While I'm Falling
Laura Moriarity, 2009
Hyperion
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781401310233
Summary
In While I’m Falling, Laura Moriarty presents a compelling depiction of how one young woman’s life changes when her family breaks up for good.
Ever since her parents announced that they’re getting divorced, Veronica has been falling. Hard. A junior in college, she has fallen in love. She has fallen behind in her difficult coursework. She hates her job as counselor at the dorm, and she longs for the home that no longer exists. When an attempt to escape the pressure, combined with bad luck, lands her in a terrifying situation, a shaken Veronica calls her mother for help—only to find her former foundation too preoccupied to offer any assistance at all.
But Veronica only gets to feel hurt for so long. Her mother shows up at the dorm with a surprising request—and with the elderly family dog in tow. Boyfriend complications ensue, along with her father’s sudden interest in dating. Veronica soon finds herself with a new set of problems, and new questions about love and independence.
Darkly humorous, beautifully written, and filled with crystalline observations about how families fall apart, While I’m Falling takes a deep look at the relationship between. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 24, 1970
• Where—Honolulu, Hawaii, USA
• Education—B.S.W. and M.A., University of Kansas
• Currently—Lives in Lawrence, Kansas
Laura Moriarty received her master’s degree from the University of Kansas, and was awarded the George Bennett Fellowship for Creative Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy. The Center of Everything is Moriarty's first novel. Her second, The Rest of her Life, was published in 2007, While I'm Falling in 2009, and The Chaperone in 2012. (From the publisher.)
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• There are other Laura Moriartys I shouldn't be confused with: Laura Moriarty the poet, and Laura Moriarty the crime writer. If it helps, I'm Laura Eugenia Moriarty, though I've never used my middle name professionally.
• I got my first job when I was sixteen, cooking burgers at McDonald's. I've been a vegetarian since I was ten, so it was a little hard on me. I'm also technically inept and kind of dreamy, so I frustrated the guy who worked the toaster to the point where he threatened to strangle me on a daily basis. I kept that job for two years. I gave Evelyn a job at McDonald's too, and I made her similarly unsuccessful.
• Another job I was really bad at was tending bar. I was an exchange student at the University of Malta about ten years ago. I thought I wanted to go to medical school, so I signed up to take all these organic chemistry and physiology classes. In Malta. It was terrible. The Maltese students were into chemistry. I had a lab partner named Ester Carbone. There was a rumor my instructor had his house built in the shape of a benzene molecule. I couldn't keep up. I dropped out in February, and I needed money. Malta has pretty strict employment laws, and the only job I could get was an illegal one, working at a bar. I don't know anything about mixed drinks, and I don't speak Maltese. I think I was supposed to stand behind the bar be American and female and smile, but I ended up squinting at people a lot, so eventually, I was in the back, doing dishes. That was the year I started writing.
• The Center of Everything has a few autobiographical moments, but not many. I grew up with three sisters in Montana. When you say you're from Montana, people get this wistful look in their eyes. I think they've seen too many Brad Pitt movies. I saw A River Runs Through It, which is set in my hometown, Bozeman. That movie drove me nuts: I don't think anyone is even wearing coat in the whole movie. They can't keep filming up there in August and tricking everyone. Of course, now I live in Maine.
• I have tender hands, and the worst thing in the world, for me, is going to an event that requires a lot of hand shaking. Some people shake nicely, but some people have a death grip, and it's really painful. The thing is, you can't tell who's going to be a death gripper and who isn't. Big, strapping men have shaken my hand gently, but an elderly woman I met last month almost brought me to my knees. She was smiling the whole time. I went to a hand shaking event a month ago, and I went along with the shaking, because I didn't want to look rude or standoffish or freaky about germs. But hand shaking just kills me. I'm not sure what to do about it. I went back to Phillips Exeter a month ago, and a very polite student reintroduced himself to me and extended his hand to shake. I actually tried to high five him. He looked at me like I was a crazy person. My sister told me I should take a cue from Bob Dole and carry a pen in my right hand all the time, so I might try that.
• When asked what book most influenced her career as a writer, here is her response:
It's difficult to pick just one, of course. But I will say that while I was writing The Center of Everything, I read Carl Sagan's The Demon Haunted World, and it made a strong impression on me. I only knew about Sagan from watching the Nova Channel when I was a kid, but I happened upon an essay he'd written before he died. I was so impressed I went to the library and checked out some of his books. In The Demon Haunted World, Sagan stresses the importance of skepticism and rational reasoning when considering the mysteries of the universe.
It's easy for us today to see the insanity of the witchcraft trials, but Sagan gives a sympathetic account of how frightening the world must have seemed in those times, and how quickly our ability to reason can be dismissed in the face of fear and superstition. Today, Sagan points out, we have crop circles, alien abductions, and religious fundamentalism; the book has a great chapter called "The Baloney Detection Kit," an important tool for any open-minded skeptic. What I like most about Sagan is that he seems skeptical without coming across as cynical. He looks at the vastness of the universe and the intricacy of the natural world with so much wonder and awe, and he's able to translate it to a reader who isn't a scientist, such as myself. I also noticed how he refrains from making fun or putting down his opponents; there's such a generosity of spirit in his writing. I tried to put a bit of Sagan in Evelyn, the narrator of The Center of Everything. (Author interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Moriarty exposes the underbelly of family strife in this coming-of-age college drama set near Lawrence, Kans. One day, Veronica Von Holten is happy, med-school bound, in love with her boyfriend and not far from her supportive family. Then her father finds another man in the bed he shares with his wife of 26 years. As a messy divorce ensues, Veronica struggles to keep her own life in check while her mother’s unravels, and a car accident, a house-sitting gig gone bad and an illicit kiss turn Veronica’s personal life upside down. Things come to a head when her mother shows up on Veronica’s dorm doorstep with the elderly family dog, Bowzer. Veronica is faced with the difficult task of navigating personal strife on top of her family’s struggle to define itself anew. Moriarty (The Rest of Her Life) delves into this realistic but narrow world with an inviting honesty and creates a cast of vivid and flawed characters that will hold readers rapt with a queasy sense of unease.
Publishers Weekly
Veronica Von Holten is about to learn just how badly life can spiral out of control. She's already stressed by the demands of being a premed major when a series of bad decisions and her parents' acrimonious divorce leave her dazed and confused. Within a few weeks, she finds herself sheltering her now homeless mother and aging dog Bowser in her dorm room, crashing a borrowed car in a snow storm, hosting a party that trashes an apartment, and then being stalked by the apartment's owner. Meanwhile, her mother is following a parallel trajectory when unexpected expenses leave her struggling to survive and maintain some dignity. After reluctantly joining forces, the two find unorthodox ways to sort out their lives and find joy again. Verdict: The third time proves a charm for the author of The Center of Everything and The Rest of Her Life. Veronica's story is told with a clarity and humor that make both her descent and her recovery believable. Recommended for readers who enjoy coming-of-age novels and intelligent chick lit. —Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll., NC
Library Journal
Moriarty (The Rest of Her Life, 2007, etc.) slips inside the skin of a premed student disoriented by her parents' divorce and her own fumbling attempts to live up to others' expectations. Veronica Von Holten's father, a lawyer who raided his retirement when times grew lean, and her mother Natalie, a stay-at-home mom who had once been a teacher, separate after Dad catches a strange man asleep in his own bed. After the family house is sold in the divorce proceedings, Natalie takes the ancient and often incontinent family dog Bowzer away in her minivan with the rest of her possessions. Now strapped for money, she struggles to support herself in a world that no longer considers her skills valid or useful. Meanwhile, Veronica's life turns inside out. She's struggling with an organic-chemistry class that might as well be Mandarin for all the sense it makes to her; her rock-steady engineering-student boyfriend Tim wants her to move in with him; and she stinks at her job as a Resident Advisor in the dorm. Without a car and longing for some privacy, Veronica leaps at the chance to housesit for one of the more dubious campus characters: a guy named Jimmy, who has piercings, a shaved head, a mysterious, possibly illegal source of income and an oddly familiar girlfriend. Things don't go quite as Veronica hopes they will, and soon she's nursing a headache, heartache and bad attitude that she will later come to regret. Moriarty deftly explores the shifting ground between Veronica and each of her parents, but it is the familiar turf of mother-daughter relationships that primarily engages her. In her careful and knowing hands, Veronica, Natalie and the rest emerge as characters readers will care about.Turn off the phone, lock the door and order takeout before opening this sweet, straight-through read that leaves no loose ends dangling.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. When Veronica’s father describes finding the roofer in his bed, he says he was “blinded by naiveté.” In what ways were Veronica, her mother, her father, and her sister blinded by naiveté before the divorce? What issues within their family are more visible after the divorce?
2. Veronica often proclaims that she and her mother are very much the same, while Elise and her father are similar. Do you agree? Are Veronica and her mother the same? In what ways is Veronica also like her father? How much of their family dynamic is predicated on the assumption of these similarities and differences?
3. Twice, the perspective switches from Veronica’s first-person to Natalie’s third-person. Why do you think the author does this? What is gained from the change in perspective?
4. After Veronica’s argument with her father in the restaurant, she thinks, “He was no better than she was. There are many ways to leave someone stranded.” (p. 128) In what ways do the characters in the novel strand one another?
5. Why do you think Veronica cheats on Tim? In what ways does she reenact her mother’s mistakes?
6. Natalie makes a lot of sacrifices to keep Bowzer in her life. Why? What does Bowzer represent to her? Why is putting him down so unthinkable?
7. Why does Natalie depend so much on Veronica? Why does she refuse to call Elise when she’s in trouble? Do you think Veronica and Natalie depend too much on each other?
8. Discuss the character of Haylie Butterfield. What is her place within the novel? What does she represent to Veronica? Why do you think she bails Natalie out of trouble?
9. When Elise tells her family that she is going to become a stay-at-home mom, the reaction is extreme. Why does Natalie disapprove? Why does their father disapprove?
10. Discuss Veronica’s decision to quit premed. Do you think she made the correct decision? What in the events after her parents’ divorce brought about the change?
11. Were you surprised by Natatlie’s career choice at the end of the novel? In what ways does it suit her?
12. Why does Natalie want to go look at the house in the cul-de-sac? In what ways do each of the characters find closure at the end of the novel?
13. Discuss the title of the book. In what ways is Veronica falling? When does she begin to fall? How does she stop herself? What about Natalie? In what ways do they help each other recover?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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For Love of the Game
Michael Shaara, 1991
Random House
176 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345408914
Summary
Billy Chapel is a baseball legend, a man who has devoted his life to the game he loves and plays so well. But because of his unsurpassed skill and innocent faith, he has been betrayed.
Now it's the final game of the season, and Billy's got one last chance to prove who he is and what he can do, a chance to prove what really matters in this life. A taut, compelling story of one man's coming of age, For Love of the Game is Michael Shaara's final novel, the classic finish to a brilliantly distinguished literary career. (From the publisher.)
The book was adapted to film in 1999, starring Kevin Costner and Kelly Preston.
Author Bio
• Birth—June 23, 1929
• Where—Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
• Death—1988
• Where—Tallahassee, Florida
• Education—B.A., Rutgers University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize
Michael Shaara was born in Jersey City in 1929 and graduated from Rutgers University in 1951. He serveda as a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne division prior to the Korean War.
His early science fiction short stories were published in Galaxy magazine in 1952. He later began writing other works of fiction and published more than seventy short stories in many magazines, including The Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and Redbook.
His first novel, The Broken Place, was published in 1968. But it was a simple family vacation to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1966 that gave him the inspiration for his greatest achieve-ment, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Killer Angels, published in 1974. Michael Shaara went on to write two more novels, The Noah Conspiracy and For Love of the Game, which was published posthumously after his death in 1988. (From the publisher.)
Before Shaara began selling science fiction stories to fiction magazines in the 1950s, he was an amateur boxer and police officer. He later taught literature at Florida State University while continuing to write fiction. The stress of this and his smoking caused him to have a heart attack at the early age of 36; from which he fully recovered. Shaara died of another heart attack in 1988. Today there is a Michael Shaara Award for Excellence in Civil War Fiction, established by Jeffrey Shaara, Michael's son and awarded yearly at Gettysburg College.
Jeffrey Shaara is also a popular writer of historical fiction; most notably sequels to his father's best-known novel. His most famous is the prequel to The Killer Angels, Gods and Generals. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Moving, beautiful.... If Hemingway had written a baseball novel, he might have written For Love of the Game.
Los Angeles Times
A delightful and lyrical story about a great athlete's momentous last game.... A fairy tale for adults about love and loneliness and finally growing up.
USA Today
Reading this posthumously published baseball novel is best compared to watching a gifted young player whose promise slowly fades with every strikeout and weak groundball, despite occasional flashes of potential. Shaara, who won a Pulitzer in 1975 for The Killer Angels , died just after the book was finished, and one feels he might have liked to give it a rewrite. Just before the last game of the season, star pitcher Billy Chapel, a veteran of 17 years in the major leagues, discovers that his team plans to trade him. Moreover, he learns that his New York editor/girlfriend has inexplicably ended their romance--leaving him adrift and the reader more than a little indifferent. The love affair, seen in flashbacks (notably a scene in which they achieve congress in a small airplane), must compete with an unhealthy number of baseball cliches and a series of featureless characters; even Billy, whose thoughts we share, seems a blank. The book does come to life, fittingly enough, as Chapel takes the mound for his final and greatest game. Shaara succeeds in conveying the extraordinary physical and psychological demands of the professional game as well as the dizzying pleasures of its triumphs. But even the account of Chapel's greatest victory is marred by a trite ending. While flawed, however, this is a noteworthy attempt to capture the simultaneous loss of a life's love and a life's obsession.
Publishers Weekly
Pulitzer Prize-winner Shaara's final work (he died in 1988) is about a baseball player's final work. Billy Chapel, a great pitcher, is going to be traded after 17 years of service. He plans to end his career with this game, rather than accept this betrayal by his team's new owners. We follow him pitch by pitch through his perfect game, and memory by memory through his imperfect life. Cushioned by a children's game, he has never quite grown up, never taken the ultimate risk of trusting a relationship; the woman he loves is equally frightened of commitment. They come together now, when Billy has to go home, with no home to go to. As much a psychological novel as a baseball tale, this is a good choice for popular fiction collections. —Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, IA
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 Love of the Game:
1. What kind of man is Chapel? How would you describe him? A number of reviews, and even the publisher, refer to this book as a coming-of-age story? In other words, during the course of the novel, Billy matures...implying that he was immature at the the start. Do you see him as immature? If so, in what way...and how does he mature by the end? Perhaps it's not a coming-of-age tale but rather the story of a good but flawed individual? What do you think?
2. Why have the owners of the Hawks decided to trade Billy Chapel? Is this a betrayal...or simply a smart business decision...or both?
3. If you're a baseball fan, is this a good baseball story? Does it reveal the "ins & outs" of the game or provide insights into the psychology of the game and the physical demands on the players? Does the book capture the thrills and suspense of the sport?
4. If you're not a baseball fan, does the book still engage you? Do you have to be a fan to enjoy the novel?
5. Why might Shaara have structured the book as he does—through a series of flashbacks rather than a straightforward timeline? As you read, did you find the back-and-forth engaging and suspenseful, or distracting and tiresome? What about other stylistic traits—the staccato-like, unfinished sentences? Do they add to the story in any way?
6. Talk about Carol Grey, Billy's on-again-off-again girl friend. What does she mean when she says, "You don't need me, Billy." A fair comment...or not?
7. What accounts for Billy's final, perfect game? Is it a result of his physical skill and innate talent...or his state of mind?
8. A broader question: why has baseball captured American hearts and minds? Why are fans so devoted—what's the appeal?
9. If you have seen the 1991 film, how does it compare with the book? Does it capture the essence of the novel? What changes have been made?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Master Butchers Singing Club
Louise Erdrich, 2003
Harper Collins
389 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060837051
Summary
Having survived World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher's precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America.
In Argus, North Dakota, he builds a business, a home for his family—which includes Eva and four sons—and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town.
When the Old World meets the New—in the person of Delphine Watzka—the great adventure of Fidelis's life begins. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted. She meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles. These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine's life, and the trajectory of this brilliant novel. (From the publisher.)
In Depth
While set, like much of Erdrich's work, in her native North Dakota, The Master Butchers Singing Club is largely centered around the European-Americans who settled the desolate plains, rather than the reservation-dwelling Native Americans about whom she often writes. Bracketed by the two world wars, Erdrich's multi-generational, character-rich story chronicles a group of ordinary small-town denizens as they encounter the extraordinary events—both in their insular world and in the larger world, too—that come to define their lives.
Having seen his best friend slaughtered in the trenches of World War I, Fidelis Waldvogel trudges back to Germany, his first mission to tell the dead man's fiancée the devastating news. When he arrives at Eva Kalb's house, Fidelis discovers that she is pregnant and, feeling almost as if he has become some part of the friend who died on the battlefield, he offers to marry her. With Eva, he begins to push back the horrific memories of what he has seen and done in the war and learns that he is meant to love.
Fleeing post-war poverty, Fidelis emigrates to America, his sights set on Seattle. A butcher by trade, the new immigrant is armed with a suitcase bearing only knives and a generous supply of sausages that he plans to sell to pay his fare. The sausages take him only as far as Argus, North Dakota, an unassuming town on the plains. Eva and her son, Franz, soon join him, and through relentless hard work, the Waldvogels establish a toehold in their new land. Fidelis, who sings like an angel, even starts a singing club among the men of the town. Eva gives birth to three more sons—Markus, and the twins Emil and Erich.
At about the same time, Delphine Watzka arrives back in Argus after touring the Midwest with Cyprian Lazarre as a sideshow performer. Though Cyprian loves Delphine, he is homosexual, and the two have settled into a complicated, uneasy domesticity. Delphine has been hesitant to return to Argus, where she long ago abandoned her drunken father, Roy. But when she and Cyprian get there, they make a horrible discovery that will tie them to the place. Beneath the floorboards of her father's house are the fetid, rotting corpses of a family that disappeared years before. Roy, it seems, has been too drunk even to realize the source of the horrible smell. Delphine all but burns down the house in an effort to purge it of its odor, but the question persists: who is responsible for the family's death?
Most persistent in finding the answer is the sheriff, Albert Hock. Intoxicated by his own sense of importance, Hock uses his power of intimidation to try to insinuate himself into the romantic good graces of Delphine's friend Clarisse. But Clarisse, who is the local undertaker, will have nothing to do with the supercilious young man. When she later kills Hock while warding off his advance, Clarisse is forced to disappear from town, leaving the already solitary Delphine even more on her own.
Delphine begins to work at the butcher shop and she becomes fast friends with Eva. As Eva painfully succumbs to cancer, Delphine nurses her with vehement tenderness. She locks horns with Fidelis's jealous sister, Tante, who, with Teutonic arrogance, withholds Eva's morphine. Surprisingly, it is Roy who rallies from his perpetual drunkenness to steal some of the drug for the dying woman. Eva's death proves a catalyst that temporarily cures Roy of his alcoholism. It also precipitates major changes in Delphine's life, as she has promised to take care of Eva's boys, and implicitly vows to take care of Fidelis as well.
Carrying out this trust will further pit Delphine against Tante, who has her own designs for the family. Markus, the most like Eva and Delphine's favorite, flees the home behind the butcher shop and moves in with Delphine and Cyprian. Markus has been scarred by the death of the girl he loved, one of those found beneath the floorboards of Roy's house. Franz, Eva's eldest son, spurns the love of Mazarine Shimek, a dirt poor local girl he has loved since childhood. As the 1930's wane, Tante convinces Fidelis that she should take the twins back to Germany. Delphine fights this decision, but only through the intervention of fate will she prevent Markus from the going on the journey. With Tante gone, and Cyprian having hit the road once more as a sideshow performer, Fidelis and Delphine are freed at last to consummate their long-simmering passion, and they marry.
As America becomes involved in World War II, Franz's love of piloting airplanes leads naturally to his enlistment in the Air Corps. Markus also enlists. Across the Atlantic, Erich and Emil are conscripted into the German army and the singing butcher, still haunted by his own time in the trenches, watches helplessly as his sons don opposing uniforms in another senseless war.
On the periphery of the drama, an old woman called Step-and-a-Half scours the back alleys of Argus for scrap iron and discards. Her own past, steeped in violence and despair, is a mystery to the townspeople. But she alone knows one secret--the truth about Delphine's origins that brings the novel to a startling and dazzling close. (Introduction to the publisher's discussion questions.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 7, 1954
• Where—Little Falls, Minnesota, USA
• Education—A.B., Dartmouth College; M.A., Johns Hopkins
• Awards—National Book Award; National Book Critics Circle Award; Nelson Algren Prize
• Currently—lives in Minnesota
Karen Louise Erdrich is an author of 15 plus novels, as well as poetry, short stories, and children's books. She has some Native American ancestry and is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the second wave of what critic Kenneth Lincoln has called the Native American Renaissance.
In 1984, Erdrich won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her debut novel, Love Medicine. In 2009, her novel The Plague of Doves was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, and three years later, in 2012, she won the National Book Award for Round House.
Erdrich is the owner of Birchbark Books, a small independent bookstore in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The eldest of seven children, Erdrich was born to Ralph and Rita Erdrich in Little Falls, Minnesota. Her father was German-American while her mother was French and Anishinaabe (Ojibwa). Her grandfather Patrick Gourneau served as a tribal chairman for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Erdrich grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota where her parents taught at the Bureau of Indian Affairs school.
She attended Dartmouth College in 1972-1976, earning an AB degree and meeting her future husband, the Modoc anthropologist and writer Michael Dorris. He was then director of the college’s Native American Studies program. Subsequently, Erdrich worked in a wide variety of jobs, including as a lifeguard, waitress, poetry teacher at prisons, and construction flag signaler. She also became an editor for The Circle, a newspaper produced by and for the urban Native population in Boston. Erdrich graduated with a Master of Arts degree in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in 1979.
In the period 1978-1982, Erdrich published many poems and short stories. It was also during this period that she began collaborating with Dorris, initially working through the mail while Dorris was working in New Zealand. The relationship progressed, and the two were married in 1981. During this time, Erdrich assembled the material that would eventually be published as the poetry collection Jacklight.
In 1982, Erdrich's story "The World’s Greatest Fisherman" was awarded the $5,000 Nelson Algren Prize for short fiction. This convinced Erdrich and Dorris, who continued to work collaboratively, that they should embark on writing a novel.
Early Novels
In 1984, Erdrich published the novel Love Medicine. Made up of a disjointed but interconnected series of short narratives, each told from the perspective of a different character, and moving backwards and forward in time through every decade between the 1930s and the present day, the book told the stories of several families living near each other on a North Dakota Ojibwe reservation.
The innovative techniques of the book, which owed a great deal to the works of William Faulkner but have little precedent in Native-authored fiction, allowed Erdrich to build up a picture of a community in a way entirely suited to the reservation setting. She received immediate praise from author/critics such as N. Scott Momaday and Gerald Vizenor, and the book was awarded the 1984 National Book Critics Circle Award. It has never subsequently been out of print.
Erdrich followed Love Medicine with The Beet Queen, which continued her technique of using multiple narrators, but surprised many critics by expanding the fictional reservation universe of Love Medicine to include the nearby town of Argus, North Dakota. Native characters are very much kept in the background in this novel, while Erdrich concentrates on the German-American community. The action of the novel takes place mostly before World War II.
The Beet Queen was subject to a bitter attack from Native novelist Leslie Marmon Silko, who accused Erdrich of being more concerned with postmodern technique than with the political struggles of Native peoples.
Erdrich and Dorris’ collaborations continued through the 1980s and into the 1990s, always occupying the same fictional universe.
Tracks goes back to the early 20th century at the formation of the reservation and introduces the trickster figure of Nanapush, who owes a clear debt to Nanabozho. Erdrich’s novel most rooted in Anishinaabe culture (at least until Four Souls), it shows early clashes between traditional ways and the Roman Catholic Church.
The Bingo Palace updates but does not resolve various conflicts from Love Medicine: set in the 1980s, it shows the effects both good and bad of a casino and a factory being set up among the reservation community. Finally, Tales of Burning Love finishes the story of Sister Leopolda, a recurring character from all the former books, and introduces a new set of white people to the reservation universe.
Erdrich and Dorris wrote The Crown of Columbus, the only novel to which both writers put their names, and A Yellow Raft in Blue Water, credited to Dorris. Both of these were set away from the Argus reservation.
Domestic Life
The couple had six children, three of them adopted. Dorris had adopted the children when he was single. After their marriage, Erdrich also adopted them, and the couple had three daughters together. Some of the children had difficulties.
In 1989 Dorris published The Broken Cord, a book about fetal alcohol syndrome, from which their adopted son Reynold Abel suffered. Dorris had found it was a widespread and until then relatively undiagnosed problem among Native American children because of mothers' alcohol issues. In 1991, Reynold Abel was hit by a car and killed at age 23.
In 1995 their son Jeffrey Sava accused them both of child abuse. Dorris and Erdrich unsuccessfully pursued an extortion case against him. Shortly afterward, Dorris and Erdrich separated and began divorce proceedings. Erdrich claimed that Dorris had been depressed since the second year of their marriage.
On April 11, 1997, Michael Dorris committed suicide in Concord, New Hampshire.
Later Writings
Erdrich’s first novel after divorce, The Antelope Wife, was the first to be set outside the continuity of the previous books. She has subsequently returned to the reservation and nearby towns, and has produced five novels since 1998 dealing with events in that fictional area. Among these are The Master Butchers Singing Club, a macabre mystery which again draws on Erdrich's Native American and German-American heritage, and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. Both have geographic and character connections with The Beet Queen.
Together with several of her previous works, these have drawn comparisons with William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha novels. The successive novels have created multiple narratives in the same fictional area and combined the tapestry of local history with current themes and modern consciousness.
In The Plague of Doves, Erdrich has continued the multi-ethnic dimension of her writing, weaving together the layered relationships among residents of farms, towns and reservations; their shared histories, secrets, relationships and antipathies; and the complexities for later generations of re-imagining their ancestors' overlapping pasts. The novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.
Erdrich's 2010 book, Shadow Tag, was a departure for her, as she focuses on a failed marriage.
Erdrich is an enrolled member of the Anishinaabe nation (also known as Ojibwa and Chippewa). Erdrich also has German, French and American ancestry. One sister, Heidi, publishes under the name Heid E. Erdrich; she is a poet who also resides in Minnesota. Another sister, Lise Erdrich, has written children's books and collections of fiction and essays. For the past few years, the three Erdrich sisters have hosted annual writers workshops on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in North Dakota.
The award-winning photographer Ronald W. Erdrich is one of their cousins. He lives and works in Abilene, Texas. He was named "Star Photojournalist of the Year" in 2004 by the Texas Associated Press Managing Editors association. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
The novel is more naturalistic and more conventional that the author's earlier Argus stories—fewer excursions into magical realism, fewer flights of fancy—but every bit as emotionally resonant. Through the prism of one family's tangled history, Ms. Erdrich gives us an indelible glimpse of the American dream and the disappointments that can gather in its wake.
Michiko Kakutani - The New York Times
Poignant in the mysteries it evokes and patient with the questions it leaves unanswered, The Master Butchers Singing Club is a resonant work in which songs—yes, songs, for early on Fidelis forms among the men of Argus the book's eponymous singing club—become a bridge, a benediction, to the other side. "How close the dead are," Step-and-a-Half reflects. "One song away from the living." It is a sentiment that haunts these pages.
Thomas Curwen - The Los Angeles Times
[With its] numerous subplots...one senses that Erdrich is working very hard to tie up so many loose ends, to somehow jolt her readers with surprising revelations.... [S]ubplots also interfere with the emotional development of the story.... Erdrich is a genuinely talented writer; she has changed the landscape of fiction forever. This novel, however, sometimes sags beneath its own weight, making this reader long for sunnier days in Argus.
Book Magazine
All of the virtues of Erdrich's best works—her lyrical precision, bleakly beautiful North Dakota settings, deft interweaving of characters and subplots, and haunting evocation of love and its attendant mysteries—are on full display in this superb novel.... With its lush prose, jolts of wisdom and historical sweep, this story is as rich and resonant as any Erdrich has told.
Publishers Weekly
[R]ichly constructed and descriptive.... The novel starts slowly, but the author, reading her own work, eventually creates a full cast of major and minor characters who are charmingly flawed and ultimately unforgettable. Highly recommended. —Joyce Kessel, Villa Maria Coll., Buffalo, NY
Library Journal
The tensions between stoical endurance and the frailty of human connection, as delineated in Erdrich's almost unimaginably rich eighth novel.... [Erdrich has written] a sprawling anecdotal story crammed with unexpected twists and vivid secondary characters...crowned by a stunningly revelatory surprise ending.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. "Ever since he was a child, when sorrow had come down upon him, he'd breathed lightly and gone motionless. As a young soldier, he'd known from the first that in his talent for stillness lay the key to his survival." (p. 2) What clues does this passage give us about Fidelis's personality and his means of coping with tragedy later in life?
2. Erdrich offers glimpses of both Fidelis's and Cyprian's experiences of war. How are they similar and different? What role did war play in developing each man's personality?
3. Erdrich explores different kinds of strength in her novel, most significantly Fidelis's rigidity and Cyprian's ability to balance. How do the novel's themes draw on the differences between these two men's physical prowess?
4. In her vaudeville act with Cyprian, Delphine becomes a "table," supporting Cyprian and a number of pieces of furniture on her torso. What is the significance of Delphine's role as a table? How does her strength impact the lives of those around her?
5. Each of the main characters in the novel possesses a particular kind of power that both identifies them and helps them through difficult times. What are the various kinds of power Erdrich writes about? Is one kind better than another? What kinds of power do you possess?
6. Fidelis and Eva redistribute the byproducts of their butchering throughout the town: to people, to animals, and to the ground. How is the theme of recycling scraps of life carried through? Who continues this cycle of recovering discarded objects?
7. Fidelis's son, Marcus, narrowly escapes death when he is buried alive in a mound of dirt. What does this event tell you about Marcus, his father, and Cyprian? Who—and what—else is buried in this novel? What is Erdrich saying about earth, about death, and about life in this scene?
8. How does Erdrich make use of the novel's setting? How does North Dakota's climate, history, and terrain impact the lives of Argus's citizens?
9. Before she dies, Eva takes a plane flight over Argus with her son, Franz. During the flight, she has a revelation: "We are spots. Spots in the spot. No matter. We specks are flying on our own power. We are not blown up there by wind!" (p. 118) She goes on to say, "Death is only part of things bigger than we can imagine. Our brains are just starting the greatness, to learn how to do things like flying. What next? You will see, and you will see that your mother is of the design. And I will always be made of things, and things will always be made of me. Nothing can get rid of me because I am included into the pattern." How do these passages relate to Erdrich's themes of interconnection, power, and heritage? How might Eva's revelations run counter to the beliefs of her family and neighbors? How do they correspond to your own religious beliefs, or your philosophy of life? (119)
10. On Roy's deathbed he confesses his part in the deaths of the Chavers family. Is it significant that he was angry with Porky Chavers for "singing over him?" If Delphine had known the truth when she first returned to Argus, what do you think she would have done? Why does learning the story make Delphine want to run away? Who, in the end, was responsible for these deaths?
11.Does learning the truth about Delphine's parentage alter your impressions of her? Do you agree with Step-and-a-Half's decision not to tell her? How do you think Delphine would react to hearing the facts about her birth?
12."Who are you is a question with a long answer or a short answer," Delphine thinks when responding to Fidelis's sister's inquiry. How would you answer the question about Delphine or Fidelis or any of the other characters? How, if at all, has the book made you think differently about asking or answering that question?
13.Why does Erdrich title the book The Master Butchers Singing Club?
14.Why does Erdrich end the novel with Step-and-a-Half's story?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Russian Concubine
Kate Furnivall, 2007
Penguin Group
517 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780425215586
Summary
A sweeping novel set in war-torn 1928 China, with a star-crossed love story at its center.
In a city full of thieves and Communists, danger and death, spirited young Lydia Ivanova has lived a hard life. Always looking over her shoulder, the sixteen-year-old must steal to feed herself and her mother, Valentina, who numbered among the Russian elite until Bolsheviks murdered most of them, including her husband. As exiles, Lydia and Valentina have learned to survive in a foreign land.
Often, Lydia steals away to meet with the handsome young freedom fighter Chang An Lo. But they face danger: Chiang Kai Shek's troops are headed toward Junchow to kill Reds like Chang, who has in his possession the jewels of a tsarina, meant as a gift for the despot's wife.
The young pair's all-consuming love can only bring shame and peril upon them, from both sides. Those in power will do anything to quell it. But Lydia and Chang are powerless to end it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Raised—Penarth, Wales, UK
• Education—London University
• Currently—lives in Devon, England
Kate Furnivall was raised in Penarth, a small seaside town in Wales. Her mother, whose own childhood was spent in Russia, China and India, discovered at an early age that the world around us is so volatile, that the only things of true value are those inside your head and your heart. These values Kate explores in The Russian Concubine.
Kate went to London University where she studied English and from there she went into publishing, writing material for a series of books on the canals of Britain. Then into advertising where she met her future husband, Norman. She travelled widely, giving her an insight into how different cultures function which was to prove invaluable when writing The Russian Concubine.
By now Kate had two sons and so moved out of London to a 300-year old thatched cottage in the countryside where Norman became a full-time crime writer. He won the John Creasey Award in 1987, writing as Neville Steed. Kate and Norman now live by the sea in the beautiful county of Devon, only 5 minutes from the home of Agatha Christie!
It was when her mother died in 2000 that Kate decided to write a book inspired by her mother's story. The Russian Concubine contains fictional characters and events, but Kate made use of the extraordinary situation that was her mother's childhood experience—that of two White Russian refugees, a mother and daughter, stuck without money or papers in an International Settlement in China. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
The experiences of the author's mother inspired this debut novel, a somewhat improbable tale of star-crossed love in 1928 China. Valentina Ivanova and her 16-year-old daughter, Lydia, White Russian refugees, live in grinding poverty in the International Settlement of Junchow, subsisting off whatever presents Valentina can charm from gentlemen admirers and the profits Lydia makes from pawning stolen goods. When Lydia inadvertently attracts the unwelcome attentions of a criminal gang, the Black Snakes, she finds a rescuer in Chang An Lo, an English-speaking Communist and kung fu master. Danger is never far as the two fall in love. Lydia's travails are mirrored by those of Theo Willoughby, the British headmaster of her school. Theo's struggle to preserve his school and his happy life with his Chinese mistress, Li Mei, drives him to collude with Li Mei's estranged father-the leader of the Black Snakes-to run opium into Junchow. Violence is more prevalent (and graphic) than sex, and the narrative has extended periods of inertia during which there is much action, but not of the plot-advancing sort. Despite these flaws, Furnivall vividly evokes Lydia's character and personal struggles against a backdrop of depravity and corruption.
Publishers Weekly
Set in prerevolutionary China between the world wars, Furnivall's debut offers up a love story as tumultuous as its setting. Lydia, a 16-year-old refugee from Russia, and her mother, Valentina, a former concert pianist, have taken up a life of impoverishment in the International Settlement in Junchow. Indulging in deception and petty thievery to survive, Lydia one day finds herself on the wrong side of the Black Snakes, an organized gang of Chinese criminals. Enter the young Communist Chang An Lo, who saves Lydia's life on impulse and thus sets off their disastrous love story. Surrounded by a cast of nefarious characters who entangle Lydia and Chang in a web of crimes as varied as drug trafficking, sexual perversion, and thieving, the young lovers find their romance meeting resistance and complication at every turn. While her characters are engaging and her pacing quick, Furnivall's zealousness gets in the way. Too many characters and unnecessary plot points cause this otherwise entertaining story to lose focus, diminishing its impact. Recommended only for larger historical fiction collections.
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. Despite her being a European girl, and therefore less than nothing to his people, Chang saves Lydia's life at the beginning of the novel. Why do you think he does so?
2. Lydia's stubborn bravery at the beginning of The Russian Concubine is described as foolhardy by many of the people she encounters. Do you agree with this assessment? Do you think that other people's opinion of her changes by the end of the book? Why?
3. How does Theo serve as a bridge between the Chinese and Western worlds he lives in? How does acting in that capacity take its toll on him towards the end of the novel?
4. Discuss the sacrifices and moral compromises that each character makes for what he or she believes is the greater good. For example, Theo becomes an opium runner in order to earn money to keep his school open, educating the European children in China. Do you think that the characters' actions in their respective situations help make them stronger people, or do their actions lessen them as humans?
5. Lydia and Chang get caught up in the turmoil of the political situation in the 1920s. Do you think that the poverty levels in China made it easy for young men to become Communists? Did the presence of the expatriate Russians make a difference in their political leanings? Discuss how Chang's Communist beliefs war with his love for Lydia.
6. Toward the end of the novel, Valentina reveals the secret of Lydia's scholarship to the Willoughby Academy. Do you think that her sacrifice for her daughter is an example of her strength as a mother, or her weakness as a woman?
7. When Lydia first meets Liev Popkov, she's facing him at a line-up after her lie regarding the stolen necklace at the Ulysses Club gets him arrested. Later, she hires him as her bodyguard, but their relationship develops into a friendship beyond employer/employee. Why do you think that Liev becomes so protective of Lydia after he meets her?
8. In many ways, Alfred is the first stable male influence in Lydia's life. What kind of life do you think Lydia would have led had Alfred entered her life earlier? Do you feel his nature/personality was as influential as his money? Does his money play a positive or a negative role in shaping their relationship?
9. The theme of freedom is prevalent throughout the novel. In what ways are Lydia and Chang caged, even before they are kidnapped by the Black Snakes? How does their love for each other help to set them free? Do you think that their relationship mirrors the political situation in China at all?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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While My Sister Sleeps
Barbara Delinsky, 2009
Knopf Doubleday
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307473226
Summary
Molly and Robin Snow are sisters, and like all sisters they share a deep bond that sustains them through good times and bad. Their careers are flourishing—Molly is a horticulturist and Robin is a world-class runner—and they are in the prime of their lives. So when Molly receives the news that Robin has suffered a massive heart attack, she couldn’t be more shocked. At the hospital, the Snow family receives a grim prognosis: Robin may never regain consciousness.
As Robin’s parents and siblings struggle to cope, the complex nature of their relationship is put to the ultimate test. Molly has always lived in Robin’s shadow and her feelings for her have run the gamut, from love to resentment and back. The last time they spoke, they argued. But now there is so much more at stake. Molly’s parents fold under the devastating circumstances, and her brother retreats into the cool reserve that is shattering his own family. It’s up to Molly to make the tough decisions, and she soon makes discoveries that destroy some of her most cherished beliefs about the sister she thought she knew.
Once again New York Times bestselling author Barbara Delinsky brings us a masterful family portrait, filled with thought-provoking ideas about the nature of life itself, how emotions affect the decisions we make, and how letting go can be the hardest thing to do and the greatest expression of love all at the same time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• AKA—Ruth Greenberg, Billie Douglass, Bonnie Drake
• Birth—August 9, 1945
• Where—Boston, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Tufts University; M.A., Boston College
• Awards—Romantic Times Magazine: Special Achievement
(twice), Reviewer's Choice, and Best Contemporary
Romance Awards; from Romance Writers of America:
Golden Medallion and Golden Leaf Awards.
• Currently—lives in Newton, Massachusetts
Barbara Delinsky (born as Barbara Ruth Greenberg) is an American writer of twenty New York Times bestsellers. She has also been published under the pen names Bonnie Drake and Billie Douglass.
Delinsky was born near Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother died when she was only eight, which she describes on her website as the "defining event in a childhood that was otherwise ordinary."
In 1963, she graduated from Newton High School, in Newton, Massachusetts. She then went on to earn a B.A. in Psychology from Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College.
Delinsky married Steve Delinsky, a law student, when she was very young. During the first years of her marriage, she worked for the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. After the birth of her first child, she took a job as a photographer and reporter for the Belmont Herald newspaper. She also filled her time doing volunteer work at hospitals, and serving on the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and their Women's Cancer Advisory Board.
In 1980, after having twins, Delinsky read an article about three female writers, and decided to try putting her imagination on paper. After three months of researching, plotting, and writing, she sold her first book. She began publishing for Dell Publishing Company as Billie Douglass, for Silhouette Books as Billie Douglass, and for Harlequin Enterprises as Barbara Delinsky. Now, she only uses her married name Barbara Delinsky, and some of her novels published under the other pseudonyms, are being published under this name. Since then, over 30 million copies of her books are in print, and they have been published in 25 languages. One of her novels, A Woman's Place, was made into a Lifetime movie starring Lorraine Bracco. Her latest work, Sweet Salt Air, is published by St. Martin's Press.
In 2001, Delinsky branched out into nonfiction with the book Uplift: Secrets from the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors. A breast cancer survivor herself, Barbara donates the proceeds of that book and her second nonfiction work to charity. With those funds she has been able to fund an oncology fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital that trains breast surgeons.
The Delinsky family resides in Newton, Massachusetts. Steve Delinsky has become a reputed lawyer of the city, while she writes daily in her office above the garage at her home. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/21/2013.)
Visit Barbara Delinsky's website.
Book Reviews
Delinsky is a first-rate storyteller who creates believable, sympathetic characters who seem as familiar as your neighbors.
Newark Star-Ledger
[N]othing short of a beautiful story. Delinsky’s ability to take a horrifying event and weave it into a beautiful familial tale is absolutely remarkable. While My Sister Sleeps is bittersweet and extremely moving.
Daily Iowan
Delinsky picks a provocative topic and gives the reader an opportunity to explore it through an engaging story. [She] has done her homework.
Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star
Delinsky flounders on her latest, a chronicle of how a family deals with a tragedy that befalls its favorite daughter. An Olympic marathon contender, self-centered Robin Snow often rubs her younger sister, Molly, the wrong way. After many years in her sister's shadow, Molly takes out her resentment with petty actions, such as refusing to accompany Robin on a run. Fatefully, Robin has a heart attack while training and falls into a coma. As Robin's condition fails to improve, Delinsky digs tediously into the family's woes: Molly's touchy relationship with Robin's ambitious reporter ex-boyfriend; middle son Chris's dealings with a would-be blackmailer; mother Kathryn's trouble coming to terms with Robin's dire prognosis. Delinsky litters the narrative with momentum-crippling scene-setting minutiae, and the Snow family, while theatrically intense in their interactions, make for flat characters. Delinsky is adept as portraying angst, but her story would have greatly benefited from a tighter telling and more complex characters.
Publishers Weekly
[An] engaging exploration of every family’s worst nightmare.
Booklist
Molly Snow isn't worried when she gets a phone call notifying her that her sister is in the ER. A world-class runner, 32-year-old Robin Snow has had many injuries, and Molly arrives at the hospital expecting nothing worse than an ankle sprain. But Robin has had a massive heart attack while running, and the prognosis is not good. As the devastated Snow family holds a bedside vigil, they learn things about Robin that alternately surprise and distress them. Graced by characters readers will come to care about, this is that rare book that deserves to have the phrase "impossible to put down" attached to it. Delinsky (The Secret Between Us) does a wonderful and realistic job portraying family dynamics; the relationship between Molly and Robin, in particular, is spot-on. This touching and heartbreaking novel is highly recommended for public libraries where women's fiction is popular. Readers of Kristin Hannah and Patricia Gaffney will enjoy it.
Library Journal
Delinsky (The Secret Between Us), mining the same emotional field as Jodi Picoult, stumbles in this slow-moving account of two sisters, one of whom is in a coma. The Snow family defines itself thus: They are the family of a runner. Robin is a marathoner of Olympic potential (the tryouts are soon) and much of her adult life has been working toward this moment. She is the star, and her mother Kathryn and sister Molly have devoted a good portion of their lives to making Robin's easier. Though Molly experiences intense bouts of jealousy and sadness that Robin is so clearly the favorite daughter, she nonetheless adores her older sister. One evening there is a call from the hospital to the house Molly and Robin share. The news is dire. At the hospital Molly finds Robin unconscious from a heart attack. A fellow runner found her cold body on the road, administered CPR and called an ambulance, but his act of kindness has inadvertently caused the Snow family's most heartbreaking dilemma. Tests show that Robin is brain-dead, but Kathryn refuses to accept that her daughter, a lifelong fighter, is defeated. Molly too is crushed, but instead of a bedside vigil, she wants answers. She finds Robin's journal and soon all secrets are revealed: Robin was diagnosed with an enlarged heart, which she inherited from her real father (Kathryn was pregnant when she met Charlie, but he raised her as his own). There are a number of subplots: Molly begins to develop a relationship with David, the runner who found Robin; David, a high-school teacher, suspects one of his students is anorexic; brother Chris is being blackmailed by an employee Molly fired from the family's nursery. Yet none of this is able to spark the narrative to life—a week of tears and hard decisions about organ donation and ending life support is certainly emotionally fertile, but in Delinsky's hands it feels overwrought and predictable. The novel's foregone conclusion does little to help a narrow plotline to expand.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How would you characterize the relationship among Robin, Molly, and Chris? Does Chris play a different role because he is a son? How does the Snow family compare to yours?
2. How is Molly transformed during the week after Robin's heart attack? What does Molly discover about herself and about the range of emotions she and her sister evoked in each other?
3. What is at the root of Kathryn's controlling behavior? How did her past, including her experience with her own parents and her art teacher, influence her personality? Who has more power in the marriage: Kathryn or Charlie?
4. Discuss Snow Hill and what it means to Molly's family. What makes the Snows good at nurturing plants but not as good at nurturing one another? What kinds of healing does Molly experience through her work at Snow Hill?
5. What do Charlie's religious beliefs say about him and about the differences between him and the other members of his family?
6. As parents, what family memories do Chris and Erin create for their daughter, Chloe? How does their approach to parenting compare to Charlie and Kathryn's?
7. How does Alexis's illness shape the novel's storyline? What parallels exist between her situation and Kathryn's state of denial?
8. How much is Nick entitled to know, as a reporter and as a friend of Robin's? Is Robin entitled to less privacy because she is a public figure, with a wide circle of fans who are concerned about her?
9. What determines whether Liz will be a threat to Chris's marriage? How is Liz's role in the novel different from Peter's? How much does the past matter in a marriage, especially events that took place before the wedding?
10. What was it like to read Robin'sjournal after hearing so much about her? Captured in her own words, how does her life compare to other people's impressions of her?
11. What does Kathryn have to do in order to let go? What does it take to help her see the truth about her circumstances—and Robin's?
12. How is Marjorie's family affected by her dementia? What do the connections among Marjorie, Kathryn, and Molly show us about mothers and daughters? What traits, emotional and otherwise, are passed from one generation to the next in While My Sister Sleeps?
13. Why is David willing to look out for Alexis? What makes him such a caring teacher? What makes him such a tough opponent against Nick?
14. Ultimately, what legacy does Robin leave for her family? What intangible gifts does Molly inherit from her sister?
15. Discuss the medical issues raised by Robin's story. Is it unethical to keep a child from knowing the identity of his or her biological parents? How would you have handled the end-of-life-care questions raised by Robin's heart attack?
16. How do secrets affect the characters in While My Sister Sleeps and in Barbara Delinsky's other novels? When is it best to let a secret remain hidden? When is it best to reveal the truth?
(Questions issued by publisher.)