Rise and Shine
Anna Quindlen, 2006
Random House
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616850425
Summary
From Anna Quindlen, acclaimed author of Blessings; Black and Blue; and One True Thing, a superb novel about two sisters, the true meaning of success, and the qualities in life that matter most.
It’s an otherwise ordinary Monday when Meghan Fitzmaurice’s perfect life hits a wall. A household name as the host of Rise and Shine, the country’s highest-rated morning talk show, Meghan cuts to a commercial break–but not before she mutters two forbidden words into her open mike.
In an instant, it’s the end of an era, not only for Meghan, who is unaccustomed to dealing with adversity, but also for her younger sister, Bridget, a social worker in the Bronx who has always lived in Meghan’s long shadow. The effect of Meghan’s on-air truth telling reverberates through both their lives, affecting Meghan’s son, husband, friends, and fans, as well as Bridget’s perception of her sister, their complex childhood, and herself.
What follows is a story about how, in very different ways, the Fitzmaurice women adapt, survive, and manage to bring the whole teeming world of New York to heel by dint of their smart mouths, quick wits, and the powerful connection between them that even the worst tragedy cannot shatter. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 8, 1952
• Where—Philadelphia, PA, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard College
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column
• Currently—New York, New York
Anna Quindlen could have settled onto a nice, lofty career plateau in the early 1990s, when she had won a Pulitzer Prize for her New York Times column; but she took an unconventional turn, and achieved a richer result.
Quindlen, the third woman to hold a place among the New York Times' Op-Ed columnists, had already published two successful collections of her work when she decided to leave the paper in 1995. But it was the two novels she had produced that led her to seek a future beyond her column.
Quindlen had a warm, if not entirely uncritical, reception as a novelist. Her first book, Object Lessons, focused on an Irish American family in suburban New York in the 1960s. It was a bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of 1991, but was also criticized for not being as engaging as it could have been. One True Thing, Quindlen's exploration of an ambitious daughter's journey home to take care of her terminally ill mother, was stronger still—a heartbreaker that was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep. But Quindlen's fiction clearly benefited from her decision to leave the Times. Three years after that controversial departure, she earned her best reviews yet with Black and Blue, a chronicle of escape from domestic abuse.
Quindlen's novels are thoughtful explorations centering on women who may not start out strong, but who ultimately find some core within themselves as a result of what happens in the story. Her nonfiction meditations—particularly A Short Guide to a Happy Life and her collection of "Life in the 30s" columns, Living Out Loud—often encourage this same transition, urging others to look within themselves and not get caught up in what society would plan for them. It's an approach Quindlen herself has obviously had success with.
Extras
• To those who expressed surprise at Quindlen's apparent switch from columnist to novelist, the author points out that her first love was always fiction. She told fans in a Barnes & Noble.com chat, "I really only went into the newspaper business to support my fiction habit, but then discovered, first of all, that I loved reporting for its own sake and, second, that journalism would be invaluable experience for writing novels."
• Quindlen joined Newsweek as a columnist in 1999. She began her career at the New York Post in 1974, jumping to the New York Times in 1977.
• Quindlen's prowess as a columnist and prescriber of advice has made her a popular pick for commencement addresses, a sideline that ultimately inspired her 2000 title A Short Guide to a Happy Life Quindlen's message tends to be a combination of stopping to smell the flowers and being true to yourself. Quindlen told students at Mount Holyoke in 1999, "Begin to say no to the Greek chorus that thinks it knows the parameters of a happy life when all it knows is the homogenization of human experience. Listen to that small voice from inside you, that tells you to go another way. George Eliot wrote, 'It is never too late to be what you might have been.' It is never too early, either. And it will make all the difference in the world."
• Studying fiction at Barnard with the literary critic Elizabeth Hardwick, Quindlen's senior thesis was a collection of stories, one of which she sold to Seventeen magazine. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Anna Quindlen has developed an enormously likable writing voice, and by telling her tale through the humble voice of an unassuming naif, she allows her readers the illusion that we all might live securely within the velvety pink confines of the New York maw, safely out of the way of those silver teeth. She makes the city accessible and downright neighborly.
Carolyn See - Washington Post
Moving from the fetid tenements of the Bronx to the ethereal penthouses of Manhattan, Quindlen pens a lavishly perceptive homage to the city she loves, while her transcendentally agile and empathic observations of the human condition underlie the Fitzmaurice sisters' discovery of the transience of fame and the permanence of family. —Carol Haggas
Booklist
Bridget Fitzmaurice, the narrator of Quindlen's engrossing fifth novel, works for a women's shelter in the Bronx; her older sister, Meghan, cohost of the popular morning show Rise and Shine, is the most famous woman on television. Bridget acts as a second mother to the busy Meghan's college student son, Leo; Meghan barely tolerates Bridget's significant other, a gritty veteran police detective named Irving Lefkowitz. After 9/11 (which happens off-camera) and the subsequent walking out of Meghan's beleaguered husband, Evan, Meghan calls a major politician a "fucking asshole" before her microphone gets turned off for a commercial, and Megan and Bridget's lives change forever. As Bridget struggles to mend familial fences and deal with reconfigurations in their lives wrought by Meghan's single phrase, Quindlen has her lob plenty of pungent observations about both life in class-stratified New York City and about family dynamics. The situation is ripe with comic potential, which Bridget deadpans her way through, and Quindlen goes along with Bridget's cool reserve and judgmentalism. The plot is very imbalanced: a couple of events early, then virtually nothing until a series of major revelations in the last 50 or so pages. The prose is top-notch; readers may be more interested in Quindlen's insights than in the lives of her two main characters.
Publishers Weekly
Orphaned in childhood, sisters Meghan and Bridget have grown up to be pillars in each other's lives. Meghan, a nationally known television personality hosting Rise and Shine, the nation's number one morning show, lives a cushy celebrity life. Younger sister Bridget toils in a modest, sometimes dispiriting career as a social worker. Meghan is married with a personable teenaged son; Bridget lives with a jaded, crusty cop who doesn't want kids. Meghan suffers a fall from grace after a muttered profanity into a live microphone shocks the nation. Her plunge into public disgrace triggers both sisters' soul searching and realigns their lives. The New York City backdrop allows Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Newsweek columnist Quindlen to wield her powers of observation and description to establish a true sense of place. Actress Carol Monda's clear, nontheatrical diction is unobtrusive, casting the spotlight on the narrative. Recommended for public libraries. —Judith Robinson, Univ. at Buffalo, NY
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Rise and Shine centers on the unique bond of sisterhood–potentially one of the most supportive, competitive, and difficult relationships in life. Describe Bridget and Meghan’s relationship and how each woman views her sister, and herself. What roles do they each play? Does this portrait of sisterhood reflect your own relationship with a sibling, or perhaps with a close friend? Do you identify with one of the Fitzmaurice sisters more than the other?
2. Meghan’s audacious on-air slip, and its repercussions, incites the novel’s forward action. How would you judge the seasoned anchorwoman’s mistake? Was she wrong to let her personal opinion and emotions show? Do you believe that the network’s reaction was justified? Finally, what was the public’s response to Meghan’s fall from grace?
3. Describe Anna Quindlen’s portrait of New York City. Is the Big Apple “unequivocally the center of the universe,” as some New Yorkers believe? Compare Bridget and Tequila’s experiences at the shelter with Meghan’s worldview from the Upper East Side. How does Quindlen attempt to capture all sides of the city?
4. Describe Meghan and Bridget’s conflicting perceptions and memories of their mother. How does the loss of their mother shape the Fitzgerald sisters’ lives and ways of relating to each other? What role does Aunt Maureen play?
5. Is Evan justified in leaving Meghan, or do you agree with Bridget, that there must have been another woman in the picture right from the start? What factors led to the failure of their relationship? How does Bridget deal with the breakup? Meghan?
6. Meghan retreats to Jamaica to escape the turmoil in her life and, in doing so, detaches from her old persona and responsibilities. What did you think of this episode? Was Meghan being selfish by isolating herself? How did it affect Leo? Bridget? Or was this period in Meghan’s life necessary and inevitable? Finally, discuss the outcome of the trip. Does Meghan sustain this growth of character when she reenters the real world? How about Bridget?
7. What attracts Bridget to Irving Lefkowitz? Describe Irving’s attitude toward children and his reaction to Bridget’s unexpected news. Will this relationship work for Bridget? Why or why not?
8. Bridget’s daily experience in New York City is marked by relationships with “familiar strangers.” What does she mean by this? Are there “familiar strangers” in your own life?
9. Discuss Meghan’s role in apprehending the shooter in the Tubman projects; was her involvement self-serving, or was she defending her son and the safety of others? What were her true motivations, and how were her actions perceived? Do you agree with Meghan’s decision to take matters into her own hands?
10. Quindlen writes in the first person, from Bridget’s perspective. What effect does this narrative viewpoint have on the story? How would the book be different if it were told from Meghan’s point of view?
11. In the last few pages of the novel, Quindlen writes, “Does someone have to break so someone else can be whole?” (p. 268). Who in Rise and Shine breaks, and who has been made whole? Is there more than one way to think about this question?
12. The dust jacket for Rise and Shine shows a beautiful butterfly, a symbol of metamorphosis. How does the concept of change apply to the characters in the novel? Consider, especially, Meghan and Bridget, Evan, Leo, Irving, Tequila, and Princess Margaret. Have you undergone similar changes in your own life? Finally, how did your opinion of the Fitzmaurice sisters, and your assessment of their relative strengths and weaknesses, evolve over the course of the novel?
13. What do you think defines a “successful” life? According to your definition, who is the most successful character in Rise and Shine? Does success equal happiness? How does that concept play out in the novel, and what do Bridget and Meghan come to understand by the end?
14. Does Rise and Shine have a happy ending? What new directions and challenges face the Fitzmaurice sisters, Leo, Irving, and the others?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene, 1940
Penguin Group USA
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780142437308
Summary
In a poor, remote section of southern Mexico, the Red Shirts have taken control. God has been outlawed, and the priests have been systematically hunted down and killed. Now, the last priest strives to overcome physical and moral cowardice in order to find redemption. (From the publisher.)
This is the second of four in what are considered Graham Greene's explicitiy Catholic novels. The other three are Brighton Rock (1938), The Heart of the Matter (1948), and The End of the Affair (1951).
Author Bio
• Birth—October 2, 1904
• Where—Berkhamstd, England, UK
• Death—April 3, 1991
• Where—Vevey, Switzerland
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Hawthornden Prize; Companion
of Honour; Chevalier of the Legion of
Honour; Order of Merit.
Known for his espionage thrillers set in exotic locales, Graham Greene is the writer who launched a thousand travel journalists. But although Greene produced some unabashedly commercial works—he called them "entertainments," to distinguish them from his novels—even his escapist fiction is rooted in the gritty realities he encountered around the globe. "Greeneland" is a place of seedy bars and strained loyalties, of moral dissolution and physical decay.
Greene spent his university years at Oxford "drunk and debt-ridden," and claimed to have played Russian roulette as an antidote to boredom. At age 21 he converted to Roman Catholicism, later saying, "I had to find a religion...to measure my evil against." His first published novel, The Man Within, did well enough to earn him an advance from his publishers, but though Greene quit his job as a London Times subeditor to write full-time, his next two novels were unsuccessful. Finally, pressed for money, he set out to write a work of popular fiction. Stamboul Train (also published as The Orient Express) was the first of many commercial successes.
Throughout the 1930s, Greene wrote novels, reviewed books and movies for the Spectator, and traveled through eastern Europe, Liberia, and Mexico. One of his best-known works, Brighton Rock, was published during this time; The Power and the Glory, generally considered Greene's masterpiece, appeared in 1940. Along with The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair, they cemented Greene's reputation as a serious novelist—though George Orwell complained about Greene's idea "that there is something rather distingué in being damned; Hell is a sort of high-class nightclub, entry to which is reserved for Catholics only."
During World War II, Greene was stationed in Sierra Leone, where he worked in an intelligence capacity for the British Foreign Office under Kim Philby, who later defected to the Soviet Union. After the war, Greene continued to write stories, plays, and novels, including The Quiet American, Travels with My Aunt, The Honorary Consul, and The Captain and the Enemy. For a time, he worked as a screenwriter for MGM, producing both original screenplays and scripts adapted from his fiction.
He also continued to travel, reporting from Vietnam, Haiti, and Panama, among other places, and he became a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy in Central America. Some biographers have suggested that his friendships with Communist leaders were a ploy, and that he was secretly gathering intelligence for the British government. The more common view is that Greene's leftist leanings were part of his lifelong sympathy with the world's underdogs—what John Updike called his "will to compassion, an ideal communism even more Christian than Communist. Its unit is the individual, not any class."
But if Greene's politics were sometimes difficult to decipher, his stature as a novelist has seldom been in doubt, in spite of the light fiction he produced. Kingsley Amis, Evelyn Waugh, and R. K. Narayan paid tribute to his work, and William Golding prophesied: "He will be read and remembered as the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety."
Extras
• Greene's philandering ways were legendary; he frequently visited prostitutes and had several mistresses, including Catherine Walston, who converted to Catholicism after reading The Power and the Glory and wrote to Greene asking him to be her godfather. After a brief period of correspondence, the two met, and their relationship inspired Greene's novel The End of the Affair.
• Greene was a film critic, screenwriter, and avid moviegoer, and critics have sometimes praised the cinematic quality of his style. His most famous screenplay was The Third Man, which he cowrote with director Carol Reed. Recently, new film adaptations have been made of Greene's novels The End of the Affair and The Quiet American. Greene's work has also formed the basis for an opera: Our Man in Havana, composed by Malcolm Williamson. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
(Older works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
Brilliant.... a splendid achievement.
Atlantic Monthly
As brilliantly written as it is magnificently conceived.
Chicago Sun
The book should attract...not only those who read for diversion and excitement, but those, too, who read for the pleasure of superb writing and shrewd contriving of story.
Chicago Tribune
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 The Power and the Glory:
1. Why has this Mexican state outlawed the practice of Catholicism? What is its argument against the religion?
2. Why is Father Jose's presence tolerated by the state? What purpose does he serve for the government? What comparisons can you make between him and the Whiskey Priest?
3. Discuss the complicated character of the whiskey priest. What keeps him from leaving for another state, one more tolerant of Catholicism? Why does he continue to minister to the peasants despite the risk to his life? How does he view those he is so determined to serve?
4. In what way is the priest tormented by his faith...or lack thereof? What is the nature of his self-doubt?
5. What do you make of the fact that many have been executed as a result of their involvement with the priest, while the priest himself flees. Is the priest's sense of guilt justified...or not?
6. Talk about the priest's nemisis—the lieutenant? What are his motives for pursuing the priest? How would you describe him—as purely evil...or a more complicated character?
7. Follow-up to Questions #3 and #4: Graham Greene has given readers a priest who is hardly an exemplar among his peers. For what purposes would the author have created such a character—with his many failings—as the novel's hero. Why does the priest remain nameless throughout the novel?
8. Is the whiskey priest a martyr? Why does he himself not believe he is one? What does he mean when he says, "I don't think martyrs are like this"? What qualifies one as a true martyr?
9. What is the symbolic significance of the priest's misplaced Bible and other religious paraphernalia? What is symbolic about trading his clothes and donning those of a peasant?
10. Do you think Greene intended the priest to be a Christ figure? Do you see him as such? Why...or why not?
11. The culmination of the novel occurs in the jail cell. What revelation comes to the whiskey priest? What is the irony of an imprisoned body vs. the spirit?
12. How does the author portray Mexico? How does he use the setting of Mexico as an atmospheric/thematic backdrop for the novel?
13. What do you make of the fact that in 1953, 13 years after it was published, a Vatican curia condemned the novel and asked Greene to make revisions? Apparently the Vatican took issue with the corrupted character of the whiskey priest. (Greene made no revisions.)
14. Greene's novel explores the tension between belief and nonbelief. How does the story come to grips with that dichotomy? What is the central "message"? Is it one of hope...or despair?
15. Has reading this book altered, in any way, your faith, or your understanding of faith?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Map of Love
Ahdaf Soueif,
Knpf Doubleday
529 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385720113
Summary
Lady Anna Winterbourne, an English widow, arrives in British-occupied Cairo in 1900. Fascinated by Egyptian culture, Anna bridles at the prejudices and parochial attitudes of the colonial community and follows her sense of curiosity to places few Europeans venture.
During one disastrous secret outing, she meets and falls in love with Sharif Basha-al-Baroudi, a fierce Arab nationalist. He in turn falls in love with her, and against their better judgment, they marry. In a world where politics and personal relationships are inextricably intertwined, the choices Anna and Sharif make have profound repercussions not only in their own lives but in the lives of their descendants.
Isabel Parkman, Anna's great-granddaughter, is a young American divorcée irresistibly drawn to Omar-al-Ghamrawi, a renowned Egyptian musician living in New York. Hoping to find keys to understanding him, Isabel travels to Omar's homeland, taking with her an old truck full of papers she inherited from Anna. In Cairo, Isabel and Omar's sister, Amal, unwrap Anna's treasures and discover an unsuspected blood link between their families: Amid Anna's diaries and letters and newspapers crackling with age is a notebook written in Amal's grandmother's hand recounting the story of her brother, Sharif, and the Englishwoman he loved. As Anna's experiences during the first decades of the century and Isabel's contemporary quest unfold in counterpoint, the politics that divide two cultures and the passions that bring lovers together resound across time and space.
Ahdaf Soueif evokes Egypt in meticulous detail, describing age-old and modern-day customs, the stark beauty of the desert and bustle of the cities, and the interactions among Egyptians and between Egyptians and Westerners. In a compelling, impressive combination of historical fidelity and fictional artistry, she takes a culture little understood by most Westerners and makes it real. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 23, 1950
• Where—Cairo, Egypt
• Education—Ph.D., University of Lancaster, UK
• Awards—Finalst, Man Booker
• Currently—lives in London, England
Ahdaf Soueif was born in Cairo. She is the author of the bestselling novel The Map of Love, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1999, as well as Mezzaterra: Notes from the Common Ground and the novel In the Eye of the Sun. She also has translated from the Arabic the award-winning memoir I Saw Ramallah by Mourid Barghouti. She lives in London. (From the publisher.)
More
Ahdaf Soueif is an Egyptian short story writer, novelist and political and cultural commentator. Soueif was educated in Egypt and England. She studied for a Ph.D in linguistics at the University of Lancaster. Her novel The Map of Love (1999) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and subsequently translated into 16 languages.
Soueif writes primarily in English, but her Arabic-speaking readers say they can hear the Arabic through the English. Along with in-depth and sensitive readings of Egyptian history and politics, Soueif also writes about Palestinians in her fiction and non-fiction. A shorter version of "Under the Gun: A Palestinian Journey" was originally published in the Guardian and then printed in full in Soueif's recent collection of essays, Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground (2004). Soueif has also translated Mourid Barghouti's I Saw Ramallah (with a foreword by Edward Said) from Arabic into English.
In 2007, Soueif was one of more than 100 artists and writers who signed an open letter initiated by Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism and the South West Asian, North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) and calling on the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival "to honor calls for an international boycott of Israeli political and cultural institutions, by discontinuing Israeli consulate sponsorship of the LGBT film festival and not cosponsoring events with the Israeli consulate."
In 2008 she initiated the first Palestine Festival of Literature. ("More" from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
A wonderfully accomplished and mature work.... Although a key part of the novel's maturity is its ability to face up squarely to both politics and love, the narrative unfolds obliquely—so obliquely that it even starts in midsentence.... [The] novel requires—and deserves—an active, attentive audience.
Annette Kobak - New York Times Book Review
A bold and vibrant novel.... This is political fiction that is also unashamedly romantic.... A trimphant achievement.
Penelope Lively - Literary Review
A magnificent work, reminiscent of Marquez and Allende in its breadth and confidence.
Guardian (UK)
Epic.... Soueif is at her most eloquent on the subject of her homeland, her prose rich with historical detail and debate. Ultimately, Egypt emerges as the true heroine of this novel.
Independent
Coincidence—personal, political and cultural—rules in this burnished, ultra-romantic Booker Prize finalist. In 1997, Isabel Parkman, a recently divorced American journalist, travels to Egypt to research about the impending millennium. But her interest in Egypt has more to do with her crush on Omar al-Ghamrawi, a passionate and difficult older Egyptian-American conductor and political writer, than with her work. Once in Egypt, Isabel neglects her project for a more personal investigation. Lugging with her a mysterious trunk of papers bequeathed to her by her mother, Isabel turns up at Omar's sister Amal's house in Cairo and explains that Omar had said she might be interested in translating the papers. As the two soon discover, Isabel is Amal's distant cousin, and the papers belonged to their mutual great-grandmother, Anna Winterbourne. As a young English widow, Anna traveled to turn-of-the-century Egypt, then an English colony, and fell in love with an Egyptian man. "I cannot help thinking that when she chose to step off the well-trodden paths of expatriate life, Anna must have secretly wanted something out of the ordinary to happen to her," muses Amal, who begins to realize that the same applies to her own life. Soueif (In the Eye of the Sun) writes simply and, on occasion, beautifully. Anna's journal entries are particularly evocative. Sticklers for narrative detail might chafe at the number of incredible coincidences, including a bizarre twist involving Isabel's mother and Omar, and forsaken plot devices (Isabel's millennium project is never mentioned after her arrival in Egypt). On balance, however, Soueif weaves the stories of three formidable women from vastly different times and countries into a single absorbing tale.
Publishers Weekly
This exotic family saga/romance by the Egyptian-born Soueif is based on a conceit: the discovery of family letters and diaries by New York journalist Isabel, which leads to her discovery of the Egyptian branch of the family she never knew she had. Isabel's great-grandmother was a young English widow who traveled to Egypt to see where her young husband had fought in World War I. Abducted by Egyptian nationalists while in disguise as a male, she subsequently fell in love with an Egyptian man. Her story is slowly unraveled when Isabel returns the trunk containing her papers to the sister of an Egyptian doctor from New York, both of whom turn out to be her long-lost cousins. This colorful, involving story offers a good dose of history of the struggle for Egyptian independence from British rule. Recommended as something a little different where historical romances are popular. —Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Anna and Sharif meet under very dramatic circumstances. Why does Soueif use a highly charged, potentially dangerous kidnapping to bring the two together? Could have they found each other and fallen in love in the course of their everyday lives in Egypt?
2. Is the portrait of Anna's and Sharif's courtship and marriage realistic? Are Anna's sacrifices in the name of love overly noble or romantic? Does her easy adjustment to life in an Arab household ring true?
3. What impact does his marriage to an Englishwoman have on Sharif's position and the way he is perceived by the Egyptians and the British? Why is the couple accepted by Egyptian society and ostracized by the British? What implications does this convey about the fundamental attitudes and character of the two cultures?
4. Anna and Sharif speak to each other in French. Is this only a matter of convenience? To what extent does language define identity? Does speaking a language that is native to neither help or hinder communication between Sharif and Anna?
5. In what ways do Anna's letters to Sir Charles differ from the entries she makes in her journals? How do her descriptions of the Khedive's Ball [p. 92], her trip to the Great Pyramid [p. 95], and other anecdotes shed light on the political situation in Egypt and on British imperialism in general? Are Lord Cromer, James Barrington, Mrs. Butcher, and other members of the British community fully realized characters, or do they merely serve as symbols for various political beliefs?
6. Why does Anna embrace the cause of Egyptian nationalism with such fervor? In addition to her desire to see justice done, what other emotions motivate her?
7. "How can it strike so suddenly? Without warning, without preparation? Should it not grow on you, taking its time, so that when you think 'I love,' you know—or at least imagine you know—what it is you love?" [p. 48], Isabel muses after she meets Omar for the first time. The words could also describe Anna's feelings for Sharif, and Sharif's for Anna. Discuss how the separate but intertwining stories in The Map of Love shed light on eternal realities of love, as well as on the particular qualities of love between people of different, and often conflicting, cultures.
8. Isabel learns that she and Omar share a common ancestry not from him but from Amal [p. 184]. Why doesn't Omar share this information with Isabel before she leaves for Egypt? Are Omar's reservations about their relationship based solely on their age difference? What other factors in Omar's personal life underlie his reluctance to become involved with a young American woman? Sharif marries Anna despite cultural and political sanctions against their union. Why is it easier for Sharif to commit to marriage to Anna that it is for Omar to commit to Isabel?
9. When Isabel meets Amal's friends, Amal writes, "That is the first thing you notice, I think, when you look at these three women: Awra and Deena, with faint circles under their eyes, a slight droop in their shoulders, a certain dullness of skin, look worn. While Isabel, shining with health and a kind of innocent optimism, looks brand new" [p. 222]. What is the significance of this passage in terms of the themes of the novel? Does Amal see Isabel's "innocent optimism" as a positive or negative quality? Is Isabel less innocent at the end of the novel?
10. Amal's former professor says to the young Egyptian activists, "Do you realise, when you speak of a political programme, that your programme now is the same that Mahmoud Sami al-Baroudi's government tried to establish more than a hundred years ago?" [p. 227] Why have the Egyptians been unable to achieve their goals? Are they, as Mustafa argues, "a nation of cowards—we live by slogans" [p. 224]? To what extent have their ambitions been thwarted by the long period of English occupation and Western antagonism and disdain toward Arabic culture and civilization?
11. The Map of Love is firmly grounded in historical fact and current realities, yet two of the most striking incidents are the afternoon Isabel spends at the house of her ancestors, now a padlocked shrine in the heart of Cairo [p. 292], and the inexplicable reappearance of the third panel of Anna's tapestry [p. 495]. Why do you think Soueif includes this "magical" element? Why is the rediscovered panel the one depicting the child of Osiris and Isis?
12. Early in the book, Amal says, "[T]his is not my story.... It is the story of two women: Isabel Parkman...and Anna Winterbourne" [p. 11]. Is Amal more than a conduit of Anna's and Isabel's stories?
13. For more than a century, Amal's ancestors were leaders in Egypt's nationalist movements and revolutions; her parents lost their home in West Jerusalem when the state of Israel was established in 1948, and after the 1967 war, her mother is devastated by the realization that she will never be able to return to her homeland [p. 118]. Does Amal family's history affect the way she presents Anna's and Isabel's stories? Do the political beliefs Amal holds undermine the persuasiveness or power of novel for the reader?
14. In reviewing one of her previous books, Edward Said called Soueif "one of the most extraordinary chroniclers of sexual politics now writing." Does Amal's position as a member of respected family and her education abroad allow her freedoms that are denied to other women? What incidents in the book, either historical or contemporary, contradict Western stereotypes about the roles of women in Islamic society? Are Layla and Zeinab Hanim portrayed merely as tradition-bound, subservient women? What evidence is there that they are able to effect change not only within their own families but within society in general? Both Isabel and Amal live independent lives, free of the demands of husband and family. Which woman embodies your own idea of feminism?
15. What parallels are there between the decisions Anna and Isabel face? In what ways do the characters represent the "norm" of their respective cultures? To what extent do they defy cultural rules and expectations? How does Anna, for example, compare to the women of her period, both real and fictional, you have read about in other books?
16. How does religion shape the actions of Sharif and his family in both negative and ways. Are Amal and Omar affected in any way by the religious tradition in which they were brought up?
17. Does the passage of time change Isabel's understanding of love? Does her love for Omar deepen as she learns more about his background? In what ways does the course of their romance mirror Anna and Sharif's marriage? Which couple has to overcome greater obstacles? Beyond the impediments imposed by society, how do the personalities of each character effect their relationships?
18. The Map of Love contains a great deal of information about the history of the Middle East, as well as about the current situation there. How successful is the author at integrating fact and fiction? Did the discussions of politics help you understand the characters and their motivations or did you find them intrusive?
19. Did the novel change your perceptions of the conflicts in the Middle East? Did the depictions of the aspirations of Egyptians and other Arabs differ from preconceptions you may have had? Did it change your view of Israel? Your attitude about the role of the United States in Arab-Israeli relations? Soueif draws parallels between U. S. involvement in the area today and British imperialism. Is this a valid analogy?
20. Do you think Soueif expresses the views of the majority of Egyptians today? What have you read or heard about that supports your opinion?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
When Crickets Cry
Charles Martin, 2006
Thomas Nelson, Inc.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781595540546
Summary
A man with a painful past. A child with a doubtful future. And a shared journey toward healing for both their hearts.
It begins on the shaded town square in a sleepy Southern town. A spirited seven-year-old has a brisk business at her lemonade stand. Her latest customer, a bearded stranger, drains his cup and heads to his car, his mind on a boat he's restoring at a nearby lake. But the little girl's pretty yellow dress can't quite hide the ugly scar on her chest. The stranger understands more about it than he wants to admit. And the beat-up bread truck careening around the corner with its radio blaring is about to change the trajectory of both their lives.
Before it's over, they'll both know there are painful reasons why crickets cry...and that miracles lurk around unexpected corners. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 3, 1969
• Education—B.A., Florida State University; M.A., Ph.D.,
Regent University
• Currently—Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Charles Martin is the author of Where the River Ends, Chasing Fireflies, Maggie, When Crickets Cry, Wrapped in Rain, The Dead Don't Dance, and The Mountain Between Us.
He earned his B.A. in English from Florida State University, and his M.A. in Journalism and Ph.D. in Communication from Regent University. He served one year at Hampton University as an adjunct professor in the English department and as a doctoral fellow at Regent. In 1999, he left a career in business to pursue his writing.
He and his wife, Christy, live a stone's throw from the St. John's River in Jacksonville, Florida, with their three boys: Charlie, John T. and Rives. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
When Crickets Cry manages to deliver a poetic love story, a heart-pounding medical thriller, and a spiritual epiphany, all while smoothly introducing charming characters and twists that keep the pages turning.
Southern Living
Christian-fiction writer Martin (The Dead Don't Dance, not reviewed) chronicles the personal tragedy of a Georgia heart surgeon. Five years ago in Atlanta, Reese could not save his beloved wife Emma from heart failure, even though the Harvard-trained surgeon became a physician so that he could find a way to fix his childhood sweetheart's congenitally faulty ticker. He renounced practicing medicine after her death and now lives in quiet anonymity as a boat mechanic on Lake Burton. Across the lake is Emma's brother Charlie, who was rendered blind on the same desperate night that Reese fought to revive his wife on their kitchen floor. When Reese helps save the life of a seven-year-old local girl named Annie, who turns out to have irreparable heart damage, he is compassionately drawn into her case. He also grows close to Annie's attractive Aunt Cindy and gradually comes to recognize that the family needs his expertise as a transplant surgeon. Martin displays some impressive knowledge about medical practice and the workings of the heart, but his Christian message is not exactly subtle. "If anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart," Reese notes of his medical studies. Emma's letters (kept in a bank vault) quote Bible verse; Charlie elucidates stories of Jesus' miracles for young Annie; even the napkins at the local bar, The Well, carry passages from the Gospel of John for the benefit of the biker clientele. Moreover, Martin relentlessly hammers home his sentimentality with nature-specific metaphors involving mating cardinals and crying crickets. (Annie sells crickets as well as lemonade to raise money for her heart surgery.) Reese's habitual muttering of worldly slogans from Milton and Shakespeare ("I am ashes where once I was fire") doesn't much cut the cloying piety, and an over-the-top surgical save leaves the reader feeling positively bruised. Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Titles are always important. Why do you think the author chose this one? In Asian countries, the cricket is a symbol of luck and prosperity. What role do crickets play in this story? What do you think about Annie's comment that "they give their lives for mine"?
2. One of the major themes in When Crickets Cry is love—both the nature of love and how it affects people. What are some of the examples of love from the novel (not just romantic love, but also the love of friendship and of sacrifice)? How did each of the characters grow in his or her understanding of love?
3. An obvious symbol for love is the heart, and the author uses this symbol—doctors who "fix" hearts, people with diseased hearts, characters with "closed" hearts, and don't forget that heart-of-pine house—to draw our attention to the theme. In addition to love, the symbol of the heart can also be used to represent life itself, compassion, or the center of wisdom. How are these different aspects of the heart reflected in Reese's life throughout the story?
4. When we first see Annie, she is wearing a yellow dress and selling lemonade. Considering that yellow is a common symbol of the sun and sunlight, what do you think the author wants us to think about Annie's role in the novel?
5. Another important theme in this novel is the concept of redemption. Who needs a second chance in this story? Who offers one? Does it seem as if each major and minor character falls on both sides of the equation—both needing redemption and yet somehow able to offer it to someone else?
6. As in all of Charles Martin's novels, water is a recurring motif in When Crickets Cry. From the Tallulah River flowing into Lake Burton, to the leaking water pipe, a few rainstorms, and a recurring dream in which Emma pours water from a pitcher, this novel is full of water. Water is often thought of as a symbol of new life—such as when the spring rains bring the landscape to life with new growth and color. Discuss the ways that water represents both life, and new life, in the story.
7. Boats are another powerful and evocative symbol in the novel. Reese spends time on the lake rowing, and he also builds little "toy" boats—it's no accident they call to mind a Viking funeral—to dispose of Emma's letters. Boats can represent a journey, a crossing, adventure, and exploration; discuss how each of these relate to Reese's progression through the story.
8. Several things in this story have bbeen buried, starting with the town that is "buried" under the lake that Reese lives next to. What else is buried in this novel?
9. Sometimes it seems as if Reese is hiding behind his literary allusions, holding his emotions at arm's length. From Donne's "No man is an island" and the castaway in Robinson Crusoe, to Shakespeare's "I will wear my heart upon my sleeve…I am not what I am," the author is giving us clues as to Reese's inner feelings, feelings he is often unwilling to give free rein to. The quotations are also used to foreshadow events in the story. Which reference did you find most meaningful? Why?
10. Discuss the meaning of the scripture on Emma's medallion ("Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life; Proverbs 4:23"). What is the significance of Reese's deciding to give the medallion to Annie?
11. Blindness is a symbol that appears in When Crickets Cry. Emma's brother, Charlie, is blind, and Helen Keller is both referred to and quoted frequently. Blindness can represent ignorance, darkness, and error—or a refusal to see reality. It can also represent inner vision (as Hellen Keller said, "the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart"). Who is blind in this story, and who can see?
12. Why do you think that Reese avoided reading Emma's last letter? Would you have saved it as he did?
13. What do you think Reese whispered to Annie's heart?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
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The End of the Affair
Graham Greene, 1951
Penguin Group USA
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780142437988
Summary
The novel focuses on Maurice Bendrix, a rising writer during World War II in London, and Sarah Miles, the wife of an impotent civil servant.
Bendrix and Sarah fall in love quickly, but he soon realizes that the affair will end as quickly as it began. The relationship suffers from his overt and admitted jealousy. He is frustrated by her refusal to divorce Henry, her amiable but boring husband. When a bomb blasts Bendrix's flat as he is with Sarah, he is nearly killed. After this, Sarah breaks off the affair with no apparent explanation.
Later, Bendrix is still wracked with jealousy when he sees Henry crossing the Common that separates their flats. Henry has finally started to suspect something, and Bendrix decides to go to a private detective to discover Sarah's new lover. Through her diary, he learns that, when she thought he was dead after the bombing, she made a promise to God not to see Bendrix again if he allowed him to live again. Greene describes Sarah's struggles. After her sudden death from a lung infection bought to a climax by walking on the Common in the rain, several miraculous events occur, advocating for some kind of meaningfulness to Sarah's faith. By the last page of the novel, Bendrix may have come to believe in a God as well, though not to love him. (From Wikipedia.)
The End of the Affair is the fourth and final explicitly Catholic novel by Greene. The others are Brighton Rock (1938) The Power and the Glory (1940), The Heart of the Matter (1948).
The novel has been adapted twice to film: in 1955, with Van Johnson and Deborah Kerr, and in 1999, with Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore.
Author Bio
• Birth—October 2, 1904
• Where—Berkhamstd, England, UK
• Death—April 3, 1991
• Where—Vevey, Switzerland
• Education—Oxford University
• Awards—Hawthornden Prize; Companion
of Honour; Chevalier of the Legion of
Honour; Order of Merit.
Known for his espionage thrillers set in exotic locales, Graham Greene is the writer who launched a thousand travel journalists. But although Greene produced some unabashedly commercial works—he called them "entertainments," to distinguish them from his novels—even his escapist fiction is rooted in the gritty realities he encountered around the globe. "Greeneland" is a place of seedy bars and strained loyalties, of moral dissolution and physical decay.
Greene spent his university years at Oxford "drunk and debt-ridden," and claimed to have played Russian roulette as an antidote to boredom. At age 21 he converted to Roman Catholicism, later saying, "I had to find a religion...to measure my evil against." His first published novel, The Man Within, did well enough to earn him an advance from his publishers, but though Greene quit his job as a London Times subeditor to write full-time, his next two novels were unsuccessful. Finally, pressed for money, he set out to write a work of popular fiction. Stamboul Train (also published as The Orient Express) was the first of many commercial successes.
Throughout the 1930s, Greene wrote novels, reviewed books and movies for the Spectator, and traveled through eastern Europe, Liberia, and Mexico. One of his best-known works, Brighton Rock, was published during this time; The Power and the Glory, generally considered Greene's masterpiece, appeared in 1940. Along with The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair, they cemented Greene's reputation as a serious novelist—though George Orwell complained about Greene's idea "that there is something rather distingué in being damned; Hell is a sort of high-class nightclub, entry to which is reserved for Catholics only."
During World War II, Greene was stationed in Sierra Leone, where he worked in an intelligence capacity for the British Foreign Office under Kim Philby, who later defected to the Soviet Union. After the war, Greene continued to write stories, plays, and novels, including The Quiet American, Travels with My Aunt, The Honorary Consul, and The Captain and the Enemy. For a time, he worked as a screenwriter for MGM, producing both original screenplays and scripts adapted from his fiction.
He also continued to travel, reporting from Vietnam, Haiti, and Panama, among other places, and he became a vocal critic of U.S. foreign policy in Central America. Some biographers have suggested that his friendships with Communist leaders were a ploy, and that he was secretly gathering intelligence for the British government. The more common view is that Greene's leftist leanings were part of his lifelong sympathy with the world's underdogs—what John Updike called his "will to compassion, an ideal communism even more Christian than Communist. Its unit is the individual, not any class."
But if Greene's politics were sometimes difficult to decipher, his stature as a novelist has seldom been in doubt, in spite of the light fiction he produced. Kingsley Amis, Evelyn Waugh, and R. K. Narayan paid tribute to his work, and William Golding prophesied: "He will be read and remembered as the ultimate chronicler of twentieth-century man's consciousness and anxiety."
Extras
• Greene's philandering ways were legendary; he frequently visited prostitutes and had several mistresses, including Catherine Walston, who converted to Catholicism after reading The Power and the Glory and wrote to Greene asking him to be her godfather. After a brief period of correspondence, the two met, and their relationship inspired Greene's novel The End of the Affair.
• Greene was a film critic, screenwriter, and avid moviegoer, and critics have sometimes praised the cinematic quality of his style. His most famous screenplay was The Third Man, which he cowrote with director Carol Reed. Recently, new film adaptations have been made of Greene's novels The End of the Affair and The Quiet American. Greene's work has also formed the basis for an opera: Our Man in Havana, composed by Malcolm Williamson. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Undeniably a major work of art...It remains from first to last an almost faultless display of craftsmanship and a wonderfully assured statement of ideas.
The New Yorker
An absorbing piece of work, passionately felt and strikingly written.
Atlantic Monthly
Singularly moving and beautiful...the relationship of lover to husband with its crazy mutation of pity, hate, comradeship, jealousy, and contempt is superbly described...the heroine is consistently lovable.
Evelyn Waugh
Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter, and The End of the Affair...all have claims to greatness; they are as intense and penetrating and disturbing as an inquisitor's gaze.
John Updike
Graham Greene was in class by himself.... He will be read and remembered as the ultimate twentieth-century chronicler of consciousness and anxiety.
William Golding
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 The End of the Affair:
1. Graham Greene tells his story through flashbacks. Why might he have used this plot technique? What does it lend to the story that otherwise might not be achieved through a straightforward timeline?
2. How would you describe Maurice Bendrix? Is he a sympathetic character? What about Sarah Miles? How would you describe her character? Is she sympathetic?
3. Why do the two fall in love? What is the nature of their affair? Is it sexual passion...is it simply wanting something forbidden or unattainable? Or is their relationship based on something more? What is each searching for?
4. Author Graham Greene plums the nature of human love in this novel. How does he present its complexities and its contradictions? How is it possible to both love and hate someone at the same time? Why are we willing to hurt those we love?
5. Follow-up to Question #4: In what way is Greene suggesting that human love mirrors divine love in this novel? How are the two connected?
6. Sarah makes a bargain with God, a God she's not sure she actually believes in. Why then does she continue to hold to her bargain if she is so skeptical? Did your feelings change toward Sarah when you understood her reasons for breaking off the affair? Or do you find her bargain admirable...or shallow and self-serving?
7. What happens to Sarah as she listens to atheist Richard Smythe denounce religion on the common and when he lectures her on the falsity of religious doctrines? Why do his atheistic arguments, which she tries to accept, have the opposite effect on her? What is at work? Is it simply reverse psychology? Or something else? What makes Sarah come to think of Richard as a believer—rather than the atheist he professes to be?
8. What is the spiritual journey that Sarah ultimately makes as she reaches the close of her life?
9. Talk about the arguments Bendix has with God toward the end of the novel. How does he move from disbelief to belief? How would you desdribe the nature of his faith...has he reached a final acceptance of God?
10. What, does Graham seem to be saying in this novel about the need for divine love? Why isn't human love adequate for our needs?
11. What feelings did you experience at the end of the novel?
12. Has reading this book in any way altered—or affirmed—your own beliefs? Has the book enlightened you...or not particularly?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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