The View from Mount Joy
Lorna Landvik, 2007
Random House
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345468383
Summary
When teenage hockey player Joe Andreson and his widowed mother move to Minneapolis, Joe falls under the seductive spell of Kristi Casey, Ole Bull High’s libidinous head cheerleader. Joe balances Kristi’s lustful manipulation with the down-to-earth companionship of his smart, platonic girlfriend, Darva. But it is Kristi who will prove to be a temptation (and torment) throughout Joe’s life.
Years later, Joe can’t believe that life has deposited him in the aisles of Haugland Foods. But he soon learns that being a grocer is like being the mayor of a small town: His constituents confide astonishing things and always appreciate Joe’s generous dispensing of the milk of human kindness.
The path Kristi has charged down, on the other hand, is as wild as Joe’s is tame. But who has really risked more? Who has lived more? And who is truly happy? As Joe discovers, sometimes people are lucky enough to be standing in the one place where the view of the world is breathtaking, if only they’ll open their eyes to all there is to see. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Rasied—Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
• Education—attended University of Minnesota
• Currently—lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota
Lorna Landvik is the bestselling author of Patty Jane’s House of Curl, Your Oasis on Flame Lake, The Tall Pine Polka, Welcome to the Great Mysterious, Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, Oh My Stars, and The View from Mount Joy.
Married and the mother of two daughters, she is also an actor, playwright, and dog park attendee with the handsome Julio. Lorna Landvik wishes everyone holiday greetings of peace, love, joy, and a renewed commitment to fun. (From the publisher.)
More
From an interview with editors at Barnes and Noble:
Q: Where do you get your inspiration?
Sometimes, like Flannery [in Angry Housewives], I find inspiration everywhere—from a billboard, a snatch of music, a scent. Other times, I have no idea where it comes from: all of a sudden, a character appears unbidden in my head, with the urgent desire that I write about her or him.
Q: How did a book club end up at the center of [Angry Housewives]?
After the publication of my first novel, I got invited to speak at a book club and since then I've been to dozens and dozens. What always impresses me is the fun and friendship of these groups, some of which have been together for decades, and that's why I decided to write about one.
Q: Which books would make your greatest-hits list?
A short list would include To Kill a Mockingbird, Handling Sin (both of which are selections in the book), Huckleberry Finn, Great Expectations, and maybe a book I have great affection for, the Dick and Jane books, because they were the books that taught me how to read.
Q: What is your average workday like?
I like to work every day, but that doesn't mean I do. During the school year, I usually take a walk in the morning, come home, make a latte, and read the papers, and then I try to settle down and work. But I don't stick to a regular schedule—if I have something really important going on in the day (a lunch date, a movie), I'll work later in the afternoon or at night. My family's very accommodating and I've also learned to write among them, amid distraction.
Q: What do you do when the words won't come?
I get up, find the chocolate, and if that doesn't help, I might read and see if someone else's ability to tell a story can help fire up mine.
(Interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
A delightful journey.... full of humor and poignancy and the potential for joy in everyday life.
Charlotte Observer
Deeply satisfying.... Bursting with the same deliciously deadpan dialogue that is now a Landvik trademark.... [The View from Mount Joy provides] quite possibly Landvik’s most lovable character to date.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Landvik's latest light drama opens as Joe Andreson transfers into a Minneapolis high school as a class of '72 senior. Like everyone else, Joe has a major thing for head cheerleader Kristi Casey—a version of Reese Witherspoon's character in Election. Joe gets some action, but is estranged from Kristi by graduation. As the years pass, and they stay in touch sporadically, Joe, who narrates, can't quite let go of his infatuation. He becomes an innovative grocer, still unmarried at mid-book, and Kristi transforms into a Bible-thumping radio/televangelist. Joe builds solid relationships with his mother and her new husband, and reconnects with high school friend Darva Pratt (who returns to town with her daughter, Flora), while Kristi sets her sights on the White House. Landvik (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons) deftly mixes humor and pathos in Kristi's ditzy On the Air with God radio show, starkly contrasted by her quietly powerful portrait of Joe, a man with real family values.
Publishers Weekly
In 1971, high school senior Joe Anderson moves to Minnesota with his widowed mother. Joe is a wonderful young man who plays hockey and piano, works in the local grocery, and is nice to his mother. So what's his flaw? He is attracted to Kristi Casey, the wildly fun cheerleader who is every boy's fantasy and who introduces Joe to oral sex, marijuana, and acid trips. As Joe moves through life from high school to adulthood and marriage, Kristi is always there to tempt him, even when she becomes an evangelist. Landvik is a wonderful storyteller, and Joe is an attractive character, perhaps too good to be true. However, some of the book club readers and fans who enjoyed Landvik's other novels (e.g., Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons) may be uncomfortable with the sex and drugs and Kristi's hypocritical life as an evangelist and the wife of a politician. As long as librarians understand that this new work is more explicit than Landvik's previous novels, this is recommended for most public libraries.
Lesa M. Holstine - Library Journal
Once again displaying her genuine affection for Minnesota's salt-of-the-earth people and offbeat customs, Landvik's latest homespun homage is pure bliss. —Carol Haggas
Booklist
A pleasing character study following the life of Joe Andreson, from his misadventures in high school to reflective middle age. Although Joe narrates his tale, it is a story dominated by women, from his kind-hearted, widowed mother and his sophisticated lesbian aunt Beth (the three live together, gathering around the piano to sing show tunes) to the two young women who shape his adult life-Kristi Casey and Darva Pratt. In high school, Kristi is the golden girl-head cheerleader, honor student, feared and revered by all who come in contact with her ferocious smile. At turns cruel and alluring, Kristi takes a shine to Joe and the two have trysts in the AV room, a secret kept from Kristi's boyfriend. Joe even keeps it from his best friend Darva, a gifted artist and bourgeoning bohemian with plans to escape 1970s Minneapolis for Paris. Darva does go to Paris, while Joe goes to college on a hockey scholarship. Kristi and Joe meet from time to time in rural motels, but their relationship is little more than a strange mix of Kristi's confessions and impersonal sex. After graduation Kristi disappears, Joe inherits a grocery store and Darva returns from Europe, with tiny Flora in her arms. Though they maintain a platonic relationship, Darva and Joe live together and raise Flora, as Joe makes a success out of the market, thanks to his idiosyncratic approach to business. Meanwhile, Kristi reappears on the air as a right-wing evangelist doling out moral platitudes to her radio listeners. Joe and company are shocked by Kristi's new persona, and yet the girl most likely to succeed at any cost still has a few surprises left for the folks back home. Most of Joe's story is a real charmer—the questioning, sex-obsessed teen, the slightly lost 30 year old—but as the story creeps past middle age, Landvik seems to tire, and the narrative wraps up with the expected closing events. Warmhearted (if a bit uneven) tale of a sensitive man's journey through life.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Do you think Joe and Darva secretly yearned for a relationship with each other? Can a strictly platonic relationship such as theirs occur in real life?
2. How much of Joe’s life and personality was shaped by the loss of his father at such a young age?
3. Who has lived a more fulfilling life–Joe, with his simple, quiet life, or Kristi, with her adventurous life in the spotlight?
4. Did Joe give up on his hockey dreams too easily? Was he being cowardly and taking the easy road?
5. Do you applaud Kristi’s ambitious nature and her refusal to let her dreams get away from her?
6. Joe and Kristi seem to be fated to cross paths time and time again. What is their fascination with each other?
7. It’s obvious that the women in Joe’s life greatly influenced him, but how did his relationships with the men in his life shape him?
8. Was it fair for Lorna Landvik to feed into the typical cheerleader stereotypes?
9. Does Kristi mistake power and fame for happiness? Is she capable of being truly happy?
10. If Darva had not died, do you think Joe would have found happiness? Would he have stayed unmarried, living with his best friend and her daughter?
11. All of the characters experience happiness, tragedy, failures, and successes. Do you think The View from Mount Joy realistically portrays the progression of a life?
12. Did Kristi really love Tuck or did she love the fame that life with him would bring?
13. Jenny, the love of Joe’s life, plays a minor role in the book, compared to Darva and Kristi. Why do you think Lorna Landvik does this?
14. Is Joe a believable narrator? Would you have rather had both Kristi and Joe narrate the story?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
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The Things That Keep Us Here
Carla Buckley, 2010
Random House
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780440246046
Summary
How far would you go to protect your family?
Ann Brooks never thought she’d have to answer that question. Then she found her limits tested by a crisis no one could prevent. Now, as her neighborhood descends into panic, she must make tough choices to protect everyone she loves from a threat she cannot even see.
In this chillingly urgent novel, Carla Buckley confronts us with the terrifying decisions we are forced to make when ordinary life changes overnight.
A year ago, Ann and Peter Brooks were just another unhappily married couple trying–and failing–to keep their relationship together while they raised two young daughters. Now the world around them is about to be shaken as Peter, a university researcher, comes to a startling realization: A virulent pandemic has made the terrible leap across the ocean to America’s heartland.
And it is killing fifty out of every hundred people it touches.
As their town goes into lockdown, Peter is forced to return home–with his beautiful graduate assistant. But the Brookses’ safe suburban world is no longer the refuge it once was. Food grows scarce, and neighbor turns against neighbor in grocery stores and at gas pumps. And then a winter storm strikes, and the community is left huddling in the dark.
Trapped inside the house she once called home, Ann Brooks must make life-or-death decisions in an environment where opening a door to a neighbor could threaten all the things she holds dear.
Carla Buckley’s poignant debut raises important questions to which there are no easy answers, in an emotionally riveting tale of one family facing unimaginable stress. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—Washinton, D.C., USA
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College; M.B.A., University of Pennsylvania
• Currently—lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Carla Buckley is the author of The Good Goodbye (2016), The Deepest Secret (2014), Invisible (2012), and The Things That Keep Us Here (2010), which was nominated for a Thriller Award as a best first novel and the Ohioana Book Award for fiction.
She is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Wharton School of Business. Before turning to fiction, Buckley worked as an assistant press secretary for a U.S. senator, an analyst with the Smithsonian Institution, and a technical writer for a defense contractor.
She now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, with her husband and three children. She is almost always at work on her next novel. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The third-person narration squanders the tensions among [the characters], resulting in flat and unsurprising epiphanies. Although Buckley raises important questions about trust, loyalty and forgiveness, the narrative flaws detract from the overall effect.
Publishers Weekly
Medical thriller meets domestic drama in this timely debut.... With crisp writing and taut pacing, Buckley spins a convincing apocalyptic vision that's both frightening and claustrophobic, although she handles the human drama less adroitly.... Verdict: Despite structural flaws, this vivid depiction of suburban America gone bad is riveting. —Jeanne Bogino, New Lebanon Lib., NY
Library Journal
Buckley pulls many punches, downplaying in particular the chaos that could ensue following a total infrastructure collapse, and sets up the novel's surprise final twists by deliberately misleading the reader. Mawkish prose and blatantly contrived plot developments make this a disappointing debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(Author Carla Buckley has issued a "spoiler warning" with regards to these questions. You may wish to read through them AFTER finishing the novel.)
1. With the onset of the pandemic why do you think some people's behavior changed for the better and others for the worst? How do you think you would act in a similar situation?
2. In the story Ann chooses to not take her best friend's baby because of the flu, thereby condemning him to an almost certain death. Peter intervenes and takes the baby. What do you think that you would do in a similar situation? Does Peter's behavior reflect a faith?
3. Ann concluded that Peter and Shazia were in love and having a baby. Are there other instances in the book where taking the situation at face value led to wrong assumptions?
4. Carla Buckley portrayed almost all of the other characters in the book in the worst possible light. Did she do this to contrast Peter's behavior or do you think that people would behave this way in a dire situation?
5. Is the character of Ann written as strong or selfish?
6. Peter tried by example to draw his neighbors together in the spirit of helping each other through the crisis by voluntarily picking up the garbage for the street and taking it to the dump. Do you think they all would have survived longer if they had combined resources and helped each other, putting aside their fears? How do you think you and your neighbors would react in a crisis like this?
7. In the story, Ann demonstrates a willingness to do anything for her children. Identify the moral choices she made in doing so. Do you agree with her choices?
8. The book illustrates that when a disaster hits, people don't always have time to prepare. Are you prepared for a disaster of this magnitude? Why or why not?
9. At the end of the book, Kate indicates a reluctance to commit to Frank. Did you anticipate this? Why or why not?
10. How do you think the death of her infant son affected Ann's reaction when her neighbors brought their baby to her doorstep as they were dying?
11. How does the death of William shape both characters and plot development in the novel?
12. Even while we understand Ann's fears when Jacob is placed on her doorstep, how do you think you would act under the same circumstances? How would you draw the line around family in a true pandemic? Would you turn your back on your infected best friend and her possibly infected infant? Is it better to stay isolated as a family in a pandemic emergency or is it better to band together with other neighbors and why?
13. Which hardships that the characters had to endure would be the most difficult for you? Why?
15. How did Barney affect the storyline? Why do you think the author included him in as many scenes as she did?
(Questions from the author's website.)
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Lost City Radio
Daniel Alarcon, 2007
HarperCollins
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060594817
Summary
For ten years, Norma has been the voice of consolation for a people broken by violence. She hosts Lost City Radio, the most popular program in their nameless South American country, gripped in the aftermath of war. Every week, the Indians in the mountains and the poor from the barrios listen as she reads the names of those who have gone missing, those whom the furiously expanding city has swallowed. Loved ones are reunited and the lost are found. Each week, she returns to the airwaves while hiding her own personal loss: her husband disappeared at the end of the war.
But the life she has become accustomed to is forever changed when a young boy arrives from the jungle and provides a clue to the fate of her long-missing husband.
Stunning, timely, and absolutely mesmerizing, Lost City Radio probes the deepest questions of war and its meaning: from its devastating impact on a society transformed by violence to the emotional scarring each participant, observer, and survivor carries for years after. This tender debut marks Alarcón's emergence as a major new voice in American fiction. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1977
• Where—Lima, Peru
• Reared—Birmingham, Alabama, USA
• Education—B.A., Columbia University; M.A. Iowa Writers'
Workshop.
• Awards—Fulbright Scholarship; Guggenheim Fellowship;
Lannan Fellowship
• Currently—lives in Oakland, California, USA
Daniel Alarcon’s work has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Virginia Quarterly Review and elsewhere, and anthologized in Best American Non-Required Reading 2004 and 2005. His non-fiction has appeared in Salon.com and Eyeshot, and he is Associate Editor of the Peruvian magazine Etiqueta Negra. He edited a portfolio for the magazine A Public Space on the writing of Peru. He is a former Fulbright Scholar to Peru.
Alarcon, a native of Peru, was raised, from the age of 3, in Birmingham, Alabama, U.S. and is an alumnus of Indian Springs School in Shelby County, Alabama. He holds a bachelors degree in anthropology from Columbia University and a masters from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. He has studied in Ghana and taught in New York City.
His first book War by Candlelight was a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award. He was recently awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Fellowship, nominated "One of 21 Young American Novelists" under 35 by Granta magazine.
His debut novel, Lost City Radio, was published in 2007. Both his books have been translated into Spanish. Lost City Radio will be also published in French and Italian in 2008.
Daniel Alarcon lives in Oakland, California, where he is the Distinguished Visiting Writer at Mills College.(From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
This book ... lacks the dramatic punch of [his previous] stories.... He never establishes a solid relationship between the story and [the omniscient] narrator, who becomes increasingly intrusive. The first third of the book is evenhanded, allowing various characters to come forward. But the final parts capriciously switch point of view within chapters, sections, even paragraphs....This tactic diffuses the impact of the war...on which the plot hinges.... The final half of the book is marred by dull descriptions ... that lapse into sentimentality (“Norma smiled at him, and she looked like sunshine”), as well as stylistic tics in which fragments echo sentences. Still, there’s enough here to confirm that Alarcón is talented—and wise—beyond his years, that he remains intent on challenging himself and his readers.
Sarah Fay - New York Times Book Review
Daniel Alarcón's thoughtful, engaging first novel is set in a fictitious South American country where the reader will immediately recognize fragments of recent history in Argentina, Chile and...Peru. No name is ever given to the country: Alarcon means the novel to be a fable about civil wars and their repercussions, rather than an account of a specific war within a specific place.... Alarcon ... express[es], eloquently and exactly, the self-destructiveness of violent insurgency and official retaliation. The victims are the people whom the revolution ostensibly aims to serve. This has been true in just about every actual country in Latin America, as it is true in the fictional one that Alarcón has invented. Lost City Radio is a fable for an entire continent, and is no less pertinent in other parts of the world where different languages are spoken in different climates but where the same ruinous dance is played out.
Jonathan Yardley - Washington Post
Set in a fictional South American nation where guerrillas have long clashed with the government, Alarcon's ambitious first novel (after the story collection War by Candlelight) follows a trio of characters upended by civil strife. Norma, whose husband, Rey, disappeared 10 years ago after the end of a civil war, hosts popular radio show Lost City Radio, which reconnects callers with their missing loved ones. (She quietly entertains the notion that the job will also reunite her with her missing husband.) So when an 11-year-old orphan, Victor, shows up at the radio station with a list of his distant village's "lost people," the station plans a special show dedicated to his case and cranks up its promotional machine. Norma, meanwhile, notices a name on the list that's an alias her husband used to use, prompting her to resume her quest to find him. She and Victor travel to Victor's home village, where local teacher Manau reveals to Norma what she's long feared—and more. Though the mystery Alarcón makes of the identity of Victor's father isn't particularly mysterious, this misstep is overshadowed by Alarcon's successful and nimbly handled portrayal of war's lingering consequences.
Publishers Weekly
Often compared to the work of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, Alarcón's harrowing tale of the breakdown of a society and the emotional price paid by its survivors will undoubtedly haunt you long after you've turned the last page.
Bookmarks Magazine
(Starred review.) Writing rapturously and elegiacally of the wildness in both jungle and city, creating indelible images that concentrate the horrors of war, and unerringly articulating the complex feelings of individuals caught in barbaric and senseless predicaments, Alarcon reaches to the heart of our persistent if elusive dream of freedom and peace. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
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)
A Redbird Christmas
Fannie Flagg, 2004
Random House
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345480262
Summary
With the same incomparable style and warm, inviting voice that have made her beloved by millions of readers far and wide, New York Times bestselling author Fannie Flagg has written an enchanting Christmas story of faith and hope for all ages that is sure to become a classic.
Deep in the southernmost part of Alabama, along the banks of a lazy winding river, lies the sleepy little community known as Lost River, a place that time itself seems to have forgotten. After a startling diagnosis from his doctor, Oswald T. Campbell leaves behind the cold and damp of the oncoming Chicago winter to spend what he believes will be his last Christmas in the warm and welcoming town of Lost River.
There he meets the postman who delivers mail by boat, the store owner who nurses a broken heart, the ladies of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots Secret Society, who do clandestine good works. And he meets a little redbird named Jack, who is at the center of this tale of a magical Christmas when something so amazing happened that those who witnessed it have never forgotten it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Real Name—Patricia Neal
• Birth—September 21, 1944
• Where—Birmingham, Alabama, USA
• Education—University of Alabama
• Currently—lives in Montecito, California
Fannie Flagg began writing and producing television specials at age nineteen and went on to distinguish herself as an actress and writer in television, films, and the theater. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (which was produced by Universal Pictures as Fried Green Tomatoes), Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!, Standing in the Rainbow, and A Redbird Christmas. Flagg’s script for Fried Green Tomatoes was nominated for both the Academy and Writers Guild of America awards and won the highly regarded Scripters Award. Flagg lives in California and in Alabama.
Before her career as a novelist, Flagg was known principally for her on-screen television and film work. She was second banana to Allen Funt on the long-running Candid Camera, perhaps the trailblazer for the current crop of so-called reality television. (Her favorite segment, she told Entertainment Weekly in 1992, was driving a car through the wall of a drive-thru bank.) She appeared as the school nurse in the 1978 film version of Grease, and on Broadway in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. And she was a staple of the Match Game television game shows in the '70s.
Quite early on in her writing career, Fannie Flagg stumbled onto the holy grail of secrets in the publishing world: what editors are actually good for.
Attending the Santa Barbara Writer's Conference in 1978 to see her idol, Eudora Welty, Flagg won first prize in the writing contest for a short story told from the perspective of a 11-year-old girl, spelling mistakes and all—a literary device that she figured was ingenious because it disguised her own pitiful spelling, later determined to be an outgrowth of dyslexia. But when a Harper & Row editor approached her about expanding the story into a full-length novel, she realized the jig was up. In 1994 she told the New York Times:
I just burst into tears and said, "I can't write a novel. I can't spell. I can't diagram a sentence." He took my hand and said the most wonderful thing I've ever heard. He said, "Oh, honey, what do you think editors are for?"
Writing
And so Fannie Flagg—television personality, Broadway star, film actress and six-time Miss Alabama contestant—became a novelist, delving into the Southern-fried, small-town fiction of the sort populated by colorful characters with homespun, no-nonsense observations. Characters that are known to say things like, "That catfish was so big the photograph alone weighed 40 pounds."
Her first novel, an expanded take on that prize-winning short story, was Coming Attractions: A Wonderful Novel, the story of a spunky yet hapless girl growing up in the South, helping her alcoholic father run the local bijou. But it was with her second novel where it all came together. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe—a novel, for all its light humor, that infuses its story with serious threads on racism, feminism, spousal abuse and hints at Sapphic love -- follows two pairs of women: a couple running a hometown café in the Depression-era South and an elderly nursing home resident in the late 1980s who strikes up an impromptu friendship with a middle-aged housewife unhappy with her life.
The result was not only a smash novel, but a hit movie as well, one that garnered Flagg an Academy Award nomination for adapting the screenplay. She won praise from the likes of Erma Bombeck, Harper Lee and idol Eudora Welty, and the Los Angeles Times critic compared it to The Last Picture Show. The New York Times called it, simply, "a real novel and a good one."
As a writer, though, this Birmingham, Alabama native found her voice as a chronicler of Southern Americana and life in its self-contained hamlets. "Fannie Flagg is the most shamelessly sentimental writer in America," The Christian Science Monitor wrote in a 1998 review of her third novel. "She's also the most entertaining. You'd have to be a stone to read Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! without laughing and crying. The cliches in this novel are deep-fat fried: not particularly nutritious, but entirely delicious."
The New York Times, also reviewing Baby Girl, took note of the spinning-yarns-on-the-front-porch quality to her work: "Even when she prattles—and she prattles a great deal during this book—you are always aware that a star is at work. She has that gift that certain people from the theater have, of never boring the audience. She keeps it simple, she keeps it bright, she keeps it moving right along—and, most of all, she keeps it beloved."
But, lest she be pegged as simply a champion of the good ol’ days, it's worth noting that her writing can be something of a clarion call for social change. In Fried Green Tomatoes, Flagg comments not only on the racial divisions of the South but also on the minimization of women in both the 1930s and contemporary life. Just as Idgie Threadgoode and Ruth Jamison commit to a life together—without menfolk—in the Depression-era days of Whistle Stop, Alabama, middle-aged Evelyn Couch in modern-day Birmingham discovers the joys of working outside the home and defining her life outside meeting the every whim of her husband.
On top of her writing, Flagg has also stumped for the Equal Rights Amendment.
I think it's time that women have to stand up and say we do not want to be seen in a demeaning manner," Flagg told a Premiere magazine reporter in an interview about the film adaptation of Fried Green Tomatoes.
Extras
• Flagg approximated the length of her first novel by weight. Her editor told her a novel should be around 400 pages. "So I weighed 400 pages and it came to two pounds and something," she told the Los Angeles Times in 1987." I wrote until I had two pounds and something, and, as it happened, the novel was just about done."
• She landed the Candid Camera gig while a writer at a New York comedy club. When one of the performers couldn't go on, Flagg acted as understudy, and the show's host, Allen Funt, was in the audience.
• Flagg went undiagnosed for years as a dyslexic until a viewer casually mentioned it to her in a fan letter. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Lured by a brochure his doctor gives him after informing him that his emphysema has left him with scarcely a year to live, 52-year-old Oswald T. Campbell abandons wintry Chicago for Lost River, Ala., where he believes he'll be spending his last Christmas. Bestselling author Flagg makes this down-home story about good neighbors and the power of love sparkle with wit and humor, as she tells of Oswald's new life in a town with one grocery store and a resident cardinal (or redbird, as the natives call it). Frances Cleverdon, one of four widows and three single women in town, hopes to fix him up with her sister, Mildred—if only Mildred wouldn't keep dying her hair outrageous colors every few days. The quirky story takes a heartwarming turn when Frances and Oswald become involved in the life of Patsy Casey, an abandoned young girl with a crippled leg. As Christmas approaches, the townspeople and neighboring communities-even the Creoles, whose long-standing feud with everybody else keeps them on the other side of the river-rally round shy, sweet Patsy. Flagg is a gifted storyteller who knows how to tug at readers' heartstrings, winding up her satisfying holiday tale with the requisite Christmas miracle.
Publishers Weekly
Flagg's latest work is just the thing this holiday season for anyone who loves warm, cuddly, feel-good books. Much like Jan Karon's popular "Mitford" series, the story takes place in a small town full of interesting characters. But Lost River, AL, is even smaller, and the story is set sometime in the recent past. Oswald T. Campbell leaves snowy Chicago for Lost River either to regain his health or to spend his last few months in peace. Instead, he's welcomed into this tiny community with open arms and discovers not only his health but also love, acceptance, and a whole new life. Along with Oswald's cure are other examples of love's power. Despite some unfortunate stereotypes, Flagg's gentle humor and positive life view should make the book popular. The selected recipes will bring back fond memories for many; expect regional outbreaks of the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots. —Rebecca Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights
Library Journal
One more Christmas, one more chance. Diagnosed with terminal emphysema, Oswald T. Campbell leaves wintry Chicago for a friendly little town in Alabama recommended by his doctor. Lost River seems as good a place as any to spend his last Christmas on earth; and Oswald, a cheerful loser all his life, believes in going with the flow. Turns out that the people of Lost River are a colorful bunch: Roy Grimmit, the strapping owner of the grocery/bait/beer store, hand-feeds a rescued fledgling named Jack (the redbird of the title) and doesn't care who thinks he's a sissy. Many of the local women belong to the Mystic Order of the Royal Polka Dots, which does good things on the sly, like fixing up unattached men. Betty Kitchen, former army nurse, coaxes Oswald's life story out of him. Seems he was an orphan named for a can of soup—could there be anything sadder? Oswald is quite taken with the charms of Frances Cleverdon, who has a fabulous collection of gravy boats and a pink kitchen, too. Back to Jack, the redbird: it's a favorite of Patsy, a crippled little girl abandoned by her worthless parents. She'll be heartbroken when she finds out that Jack died, so the townsfolk arrange for a minor miracle. Will they get it? Yes—and snow for Christmas, too. Charming tale, sweet as pie, with a just-right touch of tartness from the bestselling Flagg.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for A Redbird Christmas:
1. Describe Oswald Campbell at the beginning of the story. How did he come by his name...and how might his naming incident be symbolic of the life he has led (so far)?
2. Fannie Flagg seems to be having fun with names in this novel: not just Oswald's name, but also the name of Lost River. In what way do many of its residents fit the name of the town? What have some of them lost...or missed out on...?
3. Who are your favorites among the cast of characters and why—Betty Kitchen, Roy Grimmitt, Frances Cleverdon, Claude Underwood, Mildred, Dottie ...? (Exclude Jack or Patsy; we'll get to them next.)
4. Jack, the redbird...do you love him? How does he "serve" the community? In what way does he foreshadow what happens to both Patsy and Oswald?
5. Talk about Patsy and her plight. Why is she so drawn to Jack? And why is Lost River so drawn to her?
6. Healing is a central motif in this novel. Who gets healed in this book—and it what ways? And, more importantly, what enables healing to occur? What is Flagg suggesting about the power of community?
7. Can you relate the sense of community in A Redbird Christmas to where you live? What are the attractions, or drawbacks, of a tightly-knit group of people? What other types of community are there? In other words, what do we mean by "community"... what makes a community?
8. Why is this book and its title centered around the Christmas holiday?
9. Talk about the ways in which this book might be considered a fable, as well as a novel?
10. Do you find this book satisfying—is it what you hoped for? Is it too sweet, or saccharine, for your taste? Or is it just right—its sweetness cut by Fannie Flagg's wit? If you've read other works by Flagg, how does this one compare?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Virgin of Small Plains
Nancy Pickard, 2006
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345471000
Summary
Small Plains, Kansas, January 23, 1987: In the midst of a deadly blizzard, eighteen-year-old Rex Shellenberger scours his father’s pasture, looking for helpless newborn calves. Then he makes a shocking discovery: the naked, frozen body of a teenage girl, her skin as white as the snow around her. Even dead, she is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.
It is a moment that will forever change his life and the lives of everyone around him. The mysterious dead girl—the “Virgin of Small Plains”—inspires local reverence. In the two decades following her death, strange miracles visit those who faithfully tend to her grave; some even believe that her spirit can cure deadly illnesses. Slowly, word of the legend spreads.
But what really happened in that snow-covered field? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the Virgin’s body was found, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds? Why do the town’s three most powerful men—Dr. Quentin Reynolds, former sheriff Nathan Shellenberger, and Judge, Tom Newquist—all seem to be hiding the details of that night?
Seventeen years later, when Mitch suddenly returns to Small Plains, simmering tensions come to a head, ghosts that had long slumbered whisper anew, and the secrets that some wish would stay buried rise again from the grave of the Virgin. Abby—never having resolved her feelings for Mitch—is now determined to uncover exactly what happened so many years ago to tear their lives apart.
Three families and three friends, their worlds inexorably altered in the course of one night, must confront the ever-unfolding consequences inaward-winning author Nancy Pickard’s remarkable novel of suspense. Wonderfully written and utterly absorbing, The Virgin of Small Plains is about the loss of faith, trust, and innocence...and the possibility of redemption. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1945
• Where—N/A
• Education—University of Missouri-Columbia
• Awards—Anthony Award, Macavity Awards (5), Agatha
Christie Award (4), Shamus Award
• Currently—lives in Prairie Village, Kansas
Nancy Pickard is Nancy Pickard is the author of eighteen popular and critically acclaimed novels, including the Jenny Cain and Marie Lightfoot mystery series. She is also the author of The Virgin of Small Plains (2006). The Scent of Rain and Lightning is her most recent novel.
She has won the Anthony Award, two Macavity Awards, and two Agatha Awards for her novels. She is a three-time Edgar Award nominee, most recently for her first Marie Lightfoot mystery, The Whole Truth, which was a national bestseller. With Lynn Lott, Pickard co-authored Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path.
She has been a national board member of the Mystery Writers of America, as well as the president of Sisters in Crime. She lives in Prairie Village, Kansas (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Nancy Pickard (the author of series novels based in the East) has set [her novel] in Kansas, where she lives. Making deft use of parallel time frames, Pickard writes with insight and compassion about an unresolved crime that continues to haunt a farming community. Burdened by its legacy of long-buried sins, the town of Small Plains hasn't been the same since 18-year-old Mitch Newquist was hustled out of the house by his father the judge in the middle of a blizzard.... Pickard draws out the truth with tantalizing suspense, while using the mystery to illuminate the ways a community would rather live in guilt and believe in miracles than give up its dark secrets.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times
Nancy Pickard is acclaimed as one of today's best mystery writers. Mounting evidence suggests that this description is too limited. . .Pickard (is) one of today's best writers, period.
San Diego Union
Pickard (Storm Warnings) probes the truth behind miracles and the tragedies behind lies in this mesmerizing suspense novel set in Kansas. While rounding up newborn calves during a 1987 blizzard, Nathan Shellenberger, sheriff of Small Plains, and his teenage sons, Rex and Patrick, discover the naked frozen body of a beautiful teenage girl. Later, Nathan and Dr. Quentin "Doc" Reynolds bash the girl's face to an unrecognizable pulp, since they know who she is and fear that either Patrick or Rex's best friend, 17-year-old Mitch Newquist, is her killer. Witnessing this terrible scene is Mitch, hidden in Doc's home office supply closet where he's gone for a condom to use with Abby, Doc's 16-year-old daughter. Mitch's father, a judge, forces Mitch to leave town after the boy admits what he saw. In 2004, Abby and Rex-now the sheriff-find another blizzard victim, Mitch's mother, dead near the marker commemorating the still-unidentified "virgin." Readers may wish the author supplied more detail about the dead girl's background, but some cleverly planted surprises and the convincing portrait of smalltown life make this a memorable read.
Publishers Weekly
Cold case, indeed: a blizzard with too many parallels to a long-ago storm shocks 33-year-old Abby Reynolds into unraveling the mystery behind a 17-year-old homicide. The unidentified young woman found bloodied and naked in the snow has literally haunted the small Kansas town ever since, her unmarked grave emitting a miraculous glow. The secret begins to peel away when Abby realizes that the stories told about that night don't quite ring true. As she asks the people she loves to return to that time in 1987, Abby fears the murderer might be staring her in the face. Pickard's careful plotting builds slowly toward a climax, with the weather contributing to a sense of foreboding. Using flashbacks and multiple viewpoints, she provides an absorbing tale of love and deceit. This very readable standalone suspense novel, the first by popular mystery series author Pickard (Jenny Cain, Marie Lightfoot), will appeal to those who relished Martha Grimes's Hotel Paradise. Recommended for all popular fiction collections. —Teresa L. Jacobsen, Solano Cty. Lib., CA
Library Journal
Accomplished mystery writer Pickard (The Truth Hurts, 2002, etc.) skillfully exposes insidious elements in a small town. Two smitten teenagers in Small Plains, Kan., contemplate making love for the first time. Sent downstairs by girlfriend Abby Reynolds to fetch condoms from her doctor father's supply cabinet, Mitch Newquist instead secretly witnesses the brutal disfigurement of a dead girl's corpse by the respectable Dr. Reynolds. Mitch recognizes the girl as a local maid from another town. Being an honorable boy bound for college, he discloses what he has seen to his own father, the town judge. To the boy's amazement and growing bitterness, his parents cover up the incident, seeming to believe Dr. Reynold's lies about it, and send Mitch away the very next morning. Seventeen years later, Abby still lives in Small Plains and owns a tree service. Mitch's mother, Nadine, who suffers from Alzheimer's, dies of exposure in a snowstorm after running out in her nightgown to visit the grave of the maid who died so mysteriously. Locals call this unknown girl the Virgin of Small Plains, and her grave has become a shrine, attracting people from all over who believe in miraculous healing. The novel moves back and forth in time, from its present in 2004 to the definitive events of 17 years before. Among the players in the original drama who must now confront the damage it inflicted are the town sheriff and his two boys, who found the girl in the snow (they denied knowing her, although both boys were in love with her); and Abby and Mitch, torn from each other in the heat of young love. Pickard demonstrates an effective restraint with the material, so that when Mitch returns to the town for a reckoning, the shame of the town fathers leads to a satisfying denouement. A quietly fashioned, credible tale about the loss of innocence.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
(LitLovers Note: We have NO idea no idea why these questions are written in an "author-interview" format. Do the best you can with them.)
1. The Virgin of Small Plains is your eighteeenth novel, but the first you’ve set in your home state of Kansas. Why have you waited until now? What challenges presented themselves in writing about an area and community so close to home?
2. What inspired you to write this story? Was the genesis of The Virgin of Small Plains significantly different from the ideas that spawned your previous books?
3. What about the development of the novel? Did this book present any unique challenges?
4. The action shuttles back and forth in time, alternately charting the events that lead to and follow from the Virgin’s death in 1987 and the repercussions still simmering seventeen years later. Why did you choose to braid the two narratives in this way? Was it difficult to keep your timelines straight?
5. How carefully do you map the plots of your books before setting down to write? Do your characters sometimes surprise you?
6. Did you find it hard to adopt and sustain the perspectives and voices of multiple narrators in The Virgin of Small Plains? Were certain characters more readily accessible to you than others?
7. You really capture the rhythms of adolescent thought, from Rex’s sexual frustrations to Abby’s heartbreak. Did you base their travails on your own experiences? On those of anyone you know?
8. You never expressly tip your hat to divine intervention in The Virgin of Small Plains, but there are indications throughout the text that some higher power may be at play–even though the story carefully supplies more plausible explanations for seemingly extraordinary events. (Case in point: The climactic car crash, which evokes the clockwork precision of a deus ex machina but at the same time seems like an natural narrative development.) Do you believe in the supernatural or spiritual?
9. The subplot involving Catie Washington both complements and nicely counters the murder mystery at the heart of The Virgin of Small Plains. Did you specifically conceive this character and her story to vary the tone of the book, or did they evolve organically from the story?
10. The twister that dominates the central passage of the novel alters not only the town of Small Plains but also the shape of the action unfolding there: Abby sees Mitch again; Catie’s faith is providentially confirmed; and the reader is properly introduced to Jeff Newquist, a pivotal minor character. How did you hit upon the idea of this perfect storm, so to speak?
11. You’ve achieved success and acclaim as an author of mysteries. Have you always been interested in that genre?
12. How did you launch your career?
13. As many reviewers noted, The Virgin of Small Plains transcends the parameters of that genre. Do you feel that this book delves into new territory for you as a writer?
14. What are you working on next?
15. It must be asked: Have you ever experienced a tornado firsthand?
(Questions issued by publisher...as found...sorry.)