Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
Kathleen Rooney, 2017
St. Martin's Press
303 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250113320
Summary
She took 1930s New York by storm, working her way up writing copy for R.H. Macy’s to become the highest paid advertising woman in the country. It was a job that, she says, “in some ways saved my life, and in other ways ruined it.”
Now it’s the last night of 1984 and Lillian, 85 years old but just as sharp and savvy as ever, is on her way to a party.
It’s chilly enough out for her mink coat and Manhattan is grittier now—her son keeps warning her about a subway vigilante on the prowl—but the quick-tongued poetess has never been one to scare easily.
On a walk that takes her over 10 miles around the city, she meets bartenders, bodega clerks, security guards, criminals, children, parents, and parents-to-be, while reviewing a life of excitement and adversity, passion and heartbreak, illuminating all the ways New York has changed—and has not.
A love letter to city life in all its guts and grandeur, Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk by Kathleen Rooney paints a portrait of a remarkable woman across the canvas of a changing America: from the Jazz Age to the onset of the AIDS epidemic; the Great Depression to the birth of hip-hop.
Lillian figures she might as well take her time. For now, after all, the night is still young. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1980
• Where—Beckley, West Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., George Washington University; M.A., Emerson College
• Awards— Eric Hoffer Award for Poetry
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Kathleen Rooney is an American writer, publisher, editor, and educator. She was born in Beckley, West Virginia and raised in the Midwest. She earned a B.A. from the George Washington University and an M.F.A. in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College. While at Emerson, she was awarded a 2003 Ruth Lilly Fellowship from Poetry Magazine.
Rooney's first book, Reading with Oprah: The Book Club That Changed America, an in-depth analysis of the cultural and literary impacts of Oprah's Book Club, was published by University of Arkansas Press in 2005 and reissued in 2008. Her first poetry collection, Oneiromance won the 2007 Gatewood Prize from feminist publisher Switchback Books.
Rooney was named one of the Best New Voices of 2006 by Random House, which included her essay "Live Nude Girl" in their influential anthology Twentysomething Essays by Twentysomething Writers. A book-length version, Live Nude Girl: My Life as an Object, was published by University of Arkansas Press in 2009.
In 2006, Rooney and Abigail Beckel co-founded Rose Metal Press, an independent not-for-profit publisher of hybrid genres (short short, flash, and micro-fiction; prose poetry; novels-in-verse; book-length linked narrative poems).
Rooney is a frequent collaborator with the poet Elisa Gabbert, with whom she has co-authored the collections Something Really Wonderful (2007), That Tiny Insane Voluptuousness (2008), Don't ever stay the same; keep changing (2009), and The Kind of Beauty That Has Nowhere to Go (2013).
In 2011, with poets Dave Landsberger and Eric Plattner, Rooney co-founded the Chicago not-for-profit poetry collective Poems While You Wait, which composes typewritten poetry on demand at local libraries, street & music festivals, museums, & art galleries.
Rooney's 2012 novel-in-verse Robinson Alone, inspired by the life and work of poet Weldon Kees and his alter-ego persona-character "Robinson," won the 2013 Eric Hoffer Award for Poetry. Her debut novel, O, Democracy!, was released by Fifth Star Press in Spring 2014. Her novel, Lillian Fishbox Takes a Walk, based on the life of the 1930s R.H. Macy ad writer and poet, came out in 2017.
A former U.S. Senate Aide, Rooney is currently a visiting assistant professor at DePaul University. She lives in Chicago with her husband, the writer Martin Seay. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/8/2017.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Inspired by Margaret Fishback, poet and Macy’s ad-writing phenom.... Elegantly written, Rooney creates a glorious paean to a distant literary life and time—and an unabashed celebration of human connections that bridge the past and future.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Rooney takes us on a delightful stroll with a colorful character..., sprinkling just the right details and arch bons mots appropriate to Lillian's reputation as a woman of words. —Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Rooney's delectably theatrical fictionalization is laced with strands of tart poetry and emulates the dark sparkle of Dorothy Parker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Truman Capote. Effervescent with verve, wit, and heart, Rooney’s nimble novel celebrates insouciance, creativity, chance, and valor.
Booklist
(Starred review.) While the book effectively underscores the fierce struggles of career women like Lillian in a pre-feminist time, it can also feel schematic.... There is plenty of charm and occasional poignance here even if the novel makes you long for a proper biography.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How do Lillian’s feelings regarding her mother compare to her feelings regarding her Aunt Sadie Boxfish? And how do these relationships shapeLillian’s ambitions and sense of self?
2. What initially attracts Lillian to poetry and how does it remain significant throughout her life and career, in advertising and otherwise?
3. Why are Lillian and her son Gian’s reactions to the Subway Vigilante and his crime so different? Why does Lillian love New York City unconditionally whereas Gian has come to fear it?
4. Have you ever loved a city or a place so much that you never wanted to leave it? Describe, saying where and why, or why not.
5. Why are manners and kindness so important to Lillian? How does civility relate to empathy and even to democracy?
6. How do Lillian’s achievements and struggles at the office at Macy’s—with her boss, Chester; with getting paid as much as her male colleagues; with her friend and rival coworkers, Helen McGoldrick and Olive Dodd—relate to the workplace as we know it today?
7. Why does Artie, Lillian’s editor, want to change the title of her debut poetry collection from "Oh, Do Not Ask for Promises" to "Frequent Wishing on the Gracious Moon"? And why does she refuse? Do you think he was right or wrong, and were you pleased or disappointed when she said no? Explain why.
8. In what ways does walking in the city feed Lillian’s poetry, her advertising work, and her curiosity? How does her relationship to walking change over time, as both she and her city get older?
9. Why is Lillian ambivalent toward motherhood, and how does her friendship with Wendy differ from her relationship with her son Gian?
10. Why, after scoffing at love and convention for so long, does Lillian fall so hard for Max? What is it about Max that she finds so irresistible?
11. Were you surprised by all the chance encounters that Lillian has with different people on her walk through the city? Why or why not? Do you also like to strike up conversations with strangers? Why or why not?
12. How worried, if at all, did you feel about Lillian as she made her way across Manhattan? Were you troubled by any of her encounters? Heartened? Both? Which ones and why?
13. Lillian can’t stand the new and ugly Penn Station, built in 1968, that replaced the old and beautiful original—are there structures in your past that were torn down that you miss, too? What were they like?.
(Questions by the publisher.)
Everything You Wanted Me to Be
Mindy Mejia, 2017
Atria
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501123429
Summary
Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront...and she inches closer and closer to her death.
High school senior Hattie Hoffman has spent her whole life playing many parts: the good student, the good daughter, the good citizen.
When she’s found brutally stabbed to death on the opening night of her high school play, the tragedy rips through the fabric of her small town community.
Local sheriff Del Goodman, a family friend of the Hoffmans, vows to find her killer, but trying to solve her murder yields more questions than answers.
It seems that Hattie’s acting talents ran far beyond the stage. Told from three points of view—Del, Hattie, and the new English teacher whose marriage is crumbling—Everything You Want Me to Be weaves the story of Hattie’s last school year and the events that drew her ever closer to her death.
Evocative and razor-sharp, Everything You Want Me to Be challenges you to test the lines between innocence and culpability, identity and deception. Does love lead to self-discovery—or destruction? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1979
• Where—Minneapolis, Minnesota
• Education—B.A., University of Minnesota; M.F.A., Hamline University
• Currently—lives in the Twin Cities, Minnesota
Mindy Mejia is an American author, best known for her suspense novels, Everything You Want Me to Be (2017) and Leave No Trace (2018). She was born and raised in the Twin Cities, Minnesota. She loved to write even as a child: her mother gave her a journal when she was 11, and Mindy continued writing throughout high school for the speech team and school literary magazine. In college she took a few writing courses. As she said in an interview on the blog, The Suspense is Killing Me,
Half-finished novels and story fragments littered my life during the 90’s. I began much more than I ever seemed to finish.
Mejia earned her B.A. from the University of Minnesota and afterward headed to the corporate world, eventually becoming a financial manager in an electronics firm. She continued to write on her lunch breaks, and went back to school to get her MFA. Her award-winning thesis project became her first novel, The Dragon Keeper, which was published by Ashland Creek Press in 2012. Five years later Emily Bestler Books published her second novel, Everything You Wanted Me to Be.
Mejia's short stories have been published in rock, paper, scissors; Things Japanese: An Anthology of Short Stories; and THIS Literary Magazine. Her next novel, Leave No Trace, is due out in 2018 from Emily Bestler Books.
She now writes full time and lives in the Twin Cities with her husband and children. (Author bio courtesy of the author.)
Book Reviews
Ms. Mejia displays the enviable ability and assurance of such contemporaries as Megan Abbott and Laura Lippman in convincingly charting inter-generational passion and angst.
Wall Street Journal
[A] fast read with a bright, clean style. The ending should launch some ferocious debates.
New York Journal of Books
Mejia's novel is full of suspense, intrigue and twists at every turn. The reader is transported into three different worlds as they try to figure out who committed a horrendous crime. Told from three different perspectives, this is a fantastic read that wastes no time in drawing the reader into the story.
Romance Times
Buckle up for this killer mystery in which identity, truth, and self-discovery take some fatal turns.
Bustle
The story occasionally drags, and the murder’s resolution seems almost like an afterthought, but Mejia adroitly charts Hattie’s development. Peter, initially sympathetic, becomes cloying, while Del...emerges as the most compelling...of the trio.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Readers drawn to this compelling psychological thriller because of its shared elements with Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl will be pleasantly surprised to discover that Mejia’s confident storytelling pulls those themes into an altogether different exploration of manipulation and identity.
Booklist
There's an attempt at profundity here that falls flat, leaving instead a story we've seen before of a pretty girl who winds up dead and the usual cast of suspects who may have killed her.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our generic mystery questions to set you in the right direction...then take off on your own:
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Dry
Jane Harper, 2016 (2017, U.S.)
Flatiron Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250105608
Summary
A small town hides big secrets in The Dry, an atmospheric, page-turning debut mystery by award-winning author Jane Harper.
After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi.
Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.
Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke.
As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there’s more to Luke’s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface and so do the lies that have haunted them. Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1979-80
• Where—Manchester, England, UK
• Education—B.A., University of Kent (Canterbury, England)
• Currently—lives in St. Kilda, Victoria, Australia
Jane Harper is an Englisn-born, partially Australian-raised writer, now living in Australia. She is the author of The Dry (2016/2017), Force of Nature (2018), and The Lost Man (2019)—all crime novels set in Australia.
Jane was born in Manchester, England, but her family moved to a subrub of Melbourne, Australia, where she lived till she was six. The family then returned to England, and Jane attended the University of Kent where she earned her B.A., in History and English.
Her first job out of school was as a journalist (yes, she actually had to pass a qualifying exam). She first worked for the Darlington & Stockton Times and, later, as senior news editor for the Hull Daily Mail, both papers in Yorkshire, England.
But Australia beckoned, and in 2008 Jane returned to her early childhood stromping grounds, again working in journalism—first for the Geelong Advertiser, then in 2011 for the Herald Sun in Melbourne.
After she had a short story accepted for inclusion in the annual Fiction Edition of The Big Issue (Melbourne), Jane turned to fiction writing in a serious way. In 2014, she signed up for a 12-week online creative writing course. The story she submitted for acceptance into the program turned out to be the beginning of her novel, The Dry. By the end of the three months, Jane had her first draft of the novel.
Making this almost a fairytale come true, Jane felt confident enough to enter the novel's third draft in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for an Unpublished Manuscript. It won the $15,000 prize in May, 2015, and Pan Macmillan paid a non-specified “six-figure” sum for a three-book deal.
Jane and her husband live in St. Kilda, outside of Melbourne, with their daughter. Jane now writes fiction full time. (Adapted from the author's website and news.com.au.)
Book Reviews
“The Dry” is a breathless page-turner.... In addition to its constant recovery of forgotten facts and little clues, The Dry skips along on frequent changes of focus. Ms. Harper’s energy is so unrestrainable that she tears off in a new direction every time Falk or Raco begins seeing the case from some previously unconsidered point of view. What if the reinterpretation of a single word changes everything? (This actually happens. And if you enjoy being hoodwinked by writers in this way, you’ll love Ms. Harper’s sleight of hand.)
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Every now and then an Australian crime novel comes along to stop your breath and haunt your dreams…There is about The Dry something mythic and valiant. This a story about heroism, the sins of the past, and the struggle to atone.
Sydney Morning Herald
A razor-sharp crime yarn dripping in the sights, sounds and smells of the Australian bush…The storytelling is accomplished, with a bald sparseness to the writing that draws you in and characterization that rings resoundingly true…as the action twists and turns, the pace build[s] to a fantastic finale that will leave you breathless.
Australian Women’s Weekly
A tightly plotted page-turner that kept me reading well into the night…Harper shines a light on the highs and lows of rural life – the loyalty born of collective endurance in adversity, as well as the loneliness and isolation, and the havoc wrought by small-town gossip. She also explores the nature of guilt and regret, and the impact of the past on the present. In this cracker of a book Harper maintains the suspense, with the momentum picking up as it draws to its nerve-wracking conclusion.
Australian Financial Review
The Dry is a page-turner written with a maturity of style rarely seen in a first-time novelist and it’s here the writer excels. Harper’s exploration of the pressures of a small town where people are not able to escape the past is thoughtful and mature. Her plot twists and layering are intricate and subtle and keep you guessing to the end while the townspeople grow on you despite their dirty secrets. Harper’s well-executed final scenes are both filmic and tense, and sure to spark a few did-you-guess-it discussions.
West Australian
(Starred review.) [A] devastating debut.... From the ominous opening paragraphs, all the more chilling for their matter-of-factness, Harper, a journalist...spins a suspenseful tale of sound and fury as riveting as it is horrific.
Publishers Weekly
[A]n Australian best seller, but despite the critical acclaim it has received, this work fails on many fronts as a mystery: slow, tedious pacing; poor character development; lack of suspense or surprise (readers can spot the culprit and plot twist a mile away).... Because of the advance hype, crime fiction fans will want this. —Wilda Williams
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A stunner…It’s a small-town, big-secrets page-turner with a shocker of an ending…Recommend this one to fans of James Lee Burke and Robert Crais, who mix elements of “bromance” into their hard-boiled tales.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A mystery that starts with a sad homecoming quickly turns into a nail-biting thriller about family, friends, and forensic accounting.... A chilling story set under a blistering sun, this fine debut will keep readers on edge and awake long past bedtime.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, our generic mystery questions can you in the right direction...then you can take off on your own:
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy 1)
Katherine Arden, 2017
Del Ray
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101885932
Summary
A magical debut novel that spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice.
At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses.
But Vasilisa doesn’t mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales.
Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.
After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1987 (?)
• Where—Austin, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., Middlebury, Vermont, USA
• Currently—lives in Brandon, Vermont
Katherine Arden is a Texas-born author known for her Winternight Trilogy of fantasy novels—The Bear and the Nightingale, The Girl in the Tower, both published in 2017, and The Winter of the Witch, in 2019.
Born in Austin, Texas, Katherine Arden spent her junior year of high school in Rennes, France. Following her acceptance to Middlebury College in Vermont, she deferred enrollment for a year in order to live and study in Moscow. At Middlebury, she specialized in French and Russian literature.
After receiving her B.A. in French and Russian literature, she moved to Maui, Hawaii, working every kind of odd job imaginable, from grant writing and making crepes to serving as a personal tour guide. After a year on the island, she moved to Briancon, France, and spent nine months teaching. She then returned to Maui, stayed for nearly a year, then left again to wander. Currently she lives in Vermont, but really, you never know. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Arden’s debut is an earthy, beautifully written love letter to Russian folklore, with an irresistible heroine.... The stunning prose...forms a fully immersive, unusual, and exciting fairy tale that will enchant readers.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) You don't have to know and love Russian folklore to appreciate Arden's fabulist—and fabulous—debut novel, which tells the story of how Vasilisa Petrovna...saves her corner of medieval Russia's wild north.... Fleet and gorgeous as the firebird. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Utterly bewitching.... [A] lush narrative... [and] an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family.
Booklist
(Starred review.) [S]umptuous first novel...where history and myth coexist.... Arden has shaped a world that neatly straddles the seen and the unseen, where readers will recogniz[e] the imagination that has transformed old material into something fresh.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Throughout the novel, Vasya meets many strange creatures from Dunya’s fairy tales—from the domovoi to the rusalka to upyry. Which of the demons that Vasya encounters is your favorite? Which ones would you never want to meet?
2. Compare some of the fairy tales and creatures referenced here to your favorite Western fairy tales. What are some commonalties? How are they different?
3. What are some tropes or stock characters of the traditional Western fairy tale that you can spot in The Bear and the Nightingale? Were there any parts of the traditional Western fairy tale that were used in a way that surprised you?
4. Dunya is tasked by both Pyotr and the winter-king to give the talisman to Vasya, yet Dunya is conflicted. She fears for Vasya’s safety if she were to possess the talisman, but the winter-king insists that Vasya must have it in order to protect them all. Was Dunya right to keep the talisman from Vasya for so long?
5. Do you trust the winter-king? What do you think he is still hiding from Vasya?
6. The various demons and spirits begin to prophesize Vasya’s fate to her in mysterious riddles, and we learn bit by bit that the winter-king also seems to possess knowledge of what’s to come and the role Vasya is destined to play. What role do you think fate plays in the novel? How much of what happens is the result of choices made by the characters versus an inevitable destiny?
7. Who do you think is to blame for the suffering Vasya’s village of Lesnaya Zemlya faces: Konstantin? The villagers for neglecting their offerings to the demons? Anna for rejecting her second sight and punishing Vasya for hers? Metropolitan Aleksei for sending Anna and Konstantin to the village? Pyotr for allowing such misery to befall his village? Is the blame shared? Was the fate of the village inevitable?
8. To what degree is the character of Konstantin sympathetic? Does his passionate faith excuse his actions? Is he an unwitting dupe or a willing player in his own fall? Do his charisma and artistic talent conflict with or complement his vocation as a priest? Why?
9. What are some parallels between Vasya and her stepmother? What are some key differences between them? Why does Anna hate Vasya so much?
10. Vasya is faced with the choice of marriage, a convent, or a life in which she’s considered an outsider by her village and her family. What would you have done in her place?
11. Why do you think the villagers are so threatened by Vasya? What does she represent to them?
12. The Bear and the Nightingale is not a clear-cut story of good vs. evil, though there are many other opposing forces, including the Bear vs. Morozko, order vs. chaos, the old traditions vs. Christianity, and, of course, the Bear vs. the Nightingale. What are some other examples? How do these opposing forces overlap, and where do you think Vasya fits in?
13. Over the course of the book, we see multiple instances of characters correlating someone’s goodness with physical appearance. For instance, Vasya’s almost-husband, Kyril, is called handsome and is consequently revered despite his cruel personality. Vasya, meanwhile, is repeatedly called a “frog” and is quickly labeled a witch. What are some instances in your life where you have seen others being mislabeled based on their appearance? Are there times when you have felt like you have been mislabeled?
14. The Bear and the Nightingale is bracketed by sacrifice—first Vasya’s mother, then at the end her father. How is sacrifice an important theme in the book? How many characters are called upon to give up something important, even vital? Not just Vasya herself, but Anna and Konstantin, for example. How do the sacrifices of others shape the narrative?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Second Mrs. Hockaday
Susan Rivers, 2017
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616205812
Summary
All I had known for certain when I came around the hen house that first evening in July and saw my husband trudging into the yard after lifetimes spent away from us, a borrowed bag in his hand and the shadow of grief on his face, was that he had to be protected at all costs from knowing what had happened in his absence. I did not believe he could survive it.
When Major Gryffth Hockaday is called to the front lines of the Civil War, his new bride Placidia is left to care for her husband’s three-hundred-acre farm and infant son.
A mere teenager herself living far from her family and completely unprepared to run a farm or raise a child, Placida must endure the darkest days of the war on her own. By the time Major Hockaday returns two years later, Placidia is bound for jail, accused of having borne a child in his absence and murdering it. What really transpired in the two years he was away?
Inspired by a true incident, this saga conjures the era with uncanny immediacy. Amid the desperation of wartime, Placidia sees the social order of her Southern homeland unravel as her views on race and family are transformed.
A love story, a story of racial divide, and a story of the South as it fell in the war, The Second Mrs. Hockaday reveals how that generation—and the next—began to see their world anew. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Shingle Springs, California, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Queens College (Charlotte, North Carolina)
• Awards—for playwrighting (see below)
• Currently—lives in Blacksburg, South Carolina
Susan Rivers is an American playwright and, most recently, author of the Civil War era crime novel, The Second Mrs. Hockaday (2016). Rivers was raised in Shingle Springs, California, outside of Sacramento.
It was a high school librarian who first piqued Rivers' interest in southern culture and southern women in particular. Southern women, said the librarian, were schizophrenic—sugary sweet and soft on the outside but tough as a bear on the inside. River's English teachers further opened her eyes to the pleasures of literature, the way storytelling explores ordinary people, in their approach life and love and ideas. And so, as Rivers says in her website, she came to love language: "Language is my life."
Rivers started off as a playwright. At the age of 24, she wrote her first play, Maude Gonne Says No the the Poet, based on the British actress who had enthralled 19th-century poet W.B. Yeats. When it was performed in San Francisco, Rivers' play jump-started what came to be a fairly successful career in the theater.
Working as a National Endowment for the Arts Writer-in-Residence in San Francisco, Rivers received the Julie Harris Playwriting Award and the New York Drama League Award. She was named a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award for British and American Women Playwrights. She is also a veteran of the Playwrights Festival at Sundance Institute for the Arts and the Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference. She has crossed the country working on productions and workshops of my plays.
Rivers married a stage actor and director. As she tells it, however, after witnessing the divorces and split families of so many of her colleagues, she realized life in the theater might not lead to a healthy marriage or family life. After talking with her husband, the two quit the theater and eventually, with their seven-year-old daughter in tow, decided to move. They ended up clear across the country, in North Carolina, where her husband took a corporate job and Susan wrote nonfiction and short stories. That was 20-some years ago.
Since then, the family has moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, where Rivers got her M.F.A., and then to a small town in South Carolina, where they live now. With their daughter grown, she and her husband collect stray animals (none, she says, are turned away).
Rivers also teaches English at a university in the upstate region of South Carolina, a job she says that allows her "daily interactions with bright young men and women crafting their own relationships with language." (Adapted from the author's website and from Greensboro News & Record.)
Book Reviews
Based on true events...[and told] old through gripping, suspenseful letters, court documents, and diary entries, Rivers’s story spans three decades to show the rippling effects of buried secrets.
Publishers Weekly
[I]nitially slow paced, [it] accelerates as the story evolves and the protagonists' roles in the scandal unfold. Most of the story line is set against the stark realities of wartime survival....[and] as with all wartime tales, brutality toward women and slaves occurs with depressing frequency .—Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT
Library Journal
(Starred review.) With language evocative of the South ('craggy as a shagbark stump') and taut, almost unbearable suspense, dramatized by characters readers will swear they know, this galvanizing historical portrait of courage, determination, and abiding love mesmerizes and shocks.
Booklist
Rivers is adept at doling out information in teaspoon-sized increments, which makes the book hard to put down.... A compulsively readable work that takes on the legacy of slavery in the United States, the struggles specific to women, and the possibilities for empathy and forgiveness.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider using our LitLovers talking points for The Second Mrs. Hockaday...then take off on your own:
1. The Second Mrs. Hockaday is told through letters and diary entries. Did you find this method of storytelling engaging or confusing or off-putting? Is the format sufficient in fleshing out the characters...or does it lead to rather sketchy or thin character development? What about the change in time frames between later generations?
2. What do we learn of Placidia and Millie through their correspondence. What do their letters reveal about themselves, personally, and especially about southern life for women during the Civil War? What do you think of Placidia? Do you sense a touch of Scarlett O'Hara in her...or not?
3. Why is Placidia so evasive in response to Millie's questions?
4. What role does Achilles Fincher Hockaday play? His nine-page letter doesn't make an appearance until Part 2 and readers have no clue as to who he is. Were you confused?
5. What do you think of Major Hockaday? One reviewer described him as Bronte-esque, i.e., Mr. Rochester or Heathcliff, perhaps. Do you see any resemblance?
6. Mystery stories ratchet up suspense by withholding information, releasing it bit by bit—until the big revelation at the end. Does Susan Rivers keep you in the dark? Is this story a page-turner? Were you surprised when you got to the end? Or had you figured out what happened beforehand?
7. Talk about the outfall of the buried secret on fututre generations. How do Placidia's offsprings come to grips with the damage left in the wake of the scandal—and the war?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)