The Piano Tuner
Daniel Mason, 2002
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400030385
Summary
An extraordinary first novel that tells the story of a British piano tuner sent deep into Burma in the nineteenth century.
In October 1886, Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the British War Office: he must leave his wife and his quiet life in London to travel to the jungles of Burma, where a rare Erard grand piano is in need of repair. The piano belongs to an army surgeon-major whose unorthodox peacemaking methods—poetry, medicine, and now music—have brought a tentative quiet to the southern Shan States but have elicited questions from his superiors.
On his journey through Europe, the Red Sea, India, and into Burma, Edgar meets soldiers, mystics, bandits, and tale-spinners, as well as an enchanting woman as elusive as the surgeon-major. And at the doctor’s fort on a remote Burmese river, Edgar encounters a world more mysterious and dangerous than he ever could have imagined.
Sensuous, lyrical, rich with passion and adventure, this is a hypnotic tale of myth, romance, and self-discovery: an unforgettable novel. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Northern California, USA
• Education—Harvard University; University of California,
Medical School
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California
Daniel Mason was born and raised in Northern California. He studied Biology at Harvard, and Medicine at the University of California, in San Francisco. His first novel, The Piano Tuner, published in 2002, was a national bestseller and has since been published in 27 countries. A Far Country, his second novel, was published in 2007. Daniel has also published a short story in Harper's, on the life of the artist Arthur Bispo de Rosario. Currently, he lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Confidently weaving historical fact together with his own imaginative constructions, Mr. Mason creates a riveting narrative.... He has written a seductive and lyrical novel that probes the brutalities and compromises of colonization, even as it celebrates the elusive powers of music and the imagination.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Forty-one-year-old Edgar Drake seems an unlikely protagonist for a bildungsroman. Happy with his wife of eighteen years and his reputation as one of the finest piano tuners in late-nineteenth-century London, he is "a man whose life is defined by creating order so that others may make beauty." Transformation comes in the form of a summons to a remote outpost in Burma: a maverick British officer there has imported a vintage Erard grand into the jungle, where the humidity has caused it to lose its temperament. Drake's journey to the Far East is a kind of anti-Heart of Darkness, as he opens himself up to the uncertainty and wonder of human experience. In this début novel, Mason proves himself equally adept at scenes of wry humor and moments of rapture; most remarkable, he has written a profound adventure story with an unexpected climax, as the mild piano tuner finally becomes the hero of his own life.
The New Yorker
Richly imagined, The Piano Tuner winds like a lazy river, carrying the reader into the mythic land of Kipling and Conrad.
People
Set in Burma in 1886—a place of gilded temples, warring chieftains and duplicitous imperial powers struggling for dominance of Mandalay—this debut novel sparkles with exoticism. Unfortunately, the story can't conceal its inherent improbability nor the pedestrian nature of its title character, London piano tuner Edgar Drake, summoned from half a world away to tune the instrument of a brilliant, reclusive English officer, Anthony Carroll. In the first chapter, Carroll—botanist, diplomat, physician, linguist—is implausibly described as having won the heart of a warlord by reciting to him Shelley's "Ozymandias." Since Shelley's poem mocks the futility of power and military might, it seems like the least likely sonnet in the English language to win a warrior's heart. Certainly the choice belies Carroll's supposed reputation as a diplomat. As the piano tuner, a banal fellow capable of noting that "the camera is a wonderful invention indeed," inches his way toward the brilliant eccentric in the heart of the jungle, it is impossible not to think of this book as a sort of Heart of Darkness lite.
Book Magazine
Twenty-six-year-old Mason has penned a satisfying, if at times rather slow, debut historical. Edgar Drake lives a quiet life in late 19th-century London as a tuner of rare pianos. When he's summoned to Burma to repair the instrument of an eccentric major, Anthony Carroll, Edgar bids his wife good-bye and begins the months-long journey east. The first half of the book details his trip, and while Mason's descriptions of the steamships and trains of Europe and India are entertaining, the narrative tends to drag; Edgar is the only real character readers have met, and any conflicts he might encounter are unclear. Things pick up when Edgar meets the unconventional Carroll, who has built a paradise of sorts in the Burmese jungle. Edgar ably tunes the piano, but this turns out to be the least of his duties, as Carroll seeks his services on a mission to make peace between the British and the local Shan people. During his stay at Carroll's camp, Edgar falls for a local beauty, learns to appreciate the magnificence of Burma's landscape and customs and realizes the absurdity of the war between the British and the Burmese. While Mason's writing smoothly evokes Burma's beauty, and the idea that music can foster peace is compelling, his work features so many familiar literary pieces—the nerdy Englishman; the steamy locale; the unjust war; the surprisingly cultured locals—that readers may find themselves wishing they were turning the pages of Orwell's Burmese Days or E.M. Forster's A Passage to India instead.
Publishers Weekly
In October 1886, piano tuner Edgar Drake receives an astonishing request from the War Office. He is asked to go to Burma to tune the Erard piano of Surgeon—Major Anthony Carroll, to whom the office is much indebted for keeping the peace in the remote and restless Shan States. Drake accepts the assignment and launches on a journey of self-discovery that takes him from London to Calcutta to Rangoon and, with the help of a mysterious Burmese woman named Khin Myo, to the compound of the formidable Dr. Carroll himself. Yes, he successfully tunes the piano and even plays a concert for visiting dignitaries he chooses Bach's immortal Well-Tempered Clavier, reasoning that it has universal application but Drake finds that he cannot leave. He is altered by the beauty of the place, slowly opening himself to Khin Myo, and caught up in Carroll's machinations, which may or may not be seditious. It ends, inevitably, in tragedy, but the reader will regret that it ends at all. This is an utterly involving first novel, rich in historical detail and as lulling as Burma itself. Mason's language is at once tropically lush and as precise as a Bach prelude. A novel for readers of literary and popular fiction alike; highly recommended. —Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal
Library Journal
A rattling good story, complex characterizations, and a brilliantly realized portrayal of an alien culture—all combine to dazzling effect in this first by a California medical student who has worked and studied in the Far East. Piano tuner Edgar Drake undertakes his journey (thrillingly described), arriving at the inland fortress where the suave Dr. Anthony Carroll—part Albert Schweitzer, part Mistah Kurtz of Heart of Darkness—rules as a benevolent despot, aided by a beautiful Burmese woman to whom Edgar finds himself increasingly attracted. A wealth of information-musical, medical, historical, political—and numerous colorfully detailed vignettes of life in Burma's teeming cities and jungle villages provide a solid context for the intricate plot, which brings Drake into 'complicity' with Carroll's visionary dream...until the powerful denouement [and the] deeply ironic climactic action. (One keeps thinking of what a marvelous movie The Piano Tuner might make.).... An irresistible amalgam of Kipling, Rider Haggard, and Conrad at their very best. Masterful.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In briefing Edgar Drake about Anthony Carroll, Colonel Killian tells him, “there are men who get lost in the rhetoric of our imperial destiny, that we conquer not to gain land and wealth but to spread culture and civilization” [p. 18]. Is this true of Carroll? Is he motivated to spread Western culture, via music, to the East? Is it true of Edgar? What does the novel suggest about the purpose of imperialism?
2. Why does Edgar decide to accept a mission to travel thousands of miles to tune a piano in a remote and dangerous jungle at the furthest outreaches of the British Empire? Why does his wife, Katherine, encourage him to go?
3. Why is Anthony Carroll viewed with such a mixture of reverence and suspicion by the British military? In what ways does his behavior defy convention?
4. As he contemplates his voyage to Burma, Edgar views London on a foggy night: “He could see the vague line of the shore, the vast, heavy architecture that crowded the river. Like animals at a waterhole, he thought, and he liked the comparison” [p. 23]. Why is this a particularly apt simile for Edgar to use at this moment? Where else in the novel does Mason reveal the depth of Edgar’s consciousness through his impressions?
5. Edgar writes to Katherine that the “entire trip has already coated itself in a veneer of seeming, a dreamlikeness” [p. 146]. In what ways is this true? What gives Edgar’s experiences an otherworldly quality? What role do his dreams play in the novel?
6. During the tiger hunt, Captain Witherspoon spots some egrets and asks if he can shoot them. “Not here,” Captain Dalton tells him. “The egrets are part of the founding myths of Pegu. Bad luck to shoot them, my friend.” To which Witherspoon replies, “Superstitious nonsense. . . . I thought we were educating them to abandon such beliefs” [p. 94]. What does this exchange suggest about the British attitude toward colonial subjects in Burma? About the cultural differences between the British and Burmese?
7. What is the significance of the boy to whom Edgar gives a coin being accidentally shot by Captain Witherspoon? Why does Edgar refer to the coin as “a symbol of responsibility, of misplaced munificence, a reminder of mistakes, and so a talisman” [p. 104]? In what sense does Edgar inherit the boy’s “fortune”?
8. How is Edgar perfectly suited to the task set for him by Anthony Carroll? How do his dreaminess, his propensity for getting lost, his clumsiness, and his political naïveté all serve Carroll’s ends?
9. After he’s been away from London for several months, Edgar writes to Katherine that he has changed, although, he admits “What this change means I don’t know, just as I don’t know if I am happier or sadder than I have ever been.” He also says, “There is a purpose in all of this...although I do not know yet what it is” [p. 252]. How has Edgar changed? What has changed him? What is his real purpose in Burma?
10. What kind of woman is Khin Myo? Is her attraction to Edgar real or feigned? What is her relationship to Anthony Carroll? How is she related to the woman with the parasol at the beginning and end of the story? Is she, as Nash-Burnham suggests in the ghostly conversation in the guardhouse, Edgar’s “creation,” a part of his “imaginings” [p.302]?
11. Music is a recurring theme in The Piano Tuner, from the hauntingly beautiful song the Man with One Story hears in the desert, to the love ditty Anthony Carroll plays on a flute to fend off attackers in the jungle, to the Bach fugue Edgar plays for the sawbwa, to the call of insects scraping their wings in the jungle. What roles does music play in the novel? How does it affect its listeners? What is its ultimate importance in the story?
12. After Edgar escapes from the guardhouse, he reads the note that Carroll had given him—a passage from his translation of The Odyssey about the Lotus-Eaters who “forget the way home” [p. 310]. In what ways has Edgar “tasted” of the lotus? Why does he find Burma so alluring? What does the lotus signify in this context?
13. Why does Edgar cut the piano loose from its moorings and send it down the Salween River in a rainstorm? In what way is this striking image—a grand piano floating downriver on an unmanned raft and being “played” by the rain—suggestive of the novel’s larger themes?
14. What accounts for The Piano Tuner’s elusive, hard-to-pin-down quality? What remains mysterious after the book is finished? How does Mason’s prose style contribute to the sense of ambiguity that pervades the novel?
15. At the end of the novel, Captain Nash-Burnham tells Edgar that Anthony Carroll is a traitor to England and suggests a number of possible roles for the Doctor: “Anthony Carroll is an agent working for Russia, He is a Shan nationalist, He is a French spy, Anthony Carroll wants to build his own kingdom in the jungles of Burma” [p. 301]. Edgar thinks Carroll is a genius and a peacemaker. Which of these interpretations is correct? Does the novel present enough evidence to decide?
16. Why does Mason begin and end the novel with the image of the sun and a parasol? What symbolic or cultural values might these images represent?
17. What does the novel as a whole suggest about the British Empire—its effects on colonized peoples and on those who try to rule them—in the late nineteenth century? How is this historical portrait relevant to our own time and the political and cultural conflicts between the West and the Middle East?
18. The Piano Tuner participates in a tradition of literary works that try to fathom colonized cultures vastly different from the author’s own. What features does Daniel Mason’s novel share with such predecessors as E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India, Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, or George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”? How is it different from these works?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Then She Found Me
Elinor Lipman, 1990
Simon & Schuster
307 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416589938
Summary
April Epner teaches high school Latin, wears flannel jumpers, and is used to having her evenings free. Bernice Graverman brandishes designer labels, favors toad-sized earrings, and hosts her own tacky TV talk show: Bernice G!
But behind the glitz and glam, Bernice has followed the life of the daughter she gave up for adoption thirty-six years ago. Now that she's got her act together, she's aiming to be a mom like she always knew she could. And she's hurtling straight for April's quiet little life. (From the publisher.)
The 2008 film version is directed by and stars Helen Hunt. Colin Firth, Bette Midler, and Matthew Broderick also star.
Author Bio
• Birth—October 16, 1950
• Where—Lowell, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—A.B. Simmons College
• Awards—New England Books Award For Fiction
• Currently—lives in North Hampton, Massachusetts, and New York, New York
Elinor Lipman is an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist, known for her humor and societal observations. In his review of her 2019 novel, Good Riddance, Sam Sacks of the Wall Street Journal wrote that Lipman "has long been one of our wittiest chroniclers of modern-day romance."
The author was born and raised in Lowell, Massachusetts. She graduated from Simmons College in Boston where she studied journalism. While at Simon, Lipman began her writing career, working as a college intern with the Lowell Sun. Throughout the rest of the 1970s, she wrote press releases for WGBH, Boston's public radio station.
Writing
Lipman turned to fiction writing in 1979; her first short story, "Catering," was published in Yankee Magazine. In 1987 she published a volume of stories, Into Love and Out Again, and in 1990 she came out with her first novel, Then She Found Me. Her second novel, The Inn at Lake Devine, appeared in 1998, earning Lipman the 2001 New England Book Award three years later.
Lipman's first novel, Then She Found Me, was adapted into a 2008 feature film—directed by and starring Helen Hunt, along with Bette Midler, Colin Firth, and Matthew Broderick.
In addition to her fiction, Lipman released a 2012 book of rhyming political tweets, Tweet Land of Liberty: Irreverent Rhymes from the Political Circus. Two other books—a 10th novel, The View from Penthouse B, and a collection of essays, I Can't Complain: (all too) Personal Essays—were both published in 2013. The latter deals in part with the death of her husband at age 60. A knitting devotee, Lipman's poem, "I Bought This Pattern Book Last Spring," was included in the 2013 anthology Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting.
Lipman was the Elizabeth Drew Professor of Creative Writing at Smith College from 2011-12, and she continues to write the column, "I Might Complain," for Parade.com. Smith spends her time between North Hampton, Massachusetts, and New York City.
Works
1988 - Into Love and Out Again: Stories
1990 - Then She Found Me
1992 - The Way Men Act
1995 - Isabel's Bed
1998 - The Inn at Lake Devine
1999 - The Ladies' Man
2001 - The Dearly Departed
2003 - The Pursuit of Alice Thrift
2006 - My Latest Grievance
2009 - The Family Man
2012 - Tweet Land of Liberty: Irreverent Rhymes from the Political Circus
2013 - I Can't Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays
2013 - The View From Penthouse B
2017 - On Turpentine Lane
2019 - Good Riddance
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/27/2019.)
Book Reviews
A bright, lively, and funny look at an eccentric mother-daughter relationship.
New York Times Book Review
First-rate...stylish, original....delightful...Then She Found Me is a little, big-hearted book with the capacity to stir surprisingly deep feelings.
Boston Globe
In an enchanting tale of love in assorted forms, Lipman, author of the well-received collection of short stories Into Love and Out Again, delivers a first novel full of charm, humor and unsentimental wisdom. At age 36, April Epner, her adoptive parents recently deceased, is quite satisfied with her quiet, self-sufficient, solitary life as a Latin teacher in a suburban Boston high school. Then she is claimed by her birth mother, Bernice Graverman, star hostess of Boston's popular, gossipy morning TV talk show, Bernice G! Loud and self-centered, always on-stage Bernice, who was 17 when she gave April up for adoption, barrels her way into her self-effacing daughter's life, wreaking havoc all around. Not the least of these occasions occurs after April, bullied into bringing a date to a dinner with Bernice, invites the only available man she knows, the apparently nerdy school librarian, whose shy exterior hides unexpected virtues. Lipman displays a sure, light touch while charting the various transformations that love performs. Raising laughter and tears with acutely observed characterizations and dry, affectionate wit, she also keeps dealing out the surprises, leaving readers smiling long after the last page is turned.
Publishers Weekly
What happens when a well-adjusted adult is found by the birth mother she never sought? In Lipman's deft hands, the relationship between high school teacher April Epner and her newly discovered mother, talk-show hostess Bernice Graverman, is often strained, replete with humorous misunderstandings, but ultimately a warm and positive experience for both. Lipman's depiction of a 1980s family is a skillful rendering of the morals and manners of our time. Each character displays his or her human contradictions, whether it's Bernice frantically inventing preposterous stories concerning April's birth father, or April tentatively moving toward romance with the school librarian. This is a delightful addition to public library fiction collections. —Andrea Caron Kempf, Johnson Cty. Com. Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Library Journal
Winningly wry and dry-eyed.... Funny, moving, and very wise in the ways of life.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Then She Found Me:
1. How would you describe Bernice Graverman? Does she have the right to intrude into April's life? Is she April's "mother?" What rights do biological mothers have with regards to their children?
2. Is April's life all that she thinks it is? As she herself puts it: "it's very satisfying to teach something no one cares about."
3. What does Bernice offer April? (Hint: think of the symbolic significance of April's name....)
4. How does the idea of "class" play out in this book; in other words, how are social distinctions presented?
5. Is Elinor Lipman too hard on Bernice in her parody of daytime talk television shows?
6. Ultimately, what does April come to learn about herself and her what it means to be connected to "family?"
7. Lipman writes with a good deal of humor. Point out passages that you find particularly funny. You might even talk about the uses of humor in dealing with what are potentially painful subjects.
8. Have you read any other Elinor Lipman books? If so, how does this compare? If not, are you inspired to read more of her works?
9. Watch selected scenes of the 2008 movie with Helen Hunt and compare them with the book. Does the film capture the essence and humor of the novel?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise
Julia Stuart, 2010
Knopf Doubleday
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385533287
Summary
Balthazar Jones has lived in the Tower of London with his loving wife, Hebe, and his 120-year-old pet tortoise for the past eight years. That’s right, he is a Beefeater (they really do live there). It’s no easy job living and working in the tourist attraction in present-day London.
Among the eccentric characters who call the Tower’s maze of ancient buildings and spiral staircases home are the Tower’s Rack & Ruin barmaid, Ruby Dore, who just found out she’s pregnant; portly Valerie Jennings, who is falling for ticket inspector Arthur Catnip; the lifelong bachelor Reverend Septimus Drew, who secretly pens a series of principled erotica; and the philandering Ravenmaster, aiming to avenge the death of one of his insufferable ravens.
When Balthazar is tasked with setting up an elaborate menagerie within the Tower walls to house the many exotic animals gifted to the Queen, life at the Tower gets all the more interesting. Penguins escape, giraffes are stolen, and the Komodo dragon sends innocent people running for their lives. Balthazar is in charge and things are not exactly running smoothly. Then Hebe decides to leave him and his beloved tortoise “runs” away.
Filled with the humor and heart that calls to mind the delightful novels of Alexander McCall Smith, and the charm and beauty of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise is a magical, wholly original novel whose irresistible characters will stay with you long after you turn the stunning last page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Rasied—West Midlands, England, UK
• Education—N/A
• Currently—Bahrain
Julia Stuart is an English novelist and journalist. She grew up in the West Midlands, England, and studied French and Spanish. She lived for a period in France and Spain teaching English.
After studying journalism at university, she worked on regional newspapers for six years. She worked for The Independent for eight years. In 2007, she relocated to Bahrain with her husband, who is also a journalist.
Stuart's first novel, The Matchmaker of Périgord, published in 2007, is the story of a barber in decline who decides to open a matchmaking agency in the small French town of Amor-Sur-Belle. The story was inspired by a visit to Périgord. The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise, Stuart's second novel, published in 2010, is the story of Balthazar Jones who lives and works in the Tower of London with his wife and his 120-year-old tortiose. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[The] delightfully zany and touching novel, The Tower, The Zoo, and the Tortoise, by British writer Julia Stuart, has jumped the queue to take readers on a fictional romp through the Tower’s realm…With her deft and charming style, Stuart brings this comic story to a satisfying and heartwarming end.
Washington Post
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise is the perfect summer confection—feather-light without being feather-brained. Julia Stuart has penned a work that is original and every-page amusing, and she's peopled it with characters that move into your heart.
Denver Post
Julia Stuart's sweet The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise is a blessing, undisguised and undeniable, and apparent from the very first sentence.... Stuart's clever, amusing and touching story rolls along with wit and tenderness. By the time she concludes this tale at once contemporary and timeless, she and her characters—biped and quadruped—have won the reader's heart.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
The Tower of London’s the center of this hilarious love story about Beefeater Balthazar, his wife, their tortoise and their eccentric friends. As Balthazar struggles to save his marriage, the rest of the cast carries on in a charming tangle, and when Balthazar is put in charge of a Tower zoo, hilarity breaks out. Sprinkled with fascinating Tower lore, the book will steal your heart. (4 out of 4 stars.)
People Magazine
A Beefeater, his wife, and their nearly 180-year-old tortoise live in the Tower of London, and if Stuart's deadly charming sophomore novel (after The Matchmaker of Perigord) is any indication, the fortress is as full of intrigue as ever. Balthazar and Hebe Jones lost their son, Milo, to illness three years ago, and while Beefeater Balthazar grieves silently and obsessively collects rainwater in perfume bottles, Hebe wants to talk about their loss openly. Hebe works in the thematically convenient London Underground Lost Property Office, and the abandoned items that reside there (an ash-filled urn, a gigolo's diary, Dustin Hoffman's Oscar) are almost as peculiar as the unruly animals (lovebirds not in love, a smelly zorilla, monkeys with a peculiar nervous tic) in the Tower's new menagerie, given to the queen and overseen by Balthazar. Passion, desperation, and romantic shenanigans abound among the other Tower-dwellers: the Reverend, an erotic fiction writer, has eyes for a bartender, and the Ravenmaster is cheating on his wife with the cook. Though the cuteness sometimes comes across a little thick, the love story is adorabley.
Publishers Weekly
Charming, witty, and heartfelt, Stuart's second novel is even more delightful than her debut, The Matchmaker of Périgord. A perfect suggestion for fans of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society; highly recommended
Library Journal
[Stuart's novel] is grounded by the moving central love story. This sweet romp will appeal to history buffs.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. While filled with humour, The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise has an undercurrent of heartache. Why do you think the author included the tragic element—could the story have survived without it?
2. The novel is strewn with historical anecdotes. Which do you think are true, and which do you think the author made up, if any?
3. Much is made of British humour. Do you think that there is any difference between British and American humour? If so, how is it demonstrated in the book?
4. Explain the correlation between Balthazar’s inability to cry about Milo’s death and his obsession with collecting rain drops.
5. Hebe Jones sarcastically states that “It’s every woman’s dream to live in a castle.” (p. 22) How is this statement not true for Hebe. What do you think is Hebe’s dream?
6. What is the main attraction between Arthur Catnip and Valerie Jennings? How are they a well-suited match?
7. How is the lost safe significant to Hebe and Valerie? Is their any significance to the timing of when the lock is opened?
8. Reverend Septimus Drew seems to be a walking contradiction. Outside of his hidden hobby, what else is surprising/contradictory about his character?
9. All of the characters seem to be in search of something—whether lost love, items, loved ones, or animals. Who do you think is the most fulfilled character in the book, if there is any? Why?
10. Sir Walter Raleigh and many other spirits claim to haunt the Tower. What element do these ghosts add to the book? Is it more spiritual or superstitious?
11. What is the significance of the urn that Hebe finds in London Underground’s Lost Property Office? Why is she so resolved to find its owner?
12. Explain how infidelity affects various characters in the book.
13. How does working in the menagerie make Balthazar feel closer to Milo?
14. What role does Mrs. Cook play in the novel? She is in part responsible for Balthazar’s job at the menagerie—how else has she played an integral role in Hebe and Balthazar’s lives?
15. What role does storytelling and letter writing play in the book? Balthazar won both Hebe and Milo’s hearts with his grand storytelling. Who else from the Tower is a raconteur?
___________________
Quiz-for-Fun: Which character in the novel are you? Answer the following questions and find out who!
1. You are tasked with babysitting your neighbor's new piglets for the weekend when one decides to flee your grasp and head for the hills. What do you do?
a) Call your best friend who works at the local Lost and Found and report a missing mammal.
b) Sit idle. Pigs, regardless of size are too fast to catch.
c) Grab a handful of fruits and veggies from the fridge and head out to lure the piglet back to safety.
d) Grimace and wring your hands as you realize that this animal on the loose has not only delayed your finishing your latest bodice-buster, but also caused you to burn the treacle cake that was baking in the oven.
2. You are invited to visit friends in New York City and have some spare time before you're due to meet them. What do you do while you wait?
a) Stop at Alice's Tea Cup for tea and a scone and then ride the subway through the boroughs looking for items riders have left behind. New Yorkers must have some interesting things to lose, right?
b) Enjoy some shade in Central Park. No need to exhaust yourself in the concrete jungle just yet.
c) Take a leisurely stroll through Central Park Zoo. You've heard there are new chinstrap penguins in the Penguin House!
d) Head to the MTA office to complain about the rat infestation in the subway system.
3. Your boss just gave you the day off of work. How will you spend these precious hours of freedom?
a) Catching up on the latest town gossip with your best friend.
b) Work? I ve been retired for a very long time. Every day is a day off!
c) At the local pub. Every vacation day deserves its own toast!
d) Speed dating. There have to be some eligible singles out there with a comparable penchant for storytelling.
4. You're just headed out of the grocery store when it starts pouring rain and you don't have an umbrella. How do you react?
a) There's no sense in getting upset over a shower. You'll dry off and warm up with some tea when you make it home.
b) Piece of cake. My outerwear is always durable and I could use a good rinse.
c) Rain fascinates you. You don't care if all of your groceries get soggy; you're going to soak up this rain for as long as you can.
d) You pull your coat up over your head and hurry home to make sure the rain isn't driving the field mice indoors.
5. You just won a contest through your local radio station. You've won an all expense paid trip to any city/country of your choice. Where will you go?
a) Santorini, Greece: You love the history and heritage, not to mention the views!
b) The town next door has always intrigued you. You can only carry what's on your back, so the proximity helps you cut down on packing.
c) South Africa: You'll finally be able to see wild animals in their natural habitat.
d) Rome, Italy: You've always wanted to visit the Coliseum and hear stories about its classic battles and gladiator contests.
If you answered mostly . . .
A: You are Hebe Jones! Loyal friend and dedicated employee with an affinity for problem solving.
B: You are Mrs. Cook! The Jones 181-year-old tortoise. The oldest tortoise in the world. Congratulations; you ve earned the right to be lazy.
C: You are Balthazar Jones! Animal lover and collector of rain.
D: You are Reverend Septimus Drew! The Tower's lovelorn chaplain who despises mice and has a secret passion for writing well, you know
(Quiz and questions issued by publisher.)
A Passage to India
E.M. Forster, 1924
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
372 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780151711413>
Summary
A New York Times Book of the Century
Two women, Mrs. Moore and Adela Quested, her future daughter-in-law, arrive in India during the British Raj (the rule). They meet and befriend a young Indian Muslim, Dr. Aziz, to whom they express a desire to see the real India, not the one lived behind the walls of the British clubs and compounds. Aziz arranges an expedition to visit the famous Marabar caves. But a mysterious incident in one of the caves, involving Adela, leads to a drama that divides the British and Indian communities in anger, distrust, and fear.
Forsters great novel brings to life all the dangers and misunderstandings of colonialism but, as Forster himself wrote, the story is about something wider than politics, about the search of the human race for a more lasting home, about the universe as embodied in the Indian earth and the Indian sky, about the horror lurking in the Marabar Caves. (Adapted from the Oxford University Press edition.)
Among the greatest novels of the twentieth century and the basis for director David Lean’s Academy Award-winning film, A Passage to India tells of the clash of cultures in British India after the turn of the century. In exquisite prose, Forster reveals the menace that lurks just beneath the surface of ordinary life, as a common misunderstanding erupts into a devastating affair. (From the Houghton Mifflin Harcourt edition.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 1, 1879
• Where—London, UK
• Death—June 7, 1970
• Where—Coventry, UK
• Education—B. A., (two: in classics and in history); M.A.,
Cambridge
Edward Morgan Forster was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society. Forster's humanistic impulse toward understanding and sympathy may be aptly summed up in the epigraph to his 1910 novel Howards End: "Only connect." His 1908 novel, A Room with a View, is his most optimistic work, while A Passage to India (1924) brought him his greatest success.
Early years
Forster was born into an Anglo-Irish and Welsh middle-class family at 6 Melcombe Place, Dorset Square, London NW1, in a building that no longer exists. He was the only child of Alice Clara "Lily" (nee Whichelo) and Edward Morgan Llewellyn Forster, an architect. His name was officially registered as Henry Morgan Forster, but at his baptism he was accidentally named Edward Morgan Forster. To distinguish him from his father, he was always called Morgan. His father died of tuberculosis in 1880, before Morgan's second birthday.
He inherited £8,000 (£659,300 as of 2013) from his paternal great-aunt Marianne Thornton (daughter of the abolitionist Henry Thornton), who died in 1887. The money was enough to live on and enabled him to become a writer. He attended the notable public school Tonbridge School in Kent as a day boy. The theatre at the school has been named in his honour.
At King's College, Cambridge, between 1897 and 1901, he became a member of a discussion society known as the Apostles (formally named the Cambridge Conversazione Society). Many of its members went on to constitute what came to be known as the Bloomsbury Group, of which Forster was a peripheral member in the 1910s and 1920s. There is a famous recreation of Forster's Cambridge at the beginning of The Longest Journey.
After leaving university, he travelled in continental Europe with his mother. In 1914, he visited Egypt, Germany and India with the classicist Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, by which time he had written all but one of his novels. In the First World War, as a conscientious objector, Forster volunteered for the International Red Cross, and served in Alexandria, Egypt.
Forster spent a second spell in India in the early 1920s as the private secretary to Tukojirao III, the Maharajah of Dewas. The Hill of Devi is his non-fictional account of this period. After returning to London from India, he completed his last novel, A Passage to India (1924), for which he won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.
After A Passage to India
In the 1930s and 1940s Forster became a successful broadcaster on BBC Radio and a public figure associated with the Union of Ethical Societies. He was awarded a Benson Medal in 1937.
Forster was a closeted homosexual and lifelong bachelor. He developed a long-term, loving relationship with Bob Buckingham, a married policeman. Forster included Buckingham and his wife May in his circle, which included J. R. Ackerley, a writer and literary editor of The Listener, the psychologist W. J. H. Sprott and, for a time, the composer Benjamin Britten. Other writers with whom Forster associated included the poet Siegfried Sassoon and the Belfast-based novelist Forrest Reid.
From 1925 until his mother's death at age 90 in 1945, Forster lived with her at West Hackhurst, Abinger Hammer, finally leaving in 1946. His London base was 26 Brunswick Square from 1930 to 1939, after which he rented 9 Arlington Park Mansions in Chiswick until at least 1961.
Forster was elected an honorary fellow of King's College, Cambridge in 1946 and lived for the most part in the college, doing relatively little. He declined a knighthood in 1949 and was made a Companion of Honour in 1953. In 1969 he was made a member of the Order of Merit. Forster died of a stroke at the Buckinghams' home in Coventry on June 7, 1970. He was 91.
Novels
Forster had five novels published in his lifetime. Although Maurice was published shortly after his death, it had been written nearly sixty years earlier. He never finished a seventh novel Arctic Summer.
His first novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread (1905), is the story of Lilia, a young English widow who falls in love with an Italian man, and of the efforts of her bourgeois relatives to get her back from Monteriano (based on San Gimignano). Philip Herriton's mission to retrieve her from Italy has features in common with that of Lambert Strether in Henry James's The Ambassadors. Forster discussed that work ironically and somewhat disapprovingly in his book Aspects of the Novel (1927). Where Angels Fear to Tread was adapted to film in 1991.
Next, Forster published The Longest Journey (1907), an inverted bildungsroman following the lame Rickie Elliott from Cambridge to a career as a struggling writer and then to a post as a schoolmaster, married to the unappealing Agnes Pembroke. In a series of scenes on the hills of Wiltshire, which introduce Rickie's wild half-brother Stephen Wonham, Forster attempts a kind of sublime related to those of Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence.
Forster's third novel, A Room with a View (1908), is his lightest and most optimistic. It was started as early as 1901, before any of his others; its earliest versions are entitled "Lucy." The book explores the young Lucy Honeychurch's trip to Italy with her cousin, and the choice she must make between the free-thinking George Emerson and the repressed aesthete Cecil Vyse. George's father Mr Emerson quotes thinkers who influenced Forster, including Samuel Butler. A Room with a View was adapted as a film in 1985 by the Merchant-Ivory team.
Where Angels Fear to Tread and A Room with a View can be seen collectively as Forster's Italian novels. Both include references to the famous Baedeker guidebooks and concern narrow-minded middle-class English tourists abroad. The books share many themes with his short stories collected in The Celestial Omnibus and The Eternal Moment.
Howards End (1910) is an ambitious "condition-of-England" novel concerned with different groups within the Edwardian middle classes, represented by the Schlegels (bohemian intellectuals), the Wilcoxes (thoughtless plutocrats) and the Basts (struggling lower-middle-class aspirants). Critics have observed that numerous characters in Forster's novels die suddenly. This is true of Where Angels Fear to Tread, Howards End and, most particularly, The Longest Journey.
Forster achieved his greatest success with A Passage to India (1924). The novel takes as its subject the relationship between East and West, seen through the lens of India in the later days of the British Raj. Forster connects personal relationships with the politics of colonialism through the story of the Englishwoman Adela Quested, the Indian Dr. Aziz, and the question of what did or did not happen between them in the Marabar Caves. Forster makes special mention of the author Ahmed Ali and his Twilight in Delhi in his Preface to its Everyman's Library Edition.
Maurice (1971) was published posthumously. It is a homosexual love story which also returns to matters familiar from Forster's first three novels, such as the suburbs of London in the English home counties, the experience of attending Cambridge, and the wild landscape of Wiltshire. The novel was controversial, given that Forster's homosexuality had not been previously known or widely acknowledged. Today's critics continue to argue over the extent to which Forster's sexuality and personal activities influenced his writing.
Critical reception
In the United States, interest in, and appreciation for, Forster was spurred by Lionel Trilling's E. M. Forster: A Study, which began:
E. M. Forster is for me the only living novelist who can be read again and again and who, after each reading, gives me what few writers can give us after our first days of novel-reading, the sensation of having learned something. (Trilling 1943).
Key themes
Forster was President of the Cambridge Humanists from 1959 until his death and a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association from 1963 until his death. His views as a humanist are at the heart of his work, which often depicts the pursuit of personal connections in spite of the restrictions of contemporary society.
His humanist attitude is expressed in the non-fictional essay "What I Believe." When Forster’s cousin, Philip Whichelo, donated a portrait of Forster to the Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (GLHA), Jim Herrick, the founder, quoted Forster's words: "The humanist has four leading characteristics—curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race."
Two of Forster's best-known works, A Passage to India and Howards End, explore the irreconcilability of class differences. A Room with a View also shows how questions of propriety and class can make human connection difficult. The novel is his most widely read and accessible work, remaining popular long after its original publication. His posthumous novel Maurice explores the possibility of class reconciliation as one facet of a homosexual relationship.
Sexuality is another key theme in Forster's works. Some critics have argued that a general shift from heterosexual to homosexual love can be observed through the course of his writing career. The foreword to Maurice describes his struggle with his homosexuality, while he explored similar issues in several volumes of short stories. Forster's explicitly homosexual writings, the novel Maurice and the short story collection The Life to Come, were published shortly after his death.
Forster is noted for his use of symbolism as a technique in his novels, and he has been criticised (as by his friend Roger Fry) for his attachment to mysticism. One example of his symbolism is the wych elm tree in Howards End. The characters of Mrs. Wilcox in that novel and Mrs. Moore in A Passage to India have a mystical link with the past, and a striking ability to connect with people from beyond their own circles. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/25/2013.)
Book Reviews
Classic works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
A funny thing about empires: empires pack up and carry their own culture with them, then impose it on those they've conquered. It's a lovely custom...if you're in charge. So it was with the British Raj in India, which is the subject of E.M. Forster's masterpiece, A Passage to India. In another Forster work, Howards End (see Review), the mantra was "only connect." In Passage the last thing the British wish to do is connect with the Indians.
LitLovers Review - July 2011 (Read full review.)
A single reading of A Passage to India settles the question. Mr. E. M. Forster is indubitably one of the finest novelists living in England today, and A Passage to India is one of the saddest, keenest, most beautifully written ironic novels of the time.... [It] is both a challenge and an indictment. It is also a revelation.
Herbert S. Gorman - New York Times (1924)
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Passage to India:
1. What is Cyril Fielding's relationship with Indians at the beginning of the novel? How do his views of them change during and after the trial?
2. Describe Dr. Aziz—what kind of person is he? Is his fondness for Mrs. Moore, Adela Quested, Fielding and other British well placed? Is his disillusionment at the end justified? Or were his affections naive and overly trusting to begin with—yes...no?
3. Fielding and Dr. Aziz become friends. On what is their friendship based—what draws the two men together? The friendship is strained in the aftermath of the trial, why? Is Aziz justified in his anger toward Fielding?
4. What do you think of Adela Quested? Why does she, along with Mrs. Moore, reject the standard British attitudes toward the Indians? What does that say about her character? Is her desire to experience the real India genuine...or does she wish merely to "taste" or skim the surface of India? Do your feelings toward Adela change during the book?
5. Adela breaks off her engagement to Ronny Heaslop. Why? What do you think of Ronny? Why does Adela change her mind after the car accident?
6. What do you think happens in the Mirabar Caves? As an author, why might Forster have purposely left the incident open-ended, never providing an answer—the truth—to what took place?
7. Talk about the caves' symbolic imagery. As an imaginative writer, why would Forster have chosen to set the incident in caves rather than than some other remote spot? What do caves suggest symbolically?
8. What about Mrs. Moore? Is her interest in India genuine? Why does she, along with Adela, refuse to support the typical British attitude toward the Indians? Why doesn't she support Adela in the aftermath of the Marabar Cave incident?
9. Why does Adela recant during the trial?
10. Why does Fielding come to respect Adela? Do you?
11. A Passage explores differences in religious beliefs, primarily Christianity and Hindu. How are those faiths expressed in the novel. Think for instance of Mrs. Moore's respect for the wasp in her bedroom? What about Professor Godbole's philosophy—what is meant by the "unity of all things"? How might that ideal offer redemption for Indians and British? How does the novel's use of imagery or descriptive prose express the unity concept?
12. The echo of the cave haunts both Mrs. Moore and Adela: no matter what one calls out, the returning echo is always "boum." The echo seems to suggest what can happen when all of life merges into one—things become indistinguishable from one another, individualism disappears. What is the echo's effect on Mrs. Moore? Does Professor Godbole (or Forster, for that matter) embrace absolutely the concept of total and complete unity? Or do they hold some reservations about the concept?
13. How do the British characters feel about—how do they treat—the Indians? How do the Indians feel about—how do they respond to—the British colonists? Locate specific passages that exemplify both sides.
14. How does Forster portray his countrymen and their values in A Passage? The author was criticized by the British for what they perceived as his biased treatment of them in the novel. Is their criticism justified, or not? Are his portrayals black and white of both British and Indians? Or does he give equal weight to each? Have you read other accounts of the British Raj (rule)? If so, how does Forster's treatment compare?
15. One of the novel's central concerns is the possibility or impossibility of friendship between Indians and the British. On which side of the issue do the various characters—Fielding, Aziz, primarily, but others as well—fall? Whose positions change by the novel's end...and why?
(Questions by LtiLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Abortionist's Daughter
Elisabeth Hyde, 2006
Knopf Doubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307276414
Summary
Elisabeth Hyde has taken a powerful moral predicament and constructed around it a richly layered, compulsively readable novel about a murder in a small Colorado town, about the choices we make and the way their unintended consequences ripple through our lives.
Two weeks before Christmas, Diana Duprey, an outspoken abortion doctor, is found floating in her pool, a bruise the size of a golf ball visible through her dark curls. A national figure, Diana inspired passion and ignited tempers, never more so than on the day of her death.
Her husband, Frank, an attorney in the D.A.'s office for more than twenty years, had fought bitterly with her on the day of her murder. Yet to reveal the nature of their fight would cost him not only his career but something greater still-a relationship he will go to any lengths to protect. Diana's daughter, Megan, a college freshman, had also quarreled with Diana that day, and her role in her mother's murder will prove more significant than she ever could have anticipated. The Reverend Stephen O'Connell, founder of the town's pro-life coalition, obviously had issues with Diana, but his anger extended beyond the political to the personal-namely, Dr. Duprey's involvement with his own troubled teenager. Meanwhile, the detective on the case grapples to make sense of it all. His investigation implicates many in this town and reveals a series of gross miscalculations, each one challenging what we know, or think we know, about community, fidelity, justice, and love.
A riveting and provocative page-turner: a novel of stunning economy and momentum by a writer poised for wide discovery. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Elizabeth Hyde is the author of three previous novels, including Crazy as Chocolate. Born and raised in New Hampshire, she has since lived in Vermont, Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle. In 1979 she received her law degree and practiced briefly with the U.S. Department of Justice. She has taught creative writing in the public schools as well as through Naropa University. She currently lives with her husband and three children in Colorado. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Hyde thoughtfully explores the illusion of choice and spins a tale rife with tragic consequences.... What a pleasure it is to read this well-crafted novel with complicated characters and interesting ideas.
Boston Sunday Globe
What works best in this novel is not the issue of abortion (duly presented and dissected from both sides) nor the revelation of the murderer but the family backstories, which reveal Hyde at her best. The dialogue between Megan and her mother is biting, edgy and dismayingly real. "Have fun killing babies," Megan tosses off as a parting zinger the last time she sees her mother. So, too, are the flashback scenes between Frank and his wife, a couple on the brink of divorce. Their fights have at times escalated to brief flurries of violent behavior.
Anita Shreve - The Washington Post
The Abortionist’s Daughter explores the subtleties of belief , in the ways in which even seeming extremists can amend and alter their convictions without losing them.... Political controversy aside, this is a mystery that works, one whose turns are neither obvious nor illogical...and Hyde’s ability to grapple with loaded issues without putting the story second is impressive.
The Austin Chronicle
Dr. Diana Duprey-abortion clinic director, wife of local Colorado DA Frank Thompson and mother of 19-year-old college freshman Megan-has plenty of enemies, so when her body is found floating in the exercise pool of her garden tour-featured house, the list of suspects is long. Aside from abortion opponents and distraught parents, there were the arguments overheard between Frank and Diana, and Megan and Diana shortly before. The coroner, a woman with whom Frank had had an affair, won't do the autopsy, and a man harboring a grudge against Frank takes her place. Meanwhile, Megan finds herself attracted to Huck Berlin, the policeman assigned to the case, and Huck finds Megan in various compromising positions. Former U.S. attorney Hyde (Crazy as Chocolate) describes Megan's contradictory, confused emotions without oversimplification ("Have fun killing babies" were Megan's inadvertent last words to her mother). Hyde also jumps back in time, delving into Diana's work at the clinic and her feelings about it, as well as the lives and feelings of her clients. Rather than generating suspense, the murder provides a frame for the turbulence in and around a woman propelled by idealism and strongly held beliefs. Look for this book to get play as South Dakota's challenge to Roe v. Wade wends through the courts.
Publishers Weekly
On a chilly December evening, Colorado abortion clinic founder Dr. Diana Duprey is found dead beside her home pool. Who killed her? The clues are few but the suspects are legion-Diana's high-profile career had inflamed feelings on both sides of the Roe v. Wade aisle. Among the suspects are the minister whose pro-life group regularly picketed her clinic; the woman who left hate messages on her voice mail; her daughter, with whom she'd argued that morning; and her husband, whose litany of resentment and rejection grew daily. The police have a tough time sifting through the sensational publicity and intricate interrelationships of these small-town, high-powered people to answer this fundamental question. Hyde's (Crazy as Chocolate) latest novel deftly probes the many daily pains inflicted in relationships and delicately examines the sacrifices of her characters as they rebuild their lives amid swirls of ethical dilemmas. This is an exceptionally well-written book that pulls the reader nicely along right up until the surprise ending. Recommended for all fiction collections. —Susan Clifford Braun, Aerospace Corp. Lib., El Segundo, CA.
Library Journal
Who killed the opinionated abortion provider? Hyde (Crazy as Chocolate, 2002, etc.) opens with a heap of backstory baggage. Dr. Diana Duprey, when not performing controversial terminations at her Center for Reproductive Choice, dominates a family. Diana's marriage to Frank, a quietly seething attorney working in the DA's office, is unraveling; her Down's syndrome son Ben is dead; and sexually explicit pictures of her 19-year-old daughter Megan are circulating on the web. When the doctor's body is found in her lap pool, the blame is directed at Frank, sententious pro-choice campaigner Steven O'Connell, Megan's creepy ex-boyfriend Bill (who took the nude pictures) and pro-life activists who have been bombarding the doctor with hate mail. As events move forward, implausibilities stack up. For example, O'Connell had sought help from Duprey in a standoff concerning his son's girlfriend's pregnancy and her intention to have the baby, against her parent's wishes. Frank, after a violent argument with Diane on the night of the murder, had visited a porn merchant and bribed him to take the pictures of Megan down from his website. An attraction develops between Megan and Huck, one of the detectives assigned to the investigation, which gets Huck dropped from the case. Sensational, like the book's title, but not quite on target.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. While the book centers on the murder of Diana Duprey, Elisabeth Hyde has chosen to name it The Abortionist’s Daughter? Why do you think she chose this title? Did the title affect your reading of the book?
2. Discuss the marriage of Diana and Frank. How did their personalities impact their interactions? Do you think that they had a strong marriage? Why or why not?
3. At the time of Diana’s death, her relationship with Megan is strained at best. Do you think that their inability to communicate is a standard mother-daughter issue or do you think that it is caused by something more?
4. Although Ben has died many years before the events of the novel, his death continues to affect Frank, Diana, and Megan. Discuss how. How does Hyde make Ben’s continued presence felt in the Thompson household?
5. The last think that Megan says to Diana is “have fun killing babies.” Why do you think that Megan chose to attack her mother in this way? Does Megan disagree with her mother’s decision to perform abortions?
6. Although Frank Thomson has been a prosecuting attorney for more than twenty years and should know better, he cleans his house while it is a crime scene. What are his possible reasons for doing this? What did you think about his decision to clean up?
7. When Megan is driving to her house after learning of her mother’s death, Hyde writes, “The Big Thing that they’d always lived under the shadow of had happened. It was real. It didn’t seem real, but it was” (p. 28). Diana continued performing abortions despite the knowledge that doing so put her life at risk. What do you think motivated her decision to do so?
8. What do you think that Megan saw in Bill when she decided to date him? What do you think of Bill? Does your opinion change during the course of the novel?
9. Early into their relationship, Bill and Megan begin to have unprotected sex. Why do you think that Megan is so willing when she, of all people, should know better? Do you think that she is rebelling against her mother?
10. Diana continues to see Bill after he and Megan are no longer dating. What are her motivations for doing so? Why is it so important for Bill to keep in contact with Diana?
11. It seems like all of the characters in the novel have something to hide. How does this affect the investigation? In your opinion, who is hiding the most shocking secret?
12. Why does Huck hold a grudge against Frank Thompson? Is he justified in doing so? Does Huck’s grudge alter his conduct during the investigation?
13. Both Huck and Megan have much to lose by being in a relationship. Explain. Why do you think that they become involved? What do you think that they see in each other?
14. Discuss Huck’s relationship with Carolyn? How did they end up together? Were you surprised when their relationship ended? Why or why not?
15. When we first encounter Megan, she’s on drugs and has just had a juvenile fight with her mother. How much do you think that she grows during the course of the novel. Do you think that this is the direct result of her mother’s death, or do you think that there are other reasons as well? What are they?
16. Many of the characters in the novel end up making gross miscalculations. Discuss what some of these miscalculations are. In your opinion, which one ranks the worst? Why?
17. Were you able to figure out who killed Diana? What were the clues that lead you to this discovery? How did the motives of each of the suspects compare throughout the book?
18. Rose experiences pressure about her pregnancy from nearly everyone she knows. Why is her decision so significant to the other characters in the novel? What does she ultimately decide, and why?
19. While the issue of abortion certainly plays an important role in The Abortionist’s Daughter, Hyde addresses other hot button issues. What are they? Do you feel any differently about any of them after reading this book? How so?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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