A Thousand Orange Trees
Kathryn Harrison, 1995
Gardner Books
317 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781857024074
Summary
As Marie Louise de Bourbon, niece of Louis XIV, journeys south from Versailles to marry the Spanish king, she is forced to abandon the cumbersome orange trees brought from her beloved Versailles, leaving them to wither in the chill Pyrenees.
This loss presages the future that awaits her, in a court riven by intrigue, with an impotent husband who demands an heir. Marie’s fate is dreamed of by Francisca de Luarca, as she sits in her prison cell far from the Queen’s chamber. This imaginative Castilian silk grower's daughter has fallen passionately and dangerously in love with a young priest.
In this luscious, hypnotic novel, Kathryn Harrison twists together their stories, bringing to vivid life the wonders and the horrors of 17th-century Spain, a world convulsed by poverty and religious upheaval. (From the publisher.)
More
Set in 17th century Spain, A Thousand Orange Trees twists together the stories of two women born on the same day, whose lives are devoured by the bloodthirsty Spanish state.
Francisca de Luarca, the daughter of a Castilian silk grower, is arrested by the Inquisition after a love affair with a priest and is tortured as a witch. Marie Louise de Bourbon, the niece of Louis XIV, is transported from her beloved Versailles to marry the impotent Spanish king, and is tormented by the court when she fails to provide an heir.
In her prison cell Francisca conjures up memories of her past and dreams of the Queen's life, producing a beautifully women narrative which takes historical fiction to new heights. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1961
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Standord University; Iowa Writers'
Workshop
• Currently—lives in New York City
Kathryn Harrison was raised in Los Angeles by her maternal grandparents. She graduated from Stanford University in 1982 with a BA in English and Art History and received an MFA from the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop in 1987. She lives in New York with her husband, the novelist and book editor Collin Harrison, whom she met in 1985, when the two of them were enrolled in the Writers' Workshop. They have three children, born in 1990, 1992 and 2000.
The bestselling author famously documented a disturbing triangulation that developed involving her young mother, her father and herself in the memoir The Kiss, which described her father's seduction of the author when she was twenty and their incestuous involvement, which persisted for four years and is reflected in the plots and themes of her first three novels, published before The Kiss.
While much of her body of work documents her tortured relationship with her mother, who died in 1985—the essays collected in Seeking Rapture: Scenes From a Life, a second memoir, The Mother Knot, as well as The Kiss—she has also written extensively of her maternal grandparents, both in her personal essays and, in fictionalized form, in her novels. Her grandmother, a Sassoon, was raised in Shanghai, where she lived until 1920, her experiences there inspiring Harrison's historical novel, The Binding Chair. The Seal Wife, set in Alaska during the First World War, draws on the early life of her British grandfather, who spent his youth trapping fur in the Northwest Territories and laying track into Anchorage for the Alaska Railroad.
Harrison has published six novels, three memoirs, a travelogue, a biography, and, as of June 2008, a book of true crime. She is a frequent reviewer for the New York Times Book Review, and her personal essays have been included in many anthologies and have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Vogue, O Magazine, Salon.com, Nerve.Com, More Magazine, and Bookforum, and other publications. (From Wikipedia.)
See the more on the author's website.
Book Reviews
A magical novel.
Lisa Tuttle - Time Out
Audacious feats of the imagination. This rich and complex novel is both harrowing and compelling.
Nicola Humble - Times Literary Supplement (London)
Kathryn Harrison writes about the dark side of a woman's destiny with an intensity that makes you shiver.
She
One novel I have not mentioned so far, one of the main narrative strands of which features a powerful, but doomed, love affair, is Kathryn Harrison’s A Thousand Orange Trees, which takes place in seventeenth-century Spain, at the height of the Counter Reformation. The twist in this tale, the insurmountable obstacle for the lovers, is the fact that one of them is a priest. This is a scenario which occurs in several modern romances, notably Colleen McCullough’s The Thornbirds, and is, I think, an area deserving of further exploration. The celibate priest is a fascinating variation on the classic theme of the wounded hero healed by the heroine’s love, as long as we think of love in earthly, erotic terms rather than divine love. The distinction, however, can become blurred, as in the many documented cases of visionary ecstatics, whose experience of divine love is often expressed in erotically charged terms.
Sarah Bower - Historical Novel Society
Harrison is completely at ease with the historical material, evoking with frightening detail the world of the Spanish Inquisition, whose prisoners reside, almost literally, in the bowels of Madrid. The Spanish court, too, is described with precision and colour, and its formality and restraint contrast strikingly with the splendour and exuberance of the French Court.... Maria Luisa loses every freedom at her arrival in Spain.... Her entrapment within the royal court is not at all dissimilar to Franciscaís imprisonment at the hands of the Inquisition.
Holly Davis - Deep South (New Zealand)
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)
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The Poe Shadow
Matthew Pearl, 2006
Random House
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812970128
Summary
I present to you...the truth about this man’s death and my life.
Baltimore, 1849. The body of Edgar Allan Poe has been buried in an unmarked grave. The public, the press, and even Poe’s own family and friends accept the conclusion that Poe was a second-rate writer who met a disgraceful end as a drunkard. Everyone, in fact, seems to believe this except a young Baltimore lawyer named Quentin Clark, an ardent admirer who puts his own career and reputation at risk in a passionate crusade to salvage Poe’s.
As Quentin explores the puzzling circumstances of Poe’s demise, he discovers that the writer’s last days are riddled with unanswered questions the police are possibly willfully ignoring. Just when Poe’s death seems destined to remain a mystery, and forever sealing his ignominy, inspiration strikes Quentin–in the form of Poe’s own stories. The young attorney realizes that he must find the one person who can solve the strange case of Poe’s death: the real-life model for Poe’s brilliant fictional detective character, C. Auguste Dupin, the hero of ingenious tales of crime and detection.
In short order, Quentin finds himself enmeshed in sinister machinations involving political agents, a female assassin, the corrupt Baltimore slave trade, and the lost secrets of Poe’s final hours. With his own future hanging in the balance, Quentin Clark must turn master investigator himself to unchain his now imperiled fate from that of Poe’s.
Following his phenomenal debut novel, The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl has once again crossed pitch-perfect literary history with innovative mystery to createa beautifully detailed, ingeniously plotted tale of suspense. Pearl’s groundbreaking research–featuring documented material never published before–opens a new window on the truth behind Poe’s demise, literary history’s most persistent enigma.
The resulting novel is a publishing event that, through sublime craftsmanship, subtle wit, and devious twists, does honor to Poe himself. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 2, 1976
• Where—New York, New York, USA;
• Education—B.A. Harvard University; Yale Law School
• Currently—lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Matthew Pearl is the New York Times bestselling author of The Last Dickens, The Dante Club, and The Poe Shadow, and is the editor of the Modern Library editions of Dante’s Inferno (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales. The Dante Club has been published in more than thirty languages and forty countries around the world.
Pearl is a graduate of Harvard University and Yale Law School and has taught literature at Harvard and at Emerson College. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (From the publisher.)
More
Matthew Pearl's novels achieve the seemingly unachievable. They manage to be both informative and entertaining, utilizing historically accurate details about some very famous literary figures to fashion fictional thrillers that rival the works of Pearl's idols. While Pearl's work is indeed ambitious, he has the credentials to tackle such challenging projects that place immortals like Dante Alighieri, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Edgar Alan Poe in the middle of mysteries of his own creation.
In 1997, Pearl graduated from Harvard University summa cum laude in English and American literature. He went on to teach literature and creative writing at both Harvard and Emerson College. Pearl's impressive background in literature and research provided him with the necessary tools for making history come alive in a most unique way. He is also bolstered by a genuine fascination with the theme of literary stardom. "I am very interested by literary celebrity, and both Dante and Poe experienced it in some degree," Pearl explained to litkicks.com. "Or, in Poe's case, he aimed for literary celebrity and never quite achieved it... Longfellow was more genuinely a celebrity. People would stop him in the streets, particularly in his later years. Imagine that today, a poet stopped in the streets! It was also common for writers like Longfellow to have their autographs cut out of letters and sold, or even their signatures forged and sold."
Writing
Pearl published The Dante Club, his debut novel in 2003. The novel concerns a small group of Harvard professors and poets (including Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes) who must track down a killer before he derails their efforts to complete the first American translation of The Divine Comedy. The novel became an international sensation. Pearl's attention to historical facts, his imagination, his vivid descriptions and fine characterizations awed critics and delighted readers. Esquire magazine chose The Dante Club as its "Big Important Book of the Month." Since its 2003 publication, it has become an international bestseller, translated into 30 languages.
Pearl followed The Dante Club with another cagey combination of historical fact and mysterious fiction. The Poe Shadow takes place during the aftermath of the death of Edgar Alan Poe. In a labyrinthine plot that would surely have made the master of the macabre proud, an attorney named Quentin Hobson Clark seeks to uncover the exact details that lead up to the peculiar death of his favorite writer. The Poe Shadow was another major feat from Matthew Pearl. If anything, it is even richer and more intriguing than its predecessor. Poe's status as a great purveyor of mystery and the mystery which Pearl conjures within his plot makes for a most provocative mixture. Critics from all corners of the globe agreed. From Entertainment Weekly to The Spectator to The Independent, The Globe and Mail, Booklist, Bookpage, and countless others, The Poe Shadow is being hailed as another major achievement for Matthew Pearl. The novel has also become yet another international bestseller.
So, is Matthew Pearl heading for the kind of literary celebrity that so fascinates him? Well, Details magazine named the writer as one of its "Next Big Things," and Dan "The Da Vinci Code" Brown called him "the new shining star of literary fiction." Who knows? Maybe one day an aspiring young writer may see fit to place Matthew Pearl in the center of some fictional puzzler.
Extras
• Pearl was placed on the 2003 edition of Boston Magazine's annual "Hot List."
• His fascination with Edgar Alan Poe does not end with Poe's presence in The Poe Shadow. Pearl also edited a 2006 collection of Poe's C. Auguste Dupin mysteries titled Murders in the Rue Morgue: The Dupin Tales. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
The Poe Shadow is best understood as a franchise follow-up to a very clever debut novel... The Dante Club....Naturally, Mr. Pearl's second book attempts to replicate this feat. Using Edgar Allan Poe as its literary catnip, the new novel tries to use Poe-related ratiocination as a means of generating Poe fever....The first and most difficult task for Mr. Pearl is to hook his reader into a Poe obsession....[But] the book's fulsome Poe-worship remains more peculiar than persuasive, to the point where the story's benighted skeptics begin to sound reasonable. "Talking of Poe, Poe, Poe!" one complains. "What is all this about Poe anyway?"
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Pearl's narrative is distinguished by a genuine appreciation for Poe's ongoing influence... Blending scrupulous research with his own fictional flourishes, Pearl invents a young lawyer, Quentin Clark, who becomes obsessed with rescuing Poe's reputation after witnessing the author's hasty, ill-attended funeral. Neglecting both his law practice and his fiancee, Clark travels to Paris to find the detective who served as the model for Poe's "Murder in the Rue Morgue" sleuth, C. Auguste Dupin — the only man, Clark believes, who can solve the puzzle of Poe's untimely death. What follows is a satisfyingly Poe-like tale of psychological intrigue, villainy and murder, all dressed up in rich period detail and locution.
Baltimore Sun
The novel is a homage to its subject: Clark has many of the characteristics of Poe's protagonists - he is a man in the grip of obsession, acting under strange compulsions; a man whom neither the reader nor other characters can entirely trust; whose very existence has a dreamlike quality…The homage extends to the plot as well. In Dupin and Duponte, for example, Pearl revisits the doppelganger theme that so fascinated Poe. In terms of research, some of it original, Pearl has covered the ground with admirable thoroughness. The great advantage of this book, however, is that it will send many readers back to Poe's stories — innovative, hugely influential and as readable now as the day they were written.
London Spectator
Tangled literary tale would have pleased Poe. The Dante Club was a spinoff from Pearl's senior thesis at Harvard about Dante's reputation in 19th-century America. His new novel, The Poe Shadow, is similarly informed by literary research: He has dug up some intriguing facts about the death of Edgar Allan Poe and wrapped them in an intricately tangled tale... Pearl does a meticulous, finely detailed and convincing job of re-creating the texture of life in mid-19th-century Baltimore, from the herds of pigs scavenging in the streets to the tensions over slavery... Poe would have liked it.
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
This is similar to Pearl's Dante Club (2002), which portrayed renowned authors trailing a serial killer, in its masterful blend of historical and fictional figures, meticulous research, and nineteenth-century literary style. Whether interest in Poe will make this book equally popular remains to be seen.
Booklist
Fans of Pearl's bestselling debut, The Dante Club (2003), will eagerly embrace his second novel, a compelling thriller centered on the mysterious end of Edgar Allan Poe, who perished in Baltimore in 1849. Poe's ignominious funeral catches the notice of Quentin Clark, a young, idealistic attorney, who finds himself obsessed with rescuing Poe's reputation amid rumors that the writer died from an excess of drink. Clark's preoccupation soon becomes all-consuming, imperiling his practice and his engagement, especially after he learns that Poe's legendary master sleuth, the Chevalier Auguste Dupin, was modeled after a real person. The lawyer journeys to France to track down the real Dupin, in the hopes that the detective can help him solve the puzzle of Poe's death. Pearl masterfully combines fact with fiction and presents some genuinely new historical clues that help reconstruct Poe's final days. While Clark remains a little enigmatic, the exciting plot, numerous twists and convincing period detail could help land this on bestseller lists as well.
Publishers Weekly
Mild-mannered Baltimore lawyer Quentin Clark enjoys reading stories and poetry by Edgar Allan Poe. On hearing of Poe's sudden demise in the fall of 1849, Clark, shocked by the vilification of his beloved author in the popular press, decides to restore Poe's literary reputation. But he soon realizes that his investigation needs some professional help, and who better than the hero of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," C. Auguste Dupin, to assist? But who was the role model for Poe's fictional detective? Several candidates present themselves, and Clark is hard-pressed to deduce the identity of the real Dupin. As his obsession grows, he endangers his career, alienates his family and friends, and runs afoul of a gang of French thugs. In his second novel, Pearl (The Dante Club) demonstrates a clear mastery of Poe mythology and uses his knowledge of 1850s Baltimore to excellent effect. Clark is a bit of a bumbler, and the various denouements tend to be ponderous. Still, this literary historical mystery should please fans; highly recommended for all fiction collections.
Library Journal
The still-unexplained death of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) is the subject of the Cambridge, Mass., author's follow-up to his popular debut historical thriller, The Dante Club (2003). Its premise is irresistible: an investigation by young Baltimore attorney Quentin Clark into the tragic fate of his recently deceased favorite author-to whom, furthermore, Quentin had written, precipitating a friendly correspondence heightened by Clark's impassioned "commitment to represent ... [the] interests" of the perpetually impecunious, wrathful and doubtless alcoholic genius. Refusing to believe his idol had drunk himself to death, Quentin abandons his eternally patient fiancee, judgmental law partner and his career, traveling to Paris to seek the freelance problem-solver known to be the model for Poe's ratiocinative genius Auguste Dupin (solver of "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," among other fictional enigmas). Quentin is repeatedly interrogated, sidetracked, physically assaulted and misled as he eventually encounters both a retired amateur sleuth (Auguste Duponte) uninterested in Poe's story and "special constable for the English" Baron Claude Dupin, who's rather too eager to prove that he is "the real Dupin." All three men journey to Baltimore, where the game of proving how Poe died (or was murdered) is afoot-or nearly so, in a sluggish narrative that staggers under the weight of Pearl's considerable (and just barely effectively dramatized) researches. Interesting use is made of Poe's stories and poems, and Pearl whets our interest with tantalizing clues (the whereabouts of the woman Poe was to have taken as his second wife; the man's last name he uttered on his deathbed; the reason he remained in Baltimore rather than completing a planned journey from Virginia to New York). A few surprises aside, however, too little of substance happens, and Pearl's virtually bloodless characters never engage our interest. A disappointing successor to Pearl's terrific first novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Aside from Quentin, most of the novel’s characters in this 1849 setting do not appreciate or read Edgar Allan Poe's works, and this fact in part provokes Quentin to try and rescue Poe's name. Why do you think Poe means so much to Quentin?
2. If you have read Poe, what are your thoughts about his work? Is there any author, from past or present, whom you would "fight" for as much as Quentin does for Poe?
3. In addition to serving as physical locales, Baltimore and Paris may be said to serve as "characters" in the book. What do the cities add to the novel, and what kinds of details bring alive their histories?
4. As the historical note at the back of the novel explains, the book uses authentic details about Poe's strange death. Had you heard anything about Poe's death before reading The Poe Shadow? After reading the evidence and theories throughout the novel, do you agree with all of the conclusions presented by the characters in the final chapters, or do you have any of your own theories?
5. Auguste Duponte and Baron Claude Dupin can be seen as doubles or doppelgangers, and the book discusses Poe's use of doubles in works such as "William Wilson," a tale that features two identical characters with the same names. Discuss the use of doubles and doubling in The Poe Shadow. Are there any other doubles besides Duponte and Dupin? Does Quentin have any doubles? Does Edgar Allan Poe?
6. The word "shadow" is used in many different ways in the novel. Quentin tells us, "Poe once wrote in a tale about the conflict between the substance and the shadow inside of us. The substance, what we know we should do, and the shadow, the dangerous and giggling Imp of the Perverse, the dark knowledge of what we must or will do or secretly want. The shadow always prevails." What are possible meanings of the title The Poe Shadow?
7. If you had been in Quentin's position at the end of the novel, would you have made the information on Poe's death public, or kept it private?
8. What do you think would have happened if Quentin had met Poe before Poe died? Do you think this would have made his personal quest more or less important to him?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Thunderstruck
Erik Larson, 2006
Crown Publishing
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400080670
Summary
A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world’s “great hush”
In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication—whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.
Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy coasts of Cornwall, Cape Cod, and Nova Scotia, Thunderstruck evokes the dynamism of those years when great shipping companies competed to build the biggest, fastest ocean liners, scientific advances dazzled the public with visions of a world transformed, and the rich outdid one another with ostentatious displays of wealth. Against this background, Marconi races against incredible odds and relentless skepticism to perfect his invention: the wireless, a prime catalyst for the emergence of the world we know today. Meanwhile, Crippen, “the kindest of men,” nearly commits the perfect crime.
With his superb narrative skills, Erik Larson guides these parallel narratives toward a relentlessly suspenseful meeting on the waters of the North Atlantic. Along the way, he tells of a sad and tragic love affair that was described on the front pages of newspapers around the world, a chief inspector who found himself strangely sympathetic to the killer and his lover, and a driven and compelling inventor who transformed the way we communicate. Thunderstruck presents a vibrant portrait of an era of séances, science, and fog, inhabited by inventors, magicians, and Scotland Yard detectives, all presided over by the amiable and fun-loving Edward VII as the world slid inevitably toward the first great war of the twentieth century. Gripping from the first page, and rich with fascinating detail about the time, the people, and the new inventions that connect and divide us, Thunderstruck is splendid narrative history from a master of the form. (From the publisher.)
Erik Larson is an American journalist and nonfiction author. Although he has written several books, he is particularly well-know for three: The Devil in the White City (2003), a history of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition and serial killer H. H. Holmes, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler's Berlin (2011), a portrayal of William E. Dodd, the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany, and his daughter Martha, and Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015).
Early life
Born in Brooklyn, Larson grew up in Freeport, Long Island, New York. He studied Russian history at the University of Pennsylvania and graduated summa cum laude in 1976. After a year off, he attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, graduating in 1978.
Journalism
Larson's first newspaper job was with the Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, Pennsylvania, where he wrote about murder, witches, environmental poisons, and other "equally pleasant" things. He later became a features writer for the Wall Street Journal and Time magazine, where he is still a contributing writer. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and other publications.
Books
Larson has also written a number of books, beginning with The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities (1992), followed by Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun (1995). Larson's next books were Isaac's Storm (1999), about the experiences of Isaac Cline during the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, and The Devil in the White City (2003), about the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and a series of murders by H. H. Holmes that were committed in the city around the time of the Fair.
The Devil in the White City won the 2004 Edgar Award in the Best Fact Crime category. Next, Larson published Thunderstruck (2006), which intersperses the story of Hawley Harvey Crippen with that of Guglielmo Marconi and the invention of radio. His next book, In the Garden of Beasts (2011), concerns William E. Dodd, the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany and his daughter. Dead Wake, published in 2015, is an account of the sinking of the Lusitania, which led to America's intervention in World War I.
Teaching and public speaking
Larson has taught non-fiction writing at San Francisco State University, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and the University of Oregon, and he has spoken to audiences from coast to coast.
Personal
Larson and his wife have three daughters. They reside in New York City, but maintain a home in Seattle, Washington. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/17/2015.)
Book Reviews
Erik Larson has done it again. In Thunderstruck, just as in his last book, The Devil in the White City, he has taken an unlikely historical subject and spun it into gold. The formula is simple enough, though the finished books verge on alchemy. The only question is whether we’re getting true magic or mere sleight of hand.
Kevin Baker - New York Times
Larson's gift for rendering an historical era with vibrant tactility and filling it with surprising personalities makes Thunderstruck an irresistible tale. Of London, he writes, "There was fog...that left the streets so dark and sinister that children of the poor hired themselves out as torchbearers...the light formed around the walkers a shifting wall of gauze, through which other pedestrians appeared with the suddenness of ghosts." He beautifully captures the awe that greeted early wireless transmissions on shipboard: "First-time passengers often seemed mesmerized by the blue spark fired with each touch of the key and the crack of miniature thunder that followed." Larson can be forgiven his obsessions as he restores life to this fascinating, long-lost world.
Lauren Belfer - Washington Post
In this splendid, beautifully written followup to his blockbuster thriller, Devil in the White City, Erik Larson again unites the dual stories of two disparate men, one a genius and the other a killer. The genius is Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless communication. The murderer is the notorious Englishman Dr. H.H. Crippen. Scientists had dreamed for centuries of capturing the power of lightning and sending electrical currents through the ether. Yes, the great cable strung across the floor of the Atlantic Ocean could send messages thousands of miles, but the holy grail was a device that could send wireless messages anywhere in the world. Late in the 19th century, Europe's most brilliant theoretical scientists raced to unlock the secret of wireless communication. Guglielmo Marconi, impatient, brash, relentless and in his early 20s, achieved the astonishing breakthrough in September 1895. His English detractors were incredulous. He was a foreigner and, even worse, an Italian! Marconi himself admitted that he was not a great scientist or theorist. Instead, he exemplified the Edisonian model of tedious, endless trial and error. Despite Marconi's achievements, it took a sensational murder to bring unprecedented worldwide attention to his invention. Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, a proper, unattractive little man with bulging, bespectacled eyes, possessed an impassioned, love-starved heart. An alchemist and peddler of preposterous patent medicines, he killed his wife, a woman Larson portrays lavishly as a gold-digging, selfish, stage-struck, flirtatious, inattentive, unfaithful clotheshorse. The hapless Crippen endured it all until he found the sympathetic Other Woman and true love. The "North London Cellar Murder" so captured the popular imagination in 1910 that people wrote plays and composed sheet music about it. It wasn't just what Crippen did, but how. How did he obtain the poison crystals, skin her and dispose of all those bones so neatly? The manhunt climaxed with a fantastic sea chase from Europe to Canada, not just by a pursuing vessel but also by invisible waves racing lightning-fast above the ocean. It seemed that all the world knew-except for the doctor and his lover, the prey of dozens of frenetic Marconi wireless transmissions. In addition to writing stylish portraits of all of his main characters, Larson populates his narrative with an irresistible supporting cast. He remains a master of the fact-filled vignette and humorous aside that propel the story forward. Thunderstruck triumphantly resurrects the spirit of another age, when one man's public genius linked the world, while another's private turmoil made him a symbol of the end of "the great hush" and the first victim of a new era when instant communication, now inescapable, conquered the world.
Publishers Weekly
(Adult/High School) Larson's page-turner juxtaposes scientific intrigue with a notorious murder in London at the turn of the 20th century. It alternates the story of Marconi's quest for the first wireless transatlantic communication amid scientific jealousies and controversies with the tale of a mild-mannered murderer caught as a result of the invention. The eccentric figures include the secretive Marconi and one of his rivals, physicist Oliver Lodge, who believed that he was first to make the discovery, but also insisted that the electromagnetic waves he studied were evidence of the paranormal. The parallel tale recounts the story of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, accused of murdering his volatile, shrewish wife. As he and his unsuspecting lover attempted to escape in disguise to Quebec on a luxury ocean liner, a Scotland Yard detective chased them on a faster boat. Unbeknownst to the couple, the world followed the pursuit through wireless transmissions to newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. A public that had been skeptical of this technology suddenly grasped its power. In an era when wireless has a whole new connotation, young adults interested in the history of scientific discovery will be enthralled with this fascinating account of Marconi and his colleagues' attempts to harness a new technology. And those who enjoy a good mystery will find the unraveling of Dr. Crippen's crime, complete with turn-of-the-century forensics, appealing to the CSI crowd. A thrilling read. —Pat Bangs, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
School Library Journal
A murder that transfixed the world and the invention that made possible the chase for its perpetrator combine in this fitfully thrilling real-life mystery. Using the same formula that propelled The Devil in the White City (2003), Larson pairs the story of a groundbreaking advance with a pulpy murder drama to limn the sociological particulars of its pre-WWI setting. While White City featured the Chicago World's Fair and America's first serial killer, this combines the fascinating case of Dr. Hawley Crippen with the much less gripping tale of Guglielmo Marconi's invention of radio. (Larson draws out the twin narratives for a long while before showing how they intersect.) Undeniably brilliant, Marconi came to fame at a young age, during a time when scientific discoveries held mass appeal and were demonstrated before awed crowds with circus-like theatricality. Marconi's radio sets, with their accompanying explosions of light and noise, were tailor-made for such showcases. By the early-20th century, however, the Italian was fighting with rival wireless companies to maintain his competitive edge. The event that would bring his invention back into the limelight was the first great crime story of the century. A mild-mannered doctor from Michigan who had married a tempestuously demanding actress and moved to London, Crippen became the eye of a media storm in 1910 when, after his wife's "disappearance" (he had buried her body in the basement), he set off with a younger woman on an ocean-liner bound for America. The ship's captain, who soon discerned the couple's identity, updated Scotland Yard (and the world) on the ship's progress-by wireless. The chase that ends this story makes up for some tedious early stretches regarding Marconi's business struggles. At times slow-going, but the riveting period detail and dramatic flair eventually render this tale an animated history lesson.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In his note to the reader, Larson quotes P. D. James: "Murder, the unique crime, is a paradigm of its age." How is the murder in Thunderstruck a paradigm of its time? Can you think of a notorious murder in our own era that is an equivalent?
2. The murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen and the inventor Guglielmo Marconi came from similarly prosperous backgrounds, and yet their lives took quite opposite turns. Compare the two men as characters-in what ways are they similar, and in what ways are they different? Who would you most like to have met, and why?
3. Now compare the two men to their respective spouses-is Marconi at all like Beatrice? What about Crippen and Belle?
4. Larson mentions Marconi's "social blindness" throughout the book, considering it a defining trait. How did it affect Marconi's success or failure? What wasCrippen's defining trait?
5. In specific terms, Crippen and Marconi were not linked-they never interacted with each other-and yet in Larson's hands their stories fit together naturally. Why do you think that is? In what ways do the two men's lives play off each other? How do you imagine they would have gotten along, had they actually met?
6. Marconi and Crippen were both foreigners in England, and yet they received very different treatment from the moment of their respective arrivals. Why? How is this reminiscent of the ways foreigners are treated in this country today?
7. Around the turn of the twentieth century, the supernatural, medical sleight-of-hand, and science were often treated in similar fashion-consider Lodge's "scientific" studies of the paranormal, Crippen's involvement in patent medicine, and the public's mistrust of Marconi's wireless technology. What parallels, if any, do you see to the way we treat emerging technologies now?
8. Isolation was a very real thing in those days, without the benefits of modern communication methods. How did Marconi's invention change the world? Ultimately, do you think it was a change for the better, or are there benefits to the old ways?
9. Throughout the book, there are countless instances of betrayal: Marconi betrays Preece and vice versa, Belle betrays Crippen, Fleming betrays Lodge. Discuss the idea of betrayal and the specifics of it in Thunderstruck. In your opinion, whose betrayal is the most damaging?
10. Secrecy was vital to both Marconi and Crippen, but for very different reasons. Discuss the nature of their secrets, the motivations for them, and the ultimate effects.
11. Much of Marconi's success was apparently based on gut instinct and simple trial and error, rather than any understanding of the science that lay beneath his discoveries. How would his methods be received now?
12. On page 69, Larson says that Marconi "was an entrepreneur of a kind that only would become familiar to the world a century or so later, with the advent of the so-called 'start-up' company." What did he mean by this? Do Marconi's practices remind you of any specific business leaders today?
13. Each man had two major romantic relationships in the book. Which, if any, was the healthiest? Which woman did you like best, and why?
14. Crippen is willing to subsidize Belle's lifestyle and even her relationship with another man, only to murder her years later. Why do you think he behaves this way? Why didn't he just cut her off financially? What finally drove him to murder?
15. Throughout the book, Larson foreshadows events that will come to pass in later pages. What purpose does this serve? How did you respond?
16. Crippen's method for disposing of Belle's body was quite gruesome. Larson quotes Raymond Chandler on page 377: "I cannot see why a man who would go to the enormous labor of deboning and de-sexing and de-heading an entire corpse would not take the rather slight extra labor of disposing of the flesh in the same way, rather than bury it at all." Why do you think Crippen did it in that particular way? What does this say about him?
17. Do you believe that Ethel had no idea what had happened to Belle? Why, or why not?
18. The realities of an international manhunt were very different in the early twentieth century than they are today-as Larson says on page 341, "Wireless had made the sea less safe for criminals on the run." Why has it changed so, and in what ways? Is it possible to hide in our world?
19. Discuss the media circus surrounding Dew's chase of Crippen. Was this the beginning of a new era in journalism? What parallels do you see to many celebrities' current war with the paparazzi? Compare the pursuit of Crippen to the O. J. Simpson chase.
20. If it weren't for Marconi's invention, do you think Crippen would have been caught? How might it have played out otherwise?
21. On page 379, Larson says, "The Crippen saga did more to accelerate the acceptance of wireless as a practical tool than anything the Marconi company previously had attempted." Why do you think that is? What might have happened to wireless technology if not for Crippen?
22. At the very end of the book, Larson writes that Ethel was asked if she would still marry Crippen even after learning all that he had done. What do you think her answer was?
23. Why do you think Larson gave this book the title Thunderstruck? How does the term apply to Marconi and Crippen?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Pursuit of Honor
Vince Flynn, 2009
Simon & Schuster
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416595175
Summary
The action begins six days after a series of explosions devastated Washington, D.C., targeting the National Counterterrorism Center and killing 185 people, including public officials and CIA employees. It was a bizarre act of extreme violence that called for extreme measures on the part of elite counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp and his trusted team member, Mike Nash.
Now that the initial shock of the catastrophe is over, key Washington officials are up in arms over whether to make friends or foes of the agents who stepped between the enemy's bullets and countless American lives regardless of the legal consequences. Not for the first time, Rapp finds himself in the frustrating position of having to illustrate the realities of national security to politicians whose view from the sidelines is inevitably obstructed.
Meanwhile, three of the al Qaeda terrorists are still at large, and Rapp has been unofficially ordered to find them by any means necessary. No one knows the personal, physical, and emotional sacrifices required of the job better than Rapp. When he sees Nash cracking under the pressure of the mission and the memories of the horrors he witnessed during the terrorist attack, he makes a call he hopes will save his friend, assuage the naysayers on Capitol Hill, and get him one step closer to the enemy before it's too late. Once again, Rapp proves himself to be a hero unafraid "to walk the fine line between the moral high ground and violence" (the Salt Lake Tribune) for our country's safety, for the sake of freedom, for the pursuit of honor. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1966
• Where—St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• Education—University of St. Thomas
• Currently—lives in Minneapolis/St, Paul, Minnesota
The fifth of seven children, Vince Flynn was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1966. He graduated from the St. Thomas Academy in 1984, and the University of St. Thomas with a degree in economics in 1988. After college he went to work for Kraft General Foods where he was an account and sales marketing specialist. In 1990 he left Kraft to accept an aviation candidate slot with the United States Marine Corps. One week before leaving for Officers Candidate School, he was medically disqualified from the Marine Aviation Program, due to several concussions and convulsive seizures he suffered growing up. While trying to obtain a medical waiver for his condition, he started thinking about writing a book. This was a very unusual choice for Flynn since he had been diagnosed with dyslexia in grade school and had struggled with reading and writing all his life.
Having been stymied by the Marine Corps, Flynn returned to the nine-to-five grind and took a job with United Properties, a commercial real estate company in the Twin Cities. During his spare time he worked on an idea he had for a book. After two years with United Properties he decided to take a big gamble. He quit his job, moved to Colorado, and began working full time on what would eventually become Term Limits. Like many struggling artists before him, he bartended at night and wrote during the day. Five years and more than sixty rejection letters later he took the unusual step of self-publishing his first novel. The book went to number one in the Twin Cities, and within a week had a new agent and two-book deal with Pocket Books, a Simon & Schuster imprint.
Term Limits hit the New York Times bestseller list in paperback and started a trend for all of Flynn's novels. Since then, his books have become perennial bestsellers in both paperback and hardcover, and he has become known for his research and prescient warnings about the rise of Islamic Radical Fundamentalism and terrorism. Read by current and former presidents, foreign heads of state, and intelligence professionals around the world, Flynn's novels are taken so seriously one high-ranking CIA official told his people, “I want you to read Flynn's books and start thinking about how we can more effectively wage this war on terror.”
October 2007 marked another milestone in Flynn’s career when his ninth political thriller, Protect and Defend, became a #1 New York Times bestseller. A few months later, CBS Films optioned the rights for Flynn’s Mitch Rapp character with the intention of creating a character-based, action-thriller movie franchise. Lorenzo di Bonaventura, who previously launched the "Harry Potter" and "Matrix" films as head of production at Warner Bros., and Nick Wechsler (We Own the Night, Reservation Road) will produce the films.
Extreme Measures, was published in 2008. It too was also a #1 New York Times bestseller. His next novel, Pursuit of Honor, was published in October 2009.
Flynn lives in the Twin Cities with his wife and three children.
Works by Flynn include Transfer of Power, The Third Option, Separation of Power , Executive Power , Memorial Day, Consent to Kill, Act of Treason, Extreme Measures, and Pursuit of Honor.
Influences: Ernest Hemingway, Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, J.R.R. Tolkien, Gore Vidal, and John Irving. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Fists, feet, his 9 mm Glock, and a well-wielded epipen are Rapp's weapons of choice in Pursuit of Honor, Vince Flynn's latest thriller featuring the elite counterterrorism operative. It's a page-turner about an out-of-control terrorist shooting spree and the web of traitors in his own ranks that Rapp must untangle to put an end to the killings.
Sunday Oregonian
Mitch Rapp is a man's man and the definitive take-no-guff, lethal action hero, and anyone who reads Vince Flynn's spy novels knows it.... Just as in other Rapp books, the story moves well, the dialogue is snappy (but, as usual, not insulting or too cliched), and Rapp does things normal people only dream about. He's still the best CIA-trained human weapon this side of Jason Bourne.
Contra Costa Times (California)
Flynn demonstrates that he truly understands the psyche of the enemy.... Really scary.
Bookreporter.com
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 Pursuit of Honor:
1. Start at the beginning...which in this case is Extreme Measures, the back story to Pursuit of Honor. Have you read the first book? If so, does Vince Flynn do a good job of picking up where that story left off? Is it necessary to read Extreme Measures in order to understand Pursuit?
2. Pursuit of Honor is particularly relevant to the current national debate on interrogation methods. What parallels do you see in Flynn's book with politics in Washington, D.C., regarding tracking down and interrogating terrorists?
3. How does Mitch Rapp view terrorists and the threat they pose to the U.S.? Would you describe his views as complicated...or straightforward? In the pursuit of security, what kind of hero does this country need? Is Rapp that hero?
4. How does Rapp deal with the challenges against him from his own countrymen—Glen Adams and the Congressional oversight committee? Did you appreciate the way in which Rapp spoke out at the hearing? Where does Irene Kennedy fit into all of this?
5. Talk about Rapp and Mike Nash's relationship in this book (and in the previous one, if you've read it). How do events in the storyline affect their friendship/mentorship? What kind of character is Nash?
6. Was this story predictable (as some feel), or were you completely surprised (as others were) by the plot twists?
7. Does Pursuit of Honor deliver in terms of its genre as a political thriller: fast-paced, blood-pounding excitement, unexpected plot twists, heroic action? Or did it fall short of your expectations? Will you read other Vince Flynn books?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Three Weissmanns of Westport
Cathleen Schine, 2010
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
292 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312680527
Summary
Jane Austen’s beloved Sense and Sensibility has moved to Westport, Connecticut, in this enchanting modern-day homage to the classic novel.
When Joseph Weissmann divorced his wife, he was seventy eight years old and she was seventy-five. He said the words "Irreconcilable differences," and saw real confusion in his wife’s eyes.
"Irreconcilable differences?" she said. "Of course there are irreconcilable differences. What on earth does that have to do with divorce?"
Thus begins The Three Weissmanns of Westport, a sparkling contemporary adaptation of Sense and Sensibility from the always winning Cathleen Schine, who has already been crowned "a modern-day Jewish Jane Austen" by People’s Leah Rozen.
In Schine’s story, sisters Miranda, an impulsive but successful literary agent, and Annie, a pragmatic library director, quite unexpectedly find themselves the middle-aged products of a broken home. Dumped by her husband of nearly fifty years and then exiled from their elegant New York apartment by his mistress, Betty is forced to move to a small, run-down Westport, Connecticut, beach cottage.
Joining her are Miranda and Annie, who dutifully comes along to keep an eye on her capricious mother and sister. As the sisters mingle with the suburban aristocracy, love starts to blossom for both of them, and they find themselves struggling with the dueling demands of reason and romance. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1953
• Where—Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA
• Education— B.A., Barnard College
• Currently—lives in New York City and Venice, California
In her own words:
I tried to be a medieval historian, but I have no memory for facts, dates, or abstract ideas, so that was a bust. When I came back to New York, I tried to be a buyer at Bloomingdale's because I loved shopping. I had an interview, but they never called me back. I really had no choice. I had to be a writer. I could not get a job.
After doing some bits of freelance journalism at the Village Voice, I did finally get a job as a copy editor at Newsweek. My grammar was good, but I can't spell, so it was a challenge. My boss was very nice and indulgent, though, and I wrote Alice in Bed on scraps of paper during slow hours. I didn't have a regular job again until I wrote The Love Letter.
The Love Letter was about a bookseller, so I worked in a bookstore in an attempt to understand the art of bookselling. I discovered that selling books is an interdisciplinary activity, the disciplines being: literary critic, psychologist, and stevedore. I was fired immediately for total incompetence and chaos and told to sit in the back and observe, no talking, no touching.
I dislike humidity and vomit, I guess. My interests and hobbies are too expensive or too physically taxing to actually pursue. I like to take naps. I go shopping to unwind. I love to shop. Even if it's for Q-Tips or Post-Its.
When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:
When I left graduate school after a gruesome attempt to become a medieval historian, I crawled into bed and read Our Mutual Friend. It was, unbelievably, the first Dickens I had ever read, the first novel I'd read in years, and one of the first books not in or translated from Latin I'd read in years. It was a startling, liberating, exhilarating moment that reminded me what English can be, what characters can be, what humor can be. I of course read all of Dickens after that and then started on Trollope, who taught me the invaluable lesson that character is fate, and that fate is not always a neat narrative arc.
But I always hesitate to claim the influence of any author: It seems presumptuous. I want to be influenced by Dickens and Trollope. I long to be influenced by Jane Austen, too, and Barbara Pym and Alice Munro. I aspire to be influenced by Randall Jarrell's brilliant novel, Pictures from an Institution. And I read Muriel Spark when I feel myself becoming soft and sentimental, as a kind of tonic. (From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview.)
Book Reviews
Schine gives her characters more than their fair share of luck, but she is also brave enough to let them wrestle with raw fear. Among its many gifts to the dearest sort of reader, a fully engaged one, The Three Weissmanns of Westport offers the chance for a mediation on that snake of Emily Dickinson's as it slithers through the grass—the snake that sometimes startles and frightens us, so undefended and unprepared are we, caught in our "tighter breathing, and zero at the bone."
Dominique Browning - New York Times Book Review
Schine sets the Austen machinery in perfect forward motion, and then works some lovely modern changes, keeping the pace going at a lively clip.... Spotting the similarities and differences between the early 19th century and early 21st century stories is good sport, but the greater pleasure comes from Schine’s own clever girls and their awkward attempts to find happiness.
Boston Globe
Schine has been favored in so many ways by the muse of comedy...The Three Weissmanns of Westport is full of invention, wit, and wisdom that can bear comparison to Austen’s own.
New York Review of Books
A geriatric stepfather falls in love with a scheming woman half his age in Schine's Sense and Sensibility...compulsively readable.... An Austen-esque mischief hovers over these romantic relationships as the three women figure out how to survive and thrive. It's a smart crowd pleaser with lovably flawed leads and the best tearjerker finale you're likely to read this year.
Publishers Weekly
[W]itty.... While beautifully preserving the essence of the plot, Schine skillfully manages to parallel the original novel in clever 21st-century ways—the trip to London becomes a holiday in Palm Springs; the scoundrel Willoughby becomes a wannabe actor. —Andrea Kempf, Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Library Journal
The wide-ranging cast of characters—fools, scoundrels, poseurs, the good-hearted, and secret heroes—provides interesting interplay.Wild coincidences abound, so that Manhattan, Westport, and Palm Springs are but mere extensions of the classic drawing room. There is sadness but also love in this thoroughly enjoyable, finely crafted modern novel. —Danise Hoover
Booklist
Already recognized for her own witty romantic comedies of manners, Schine joins the onslaught of Austen imitators.... In true Austen fashion, love and money conquer all, although Schine adds some modern sorrow and a slightly off-putting disdain for her male characters.... Infectious fun, but the tweaked version never quite lives up to the original.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How do Betty and her daughters relate to men? Do the three women have the same expectations about love and relationships?
2. How do the Weissmann women define "home"? What does the Manhattan apartment mean to them? What do their reactions to the Westport cottage say about their personalities? Would you have enjoyed living there?
3. In Sense and Sensibility, Mrs. Dashwood does her best to help her family thrive despite dwindling fortunes. What challenges do women still face in such situations, even with the cultural changes that have taken place since Jane Austen was writing?
4. Which cad is worse: Schine’s Kit Maybank or Austen’s John Willoughby? If Miranda could meet Marianne, what advice would the two characters give each other?
5. The fact that Miranda and Annie are not Joseph’s biological children also mirrors Austen’s plot. Would Joseph have handled the divorce differently if the girls had been his biological daughters?
6. Is Frederick a good father to Gwen and Evan? What stokes Annie’s attraction to him throughout the novel?
7. Is Betty very much like her relatives? Which of your family members would you turn to if you were in her situation?
8. What accounts for the similarities and differences between Annie and Miranda? Are both women simply driven by their temperaments, or have they shaped each other’s personalities throughout their lives? How does their relationship compare to yours with your own siblings?
9. Schine’s work often blends humor with misfortune, such as Miranda’s undoing by authors who turn out to be plagiarists and extreme fabricators. What other aspects of the novel capture the tragicomic way life unfolds?
10. Why is it so hard for Joseph to understand why his stepdaughters are mad at him? Why does he prefer Felicity to Betty? Discuss the revelations about Amber. In what way is her romantic situation similar to Felicity’s?
11. Ultimately, how do the Weissmanns reconcile sense with sensibility? Who are the book’s most rational characters? Who is the most emotional?
12. What makes Roberts remarkable (eventually)? Who are the overlooked "characters" in your life story?
13. What aspects of the ending surprised you the most? What had you predicted for Betty, and for Leanne? Do the novel’s closing scenes reflect an Austen ending?
14. Does the storytelling style in The Three Weissmanns of Westport remind you of Schine’s other portraits of love? What makes the Weissmanns’ story unique?
(Reading Group Guide written by Amy Root / Amy Root’s Wordshop, Inc.)
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