodi Picoult once again probes deeply into the love and anguish of a young girl and her family. This time, she has added the innovative element of embedding a graphic novel within her text. They are at once the professional work of her character, Daniel Stone, and a unique insight into his fractured and desperate heart.
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1. In Chapter One, Laura says "God, according to Dante, was all about motion and energy, so the ultimate punishment for Lucifer is to not be able to move at all." (p. 16) How do you feel about this concept of hell as the inability to take action? What do you take from this? How does this theory translate into modern-day life?
2. Why does Daniel find villains interesting? Daniel describes Duncan as "a forty-something father who knew that getting old was hell. Who wanted to keep his family safe; whose powers controlled him, instead of the other way around." If "power always involved a loss of humanity," then how does this comic book character maintain his humanity? Compare and contrast Daniel with the character he creates in his comic strip.
3. Early on, Daniel and Trixie seem to have the ideal father-daughter relationship. During Trixie's examination, Daniel reflects that he and Trixie would play the alphabet game with superhero powers. What superhero powers did Daniel wish he had? Why do you think these were so important to him? What does that reveal about his character? Trixie's?
4. It is said that a rape victim is revictimized by the initial examination. Do you think this is true for Trixie? Why do you think the police detective doubts her accusation against Jason?
5. In popular culture, the husband is more often portrayed as the cheater, and the wife typically as the one who makes career sacrifices for the family. Does Daniel as a character seem emasculated by the way these roles are reversed in The Tenth Circle? Why are stay-at-home fathers seen differently by society than mothers who raise their children full time?
6. In Chapter Four, regarding trauma, Picoult writes, "It was a catch-22: If you didn't put the trauma behind you, you couldn't move on. But if you did put the trauma behind you, you willingly gave up your claim to the person you were before it happened." Which characters would agree with this statement and why?
7. Trixie is consistently revictimized at school, and her own best friend doesn't believe that she was raped. If Trixie's school was a kind of hell for her, then what would Dante say about her situation and the best way to get out of it?
8. Discuss reality versus perception, intention versus action. Why are Trixie's and Jason's versions of what happened so different? Whose do you believe is the truth? Do you think there IS a definitive truth?
9. After Laura and Daniel have a romantic episode, Daniel continues to express his resentment for her infidelity. In that moment his sexual urge is not to make love to her but to "take her back." How does his urge compare to Jason's urge in raping Trixie?
10. Throughout the story Trixie is struggling to get back to her life prior to the rape, and similarly Daniel and Laura are trying to return to a place in their marriage prior to Laura's infidelity. What does this story say about whether or not we can recapture our past? How does Daniel's childhood figure into this theme?
11. Does a victim get justice when the perpetrator takes his or her own life? When Daniel abuses Jason, is he helping or hurting Trixie? When Trixie runs away, did you believe that she killed Jason? What did you think about this surprise ending? How can you map the breakdown in trust between these relationships: Trixie and Jason, Laura and Daniel, Daniel and Trixie, Trixie and Zephyr. How has this breakdown contributed to the demise of all parties?
12. How did Daniel's artwork, embedded inside The Tenth Circle, affect your reading experience? In what ways does reading the graphic novel give you insight into Daniel's behavior during the narrative part of the novel?
13. In the story there is a thread of control—characters losing and gaining control over their lives and their environments. Discuss what control means to each character.
14. After Daniel takes his revenge, does he believe he is more of a superhero? Does he really think he has avenged Trixie? What is the story saying about retribution?
15. Why is snow symbolic in the story? What other symbols are there?
16. Trixie is haunted by Jason's ghost. Is this a figment of her imagination or a manifestation of guilt?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Outside Wonderland
Lorna Jane Cook
St. Martin's Press
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312625696
Summary
Alice, Griffin, and Dinah Stenen's mother and father died tragically when they were quite young. It is a loss that haunts them into adulthood.
Alice is a stage actress in New York who can't commit to a relationship. When she meets Ian she's smitten, but suspects it's Ian's four-year-old son that really captivates her. Griffin and his longtime partner are settled into a contented domesticity, however Theo's insistence that they adopt a child throws Griffin into a panic. When he refuses to cooperate, the crack in their relationship widens. Dinah, the youngest, has a short, passionate love affair that leaves her pregnant and alone when she discovers the father is engaged to someone else.
The three look to each other for support during this rough period but they falter. What they don't know is that their parents are watching them from a place outside time and space—worrying, reminiscing, and perhaps guiding their children as each makes their tentative way towards happiness.
In luminous prose, Cook tells the story of these tender souls and a love that knows no boundaries. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—n/a
• Where—Redwood City, California, USA
• Raised—Michigan
• Education—B.A., social work
• Currently—lives in Holland, Michigan
Lorna Jane Cook was born in Redwood City, California, and grew up in Michigan. She graduated from college with a B.A. in social work, and embarked on a career path from Michigan to Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C, working at a runaway shelter; a group home for teenage girls,; an emergency services program; and on Capitol Hill as a legislative assistant. Finally, she turned to novel-writing, an obvious trajectory. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
It probably has been written into the Constitution that after The Lovely Bones no book shall be narrated by a character in heaven. There must have been an amendment, though, because the lovely Outside Wonderland by Lorna Jane Cook has two long-dead parents observing their three grown children from the afterlife. The oldest, Alice, is an Off-Broadway actress in her 30s, skittish about finally settling down with a man who has a small child. Griffin bolts a deeply loving, longtime relationship for another man when his partner gets serious about adopting a child. Dinah, who has never left the family home where she lives with her grandmother, becomes pregnant after a very untypical fling. Their lives spill over, their dramas mesh, their mother and father deliver bemused, though affectionate commentary from the other side. One of those nice books.
New York Daily News
When the three very young Stenen children lose their mother in a freak household accident and then, eight years later, their father, the tragedy of their being orphaned has far-reaching consequences, leaving them unmoored and coping with adulthood in wildly different ways. The trick is that the parents are watching over them from the great beyond and telling the story. Alice, the eldest, is an actress, detached from feelings until she meets Ian, a single father who seduces her into a world of family and stability. Griffin has a long-term relationship with partner Theo, but Theo's near obsessive desire to have children drives Griffin into the arms of another man. The youngest, perennial optimist Dinah, unexpectedly pregnant and adrift, returns to the bosom of family to sort through her faith and uncertainty. Overly sentimental, Cook's (Departures) latest suffers from a number of flaws. It is easy to feel instantly sorry for the three orphans, but harder to appreciate their loss when their dead parents are so present. That choice makes for a warm and fuzzy aura that telegraphs the message that everything will turn out fine and eliminates any possibility of drama or meaningful grief. The result is tedious and annoying.
Publishers Weekly
In the manner of Alice Sebold's immensely popular The Lovely Bones (2002), this gentle novel follows what happens to those left behind after a tragic death and what happens to those who have died.... Although following three siblings with multiple relationships can get a little confusing, the characters are never less than engaging and appealing. —Marta Segal Block
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. The scenes and observations of the parents from up Here is a unique way for the writer and reader to share reflections on the unfolding lives of the Stenen siblings. What stood out most for you from the scenes from Here? How does this possibility of an afterlife fit with your beliefs about what lies beyond?
2. How likely is it that the siblings feel some of the love and concern that their parents are showing for them from the great beyond?
3. The siblings are drawn very sympathetically; their shared experience of loss shapes them each in different ways. How does that loss affect each of them?
4. Which of the three main characters—Alice, Dinah and Griffin—do you relate to most?
5. The parents say that although the children have changed they are still the same, “earnestly making their way in a fractured life.” Discuss how resilience and love binds them.
6. Each of the Stenens deals with the fact that bad things can happen at any time in a unique way. Alice braces herself for what might come next and escapes into acting to let herself be free. Dinah discovers a strong religious faith in Greece and her belief in fate and purpose makes her put family first yet she longs for love and romance. Griffin knows that families are fragile and he loves his partner Theo deeply but feels parenthood is for other people—it’s tempting fate. What drives each of them to take the risks that they do to create families of their own as adults?
7. How do each of the siblings define family? How do the living arrangements that evolve over the course of the story reflect their desires and fears about family? How do you define family?
8. Dinah acts out of character by having an impetuous affair on the cruise. Why do you think she threw caution to the wind?
9. As Dinah screams at the falls, filled with disappointment and doubt after finding that Eduardo is to be married, she waits for a sign from God. Her mother comments “Now she’ll have to shake up her life and change things.” How do you think Dinah handles the consequences of her actions? What do you think of how heavily she leans on her family to help her through?
10. Why did Griffin adopt Holly, the dog, when Theo was so clearly against it? Why couldn’t Griffin talk to Theo about his fears about parenthood and family? How unreasonable was it to expect Theo to understand without really being told?
11. Why was Griffin drawn to Ray? What need did Ray fulfill for him? Why do you think Griffin was willing to give up his relationship with Theo for someone he barely knew?
12. Alice becomes entranced by Adam, the three year old son of her neighbor and lover Ian. She thinks perhaps her fantasy of belonging in their lives could be real, perhaps it’s where she’s meant to be. What is Alice looking for in Ian and Adam? How do her doubts sabotage her desires especially after she loses Adam for a few minutes in the park one day?
13. Alice notes “when she was around Neil, she kept reaching for her old self.” What do you make of Alice being drawn to being wanted by Neil at the same time she wishes that Ian would ask to make their relationship permanent? What do you think about her parents’ reflection that: “Alice may love them all (and she does) but still do the wrong thing. And not even intentionally. Just because she’s restless, and, yes, a little blue.”
14. What do you think about Dinah and Theo and Eva pretending to be the happy family? And Griffin sneaking around watching them, stalking the old homestead?
15. After Holly is gone and Griffin moves back in, Dinah feels like she doesn’t fit anymore, and she is surprised that Theo can so easily forgive Griffin. What do you think of the shift back for Theo and Griffin?
16. What do you think the title of the book means? Where do you imagine the three main characters' lives going from here?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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People of the Book
Geraldine Brooks, 2008
Penguin Group USA
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780143115007
Summary
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of March, the journey of a rare illuminated manuscript through centuries of exile and war.
In 1996, Hanna Heath, an Australian rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued from Serb shelling during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna, a caustic loner with a passion for her work, discovers a series of tiny artifacts in its ancient binding—an insect wing fragment, wine stains, salt crystals, a white hair—she begins to unlock the book's mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed and atmospheric past, tracing the book's journey from its salvation back to its creation.
In Bosnia during World War II, a Muslim risks his life to protect it from the Nazis. In the hedonistic salons of fin-de-siecle Vienna, the book becomes a pawn in the struggle against the city's rising anti-Semitism. In inquisition-era Venice, a Catholic priest saves it from burning. In Barcelona in 1492, the scribe who wrote the text sees his family destroyed by the agonies of enforced exile. And in Seville in 1480, the reason for the Haggadah's extraordinary illuminations is finally disclosed. Hanna's investigation unexpectedly plunges her into the intrigues of fine art forgers and ultra-nationalist fanatics. Her experiences will test her belief in herself and the man she has come to love.
Inspired by a true story, People of the Book is at once a novel of sweeping historical grandeur and intimate emotional intensity, an ambitious, electrifying workby an acclaimed and beloved author. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 14, 1955
• Raised—Ashfield, New South Wales, Australia
• Education—B.A., Sydney University; M.A. Columbia University (USA)
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Virginia, USA
Geraldine Brooks s an Australian American journalist and author whose 2005 novel, March, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. While retaining her Australian passport, she became an United States citizen in 2002.
Early life
A native of Sydney, Geraldine Brooks grew up in its inner-west suburb of Ashfield, where she attended Bethlehem College, a secondary school for girls, and the University of Sydney.
Following graduation, she became a rookie reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald and, after winning a Greg Shackleton Memorial Scholarship, moved to New York City in the United States, completing a Master's at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1983. The following year, she married American journalist Tony Horwitz in the Southern France village of Tourrettes-sur-Loup and converted to his religion, Judaism.
Career
As a foreign correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, she covered crises in Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East, with the stories from the Persian Gulf which she and her husband reported in 1990, receiving the Overseas Press Club's Hal Boyle Award for "Best Newspaper or Wire Service Reporting from Abroad." In 2006, she was awarded a fellowship at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.
Brooks's first book, Nine Parts of Desire (1994), based on her experiences among Muslim women in the Middle East, was an international bestseller, translated into 17 languages. Foreign Correspondence: A Pen Pal's Journey from Down Under to All Over (1997), which won the Nita Kibble Literary Award for women's writing, was a memoir and travel adventure about a childhood enriched by penpals from around the world, and her adult quest to find them.
Her first novel, Year of Wonders, published in 2001, became an international bestseller. Set in 1666, the story depicts a young woman's battle to save fellow villagers as well as her own soul when the bubonic plague suddenly strikes her small Derbyshire village of Eyam.
Her next novel, March (2005), was inspired by her fondness for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, which her mother had given her. To connect that memorable reading experience to her new status in 2002 as an American citizen, she researched the Civil War historical setting of Little Women and decided to create a chronicle of wartime service for the "absent father" of the March girls.
Some aspects of this chronicle were informed by the life and philosophical writings of the Alcott family patriarch, Amos Bronson Alcott, whom she profiled under the title "Orpheus at the Plow", in the 10 January 2005 issue of The New Yorker, a month before March was published. The parallel novel was generally well received by the critics. It was selected in December 2005 selection by the Washington Post as one of the five best fiction works published that year. In April 2006, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
In her next novel, People of the Book (2008), Brooks explored a fictionalized history of the Sarajevo Haggadah. This novel was inspired by her reporting (for The New Yorker) of human interest stories emerging in the aftermath of the 1991–95 breakup of Yugoslavia. The novel won both the Australian Book of the Year Award and the Australian Literary Fiction Award in 2008.
Her 2011 novel Caleb's Crossing is inspired by the life of Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a Wampanoag convert to Christianity who was the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College, an achievement of the seventeenth century.
Her next work, The Secret Chord (2015) is a historical novel based on the life of the biblical King David in the period of the Second Iron Age.
Awards
2006 - Pulitzer Prize for March
2008 - Australian Publishers Association's Fiction Book of the Year for People of the Book
2009 - Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award
2010 - Dayton Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Achievement Award
(From Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/14/2015.)
Book Reviews
Salman Rushdie was in town last night, and (along with 2,000 others) I got to hear his stirring exhortation about literature's power to change the world. Novels, he said, introduce us to a larger universe, enable us to see the world in a new way, and ultimately can bind cultures together in a common humanity. I'd been thinking about recommending Brooks's new novel—and now I must.
A LitLovers LitPick (March '08)
The good news is that this new novel by the author of March, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2006, is intelligent, thoughtful, gracefully written and original. Brooks has built upon her experience as a correspondent in Bosnia for the Wall Street Journal to construct a story around a book—small, rare and very old—and the people into whose hands it had fallen over five centuries.... Suffice it to say that it's a book that resides comfortably in a place we too often imagine to be a no-man's land between popular fiction and literature. Brooks tells a believable and engaging story about sympathetic but imperfect characters—"popular" fiction demands all of that—but she also does the business of literature, exploring serious themes and writing about them in handsome prose. She appears to be finding readers and admirers in growing numbers, and People of the Book no doubt will increase those numbers.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post
[I]n her dazzling new novel, People of the Book, Brooks...continu[es] to mine the historical material that speaks so ardently to her imagination. Late one night in the city of Sydney, Hanna Heath, a rare book conservator, gets a phone call. The Sarajevo Haggadah, which disappeared during the siege in 1992, has been found, and Hanna has been invited by the U.N. to report on its condition.... [Brook's] depiction of the Haggadah bringing together Jews, Christians and Muslims could not be more timely. Her gift for storytelling, happily, is timeless.
Margo Livesay - Publisher's Weekly
Each story [within Booke's book] is engrossing and deftly woven into the narrative, though the telling is sometimes facile or cloying. Nevertheless, this latest from Pulitzer Prize winner Brooks (March) is a good addition to most libraries and excellent for discussion groups.
Library Journal
From 1480 Seville to 1996 Sarajevo, a priceless scripture is chased by fanatics political and religious. Its recovery makes for an enthralling historical mystery.... Rich suspense based on a true-life literary puzzle, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning Brooks.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When Hanna implores Ozren to solicit a second opinion on Alia's condition, he becomes angry and tells her, "Not every story has a happy ending." (p. 37). To what extent do you believe that their perspectives on tragedy and death are cultural? To what extent are they personal?
2. Isak tells Mordechai, "At least the pigeon does no harm. The hawk lives at the expense of other creatures that dwell in the desert." (p.50). If you were Lola, would you have left the safety of your known life and gone to Palestine? Is it better to live as a pigeon or a hawk? Or is there an alternative?
3. When Father Vistorni asks Rabbi Judah Ayreh to warn the printer that the Church disapproves of one of their recently published texts, Ayreh tells him, "better you do it than to have us so intellectually enslaved that we do it for you." (p.156). Do you agree or disagree with his argument? With the way he handled Vistorni's request?
4. What was it, ultimately, that made Father Vistorini approve the Haggadah? Since Brooks leaves this part of the story unclear, how do you imagine it made its way from his rooms to Sarajevo?
5. Several of the novel's female characters lived in the pre-feminist era and certainly fared poorly at the hands of men. Does the fact that she was pushing for gender equality—not to mention saving lives—justify Sarah Heath's poor parenting skills? Would women's rights be where they are today if it weren't for women like her?
6. Have you ever been in a position where your professional judgment has been called into question? How did you react?
7. Was Hanna being fair to suspect only Amitai of the theft? Do you think charges should have been pressed against the culprits?
8. How did Hanna change after discovering the truth about her father? Would the person she was before her mother's accident have realized that she loved Ozren? Or risked the dangers involved in returning the codex?
9. There is an amazing array of "people of the book"—both base and noble—whose lifetimes span some remarkable periods in human history. Who is your favorite and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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