My Enemy's Cradle
Sara Young, 2008
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780156034333
Summary
Cyrla's neighbors have begun to whisper. Her cousin, Anneke, is pregnant and has passed the rigorous exams for admission to the Lebensborn, a maternity home for girls carrying German babies. But Anneke's soldier has disappeared, and Lebensborn babies are only ever released to their father's custody—or taken away.
A note is left under the mat. Someone knows that Cyrla, sent from Poland years before for safekeeping with her Dutch relatives, is Jewish. The Nazis are imposing more and more restrictions; she won't be safe there for long.
And then in the space of an afternoon, life falls apart. Cyrla must choose between certain discovery in her cousin's home and taking Anneke's place in the Lebensborn—Cyrla and Anneke are nearly identical. If she takes refuge in the enemy's lair, can Cyrla fool the doctors, nurses, guards, and other mothers-to-be? Can she escape before they discover she is not who she claims?
Mining a lost piece of history, Sara Young takes us deep into the lives of women living in the worst of times. Part love story and part elegy for the terrible choices we must often make to survive, My Enemy's Cradle keens for what we lose in war and sings for the hope we sometimes find. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Sara Pennypacker
• Birth—1951
• Where—Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Marietta College (Ohio)
• Awards—Golden Kite Award (for Pierre in Love)
• Currently—Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA
Under the name Sara Pennypacker, Sara Young has written seven books for children, including the acclaimed "Stuart" series (Stuart’s Cape) and the "Clementine" series. She lives on Cape Cod. (From the publisher and Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Young's youthful characters—especially her heroine, Cyrla—are utterly believable, their longings, fears and hopes etched with an authenticity and sense of urgency that make this story vibrate on the page.... Intensely romantic in a way that only wartime fiction can be. And it invokes, with a bit of an ache, Anne Frank's optimistic belief in happy endings.
USA Today
Children's-book author Young (who, as Sara Pennypacker, penned the celebrated "Stuart" series) makes a stunning adult debut with this beautifully told and heart-wrenching novel set in WWII Europe. Cyrla, half-Jewish, is no longer safe hiding in the home of her Dutch relatives under the increasingly harsh Nazi occupation. When cousin Annika, whom Cyrla closely resembles, becomes pregnant by a German soldier, Annika's father enrolls her in a Lebensborn, a birthing center for Aryan children, where the slogan is "Have one baby for the Führer." In a tragic turn of events, Cyrla discovers her only chance of survival is to hide in plain sight: she must assume Annika's identity and live in the German Lebensborn until rescued. Within the Lebensborn's walls, mothers-to-be receive proper nutrition and medical care until their children are taken from them for adoption into Aryan families The horrors Cyrla witnesses are softened only by her resounding optimism and strength.
Publishers Weekly
One of the lesser-known aspects of the Nazi regime was the Lebensborn program, which promoted the expansion of the "master race" by encouraging German women and those who were racially "pure" in its occupied countries to bear as many children as possible. Young explores the experiences of these women in her fictional story of Cyrla, a young Polish/Dutch woman who enters a Lebensborn maternity home in place of her cousin Annika, who died tragically. Unbeknown to the officials, Cyrla is half Jewish and must walk a tightrope as she plots her escape. Despite a few too many far-fetched plot contrivances, the subject matter is of immediate interest and sympathy. At the book's outset, Cyrla is strident, idealistic, and foolishly outspoken, but as she matures she begins to understand the complexity of the world around her and the people she has known. An unexpected development midway through the novel helps make this a real page-turner. Recommended for most public libraries.
Christine DeZelar-Tiedman - Library Journal
Secrets of betrayal, love, and honor drive the plot in this riveting historical novel about a young woman caught up in the Nazi Lebensborn program.... Cyrla's intimate, first-person narrative reveals the horrific history through unforgettable individual experience of guilt and sacrifice. Readers will be haunted by the intricacies of friends and enemies in a story that has been seldom told.
Booklist
In children's author Young's first novel for adults, a Polish Jew in World War II Holland finds temporary safety in the Lebensborn, a maternity home the Nazis set up to breed Aryan babies. Cyrla's deceased mother was a Dutch Christian, and in the late 1930s Cyrla's Jewish father sends her from Poland to live in Holland with her Christian aunt's family. When the novel opens in 1941, Cyrla's cousin and best friend, Annika, has fallen in love with a handsome young German officer, Karl, and become pregnant. To avoid disgrace she agrees to enter a nearby Lebensborn, but she commits suicide before she can go because Karl has refused to take responsibility for the pregnancy. By now Germans have begun rounding up Jews. Although distraught, Annika's mother plots to save Cyrla by having her take Annika's place at the Lebensborn. Cyrla goes to Isaac, the Jewish activist she's been in love with for years. He claims he's incapable of love but agrees to impregnate her, then arrange for her safe exodus. Eleven days later, a pregnant Cyrla-her easy fecundity is the novel's first but not last credibility stretch-leaves for the Lebensborn though not before she is savagely (and gratuitously) raped by an SS soldier. In the Lebensborn, Cyrla carries on her charade as Annika while waiting to hear from Isaac. Then Karl shows up. It seems Annika never told him she was pregnant; he broke up with her first because he was already in love with Cyrla. Karl, who hates the Nazis, takes great risks to help Cyrla. Despite her initial distrust, she eventually acknowledges she loves him. Their far-fetched romance is at odds with the well-researched description of the Nazi maternity program, and although Young tries toavoid stereotyping, many of the supporting characters are two-dimensional at best. Earnest but ultimately sentimental rather than profound.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Cyrla is half Jewish and half Dutch, and grew up in Poland, but she often feels out of place no matter where she is. Does her sense of identity and nationality change throughout the novel? How does her personal struggle reflect the broader issues of identity that Europeans faced as the Germans continued to invade other nations and worked to replace each country’s sense of nationalism and heritage with their own?
2. Cyrla states that when she moved to Holland her family members “denied the Jewish half” of her. How does this affect Cyrla’s own attitude toward her religion? How does she retain this part of her heritage even though she can no longer observe religious holidays? How does the fact that Cyrla needs to hide her religion affect her relationship with Isaak?
3. Cyrla’s father tells her that he is sending her to Holland so that she can find her late mother’s place in her life. What distinction does the novel draw between families drawn together via their maternal relations versus the single-sided importance of the paternal bloodlines in the Lebensborn? Compare and contrast the different models of motherhood exemplified by Anneke, Cyrla, Aunt Mies, and the women at the Lebensborn. How does the attitude of the mothers from occupied countries differ from that of the German mothers?
4. Cyrla and Anneke look so alike that Cyrla can pass for her cousin at the Lebensborn. What other traits do the girls have in common? What is different about them?
5. When she tries to convince Isaak one last time to flee to England with her, Cyrla accuses him of being heroic to avoid being brave. Do you think there is a difference between heroism and bravery? Why or why not? Give examples of each from the novel.
6. The author offers the meanings of the names of several characters in the novel. How well do these names suit the characters to whom they are given?
7. As her departure date for the Lebensborn approaches, Cyrla observes that joy is something to steal. How do the characters in this novel steal joy despite the dark realities of World War II?
8. On page 26, Cyrla reflects on the stark contrast between boy soldiers who miss their sisters and long to sit in cafés with girls and the men who force young Jewish girls to wrap filthy latrine-stained blouses around their heads. The roles that men play in times of war are complicated, and the roles of men in this novel are no different. Compare and contrast the different models of manhood exemplified by these characters.
9. The Germans are portrayed as being as methodical about reproduction and birthing as they are about everything else in the war. Describe life at the Lebensborn—how does it compare to methods of animal husbandry or the operation of factories? What purpose does this serve for the Germans? For the novel?
10. On page 221, Cyrla wishes that her friend Leona’s infant son—and all the infants, by implication—will somehow escape “the poison of abandonment that tightens hearts into knots.” Which characters in this novel have been abandoned? How has abandonment affected them? How does the historical information given in the Author’s Note affect your understanding of this theme?
11. Cyrla finds herself torn between two men, both of whom seem unavailable to her, at least at first. What does it take for Cyrla to finally let go of one and give her heart to the other? How does wartime influence Cyrla’s realization and expression of sexuality? How does it affect the other female characters?
12. As an occupied people, the Dutch must choose to what extent they will compromise their own consciences in order to abide German laws. To what degree do Cyrla’s uncle and Karl collaborate with the Nazis? Does toeing the line necessarily make one a collaborator? By contrast, what do several characters in this novel risk by defying the Germans in order to help one another? Why do they do it?
13. This story is told from Cyrla’s point of view. Do you think Cyrla is a reliable narrator? Identify moments where Cyrla’s interpretation of events does or does not match your own opinion of what is happening or what has happened.
14. During World War II, millions of men and women were shuffled from place to place by the Germans, or were forced to flee their homes for safesty. Define Cyrla’s concept of home and describe how she carries this feeling with her in each new place she finds herself. Where does she ultimately decide “home” is, and why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Samurai's Garden
Gail Tsukiyama, 1994
St. Martin's Press
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312144074
Summary
On the eve of the Second World War, a young Chinese man is sent to his family's summer home in Japan to recover from tuberculosis. He will rest, swim in the salubrious sea, and paint in the brilliant shoreside light. It will be quiet and solitary.
But he meets four local residents — a lovely young Japanese girl and three older people. What then ensues is a tale that readers will find at once classical yet utterly unique. Young Stephen has his own adventure, but it is the unfolding story of Matsu, Sachi, and Kenzo that seizes your attention and will stay with you forever.
Tsukiyama, with lines as clean, simple, telling, and dazzling as the best of Oriental art, has created an exquisite little masterpiece. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—San Francisco, California, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., San Francisco State University
• Awards—Academy of American Poets Award;
PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award
• Currently—El Cerito, California
Readers know Gail Tsukiyama through her best-selling novel The Samurai’s Garden (1994). Her other works include Women of the Silk (1991), Night of Many Dreams (1998), The Language of Threads (1999), The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (2007), Dreaming Water (2002), and A Hundred Flowers (2012).
Born to a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, she grew up in San Francisco and now lives in El Cerrito, California. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. With an understanding of her heritage, Tsukiyama explores the sights, sounds and feelings of China and Japan in her novels.
She was one of nine fiction authors to appear during the first Library of Congress National Book Festival in 2001. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
As the title suggests in this charming book, gardens are central to the thematic concerns. They require loving devotion and constant nurturing, the very qualities that heal the human body and soul and provide respite from the world's ills.
A LitLovers LitPick (Nov. '06)
Seventeen-year-old Stephen leaves his home in Hong Kong just as the Japanese are poised to invade China. He is sent to Tarumi, a small village in Japan, to recuperate from tuberculosis. His developing friendship with three adults and a young woman his own age brings him to the beginnings of wisdom about love, honor, and loss. Given the potentially interesting subplot (the story of a love triangle doomed by the outbreak of leprosy in the village) and the fascinating period in which the book is set, this second novel by the author of Women of the Silk (1991) has the potential to be a winner. Unfortunately, it is sunk by a flat, dull prose style, one-dimensional characters who fail to engage the reader's interest, and the author's tendency to tell rather than show. Libraries with comprehensive fiction collections might consider, but others can pass. —Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. The title of the novel obviously alludes to Matsu's garden, but to whom else could the title refer as a "Samurai"? Why?
2. The garden acts as a center or core of the novel. All three central characters (Stephen, Matsu, and Sachi) find some sense of comfort in tending the garden. What are some of the metaphors for the garden and how are they worked out in the novel?
3. Loneliness, solitude, and isolation are all themes that permeate the novel throughout. How do the three central characters' approaches to these feelings vary, resemble each other, and evolve?
4. It appears as though Stephen and Sachi are somehow juxtaposed. How is this connection represented and developed?
5. How is the politically turbulent time at which The Samurai's Garden takes place approached in the novel? Is it a strongly political novel or does the world of Tamuri somehow defy and avoid the political turmoil of the era?
6. How is Stephen and Keiko's relationship represented? Examine it in relation to the courtships of the past—Kenzo and Sachi, as well as Matsu and Sachi.
7. As the novel progresses, Stephen stops longing to return to his home and in fact dreads having to leave Tamuri. What provokes this change of heart? Also, how does this sentiment affect the ending of the novel?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Whiter Than Snow
Sandra Dallas, 2010
St. Martin's Press
292 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312600150
Summary
A moving and powerful story of a small town after a devastating avalanche, and the life changing effects it has on the people who live there
Whiter Than Snow opens in 1920, on a spring afternoon in Swandyke, a small town near Colorado’s Tenmile Range. Just moments after four o’clock, a large split of snow separates from Jubilee Mountain high above the tiny hamlet and hurtles down the rocky slope, enveloping everything in its path including nine young children who are walking home from school. But only four children survive.
Whiter Than Snow takes you into the lives of each of these families: There’s Lucy and Dolly Patch—two sisters, long estranged by a shocking betrayal. Joe Cobb, Swandyke’s only black resident, whose love for his daughter Jane forces him to flee Alabama. There’s Grace Foote, who hides secrets and scandal that belies her genteel façade. And Minder Evans, a civil war veteran who considers his cowardice his greatest sin. Finally, there’s Essie Snowball, born Esther Schnable to conservative Jewish parents, but who now works as a prostitute and hides her child’s parentage from all the world.
Ultimately, each story serves as an allegory to the greater theme of the novel by echoing that fate, chance, and perhaps even divine providence, are all woven into the fabric of everyday life. And it’s through each character’s defining moment in his or her past that the reader understands how each child has become its parent’s purpose for living. In the end, it’s a novel of forgiveness, redemption, survival, faith and family. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 11, 1939
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., University of Denver
• Awards—numerous, see below
• Currently—lives in Denver, Colorado, USA
Award-winning author Sandra Dallas was dubbed “a quintessential American voice” by Jane Smiley, in Vogue magazine. Sandra’s novels with their themes of loyalty, friendship, and human dignity have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and have been optioned for films.
A journalism graduate of the University of Denver, Sandra began her writing career as a reporter with Business Week. A staff member for twenty-five years (and the magazine’s first female bureau chief,) she covered the Rocky Mountain region, writing about everything from penny-stock scandals to hard-rock mining, western energy development to contemporary polygamy. Many of her experiences have been incorporated into her novels.
While a reporter, she began writing the first of ten nonfiction books. They include Sacred Paint, which won the National Cowboy Hall of Fame Western Heritage Wrangler Award, and The Quilt That Walked to Golden, recipient of the Independent Publishers Assn. Benjamin Franklin Award.
Turning to fiction in 1990, Sandra has published eight novels. She is the recipient of the Women Writing the West Willa Award for New Mercies, and two-time winner of the Western Writers of America Spur Award, for The Chili Queen and Tallgrass. In addition, she was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award, the Mountain and Plains Booksellers Assn. Award, and a four-time finalist for the Women Writing the West Willa Award.
The mother of two daughters—Dana is an attorney in New Orleans and Povy is a photographer in Golden, Colorado— Sandra lives in Denver with her husband, Bob.
Her Own Words:
• Because of my interest in the West—I wrote nine nonfiction books about the West before I turned to fiction—I’m a sucker for women’s journals of the westward movement. I wanted The Diary of Mattie Spenser to have the elements of a novel but to read as much like a 19th century journal as possible. Mattie is a woman of her time, not a current-day heroine dressed in a long skirt, and the language is faithful to the Civil War era.
• I added dialogue to keep the diary entries from being too stilted for contemporary readers. Making the diary believable has had an unforeseen consequence: Many readers believe it is an actual journal. They’ve asked where the diary is kept and what happened to the characters after the journal ended. One reader accused me of rewriting some of Mattie’s entries because she recognized my style. Another sent me a copy of an early Denver photograph, asking if the man in the picture was one of the characters in the book. (Author bio from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
In this stilted, disjointed smalltown disaster drama, a 1920 Colorado avalanche traps nine children in a snow drift, turning their close-knit community upside-down in the process. As the children's families learn of their predicament, the complicated backstories that bind the members of sleepy Swandyke come to light; in the present, the developing tragedy, including multiple deaths, transforms the community through sorrow, forgiveness, and redemption. Unfortunately, novelist Dallas (Prayers for Sale) isn't up to the challenge of multiple plot threads, a large cast of characters, or the heavily loaded children-in-distress material; exaggerated caricature, stiff dialogue, and poorly integrated character history make for awkward, disappointing melodrama.
Publishers Weekly
Dallas is well known for her storytelling abilities, but this reads more like a valediction of a time and place faded from memory than her usual vibrant, visceral tale. Still, Dallas is a magnet. —Lynne Welch
Booklist
Dallas (Prayers for Sale, 2009, etc.) centers her eighth novel around an avalanche that strikes the mining town of Swandyke, Colo., in the 1920s, trapping nine young children under the snow. By the end of the first chapter readers know the names of the children and that only four will survive, but Dallas's interest lies with their parents. There are sisters Lucy and Dolly. Dolly stole Lucy's fiance years ago, and Lucy, though married to a man who makes her happy, has never forgiven Dolly. Then there is Grace, the wife of the mine superintendent. After her father lost the family fortune, Grace seduced her husband into marriage out of the mistaken fear she was pregnant with another man's child. Unable to fit in with the local women, she's become a lonely neurotic. The only black man in Swandyke and a single father to his daughter, Joe tries to keep a low profile since running away from Alabama after he hit the white doctor who caused his wife's death. Septuagenarian Minder Evans is raising his orphaned grandson. A Civil War vet, Minder's guilt over letting his best friend die has left him a bitter loner. Finally there is Essie, the prostitute whose secrets include her Jewish background and her daughter, being raised by another woman until Essie can pull together enough money to leave the whorehouse. The avalanche story does not pick up again until the seventh chapter, when Grace witnesses the snow slide and alerts the town. As the digging out begins, and even after the surviving children are identified, the novel remains focused on how the tragedy redeems the adults' lives. The sisters reunite. Grace finds her place in the community and becomes a novelist. Minder reaches out both to Essie,who leaves prostitution to care for him, and Joe, whose suicide he prevents. Dallas lays on the sentimentality (and Christian overtones), but her sense of time and place is pitch perfect and her affection for her characters infectious.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why does Lucy hate Swandyke, while her sister Dolly loves it? What do the mountains represent to each girl? Why did Lucy miss Dolly more than Ted during the women’s estrangement?
2. Emancipation did not end prejudice against African Americans, and in many cases, their treatment was worse after freedom. Compare the lives of men during slavery with Joe’s life as a post-Civil War black man. How was it better and worse? When did the attitude toward blacks change, and what brought about that change?
3. Why was Grace so anxious to find a husband after she discovered her family’s fortune was gone? Did she have options other than marriage? Compare her life with Jim with what it would have been if she’d married George.
4. Should Minder have tried to save Billy Boy, even though both men would have drowned? Why didn’t Minder identify himself to Kate when he encountered her in Fort Madison? Should he have done so?
5. What made Esther more ambitious than her sister? What alternative did she have to becoming a prostitute? Does she have a future in Swandyke? Will the townspeople ever forget she was a hooker?
6. Which character in the book did you relate to most, and why?
7. You knew from the outset that only four of the nine children caught in the avalanche would live. Which ones would you have saved?
8. If an avalanche took place in a small mountain town today, how would the residents’ reactions differ from those of the townspeople in Swandyke in 1920? How would they be the same?
9. Why does tragedy bring people together? How did it change the characters in Whiter Than Snow? And how does it change people in general?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Cupboard Full of Life (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series #5)
Alexander McCall Smith, 2003
Knopf Doubleday
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400031818
Summary
In the fifth book in the prodigiously successful series, traditionally built, eminently sensible Mma Precious Ramotswe continues her enterprise at the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Gaborone, Botswana, a country that is indeed fortunate.
Still engaged to the estimable Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe understands that she should not put too much pressure on him, as he has other concerns, especially a hair-raising request from the ever persuasive Mma Potokwane, matron of the orphan farm. Besides Mma Ramotswe herself has weighty matters on her mind.
She has been approached by a wealthy lady to check up on several suitors. Are these men interested in the lady or just her money? This may be a difficult case, but it's just the kind of problem Mma Ramotswe likes and she is, as we know, a very intuitive lady. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 24, 1948
• Where—Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
• Education—Christian Brothers College; Ph.D., University
Edinburgh
• Honors—Commandre of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE); Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE)
• Currently—lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Alexander (R.A.A.) "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a Rhodesian-born Scottish writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. In the late 20th century, McCall Smith became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with these issues. He has since become internationally known as a writer of fiction. He is most widely known as the creator of the The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series.
Alexander McCall Smith was born in Bulawayo, in what was then Southern Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe. His father worked as a public prosecutor in what was then a British colony. He was educated at the Christian Brothers College before moving to Scotland to study law at the University of Edinburgh, where he received his Ph.D. in law.
He soon taught at Queen's University Belfast, and while teaching there he entered a literary competition: one a children's book and the other a novel for adults. He won in the children's category, and published thirty books in the 1980s and 1990s.
He returned to southern Africa in 1981 to help co-found and teach law at the University of Botswana. While there, he cowrote what remains the only book on the country's legal system, The Criminal Law of Botswana (1992).
He returned in 1984 to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he lives today with his wife, Elizabeth, a physician, and their two daughters Lucy and Emily. He was Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh at one time and is now Emeritus Professor at its School of Law. He retains a further involvement with the University in relation to the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.
He is the former chairman of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee (until 2002), the former vice-chairman of the Human Genetics Commission of the United Kingdom, and a former member of the International Bioethics Commission of UNESCO. After achieving success as a writer, he gave up these commitments.
He was appointed a CBE in the December 2006 New Year's Honours List for services to literature. In June 2007, he was awarded the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws at a ceremony celebrating the tercentenary of the University of Edinburgh School of Law.
He is an amateur bassoonist, and co-founder of The Really Terrible Orchestra. He has helped to found Botswana's first centre for opera training, the Number 1 Ladies' Opera House, for whom he wrote the libretto of their first production, a version of Macbeth set among a troop of baboons in the Okavango Delta.
In 2009, he donated the short story "Still Life" to Oxfam's 'Ox-Tales' project—four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. McCall Smith's story was published in the Air collection. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
The Full Cupboard of Life is by no means oppressively sweet, but it is committed to looking on life's sunny side. And its characters, like the one who watches a special mango ripen on a tree, have a primitivism that is as reductive as it is warm. At one point, someone suggests that "How to Get 97 Percent" would be an appealing title for a book. It's one that could easily be applied to Mr. Smith's big-hearted Botswanan stories.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
Precious Ramotswe is on the case again in this delightful fifth installment in the bestselling No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, this time assisting the self-made founder of a chain of hairdressing salons who wants to unearth the real intentions of her four suitors, each possibly more interested in her money than her heart. As fans know, though, sleuthing takes second place to folksy storytelling in McCall Smith's wry novels. This time around, Mma Ramotswe is distracted by her long-prolonged engagement to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Gaborone's best mechanic; it seems she will never be married, despite her fianc 's honorable intentions. He installs an extra large seatbelt in her car to keep her safe (she is quite comfortable with her "traditional build," despite the new, slender fashion of modern woman), but an altercation with another mechanic and the prospect of a charity parachute jump keep his mind off matrimony. A drive for decency motivates Mma Ramotswe and her friends-among them Mma Potokwani, the imperious matron of the local orphan farm, and Mma Makutsi, assistant at the Ladies' Detective Agency and founder of the Kalahari Typing School for Men-and Smith's talent is in portraying this moral code in a manner that is always engaging. As readers will appreciate, Mma Ramotswe solves her cases-more questions of character, really, than of criminal behavior-in good time. Traditionally built ladies living in the African heat don't tend to hurry, and, at the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, there's always time for another cup of tea.
Publishers Weekly
Thankfully, Mma Precious Ramotswe is back in another delightful adventure. The fifth book in Smith's popular "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series finds Precious humorously and intuitively pondering her status as the longtime fianc e of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, as the primary guardian of two children from the orphan farm, and, of course, as the proprietress of Botswana's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. In addition to her personal life, Mma Precious has taken on the professional tasks of screening suitors for a wealthy salon owner and getting Mr. Matekoni out of a precarious situation. Returning with Mma Ramotswe are the usual cast of memorable supporting characters, and Smith introduces several new and well-drawn personalities. With the charm and visual detail so characteristic of this series, readers are treated to another enchanting slice of Mma Ramotswe's world. Sure to please both enduring fans and new readers, this is highly recommended for all fiction and mystery collections. —Nicole A. Cooke, Montclair State Univ. Lib., Upper Montclair, NJ
Library Journal
The tremendous appeal of this delightful series comes from the unique manner in which Smith mixes the charm of both traditional and contemporary village cozies (from Miss Marple to the Maggody novels) with a comical Runyonesque formality of language and a grasp of human relations that is very like Jane Austen (Mma Ramotswe, in fact, has a lot of Emma in her). You can bet that one day soon this series will turn up on public television. —Bill Ott
Booklist
Another charmingly gossamer mystery for Botswana's premier detective. Mma Precious Ramotswe, of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, often takes on clients whose problems are reflections of her own (The Kalahari Typing School for Men, 2003, etc.). The problems this time involve marriage. Mma Holonga, founder of a chain of hairdressing salons and inventor of the wondrous Special Girl Hair Braiding Preparation, having narrowed the field of men applying for the position of husband to a wealthy woman to four, wants Mma Ramotswe to investigate the finalists and report whether they are more interested in Mma Holonga or in her money. The "traditionally built" Mma Ramotswe takes an especially keen interest in the case because her own engagement to Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, the gentlemanly mechanic who shares her Gaborone office building, seems becalmed in an endlessly premarital state; although she can't imagine marrying anyone else, it's becoming difficult to imagine actually marrying Mr J.L.B. Matekoni either. As for her fiance, he's distracted by troubles of his own, from his need to confront his ignoble competitors at First Class Motors to his having been pressured into aiding Mma Silvia Potokwani's orphan farm by signing up subscribers to sponsor a parachute jump she wants him to make. As usual in this enchanting series, Mma Ramotswe provides less detection than advice, and wise advice it turns out to be, even when her clients decline to take it.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. There are many references in The Full Cupboard of Life to “the old Botswana morality.” Outline these virtues. In what ways is Mma Ramotswe a traditional, old-fashioned Botswanan woman? In what ways is she modern? According to Mma Ramotswe, what is “the right sort of woman?” How does she and Mr. J.T.B. Matekoni embody the “old Botswana morality?”
2. What is Mma Ramotswe’s general opinion of men? Is it a stereotypical view? Do you agree with her assessment? Is her fiancé, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, a “typical” male? What does she think are the characteristic differences between the sexes? And how does she interact and deal with males and females differently?
3. For Mma Ramotswe’s clients, how is visiting with her like talking with a therapist? What psychological tactics does she employ with her clients and in solving their cases? What is Mma Ramotswe’s approach to being a detective?
4. Describe the importance of tea in The Full Cupboard of Life. Note that there’s even a chapter called “Tea is always the solution.”
5. What do you learn about Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni in The Full Cupboard of Life that adds to your picture of him portrayed in the first four No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books? How about Mma Ramotswe? Is she fairly consistent throughout the series? How about the other principal characters in the books—Mma Makutsi, Mma Potokwani, the apprentices? Have they grown fuller as characters, and matured over the course of the series?
6. More so than in the first four novels, Mma Ramotswe comments on love in The Full Cupboard of Life. What are her views on love and romantic relationships and marriage? Do you agree with her? How is forgiveness connected to love in Mma Ramotwe’s view? How is timing tied to love in her opinion? What determines her love for Mr. J.T.B. Matekoni? What threatens to undermine their relationship and their engagement?
7. What is the significance of the title? What are some other suitable titles for this book? Discuss the importance of the chapter headings to the novel as a whole. Why does Alexander McCall Smith give the chapters title-like headings?
8. Mma Potokwani and Mma Makutsi both think of titles for books they may someday write—How to Run an Orphan Farm; How to Get 97%. What are some titles for books you or other members of your book group could write?
9. Discuss the abundant imagery of the Botswanan landscape in this novel. Compare Mochudi village life with the busier world of Gaborone. Compare both with your hometown. Could these books have taken place anywhere other than in southern Africa? How has the landscape influenced Mma Ramotswe? Do you think the landscape has influenced the author as well? Through his descriptions, has it influenced you?
10. Describe the advice of Clovis Andersen’s The Principles of Private Detection. What sort of advice is it? Why does Mma Ramotswe admire Andersen so much?
11. Does Mma Ramotswe actually solve any mysteries in The Full Cupboard of Life? What does she do in this book? Compare and contrast the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books to other mystery series you’ve read and enjoyed. Are these books mysteries in the traditional sense? Do you think they are mysteries at all? How would you classify them?
12. How does the author refer to Mma Ramotswe’s history and past from the other novels? Why does he do this? Do you think you can read The Full Cupboard of Life without having read the first four books?
13. Describe the author’s writing style. What is so compelling about the voice and description in the novel? How do you think Alexander McCall Smith’s background as a Scottish medical law professor who grew up in southern Africa has affected these books?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Marriage Plot
Jeffrey Eugenides, 2011
Picador : Macmillan
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250014764
Summary
It’s the early 1980s—the country is in a deep recession, and life after college is harder than ever. In the cafés on College Hill, the wised-up kids are inhaling Derrida and listening to Talking Heads. But Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English major, is writing her senior thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, purveyors of the marriage plot that lies at the heart of the greatest English novels.
As Madeleine tries to understand why “it became laughable to read writers like Cheever and Updike, who wrote about the suburbia Madeleine and most of her friends had grown up in, in favor of reading the Marquis de Sade, who wrote about deflowering virgins in eighteenth-century France,” real life, in the form of two very different guys, intervenes. Leonard Bankhead—charismatic loner, college Darwinist, and lost Portland boy—suddenly turns up in a semiotics seminar, and soon Madeleine finds herself in a highly charged erotic and intellectual relationship with him. At the same time, her old “friend” Mitchell Grammaticus—who’s been reading Christian mysticism and generally acting strange—resurfaces, obsessed with the idea that Madeleine is destined to be his mate.
Over the next year, as the members of the triangle in this amazing, spellbinding novel graduate from college and enter the real world, events force them to reevaluate everything they learned in school. Leonard and Madeleine move to a biology Laboratory on Cape Cod, but can’t escape the secret responsible for Leonard’s seemingly inexhaustible energy and plunging moods. And Mitchell, traveling around the world to get Madeleine out of his mind, finds himself face-to-face with ultimate questions about the meaning of life, the existence of God, and the true nature of love.
Are the great love stories of the nineteenth century dead? Or can there be a new story, written for today and alive to the realities of feminism, sexual freedom, prenups, and divorce? With devastating wit and an abiding understanding of and affection for his characters, Jeffrey Eugenides revives the motivating energies of the Novel, while creating a story so contemporary and fresh that it reads like the intimate journal of our own lives. (From the publisher.)
• Read an excerpt
• Watch the video
Author Bio
• Birth—March 8, 1960
• Where—Detroit, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; M.A., Stanford
University
• Awards—Whiting Writer's Award; Guggenheim
Fellowship; Pulitzer Prize
• Currently—lives in Princeton, New Jersey
Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer. Eugenides is most known for his three acclaimed novels, The Virgin Suicides (1993), Middlesex (2002), and The Marriage Plot (2011).
Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan, of Greek and Irish descent. He attended Grosse Pointe's private University Liggett School. He took his undergraduate degree at Brown University, graduating in 1983. He later earned an M.A. in Creative Writing from Stanford University.
In 1986 he received the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship for his story "Here Comes Winston, Full of the Holy Spirit." His 1993 novel, The Virgin Suicides, gained mainstream interest with the 1999 film adaptation directed by Sofia Coppola. The novel was reissued in 2009.
Eugenides is reluctant to disclose details about his private life, except through Michigan-area book signings in which he details the influence of Detroit and his high-school experiences on his writings. He has said that he has "a perverse love" of his birthplace. "I think most of the major elements of American history are exemplified in Detroit, from the triumph of the automobile and the assembly line to the blight of racism, not to mention the music, Motown, the MC5, house, techno." He also says he has been haunted by the decline of Detroit.
He lives in Princeton, New Jersey, with his wife, Karen Yamauchi, and their daughter, Georgia. In the fall of 2007, Eugenides joined the faculty of Princeton University's Program in Creative Writing.
His 2002 novel, Middlesex, won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and the Ambassador Book Award. Part of it was set in Berlin, Germany, where Eugenides lived from 1999 to 2004, but it was chiefly concerned with the Greek-American immigrant experience in the United States, against the rise and fall of Detroit. It explores the experience of the intersexed in the USA. Eugenides has also published short stories, primarily in The New Yorker. His 1996 "Baster" became the basis for the 2010 romantic comedy The Switch (with Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman).
His third novel, The Marriage Plot (2011), has been called by Carlin Romano in the Chronicle of Higher Education" the most entertaining campus novel since Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons. The plot is based on graduation day at Brown University in 1982.
Eugenides is the editor of the collection of short stories titled My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead. The proceeds of the collection go to the writing center 826 Chicago, established to encourage young people's writing. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
It's in mapping Mitchell's search for some sort of belief that might fill the spiritual hole in his heart and Madeleine's search for a way to turn her passion for literature into a vocation that this novel is at its most affecting, reminding us with uncommon understanding what it is to be young and idealistic, in pursuit of true love and in love with books and ideas.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Eugenides's first novel since 2002's Pulitzer Prize winning Middlesex so impressively, ambitiously breaks the mold of its predecessor that it calls for the founding of a new prize to recognize its success both as a novel—and as a Jeffrey Eugenides novel. Importantly but unobtrusively set in the early 1980s, this is the tale of Madeleine Hanna, recent Brown University English grad, and her admirer Mitchell Grammaticus, who opts out of Divinity School to walk the earth as an ersatz pilgrim. Madeleine is equally caught up, both with the postmodern vogue (Derrida, Barthes)—conflicting with her love of James, Austen, and Salinger—and with the brilliant Leonard Bankhead, whom she met in semiotics class and whose fits of manic depression jeopardize his suitability as a marriage prospect. Meanwhile, Mitchell winds up in Calcutta working with Mother Theresa's volunteers, still dreaming of Madeleine. In capturing the heady spirit of youthful intellect on the verge, Eugenides revives the coming-of-age novel for a new generation The book's fidelity to its young heroes and to a superb supporting cast of enigmatic professors, feminist theorists, neo-Victorians, and concerned mothers, and all of their evolving investment in ideas and ideals is such that the central argument of the book is also its solution: the old stories may be best after all, but there are always new ways to complicate them.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) The way of true love never works out, except at the end of an English novel." So says Trollope in Barchester Towers, one of those English novels where "the marriage plot" thrived until it was swept aside by 20th-century reality. Now Roland Barthes's contention that "the lover's discourse is today of an extreme solitude" better sums up the situation. Or so English literature-besotted Madeleine, 1980s Brown graduating senior, comes to discover. Giving in to the zeitgeist, Madeleine takes a course on semiotics and meets Leonard, who's brilliant, charismatic, and unstable. They've broken up, which makes moody spiritual seeker Mitchell Grammaticus happy, since he pines for Madeleine. But on graduation day, Madeleine discovers that Leonard is in the hospital—in fact, he is a manic depressive with an on-again, off-again relationship with his medications—and leaps to his side. So begins the story of their love (but does it work out?), as Mitchell heads to Europe and beyond for his own epiphanies. Verdict: Your standard love triangle? Absolutely not. This extraordinary, liquidly written evocation of love's mad rush and inevitable failures will feed your mind as you rapidly turn the pages. Highly recommended. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
(Starred review.) A stunning novel—erudite, compassionate and penetrating in its analysis of love relationships. Dazzling work—Eugenides continues to show that he is one of the finest of contemporary novelists.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Introduction
Does modern love have any need for romance, much less marriage? For Madeleine Hanna, an English major writing a senior thesis with the marriage plot as the centerpiece, the question looms large. In Madeleine's favorite novels, marriage is the plot. But in the story line of her own life, sexual liberation and career goals have made hopeless romantics obsolete—even while two thoroughly postmodern guys are vying for her affection. After all, it's the 1980s: she's supposed to be reaping the rewards of feminism.
As Madeleine's love triangle unfolds in the wake of college graduation, Jeffrey Eugenides brings us an exuberant portrait of contemporary relationships and the realities that sometimes drive them wildly off course. Released from the Ivy League, Madeleine and her suitors Leonard Bankhead (whom she met in a semiotics seminar) and Mitchell Grammaticus (the toga-less interloper at a freshman party in her dorm) dive into the world of adulthood. While Madeleine follows Leonard to Cape Cod, where he's accepted a biology fellowship, Mitchell travels the globe to get Madeleine out of his mind, probing the meaning of life and the existence of God throughout his sojourns.
Offering a wholly new approach to the classic love story, this is an intimate meditation on the quests—romantic and otherwise—that confound and propel us. The questions and discussion topics that follow are designed to enhance your reading of The Marriage Plot. We hope they will enrich your experience as you explore this enthralling novel of life and literature.
1. The opening scene features a litany of the books Madeleine loves. What were your first impressions of her, based on her library? How are her beliefs about love transformed throughout the novel?
2. When Phyllida fell in love with Alton, she gave up her dream of becoming an actress in Hollywood. What sustains the Hannas' marriage despite this sacrifice? How are Alwyn and Madeleine influenced by their parents' marriage? Is Alwyn's marriage to Blake a bad one?
3. In Jeffrey Eugenides's depiction of Brown University culture in the 1980s, what does it take for the students to impress one another and their professors? What might Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida have to say about the signs in Dr. Zipperstein's Semiotics 211 class?
4. Why is Madeleine more attracted to Leonard than to Mitchell? As she copes with Leonard's instability and her feelings of guilt, how does mental illness shape the relationship?
5. What does Mitchell hope to discover as a student of religion? What role does religion play in his quest to be loved? Is his ideal—a religion devoid of myth and artificial social structures—attainable?
6. What does sex mean to Madeleine, Leonard, and Mitchell? Over the course of the novel, what do they discover about fantasy versus reality and the tandem between physical and emotional satisfaction?
7. What recurring themes did you detect in Mitchell's trip overseas as he tries to manage his money, his love life, and Larry? Does he return to America a stronger, changed person or an amplified version of his college self?
8. What does Alwyn try to teach her little sister about being a woman by sending the Bachelorette's Survival Kit? What does the kit help a woman survive?
9. Madeleine's parents are affluent and have enough free time to stay very involved in her life. Does this liberate her, or does it give her less freedom than Leonard, who is often left to fend for himself?
10. In their chosen career paths after college, what are Leonard and Madeleine each trying to uncover about life? Does his work on the yeast-cell experiment have anything in common with her work on Victorian novels?
11. Would you have said yes to Leonard's marriage proposal?
12. How does the novel's 1980s setting shape the plot? Do twenty-first-century college students face more or fewer challenges than Madeleine did?
13. Discuss the novel's meta-ending (an ending about endings). Does it reflect reality? What were your expectations for the characters?
14. Eugenides's previous fiction has given us unique, tragicomic perspectives on oppressive families, gender stereotypes, and the process of trying to discover our true selves. How does The Marriage Plot enhance your reading of Eugenides's other works?
15. Who did you become during your first year after college?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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