Night Road
Kristin Hannah, 2011
St. Martin's Press
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312364427
Summary
For eighteen years, Jude Farraday has put her children’s needs above her own, and it shows—her twins, Mia and Zach—are bright and happy teenagers. When Lexi Baill moves into their small, close knit community, no one is more welcoming than Jude. Lexi, a former foster child with a dark past, quickly becomes Mia’s best friend. Then Zach falls in love with Lexi and the three become inseparable.
Jude does everything to keep her kids on track for college and out of harm’s way. It has always been easy—until senior year of high school. Suddenly she is at a loss. Nothing feels safe anymore; every time her kids leave the house, she worries about them.
On a hot summer’s night her worst fears come true. One decision will change the course of their lives. In the blink of an eye, the Farraday family will be torn apart and Lexi will lose everything. In the years that follow, each must face the consequences of that single night and find a way to forget…or the courage to forgive.
Vivid, universal, and emotionally complex, Night Road raises profound questions about motherhood, identity, love, and forgiveness. It is a luminous, heartbreaking novel that captures both the exquisite pain of loss and the stunning power of hope. This is Kristin Hannah at her very best, telling an unforgettable story about the longing for family, the resilience of the human heart, and the courage it takes to forgive the people we love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September, 1960
• Where—Southern California, USA
• Reared—Western Washington State
• Education—J.D., from a school in Washington (state)
• Awards—Golden Heart Award; Maggie Award; National Reader's Choice
• Currently—lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington
In her words
I was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When I was eight years old, my father drove us to Western Washington where we called home.
After working in a trendy advertising agency, I decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words I will never forget from my mother. I was in my third-and final-year of law school and my mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. I was shocked to discover that she believed I would become a writer. For the next few months, we collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.
After my mom's death, I packed up all those bits and pieces of paper we'd collected and put them in a box in the back of my closet. I got married and continued practicing law.
Then I found out I was pregnant, but was on bed rest for five months. By the time I'd read every book in the house and started asking my husband for cereal boxes to read, I knew I was a goner. That's when my darling husband reminded me of the book I'd started with my mom. I pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time my son was born, I'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.
The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred me to try harder, work more. In 1990, I got "the call," and in that moment, I went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and I've never looked back. In all the years between then and now, I have never lost my love of, or my enthusiasm for, telling stories. I am truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer. (From the author's website .)
Book Reviews
Hannah follows up Winter Garden with a strained story of friendship, social pressures, love, and forgiveness. After a string of foster homes and the death of her heroin-addict mother, Lexi Baill is taken in by a newly discovered great-aunt who lives a spartan life near Seattle. Despite financial problems, the two are glad to have found each other, and though Lexi resolves to stay safely on the periphery at her new high school, she soon meets Mia, unhappy and awkward despite a solid family life, a loving twin brother, Zach, and a closetful of clothes. The friendship flourishes, and Mia's mother, Jude, relieved and pleased for her daughter, draws Lexi into the family circle. But trouble begins in senior year with a slowly growing attraction between Zach and Lexi, who take great pains to make Mia comfortable with the change in the dynamics. This familiar story takes an unfortunate turn deep into after-school-special territory when Lexi, Mia, and Zach collectively make a bad decision that results in a tragedy with extreme repercussions. Even readers who like their melodrama thick will have problems as Hannah pushes credibility to the breaking point, and more than once.
Publishers Weekly
Hannah (Winter Garden), long a favorite in women's fiction, has written a novel that should propel her onto the book club fiction circuit. Although infused with a tad too much soap opera drama, at its heart is a story about the agonizing choices parents face daily as they try to raise their children to be happy, independent, and well-adjusted adults. Jude is devoted to her two children, twins Zach and Mia. Haunted by a distant relationship with her own mother, she is determined to give her son and daughter every possible opportunity along with an abundance of love and support. Her physician husband, Miles, is supportive but takes a more laid-back approach. Zach is one of the popular kids in high school, Mia not so much. When Mia becomes friends with Lexi, the new girl in school, things begin to look up. Then an unexpected tragedy forces several of the main characters to face a profound and life-changing event. Verdict: Not quite at the level of a Jodi Picoult or Chris Bohjalian story but awfully darn close. Longtime fans will love this rich, multilayered reading experience, and it's an easy recommendation for book clubs. —Margaret Hanes, Civic Center Lib., Warren, MI
Library Journal
Hannah effectively builds tension as the novel moves towards the pivotal tragedy and maintains suspense afterward not only with several surprising twists but, more subtly, with the way she limns the grief and eventual healing of her appealing characters. A breakout for popular novelist Hannah. —Kristine Huntley
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Jude Farraday is obviously a tenacious and committed mother. She very clearly tries to do anything and everything she can to keep her children safe. Do you think all of this effort makes her a “good” mother? Or is she over-invested in her children’s lives? Does this kind of micro-managing keep kids safe, or put them in a position where they don’t trust their own judgment?
2. One of the powerful themes in this novel is the delicate balance a mother must find between holding on to her children and letting them go. How does Jude succeed in finding this balance? How does she fail?
3. At one point or another in this book, every character feels extreme growing pains. How do you feel each character “grew up” throughout the story?
4. On page 71, Jude observes that her husband accused her of being a helicopter parent, all noise and movement, hovering too close to her children, but if that were true, he was a satellite, positioned so far up in the sky he needed a telescope to track the goings on his own home. How does this sentence illustrate Jude’s view of motherhood? Is she right? Is Miles unaware of what’s going on in his children’s lives? How does Jude render Miles ineffective and what is the price for that?
5. Jude seems to make all the rules for her children. Why does she ignore Miles’ suggestions and advice? Why does he let her?
6. For years, Jude promised her children than they could “tell her anything, that she would pick them at night up no questions asked.” But when put to the test, she fails. Can you understand why she disciplined her children for drinking? What would you have done?
7. When the senior year partying starts, Jude knows that her kids are going to parties where alcohol is served, and she gets proof that they are drinking. How should she have handled this? Should she and Miles have forbidden them from going to parties? Why didn’t they? What were they afraid of?
8. In knowing about the drinking, were Jude and Miles tacitly allowing it? Is it enough to tell your kids about the dangers of drinking and driving and then trust them to make good decisions?
9. In many parts of the country, parents choose to have a “take the keys” party for their teenage children, with the thought that it will be a safer environment. What do you think of this? Would you do it?
10. Jude seems to find a kind of solace in her grief. It appears that she would rather stop feeling anything than to experience her own pain. Do you think this is believable? Understandable?
11. How did Jude’s handling of grief add to the heartache her family suffered? How do her perceptions of fault play into her coldness?
12. Jude has an extremely strained relationship with her own mother. How does this broken relationship contribute to the story?
13. Lexi comes from a very different world than the Farradays. How does her past contribute to the unfolding of the events? How is her past responsible for the decision she makes to drive that night?
14. When Jude discovers the romance between Zach and Lexi, she is immediately worried for Mia. Why? Were her fears justified?
15. Lexi pays an very high price for her actions that night. Did she do the right thing by admitting guilt? How does her past play into and contribute to the decisions she makes about Grace?
16.The author seems to be making some strong statements about the judicial system, especially with regard to power and money. Do you agree that Lexi paid a higher price for her guilt because she was powerless and broke?
17. Jude says at one point that she is seeking "justice" from the court. Is she? Did she find it?
18. Assign blame for what happened on that tragic night. How much of what happened is Lexi’s fault? Zach’s? Jude’s? Mia’s?
19. Discuss your thoughts about Grace’s "invisible" friend. Who is she? How did she help Grace deal with her emotions?
20. In the end of the novel, Jude learns that in the sea of grief, there were moments of grace, moments of time when one could remember what was left, rather than all that had been lost. What does she mean by this? How does it summarize the lessons learned she and Lexi learned? How will this new understanding change all their lives? Do you believe it? Do you think a person can ever truly overcome a tragedy of this magnitude, and if so, how?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Master
Colm Toibin, 2004
Simon & Schuster
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743250412
Summary
Like Michael Cunningham in The Hours, Colm Toibin captures the extraordinary mind and heart of a great writer. Beautiful and profoundly moving, The Master tells the story of a man born into one of America's first intellectual families who leaves his country in the late nineteenth century to live in Paris, Rome, Venice, and London among privileged artists and writers.
In stunningly resonant prose, Tóibín captures the loneliness and the hope of a master of psychological subtlety whose forays into intimacy inevitably failed those he tried to love. The emotional intensity of this portrait is riveting. (From the publisher.)
Toibin is also the author of Brooklyn (2009) and Mothers and Sons, a collection of stories (2008).
Author Bio
• Birth—May 30, 1955
• Where—Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland, UK
• Education—B.A., University College, Dublin
• Awards—Costa Award
• Currently—Dublin, Ireland
Colm Toibin is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, playwright, journalist, critic, and, most recently, poet.
Toibin is currently Irene and Sidney B. Silverman Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University and succeeded Martin Amis as professor of creative writing at the University of Manchester. He was hailed as a champion of minorities as he collected the 2011 Irish PEN Award. In 2011, he was named one of Britain's Top 300 Intellectuals by The Observer, despite being Irish.
Early Life
Toibin's parents were Bríd and Michael Toibin. He was born in 1955 in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, in the southeast of Ireland. He is the second youngest of five children. His grandfather, Patrick Tobin, was a member of the IRA, as was his grand-uncle Michael Tobin. Patrick Tobin took part in the 1916 Rebellion in Enniscorthy and was subsequently interned in Frongoch in Wales. Colm's father was a teacher who was involved in the Fianna Fail party in Enniscorthy. He received his secondary education at St Peter's College, Wexford, where he was a boarder between 1970 and 1972. He later spoke of finding some of the priests attractive.
In July 1972, aged 17, he had a summer job as a barman in the Grand Hotel in Tramore, County Waterford, working from six in the evening to two in the morning. He spent his days on the beach, reading The Essential Hemingway, the copy of which he still professes to have, "pages stained with seawater." It developed in him a fascination with Spain, led to a wish to visit that country, gave him "an idea of prose as something glamorous, smart and shaped, and the idea of character in fiction as something oddly mysterious, worthy of sympathy and admiration, but also elusive. And more than anything, the sheer pleasure of the sentences and their rhythms, and the amount of emotion living in what was not said, what was between the words and the sentences."
He progressed to University College Dublin, graduating in 1975. Immediately after graduation, he left for Barcelona. His first novel, 1990's The South, was partly inspired by his time in Barcelona; as was, more directly, his non-fiction Homage to Barcelona (1990). Having returned to Ireland in 1978, he began to study for a masters degree. However, he did not submit his thesis and left academia, at least partly, for a career in journalism.
The early 1980s were an especially bright period in Irish journalism, and the heyday for the monthly news magazine Magill. He became the magazine's editor in 1982, and remained in the position until 1985. He left due to a dispute with Vincent Browne, Magill's managing director.
Toibin is a member of Aosdana and has been visiting professor at Stanford University, The University of Texas at Austin and Princeton University. He has also lectured at several other universities, including Boston College, New York University, Loyola University Maryland, and The College of the Holy Cross. He is professor of creative writing at The University of Manchester succeeding Martin Amis and currently teaches at Columbia University.
Work
The Heather Blazing (1992), his second novel, was followed by The Story of the Night (1996) and The Blackwater Lightship (1999). His fifth novel, The Master (2004), is a fictional account of portions in the life of author Henry James. He is the author of other non-fiction books: Bad Blood: A Walk Along the Irish Border (1994), (reprinted from the 1987 original edition) and The Sign of the Cross: Travels in Catholic Europe (1994).
Toibin has written two short story collections. His first Mothers and Sons which, as the name suggests, explores the relationship between mothers and their sons, was published in 2006 and was reviewed favourably (including by Pico Iyer in The New York Times). His second, broader collection The Empty Family was published in 2010.
Toibin wrote a play, titled Beauty in a Broken Place: this was staged in Dublin in August 2004. He has continued to work as a journalist, both in Ireland and abroad, writing for the London Review of Books among others. He has also achieved a reputation as a literary critic: he has edited a book on Paul Durcan, The Kilfenora Teaboy (1997); The Penguin Book of Irish Fiction (1999); and has written The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English since 1950 (1999), with Carmen Callil; a collection of essays, Love in a Dark Time: Gay Lives from Wilde to Almodovar (2002); and a study on Lady Gregory, Lady Gregory's Toothbrush (2002).
He sent a photograph of Borges to Don DeLillo who described it as "the face of Borges against a dark background—Borges fierce, blind, his nostrils gaping, his skin stretched taut, his mouth amazingly vivid; his mouth looks painted; he’s like a shaman painted for visions, and the whole face has a kind of steely rapture." DeLillo often seeks inspiration from it.
During Desmond Hogan's sexual assault case he defended him in court as "a writer of immense power and importance who dealt with human isolation."
In 2011, The Times Literary Supplement published his poem "Cush Gap, 2007".
Toibín works in the most extreme, severe, austere conditions. He sits on a hard, uncomfortable chair which causes him pain. When working on a first draft he covers the right-hand side only of the page; later he carries out some rewriting on the left-hand side of the page. He keeps a word processor in another room on which to transfer writing at a later time.
Themes
Toibin's work explores several main lines: the depiction of Irish society, living abroad, the process of creativity and the preservation of a personal identity, focusing especially on homosexual identities — Toibín is openly gay — but also on identity when confronted with loss. The "Wexford" novels, The Heather Blazing and The Blackwater Lightship, use Enniscorthy, the town of Toibín's birth, as narrative material, together with the history of Ireland and the death of his father. An autobiographical account and reflection on this episode can be found in the non-fiction book, The Sign of the Cross. In 2009, he published Brooklyn, a tale of a woman emigrating to Brooklyn from Enniscorthy.
Two other novels, The Story of the Night and The Master revolve around characters who have to deal with a homosexual identity and take place outside Ireland for the most part, with a character having to cope with living abroad. His first novel, The South, seems to have ingredients of both lines of work. It can be read together with The Heather Blazing as a diptych of Protestant and Catholic heritages in County Wexford, or it can be grouped with the "living abroad" novels. A third topic that links The South and The Heather Blazing is that of creation. Of painting in the first case and of the careful wording of a judge's verdict in the second. This third thematic line culminated in The Master, a study on identity, preceded by a non-fiction book in the same subject, Love in a Dark Time. The book of short stories "Mothers and Sons" deal with family themes, both in Ireland and Catalonia, and homosexuality.
Toibín has written about gay sex in several novels, though Brooklyn contains a heterosexual sex scene in which the heroine loses her virginity. In his 2012 essay collection New Ways to Kill Your Mother: Writers and Their Families he studies the biographies of James Baldwin, J. M. Synge and W. B. Yeats, among others.
His personal notes and work books reside at the National Library of Ireland. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Toibin's impersonation of James works beautifully. The prose is appropriately grave and wistful, the sentences stately without being ponderous, the descriptions at once precise and evocative. The action, such as it is, moves smoothly from a time of temporary desolation to memories of horrible physical and mental suffering to angst-filled comedy (James dithering about how to deal with two drunken servants, James uncertain about how to dispose of the dresses of a dead woman). Toibin focuses on his subject in the years between 1895, when James's play "Guy Domville" was hooted on its opening night, and 1899, when his elder brother William came to visit at Lamb House, his beloved residence in Rye. But in between Toibin recreates scenes from James's childhood, offers a subtle interpretation of the apparent back injury—the so-called great "vastation"—that kept him out of the Civil War and helped make him an artist, and systematically introduces many of the people important in the writer's life.
Michale Dirda - Washington Post
Whatever Toibin's literary-critical and ideological interest in James, The Master is unquestionably the work of a first-rate novelist—one who has for the past decade been writing excellent novels about people cut off from their feelings or families or both.
Daniel Mendelsohn - New York Times
Toibin's enthralling novel displays-in a manner that is masterly-the wit and metaphorical flair, psychological subtlety and phrases of pouncing incisiveness with which a great novelist captured the nuances of consciousness and duplicities of society.
Sunday Times (London)
It's a bold writer indeed who dares to put himself inside the mind of novelist Henry James, but that is what Toibin, highly talented Irish author of The Heather Blazing and The Blackwater Lightship, has ventured here, with a remarkable degree of success. The book is a fictionalized study, based on many biographical materials and family accounts, of the novelist's interior life from the moment in London in 1895 when James's hope to succeed in the theater rather than on the printed page was eclipsed by the towering success of his younger contemporary Oscar Wilde. Thereafter the book ranges seamlessly back and forth over James's life, from his memories of his prominent Brahmin family in the States including the suicide of his father and the tragic early death of his troubled sister Alice to his settling in England, in a cherished house of his own choosing in Rye. Along the way it offers hints, no more, of James's troubled sexual identity, including his fascination with a young English manservant, his (apparently platonic) night in bed with Oliver Wendell Holmes and his curious obsession with a dashing Scandinavian sculptor of little talent but huge charisma. Another recurrent motif is James's absorption in the lives of spirited, highly intelligent but unhappy young women who die prematurely, which helped to inform some of his strongest fiction. The subtlety and empathy with which Toibin inhabits James's psyche and captures the fleeting emotional nuances of his world are beyond praise, and even the echoes of the master's style ring true. Far more than a stunt, this is a riveting, if inevitably somewhat evasive, portrait of the creative life. Forecast: This is too subtly shaded and leisurely for some fiction readers, but James's many admirers will be drawn to its many insights and its uncanny recreation of his world.
Publishers Weekly
Dublin journalist, travel book writer, and novelist (his Blackwater Lightship was short-listed for the 1999 Booker Prize), Toibin here turns a life-long obsession with Henry James into a scrupulously researched and artfully rendered biographical novel. Fear not, fervent Jamesians, no attempt has been made to imitate the master's inimitable style. Even when the narrator takes us inside the mind of James, circa 1890s, Toibin's prose is largely straightforward even as the subject matter discursively wanders the streets and beau monde residences of Paris, Dublin, London, Rome, Venice, and James's English home, Lamb House, in Rye, Sussex. From the subtle machinations of James's closeted homoerotic sensibilities, to his intense friendships with both men and women, to his angst over the notorious failure of his only performed drama, Toibin excels at showing us (not telling us, as James himself advised in his seminal essay, "The Art of Fiction") the connections between James's life and his fictional oeuvre. Highly recommended for most fiction and all literary fiction collections. —Mark Andr Singer, Mechanics' Inst. Lib., San Francisco
Library Journal
(Starred review) Even the reader who knows little about Henry James or his work can enjoy this marvelously intelligent and engaging novel, which presents not on a silver platter but in tender, opened hands a beautifully nuanced psychological portrait. —Brad Hooper
Booklist
The Irish author finds a great subject in the life and sensibility of ineffably cosmopolitan American author Henry James. Focusing on several of James's "middle years" (the late 1890s), Toibin creates an increasingly affecting picture of a great writer so devoted to and immured in his art that his very life comes to seem to him "a story that had not yet been written." Moving backward and forward in time, the novel begins with the disastrous opening night of the middle-aged James's play Guy Domville (its audience booed him off the stage), then juxtaposes memories of the author's earlier years with travels to beloved European places and his decision to reside henceforth in England. There are generously detailed flashbacks to Henry's youth among a cultivated itinerant family presided over by portentous Swedenborgian idealist Henry James Senior; the lifelong frailty and early death of Henry's acerbically witty sister Alice; the ordeal of the Civil War, from which he was spared (though his younger brothers were not) by a possibly imaginary illness; and his politely adversarial relationship with his prickly older brother, the accomplished psychologist-philosopher, William James. The advancing narrative concentrates on Henry's frustrating friendships with attractive younger men (manifestations of a sexual hunger he fastidiously declined to satisfy), and chance meetings and overheard gossip that Toibin—often quite ingeniously—shows to have inspired such mature masterpieces as The Aspern Papers, The Golden Bowl, and The Turn of the Screw. And, in the book's most plaintive chapters, Toibin traces Henry's affectionate friendships with his vibrant cousin Minny Templre and globe-trotting American novelist Constance Fenimore Woolson—both of whom died young, arguably of hearts broken by Henry's withdrawals from them and into the world of his own imagination. A somewhat stately novel that will appeal most to readers who admire James's subtle, stylistically rich, demanding prose. As such, it's a formidably brilliant performance.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In this book Colm Toibin makes the novelist Henry James a protagonist. Do you think the novel is more powerful because it's based on a significant historical figure? Would it be equally powerful and resonant if the central figure were invented?
2. The novel reveals Henry James as a dedicated and inspired writer who relishes the solitary confinement that a writer's life often demands. The reader discovers early on that Henry "wished for solitude and for the comfort of knowing that his life depended not on the multitude but on remaining himself"(page 23). Does Henry achieve his wish of staying true to himself? How might have Henry betrayed his true feelings/ longings?
3. After the terrible reception of Henry's play, Guy Domville, the narrator states that "he now had to face the melancholy fact that nothing he did would ever be popular or generally appreciated"(page 32). Henry is prolific, nonetheless, producing volumes of work during his writing life. Would you consider Henry's life successful? Do you think he considered his life's work a success?
4. Henry never marries and seems to have little interest in women beyond friendship, but there are several curious interactions between him and Paul Joukovsky, the war veteran Holmes, the manservant Hammond, and the sculptor Andersen. Discuss Henry's ambivalence toward his sexuality. Why do you suppose he never fully acts on his sexual impulses? How might the Oscar Wilde scandal have affected him?
5. Alice James, Henry's sister, clings to her sickness like an occupation. Do you think Alice manipulates her sickness to evoke pity? Henry'ssister-in-law, Alice, asserts that Alice and her caretaker, Miss Loring, shared a "sort of happiness together that is not mentioned in the Bible"(p.528) What do you make of her relationship with Miss Loring?
6. Both Henry's sister, Alice, and his cousin Minny Temple shared a witty intellect and a sharp tongue that was never silenced in the company of men. Henry's father has strong feelings about the role of women claiming that "It is a woman's job to be submissive"(p.152). What commentary does the novel make about women's roles during the late nineteenth century? Overall, how are women portrayed?
7. Many of Henry's stories and novels are inspired directly from people and events in his life such that reality often blurs into fiction.
8. Henry shared an interesting relationship with his mother, silently conspiring with her about his so-called illness. Why does Henry so easily fall into his prescribed role? Why do you think Henry's mother becomes so doting and over-protective of him?
9. Bob and Wilkie, Henry's brothers, go off to war while Henry and William are sent to school. Henry experiences guilt even though he knows "he was not cut out to be a soldier"(p.267). Discuss Henry's conflicted feelings about the war, his lack of participation, and his obvious admiration for the soldiers, especially his brothers, who fought.
10. William disliked England, claiming its people had "no spiritual life." Henry, on the other hand, felt that New England had "no flavour, no life to dramatise." So Henry traveled and lived abroad, using the European landscape and its people as muse for many of his novels and stories. Discuss the differences of attitude and society between America and its mother country, England, during this time.
11. After being so inspired by Hawthorne's work, Henry seeks to know more about the author and his life. His brother, Bob, assumes Hawthorne is a minister because he "thought only women wrote stories." Consequently, Henry publishes his first story anonymously. What do you make of the stigma attached to male writers of fiction?
12. Henry's relationship with Constance Fenimore Woolson was one of his most intimate. Yet when she attempts to get too close, Henry becomes reclusive. Her sadness compounds and she eventually commits suicide. Do you think Henry's absence and withdrawal lead to her death? Discuss his guilt associated with Constance's suicide.
13. After Henry allows the sister of his servant, Mrs. Smith, to coalesce in his home, the boundaries between servant and master become less stringent. Henry begins to doubt his authority, feeling that Mrs. Smith "had won some invisible battle with him which allowed her to make herself at home in other subtle ways in the household" (page 334). Describe Henry's relationship with his servants, and his strange inability to confront the situation.
14. Henry's American privilege allows him to travel Europe and socialize in elite European circles. What statements does the novel make about class? Compare the English ideas surrounding class with those of the Americans during the late 1800's.
15. William, Henry's eldest brother sees himself as a "practical man, a family man, a man who did not write fictions but gave lectures, an American man plain in his habits and arguments, representing gruff masculinity against his brother's effete style"(page 513). Discuss the sibling rivalry of sorts that exists between Henry and his eldest brother, William. What is William's opinion of Henry's lifestyle and career choice?
16. Henry prefers to maintain a polite distance between himself and his acquaintances. He was a keen listener and observer but was "not prepared to reveal the mind at work, the imagination, or depth of feeling"(page 366). Discuss the narrator's revelations about the mind and imagination of Henry James.
17. As Henry ages, the narrator makes it clear that, "He did not wish to be regarded as a fossil, but he also wanted to keep the past to himself, a prized and private possession"(page 451). How important are nostalgia and memory to the telling of Henry's story? Why do you think Henry was so guarded with himself and his past?
18. A good portion of the novel is told in flashback; the reader is almost always reliving a memory along with Henry. Do you find this style of narrative effective?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Rules of Attraction
Bret Easton Ellis, 1987
Knopf Doubleday
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780679781486
Summary
Set at a small, affluent liberal-arts college in New England at the height of the Reagan 80s, The Rules of Attraction is a startlingly funny, kaleidoscopic novel about three students with no plans for the future—or even the present—who become entangled in a curious romantic triangle. Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at self-consciously bohemian Camden College and treats their sexual posturings and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion while exposing the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.
Lauren changes boyfriends every time she changes majors and still pines for Victor who split for Europe months ago and she might or might not be writing anonymous love letter to ambivalent, hard-drinking Sean, a hopeless romantic who only has eyes for Lauren, even if he ends up in bed with half the campus, and Paul, Lauren's ex, forthrightly bisexual and whose passion masks a shrewd pragmatism. They waste time getting wasted, race from Thirsty Thursday Happy Hours to Dressed To Get Screwed parties to drinks at The Edge of the World or The Graveyard. The Rules of Attraction is a poignant, hilarious take on the death of romance. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 7, 1964
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Bennington College (Vermont)
• Currently—lives in New York, NY and Los Angeles, CA
Bret Easton Ellis, an American novelist and short story writer, once regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack, (which also included Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney) is a self-proclaimed "moralist." Ellis employs a technique of linking novels with common, recurring characters.
Ellis was raised in Sherman Oaks in the San Fernando Valley, the son of Robert Martin Ellis, a wealthy property developer, and Dale Ellis, a homemaker. His parents divorced in 1982. He was educated at The Buckley School, where he did not distinguish himself; then he took a music-based course at Bennington College in Vermont, which is thinly disguised as Camden College in all of his novels. He was a part-time musician in 1980s bands such as The Parents before his first book was published.
Less Than Zero, a tale of disaffected, rich teenagers of Los Angeles, was praised by critics and sold well. He moved to New York City in 1987 for the publication of his second novel, The Rules of Attraction, which follows a group of sexually promiscuous college students. Although it sold fairly well, Ellis admits he felt he had "fallen off," after the novel failed to match the success of his debut effort.
That novel introduced Patrick Bateman, who would become the principal character of his controversial third novel, the graphically violent novel American Psycho. Originally intended to be published by Simon & Schuster, it was withdrawn after external protests from groups such as the NOW and others due to the alleged misogynistic nature of the book. The novel was later published by Vintage in 1991. Some consider American Psycho, whose protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is both a cartoonishly materialistic yuppie and a serial killer, to be an example of transgressive art. The novel has achieved considerable cult status.
His collection of short stories, The Informers, was released in 1994, while his publishers waited on the promised fourth novel. His fourth novel, Glamorama, published in 1998, is set in the world of high fashion. The story follows a male model who becomes entangled in a bizarre terrorist organization composed entirely of other models. Glamorama plays with themes of media, celebrity, and political violence and, like its predecessor American Psycho, uses surrealism to convey a sense of postmodern dread.
Lunar Park, released in 2005, uses the form of a celebrity memoir to tell a ghost story about the novelist "Bret Easton Ellis," and his chilling experiences in the apparently haunted home he shares with his wife and son. In keeping with his usual style, Ellis mixes absurd comedy with a bleak and violent vision. In this semi-autobiographical novel, the fictional Bret continues both transient affairs and long-term relationships with men and women at various points in the novel. Critical reaction to the novel was mostly positive, with many critics endeared by the tones of wistfulness and sentimentality Ellis had achieved.
When asked a 2002 interview whether or not he was gay, Ellis explained that he does not identify himself as gay or straight. He explained that he is comfortable to be thought of as gay, bisexual or heterosexual and that he enjoys playing with his persona, identifying variously as gay, straight and bi to different people over the years.
In an August 2005 New York Times article, "Bret Easton Ellis: The Man in the Mirror," Ellis revealed that his best friend and lover for six years, Michael Wade Kaplan, died in 2004 at the age of 30. Ellis described their partnership as being a "very loose kind" and "not particularly conventional" as "neither one of us was interested in the lifestyle." Kaplan's death left Ellis bereft and experiencing what he describes as "a midlife crisis" which acted as a "big catalyst" in helping Ellis finish Lunar Park, adding "a new layer of wistfulness and melancholy to the writing" that had not been there before."
Lunar Park was dedicated to Kaplan and Ellis's father, Robert, who died in 1992 and about whom he speaks openly in interviews promoting the novel. Ellis describes feeling liberated by completing the novel which allowed him to come to terms with many of the unresolved issues regarding his father. In his author Q&A on the Random House website, Ellis comments on their relationship, which left him with a lot of damage. Now older, Ellis describes how his opinion of his father changed over the prior 15 years while writing Glamorama, in which the central conspiracy concerns the relationship of a father and son. Even earlier, the character of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho was based on his father. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Having read some 200-plus pages of this sort of thing, the reader senses that Mr. Ellis is not only playing to our cheapest voyeuristic impulses by trying to glamorize the shallow world he's created but is also zeroing in on his characters' worst traits in order to feel superior to them himself. While there's a hint of a plot ..., his characters are so sketchily defined, so uniformly jaded and drugged out as to be indistinguishable from one another, and we're left to echo their own refrain: ''It's all so boring.''
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Serves to establish Mr. Ellis' reputation further as one of the primary inside sources in upper-middle-class America's continuing investigation of what has happend to its children....There is a raunchy tradition in literature— the young man lurching around the lower depths, short on cash, long on nerve, taking his knocks and writing about it. But here we have...young men and women spending their parents' dough and feeling victimized by the help.
Scott Spencer - New York Times Book Review
Ellis is, first and last, a moralist. Under cover of his laconic voice, every word in his [novels] springs from grieving outrage at our spiritual condition.
Los Angeles Times Book Review
This tale of privileged college students at their self-absorbed and childish worst is the very book that countless students have dreamed of writing at their most self-absorbed and childish moments. With one bestseller to his credit, Less Than Zero author and recent Bennington College graduate Ellis has had the unique opportunity of seeing his dream become a reality, and all those other once-and-future students can breathe a sigh of relief that it didn't happen to them. Through a series of brief first-person accounts, the novel chronicles one term at a fictional New England college, with particular emphasis on a decidedly contemporary love triangle (one woman and two men) in which all possible combinations have been explored, and each pines after the one who's pining after the other. Theirs is a world of physical, chemical and emotional excess—an adolescent fantasy of sex, drugs and sturm und drang—wherein characters are distinguished only by the respective means by which they squander their health, wealth and youth. Despite its contemporary feel and flashy structure, the book begins and ends midsentence—the narrative relies on the stalest staples of melodrama and manages to pack in a suicide, assorted suicide attempts, an abortion and the death of a parent without giving the impression that anything is happening or that any of it matters.
Publishers Weekly
Two years after his debut best seller, Less Than Zero, Ellis returns with a very different novel. Though still about college students (Ellis graduated only last year), this story is told through numerous student diaries, illustrating the "accidents" that often form the basis of modern relationships. Here, misunderstandings, differing perceptions, and often just bad hearing cause pairings to begin or end, proving Ellis' implicit thesis that there are no "rules." Ellis has his pretensions (the book starts and finishes in the middle of a sentence, and one diary entry is in easy French), but he successfully fleshes out his characters and creates involving situations. —Susan Avallone
Library Journal
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 Rules of Attraction:
1. What kind of world does Ellis describe in The Rules of Attraction? Does he is glamorize it? Does he seem to approve or admire it...or something else? What do you think?
2. Is this the world of real college students? Would you consider the novel a work of "social psychology" as some have? Others call it a "dark comedy." What do you think (actually, what is a dark comedy)?
3. The story begins and ends, intentionally, half-way through a sentence. Why might Ellis have done so? What effect does it create?
4. Do you come to sympathize with, or like, any of these characters? If so, who—Lauren, Mary, Sean, Paul, or Victor? How would you describe them?
5. In what way do these students represent a culture of conspicuous consumption? How do they use (or abuse) their privilege?
6. What is at the heart of these young peoples' lives, anything? One character writes, "I am very tired. That's what I am. Tired of everything." What's the significance of that statement? Are they vacant individuals, or do they long for something underneath their shiny, rich exteriors.
7. What is the larger picture Ellis attempts to suss out for us in The Rules of Attraction?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Where the Truth Lies
Rupert Holmes, 2003
Random House
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812972238
Summary
O’Connor, a vivacious, free-spirited young journalist known for her penetrating celebrity interviews, is bent on unearthing secrets long ago buried by the handsome showbiz team of singer Vince Collins and comic Lanny Morris.
These two highly desirable men, once inseparable (and insatiable, where women were concerned), were driven apart by a bizarre and unexplained death in which one of them may have played the part of murderer.
As the tart-tongued, eye-catching O’Connor ventures deeper into this unsolved mystery, she finds herself compromisingly coiled around both men, knowing more about them than they realize and less than she might like, but increasingly fearful that she now knows far too much. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 24, 1947
• Where—Northwich, Cheshire, UK
• Reared —in Nanuet, New York, USA
• Education—Manhattan School of Music
• Awards—Tony Awards, Edgar Awards (see below)
For his Broadway musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Rupert Holmes became the first person in theatrical history to solely receive Tony Awards for Best Book, Best Music, and Best Lyrics, while Drood itself won the Tony Award for Best Musical. The Mystery Writers of America gave Holmes their coveted Edgar Award for his Broadway comedy-thriller Accomplice, the second time he received their highest honor. He created and wrote all four seasons of the critically acclaimed Emmy Award–winning series Remember WENN, and also authored the Broadway hit Say Goodnight, Gracie, based on the life of George Burns.
Holmes began his career in the seventies as the writer and composer of songs so intricate that many have been included in mystery collections from Ellery Queen. The Los Angeles Times has stated that “Rupert Holmes is an American treasure.” Where the Truth Lies and was adapted into the 2005 film, starring Colin Firth and Kevin Bacon. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Holmes, who has won honors galore for his inventive storytelling on Broadway and elsewhere, can be forgiven for milking the mystery of ''the Girl in New Jersey'' because he delivers such a giddy fun-house ride through bygone eras. As the go-go girl of the 70's, O'Connor tempts us to throw on a pair of bell-bottoms and dash out for some reckless sex, while Vince and Lanny invest the forgotten 50's with all the brash and vulgar celebrity glamour of a mad tea party in Las Vegas.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times
It should be no surprise that, after his long career in music and the theater, Holmes's first novel is an insider's look at the world of show business. To be precise, it is an exceedingly clever, somewhat troubling thriller based on the lives of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
Patrick Anderson - Washington Post
Where the Truth Lies is a labor of love. Every scrap of lawyerese or Mafia-speak, every tidbit of Hollywood lore, every scene of mental or physical intoxication, every tightening of the suspense — as O'Connor, entangled in her own lies, risks embarrassment, her book deal and finally her life — is beautifully rendered, polished to a sheen.
Michael Harris - Los Angeles Times
Holmes is an award-winning Broadway playwright and composer (The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Accomplice), so it's only appropriate that his hugely entertaining first novel should be set in the world of show business. It purports to be the account of one K. O'Connor (we never learn her first name), a smart, pretty and accomplished young journalist who has been commissioned to write a book about a celebrated comedy team of the '60s, Vince Collins-who sang smoothly and was a ladies' man, and Lanny Morris, who clowned around (Martin and Lewis, anyone?). At the height of their career, a dead girl was found in their hotel room, and although neither of them was accused (they had airtight alibis), the incident put an end to their act, and as the book begins, they haven't seen each other for years. O'Connor sniffs around Collins, reads some chapters Morris has set down for a book of his own and begins to wonder just where the truth does lie. Holmes has a wonderful feeling for period detail, and the '60s and '70s spring vividly back to horrific life through the brilliant narration of the romantically susceptible O'Connor. For much of its course the novel is witty, sexy and suspenseful, but eventually it morphs into a more conventional whodunit, with one of those windups in which a complicated plot is sorted out in improbable dialogue between accuser and perpetrator, and the giddy pleasures of the first two-thirds are somewhat overshadowed. That's not enough, however, to spoil what is for most of the way a glittering ride.
Publishers Weekly
Though no real-life celebrities are identified, this first novel makes it clear from the outset that it takes inspiration from a boffo comedy duo from the 1950s-one crooner, one spastic. O'Connor, a young and sexy female reporter, closes a deal to write the singer's biography, but his estranged partner keeps entering the picture; he has his own version of the team's history, including the darker avenues. There is a question of a murdered woman, and investigator though she may be, O'Connor soon realizes the risk of coming between the two icons. For all of Holmes's accomplishments (pop singer, Tony and Emmy Award winner, record producer), this is his debut in the writing world, and it's notable for its wit, snappy dialog, and uncanny sense of Hollywood glitz, backstage politics, and dirty deeds. This can't-miss novel will have wide appeal, including fans of the time period, modern mystery lovers, and anyone who likes turning pages rapidly. Highly recommended
Library Journal
Sly young reporter digs into the seamy past of a comedy team who are no longer on speaking terms. Edgar/Tony/Emmy award-winning playwright/singer/songwriter Holmes hangs his splashy and amusing plot on an unsolved murder in the bitter past of a song-and-laff-riot team unmistakably modeled on Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis-nuances may be lost on post-boomer generations, but they'll still enjoy the naughty bits (there are plenty), the jokes (ranging from Borscht Belt to Seinfeld), and the sardonic musings of our heroine K. O'Connor (full first name never given), an ambitious, clever, and foolhardy writer in her 20s. O'Connor's New York publisher has managed to extract a million-dollar contract from Vince Collins, the famously discreet singing half of the now-parted duo. Her goal is to get to the bottom of the scandal that immediately preceded Collins's split from Lanny Morris in the early '60s. The scandal had to do with the discovery of a beautiful bellhop drowned in a bathtub in New Jersey, a thousand miles from her job at the Versailles Hotel in Miami, where Collins and Morris had just performed their final polio telethon. O'Connor is unsurprised when her knees buckle in the presence of the gorgeous Vince, but she's flabbergasted when, on a flight to New York, she succumbs to the unsuspected magnetism of Lanny Morris, who is absolutely nothing like his repulsive screen image. Immediately complicating her life and setting up the story, O'Connor pretends to be her schoolteacher girlfriend Beejay Trout and lets Lanny take her to the moon. Readers who can accept the possibility of a really cool Jerry Lewis and a twentysomething reporter with the sharp wit of a fiftysomething comedy genius will have a swell time finding out how the beautiful corpse came to lose a couple of toes and what really came between the former chums. Slickly funny showbiz romp with lots of great scenery.
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)
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Darcy and Fitzwilliam: A Tale of a Gentleman and an Officer
Karen Wasylowski, 2011
Sourcebooks
481 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781402245947
Summary
Darcy and Fitzwilliam is the continuing story of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam from Jane Austen’s wonderful novel Pride and Prejudice.
The two men are cousins, best friends and fierce competitors although their personalities are polar opposites. Where Darcy is a powerful landowner, wealthy, handsome, reserved, haughty, and meticulous, his older cousin Richard Fitzwilliam is an Army Colonel, a second son with no personal funds, affable, vivacious and a bit careless in his appearance.
Both men find their ultimate paths in life overlapping as they become entangled with the women they love, elopements, a small child, and the indomitable Lady Catherine de Bourgh. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Karen V. Wasylowski is a retired accountant living in Bradenton, Florida, (USA) with her husband, Richard, and several pets. They spend their free time in volunteer work with the St. Vincent DePaul Society which provides assistance to the poor and Project Light of Manatee, an organization that provides free literacy instruction to immigrants and anyone below the poverty level. Darcy and Fitzwilliam is Karen Wasylowski’s first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Married life is bliss. At least that is what Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam’s cousin Fitzwilliam Darcy would have him believe. But Richard has no intention of stepping into the parson’s mousetrap until he encounters America widow Amanda Penrod at one of London’s innumerous balls. Instantly smitten, Richard suddenly finds himself behaving as foolishly as Mr. Darcy did when he was courting Elizabeth Bennet. While Richard is busy struggling to navigate the unfamiliar seas of romance with Amanda, an unexpected storm in the person of Caroline Bingley threatens to stir up the formerly placid matrimonial waters of the Darcy household. While staying true to the spirit of the immortal Jane, Wasylowski does bring some subtle changes of her own into Pride and Prejudice (including giving one of literature’s great harridans, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, a kinder, gentler personality), and her deftly written tale of family, friendship, and marriage should please most Regency readers.
Booklist
Pride and Prejudice has given contemporary writers of historical fiction an endless source of ideas. Many of these novels of possibilities are very good and honor the original classic, while others are wastebasket material. Karen V. Wasylowski has turned out one of the former, a charming and believable rendering that offers the reader a look at the men in Pride and Prejudice. Fitzwilliam Darcy, true to the Austen image, is prideful and arrogant, yet exceedingly charming, a handsome gentleman. His cousin Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, two years older, is described in the novel as barrel-chested, slightly rougher looking in an unkempt uniform, a decorated officer....
More than not you will chuckle and giggle reading the tete-a-tete that takes place among the characters. Elizabeth has a contemporary tongue for a 19th-century wife and during many tempestuous tiffs, boldly stands up to Darcy. Fitzwilliam and Darcy are a comic pair as well, always trying to outmaneuver the other. The cagey Aunt Catherine is embraceable as she shows clever wisdom in her astute handling of all situations. Austen would no doubt welcome Darcy and Fitzwilliam, an amusing and witty interpretation.
Historical Novel Reviews
This story is amazing. It’s not just a glimpse into the idle lives of the extremely rich and entitled, and certainly not a flippant narrative of a life unbridled by the constraints of the middle class.... This is a visceral tale that positively drips with social commentary, tackling problems that few Austenesque writers would attempt to undertake....
There is little else anyone can say to you, clever reader, except this: Read this book. A cutesy romance of love and lace it is not. Darcy and Fitzwilliam is a gripping interpretation of life in Regency England, bravely attempting to bring issues of tension to the table. Domestic violence, alcoholism, harsh words, sex, royalism, and loathsome small-mindedness abound, and all through the vision of Jane Austen’s characters.
Jessica Hastings - A Historical Romance Book Review
Discussion Questions
1. What is a "bromance”?
2. Were the Jane Austen characters from Pride and Prejudice appearing in Darcy and Fitzwilliam—Fitzwilliam Darcy, Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Bennet, Charles Bingley, Caroline Bingley, Mr. Bennet, Colonel Fitzwilliam, Anne de Bourgh and Lady Catherine de Bourgh—true to their original interpretations? Describe the characters. Which character was most similar? Which character was most changed from the original?
3. Colonel Fitzwilliam appears in only a few pages of Pride of Prejudice, yet he was very important to the plot He was the independent verification Jane Austen needed to convince the reader that Darcy was a good man, a good friend, and that his actions toward Wickham were noble; that, in truth, Wickham was a scoundrel with dishonorable intentions toward Lizzy. What were the Colonel’s feelings for Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice, and her feelings toward him? How did they change in Darcy and Fitzwilliam?
4. What of the new characters introduced? Amanda Penrod, Harry Penrod, Dr. Anthony Milagros? Describe the characters. Were they true to Jane Austen’s type of characterization?
5. What were some of the social issues involving women of Regency England discussed in Darcy and Fitzwilliam? Women’s rights? Medical care? The attitude of the aristocracy toward marriage? The morals of the Regent’s court?
6. Colonel Fitzwilliam was haunted by the war, and the atrocities that he had seen. Is that similar to what soldiers experience now? What are the common symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disease?
7. What other major themes did the author explore?
8. Were you gripped immediately by the book or did it grow gradually on you?
9. Were the dialogues between the men, Darcy and his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam, believable? Were they enjoyable?
10. Were you offended by the sometimes coarse language between the men, or did you find that to be expected when two friends sit in private to discuss?
11. Were you offended by the sexual references and scenes? There were some very angry Janeites over the sexual aspect of Darcy and Elizabeth, as well as the introduction of a gay character into a Jane Austen sequel. Were you offended by the gay character?
12. Were you offended that Darcy and his Elizabeth had disagreements, fights, and an outright brawl, during her pregnancy?
13. Did you empathize with Amanda’s fear of losing her child, with Richard’s anger over her desire to return to her mother-in-law’s home?
14. Was the ending satisfying? Believable?
15. Most importantly—did you laugh?
(Questions kindly provided by the author.)