Mrs. Kimble
Jennifer Haigh, 2003
HarperCollins
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060858780
Summary
Deftly exploring the poignant landscape of longing, Mrs. Kimble traces the lives of three women who marry the same opportunistic man, a chameleon named Ken Kimble. He seduces each of them with sensitivity and generosity, and with his obsessively perfected physique. But marriage reveals Ken's true persona—elusive, workaholic, and hungry for extramarital affairs. All three of his wives are sustained by the hope that he will once again become the hero they fell in love with. For Ken's children, the reality of their father's absence is at once devastating and indelible. And for Ken himself, the price of maintaining illusions appears to be negligible.
Spanning four decades in the life of a tantalizingly unknowable man, Mrs. Kimble vividly portrays the pain of unequal affections. In a voice that is neither maudlin nor sentimental, Jennifer Haigh has crafted a debut novel that captures journeys of the heart in a wholly original way. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 16, 1968
• Where—Barnesboro, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Dickenson College; M.F.A., Iowa Writers'
Workshop
• Awards—2002 James A. Michener Fellowship; 2003;
PEN/Hemingway Award for Outstanding First Fiction, Mrs.
Kimble; 2006 PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book
by a New England author, Baker Towers
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
The daughter of a librarian and a high school English teacher, Jennifer Haigh was raised with her older brother in the coal-mining town of Barnesboro, Pennsylvania. Although she began writing as a student at Dickinson College, her undergraduate degree was in French. After college, she moved to France on a Fulbright Scholarship, returning to the U.S. in 1991.
Haigh spent most of the decade working in publishing, first for Rodale Press in Pennsylvania, then for Self magazine in New York City. It was not until her 30th birthday that she was bitten by the writing bug. She moved to Baltimore (where it was cheaper to live), supported herself as a yoga instructor, and began to publish short stories in various literary magazines. She was accepted into the prestigious Iowa Writers' Workshop and enrolled in their two-year M.F.A. program. While she was at Iowa, she completed the manuscript for her first novel, Mrs. Kimble. She also caught the attention of a literary agent scouting the grad school for new talent and was signed to a two-book contract. Haigh was astonished at how quickly everything came together.
Mrs. Kimble became a surprise bestseller when it was published in 2003. Readers and critics alike were bowled over by this accomplished portrait of a "serial marrier" and the three wives whose lives he ruins. The Washington Post raved, "It's a clever premise, backed up by three remarkably well-limned Mrs. Kimbles, each of whom comes tantalizingly alive thanks to the author's considerable gift for conjuring up a character with the tiniest of details." The novel went on to win the PEN/Hemingway Award for Outstanding First Fiction.
Skeptics who wondered if Haigh's success had been mere beginner's luck were set straight when Baker Towers appeared in 2005. A multigenerational saga set in a Pennsylvania coal-mining community in the years following WWII, the novel netted Haigh the PEN/L.L. Winship Award for outstanding book by a New England author. (Haigh lives in Massachusetts.) The New York Times called it "captivating," and Kirkus Reviews described it as "[a]lmost mythic in its ambition, somewhere between Oates and Updike country, and thoroughly satisfying." High praise indeed for a sophomore effort.
In fact, Haigh continues to produce dazzling literary fiction in both its short and long forms, much of it centered on the interwoven lives of families. When asked why she returns so often to this theme, she answers, " In fact, every story is a family story: we all come from somewhere, and it's impossible to write well-developed characters without giving a great deal of thought to their childhood environments, their early experiences, and whose genetic material they're carrying around."
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• All my life I've fantasized about being invisible. I love the idea of watching people when they don't know they're being observed. Novelists get to do that all the time!
• When I was a child, I told my mother I wanted to grow up to be a genie, a gas station attendant, or a writer. I hope I made the right choice.
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, here is her response:
Light Years by James Salter. Probably the most honest book ever written about men and women—sad, gorgeous, unflinching.
• Favorite authors: James Salter and Vladimir Nabokov. For a writer, reading them is like taking vitamins. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Jennifer Haigh's Mrs. Kimble focuses a laser on that most irrational of decisions—whom to marry.... Though the premise seems overly schematic, the result is an affecting tale of the power of a charismatic predator and the acquiescence of his victims.... Haigh is spare and low-key, masterful at delineating the quiet but revealing moment.... Mrs. Kimble can be enjoyed as a sharply observed study of three women and the same stubborn, misplaced hopes that shape their lives.
Judith Maas - Boston Globe
The three women who successively marry Ken Kimble all believe they've found the perfect partner, and all are proven wrong in Haigh's uneven debut. Birdie is a student at a Southern Bible college in the early 1960s when she meets Kimble, then a handsome young choir director; they marry less than a year later, a day before she turns 19. After seven unfaithful years of marriage, Ken walks out on Birdie and their two young children, leaving the hard-drinking Birdie impoverished. Ken next surfaces in Florida in 1969, engaged to a formerly ambitious coed who dropped out of college to travel the country with him. He summarily dumps her to court 39-year-old Joan Cohen, a strong-willed Newsweek reporter who is recovering from breast cancer surgery. He marries her (after falsely telling her that he's Jewish) and joins her rich uncle in his real estate business. A few years and one miscarriage later, the marriage has quietly soured, and a few years after that Joan has a recurrence of cancer and dies. Ken's third wife is the much-younger Dinah, who used to be his children's baby-sitter. This marriage survives Ken's rise to prominence in Washington, D.C., as the founder of a successful charity. Haigh's women are believable, if a touch cliched, but Ken is a cipher. Haigh leaves us guessing about his motivations, and his irresistible appeal to these women-especially the tough-minded Joan-also remains murky. The novel has sharply incisive passages, but Haigh's thin characterizations don't quite live up to the promise of the clever, intricate premise.
Publishers Weekly
This gripping debut novel examines how easily shrewd lies can be mistaken for acts of love. Spanning twenty-five years, it recounts the stories of three women who marry the same elusive man in succession. Alternately wise, charming and cold blooded, Ken Kimble is as charismatic as Mephistopheles, a sweet liar who promises each woman what she wants most of all in exchange for her complete devotion. To his first wife, Birdie Bell, he offers a way out of her small Southern town. To his second wife, Joan Cohen, a lonely heiress and breast cancer survivor, he offers hope for a final chance at love. His third wife, Dinah Whitacre, is a woman half his age who is disfigured by a birthmark on her face. Before marrying her, Kimble provides an operation that restores her beauty. With each successive marriage, Kimble gains wealth and worldly experience while his wives compromise themselves and fall apart. Haigh renders Kimble's sociopathic behavior in quiet, understated prose, carefully examining the mitigating circumstances that draw each woman to him. Though Kimble's rise to power drives the plot, the sophisticated portraits of his three wives provide the substance and intrigue in this book
Book Magazine
(Starred review.) A beautiful novel with memorable, vibrant characters that will have wide appeal. —Kristine Huntley
Booklist
Haigh's perhaps too-carefully orchestrated debut tells the elusive story of one man from the perspectives of the three women he woos, marries, and disappoints. In 1969, Ken Kimble, chaplain at a Virginia college, deserts his wife Birdie and their two small children. Birdie, a southern magnolia without the steel who'd dropped out of Bible college to marry Ken seven years earlier, is unable to cope and slips into alcoholism. Meanwhile, after a stint of hippie-style wandering, Ken ends up in Florida, where he takes up with Joan. Having recently undergone a mastectomy, the 39-year-old career-driven Jewish journalist from New York feels newly vulnerable and lonely. She never questions the vague nature of Ken's past or his claim to have a Jewish mother. After their marriage, Ken enters the real-estate business under the patronage of Joan's uncle, while Joan tries to have a baby despite her doctor's warning that pregnancy could spur a recurrence of cancer. She suffers a miscarriage, then blames herself for a disastrous visit from Ken's children during which workaholic Ken shows minimal interest in them. Soon Ken finds himself a widower. In 1979, now a real-estate tycoon in Washington, D.C., Ken rediscovers Dinah, his children's babysitter back in his Virginia days. An aspiring chef, Dinah, whose sense of self has been marred by facial disfigurement since birth, remembers a moment of genuine kindness she received from Ken during her painful adolescence. After he pays for an operation to remove her birthmark, the much younger Dinah becomes his suddenly beautiful third wife. Fifteen years later, they have a troubled adolescent son and a loveless marriage. But Dinah is stronger than Ken's previous two wives. She not only survives and prospers after his final disappearing act, but provides solace for all three of his troubled children. The measured prose and care for detail show a promising talent, but the overscripted characters' lives feel more literary than lived.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Introduction
Jennifer Haigh’s Mrs. Kimble is a book about illusions, about the secrets we keep from one another, and the consequences of that secrecy. Through portraits of three women, each married in turn to the same mysterious man, the author explores what happens when a seemingly ordinary person maintains a double life—and the sometimes explosive results when secrets come out. While Haigh’s tale has elements in common with a conventional mystery or thriller, her interest is in the emotional world of those who discover—sometimes too late—that a loved one is not at all what he seems.
Mrs. Kimble is first and foremost about the consequences of deception in marriage, the seductive powers of Ken Kimble’s ever-shifting persona, and the consequences for each wife, as she begins to see beneath the appealing surface he crafts for her. Each story provides opportunity to discuss this portrait of the secretive personality, why it is that Kimble can so easily—and believably—transform himself to meet different women’s ideals.
Haigh’s novel also raises larger questions about how much self-deception can play a part in the making of a relationship. In each of the marriages portrayed in Mrs. Kimble, the wife subtly participates in the maintenance of silence about the husband’s past—and sometimes about much of his present life. Without blaming them for his actions, the author offers us something more complex than mere villainy on the part of a selfish man.
In their pursuit of what is perhaps a false notion of love, these three women choose to look past danger signs, not merely about Ken Kimble but also about themselves. Haigh invites us to talk about how it is that our fears and shame are exacerbated by silence, and how our illusions about ourselves can stand between us and the reality of life, and of love. —Bill Tipper
1. Consider the similarities and differences among Birdie, Joan, and Dinah. Is there a common thread that attracts Ken to each of them?
2. Joan and Dinah have physical traits that cause them to feel self-conscious and prone to rejection. Do you consider Birdie's vulnerabilities to be equally physical in nature, or are they purely emotional?
3. What motivates Ken? In your opinion, what enables him to so suddenly shift from being charming to vapid? To what do you attribute his compulsive dishonesty?
4. The novel's title reflects the tradition of taking a husband's surname after marriage. All of Ken's wives change their last names and become Mrs. Kimble. What does this indicate about the tradition, gender, power, and identity in Ken's marriages?
5. Birdie appears in all three parts of the novel. What were your initial impressions of her? Did your opinion of her shift as her life story unfolded?
6. American society experienced significant changes between the 1960s and the 1990s. Did this appear to affect Ken's various marriages, or was his behavior consistent across the mores of all decades?
7. How might Birdie's life have been different had her father not interfered with her attraction to Curtis Mabry? What is the effect of the Mabry family's presence in the novel?
8. Though the novel's characters are for the most part indifferent to spirituality, religion provides a frequent backdrop in Mrs. Kimble. What is the significance of Ken's Bible school past? How did you react when he convinced Joan of his Jewish heritage?
9. Do you believe that Ken's abandonment of Birdie was the sole cause of her emotional breakdown? How might her life have played out if he hadn't left her?
10. How does Ken's departure affect his children's attitude toward love? Do their relationships reflect or defy their parents' example?
11. Jennifer Haigh builds the storyline of Mrs. Kimble around brief scenes rather than lengthy, uninterrupted chapters. What is the effect of this technique?
12. Ken is not the only predatory man in the novel; Birdie is exploited by the mechanic she meets as a waitress, for example. Do the novel's characterizations of men and women match your own experience with the opposite sex?
13. With which of Ken's wives were you most able to relate? How would you have responded in each of their situations?
14. Though Ken is the most obviously secretive character in the novel, all of his wives possess a certain degree of secrecy and denial. Do you believe that it's possible to lead a completely honest life—including self honesty?
15. Ken is an enigma, yet his character is drawn in rich detail. Discuss the significance of his vanity, his attraction to younger women, and his apparent inability to love or show genuine affection. What is the relevance of his conservative childhood, particularly the death of his brother?
16. Food is mentioned throughout the novel, including Charlie's perpetual hunger as a child; Birdie's botched attempts to buy groceries; Ken's aversion to seafood, which causes Joan to tailor her menus; and Dinah's Thanksgiving reunion and culinary expertise. Discuss some of your most meaningful memories regarding food.
17. What makes Ken's cause of death particularly ironic and fitting?
18. While there are clearly three Mrs. Kimbles, are there also three Mr. Kimbles? Does each wife represent a separate identity for Ken?
19. What variations on love (parental, romantic, erotic) are presented in Mrs. Kimble? Which characters appear to experience the most authentic forms of love?
20. The novel closes with Ken's children brought together by Dinah. Charlie embraces his role as Brendan's big brother and father figure. What do you predict for the family after Ken's death?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
Say You're One of Them
Uwem Akpan, 2008
Little, Brown & Company
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316086370
Summary
Uwem Akpan's first published short story, "An Ex-mas Feast," appeared in The New Yorker's Debut Fiction issue in 2005. The story's portrait of a family living together in a makeshift shanty in urban Kenya, and their attempts to find gifts of any kind for the impending Christmas holiday, gives a matter-of-fact reality to the most extreme circumstances—and signaled the arrival of a breathtakingly talented writer.
"My Parents' Bedroom" is a Rwandan girl's account of her family's struggles to maintain a facade of normalcy amid unspeakable acts. In "Fattening for Gabon," a brother and sister cope with their uncle's attempt to sell them into slavery. "Luxurious Hearses" creates a microcosm of Africa within a busload of refugees and introduces us to a Muslim boy who summons his faith to bear a treacherous ride through Nigeria. "What Language Is That?" reveals the emotional toll of the Christian-Muslim conflict in Ethiopia through the eyes of childhood friends. Every story is a testament to the wisdom and resilience of children, even in the face of the most agonizing situations our planet can offer. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1970-71
• Where—Ikot Akpan Eda, Nigeria
• Education—Creighton and Gonzaga Universities; Catholic
University of Eastern Africa; M.F.A., University of Michigan
• Currently—lives in Harare, Zimbabwe
Uwem Akpan was born in southern Nigeria. He was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006. In 2007, he began a teaching assignment at a seminary in Harare, Zimbabwe. (From the publisher.)
More
In his own worrds:
I was born under a palm-wine tree in Ikot Akpan Eda in Ikot Ekpene Diocese in Nigeria. I studied philosophy and English at Creighton and Gonzaga universities and theology at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa. I have taught English and Literature in English in Nigerian high schools.
Also, I have lived and worked with lepers, played the banjo, and served as a DJ of classical music. I have worked with street kids in Tanzania and volunteered in Chicago's Cabrini Green.
I was inspired to write by the people who sit around my village church to share palm wine after Sunday Mass, by the Bible, and by the humour and endurance of the poor. My grandfather was one of those who brought the Catholic Church to our village. I was ordained as a Jesuit priest in 2003 and I like to celebrate the sacraments for my fellow villagers. Some of them have no problem stopping me in the road and asking for confession! I received my MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan in 2006.
I have very fond memories of my childhood in my village, where everybody knows everybody, and all my paternal uncles still live together in one big compound. Growing up, my mother told me folktales and got me and my three brothers to read a lot.
I became a fiction writer during my seminary days. I wrote at night, when the community computers were free. Computer viruses ate much of my work.
Finally, my friend Wes Harris believed in me enough to get me a laptop. This saved me from the despair of losing my stories and made me begin to see God again in the seminary. The stories I saved on that first laptop are the core of Say You're One of Them.
I always look forward to visiting my village. No matter how high the bird flies, its legs still face the earth. When I get back to Ikot Akpan Eda, my people will celebrate this book in our own way—with lots of tall tales, spontaneous prayers, and palm wine! (From the book's website.)
Book Reviews
A startling debut collection…[Akpan] fuses a knowledge of African poverty and strife with a conspicuously literary approach to storytelling, filtering tales of horror through the wide eyes of the young. In each of the tales in Say You're One of Them a protagonist's childlike innocence is ultimately savaged by the facts of African life.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
It is not merely the subject that makes Akpan's...writing so astonishing, translucent, and horrifying all at once; it is his talent with metaphor and imagery, his immersion into character and place....Uwem Akpan has given these children their voices, and for the compassion and art in his stories I am grateful and changed.
Susan Straight - Washington Post Book World
Nigerian-born Jesuit priest Akpan transports the reader into gritty scenes of chaos and fear in his rich debut collection of five long stories set in war-torn Africa. "An Ex-mas Feast" tells the heartbreaking story of eight-year-old Jigana, a Kenyan boy whose 12-year-old sister, Maisha, works as a prostitute to support her family. Jigana's mother quells the children's hunger by having them sniff glue while they wait for Maisha to earn enough to bring home a holiday meal. In "Luxurious Hearses," Jubril, a teenage Muslim, flees the violence in northern Nigeria. Attacked by his own Muslim neighbors, his only way out is on a bus transporting Christians to the south. In "Fattening for Gabon," 10-year-old Kotchikpa and his younger sister are sent by their sick parents to live with their uncle, Fofo Kpee, who in turn explains to the children that they are going to live with their prosperous "godparents," who, as Kotchikpa pieces together, are actually human traffickers. Akpan's prose is beautiful and his stories are insightful and revealing, made even more harrowing because all the horror—and there is much—is seen through the eyes of children.
Publishers Weekly
With the intensity of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Say You're One of Them tells of the horrors faced by young people throughout Africa. Akpan uses five short stories (though at well over 100 pages, both "Luxurious Hearses" and "Fattening for Gabon" are nearly stand-alone novels in their own right) to bring to light topics ranging from selling children in Gabon to the Muslim vs. Christian battles in Ethiopia. The characters face choices that most American high school students will never have to-whether or not to prostitute oneself to provide money for one's homeless family, whether to save oneself, even if it means sacrificing a beloved sibling in the process. The selections are peppered with a mix of English, French, and a variety of African tongues, and some teens may find themselves reading at a slower pace than usual, but the impact of the stories is well worth the effort. The collection offers a multitude of learning opportunities and would be well suited for "Authors not born in the United States" reading and writing assignments. Teens looking for a more upbeat, but still powerful, story may prefer Bryce Courtenay's The Power of One (1989). —Sarah Krygier, Solano County Library, Fairfield, CA
School Library Journal
Redemption is in short supply in these five stories by a Nigerian priest about children caught in the crossfire of various African countries' upheavals. The opener of this debut collection, "An Ex-mas Feast," is one of the more upbeat entries-which isn't saying much, since its eight-year-old narrator describes sniffing shoe glue to ward off hunger in a Nairobi shanty town while his 12-year-old sister proudly moves from street prostitution to a brothel. In "Fattening for Gabon," a morbid variation on Hansel and Gretel, an uncle literally fattens up his nephew and niece to sell them into slavery. Although he genuinely loves them, his repentance comes too late and with not-unexpected tragic results. The least arresting story is the slight and familiar "What Language Is That?" Their families profess liberal, inclusive attitudes, but a Christian child and her Muslim best friend are prohibited from communicating when rioting breaks out in Addis Ababa, although the girls do find, perhaps briefly, "a new language." That miniscule glimmer of hope for humanity disappears in "Luxurious Hearses," an emotionally exhausting encapsulation of the devastation caused by religion. Baptized as an infant by his Catholic father, raised in a strict Muslim community by his mother, adolescent Jubril is targeted by extremists who happen to be his former playmates. Fleeing religious riots in northern Nigeria on a luxury bus full of Christians, he keeps his right wrist in his pocket; if they see that his hand has been amputated (for stealing, under Sharia law), they will know he is Muslim. Jubril comes close to finding acceptance among his fellow passengers, which only makes their ultimate violence against him that much more disturbing. The final story, "My Parents' Bedroom," goes beyond disturbing toward unbearable as the children of a Tutsi mother and Hutu father in Rwanda witness the unspeakable acts their decent parents are forced to commit. Haunting prose. Unrelenting horror. An almost unreadable must-read.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Each of the stories in Say You’re One of Them is told from the perspective of a child. Do you think this affected your reaction? If the narrators had been adults, might you have felt differently about the stories? Why do you think Akpan chose to depict these events through children’s eyes? How do Akpan’s young characters maintain innocence in the face of corruption and pain?
2. In “An Ex-mas Feast,” Maisha leaves her family to become a full- time prostitute. Do you think she chose to depart, or did her family’s poverty force her to flee? Is it possible to have complete freedom of will in such a situation? Is it reasonable to judge a person for her actions if her choice is not entirely her own?
3. In “Fattening for Gabon” the children’s uncle and caretaker,Fofo Kpee, sells them into slavery. How does Fofo’s poverty and vanity contribute to his unthinkable actions? Do his pangs of conscience redeem him for you? Why or why not?
4. In “What Language is That?” Hadiya and Selam are kept apart by their parents after the escalation of religious conflict. Have you ever experienced a situation in which friends and family have objected to someone in your life for reasons you didn’t understand? What did you do? How did you feel?
5. The bus in “Luxurious Hearses” is a microcosm not only of African hierarchies and religions but also of the continent’s numerous languages and dialects. Discuss how speech is related to class, culture, religion, and heritage. How does dialogue function in the other stories? Do we hold similar attitudes about language in our own culture? What are some examples?
6. This book takes its title from instructions given to a Rwandan girl by her mother in “My Parents’ Bedroom.” Did the familiar domestic detail in this story — Maman’s perfume, little Jean’s flannel pajamas, toys like Mickey Mouse in the children’s room — intensify for you the horror of what ensued? Is there comparable detail in any of the other stories that helped you to identify with Uwem Akpan’s characters?
7. Although the stories in Say You’re One of Them are fictitious, the situations they depict have a basis in reality. How do the emotions you feel when reading these stories compare to your emotions when reading accounts in the news media of similar atrocities? Has reading Say You’re One of Them changed the way you think about these issues?
8. Uwem Akpan addressed his other vocation in an interview, saying, “A key Vatican II document makes it very clear that the joys and anguish of the world are the joys and anguish of the Church.” While reading these stories, were you ever reminded that this writer is also a Jesuit priest? Does Akpan’s subject matter seem to you to be imbued with religious values? In what ways? Do the drama and power of Akpan’s fiction call forth any biblical stories for you? If so, which ones?
9. Some of the children in Say You’re One of Them are not poor. What are the particular obstacles these children face that are not issues in your own country? Are there challenges other than poverty with which you can identify? Do the family dynamics feel familiar to you?
10. The poet and memoirist Mary Karr wrote that Uwem Akpan “has invented a new language — both for horror and for the relentless persistence of light in war-torn countries.” Did you find any beauty or goodness in these tragic tales? If so, offer some examples.
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Widows of Eastwick
John Updike, 2008
Knopf Doubleday
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307269607
Summary
More than three decades have passed since the events described in John Updike’s The Witches of Eastwick. The three divorcées—Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie—have left town, remarried, and become widows.
They cope with their grief and solitude as widows do: they travel the world, to such foreign lands as Canada, Egypt, and China, and renew old acquaintance. Why not, Sukie and Jane ask Alexandra, go back to Eastwick for the summer? The old Rhode Island seaside town, where they indulged in wicked mischief under the influence of the diabolical Darryl Van Horne, is still magical for them.
Now Darryl is gone, and their lovers of the time have aged or died, but enchantment remains in the familiar streets and scenery of the village, where they enjoyed their lusty primes as free and empowered women. And, among the local citizenry, there are still those who remember them, and wish them ill.
How they cope with the lingering traces of their evil deeds, the shocks of a mysterious counterspell, and the advancing inroads of old age, form the burden of Updike’s delightful, ominous sequel. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 18, 1932
• Where—Reading, Pennsylvania, USA
• Death—January 27, 2009
• Where—Danvers, Massachusetts
• Education—A.B., Harvard University; also studied at the
Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art in Oxford, England
• Awards—National Book Award for The Centaur, 1964;
Pulitzer Prizer, National Book Critics Circle Award, and
National Book Award for Rabbit Is Rich, 1982; Pulitzer Prize
and National Book Critics Circle Award for Rabbit at Rest,
1990
With an uncommonly varied oeuvre that includes poetry, criticism, essays, short stories, and novels, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner John Updike has helped to change the face of late-20th-century American literature.
Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Updike graduated summa cum laude from Harvard in 1954. Following a year of study in England, he joined the staff of The New Yorker, establishing a relationship with the magazine that continues to this day. Since 1957, he has lived in two small towns in Massachusetts that have inspired the settings for several of his stories.
In 1958, Updike's first collection of poetry was published. A year later, he made his fiction debut with The Poorhouse Fair. But it was his second novel, 1960's Rabbit, Run, that forged his reputation and introduced one of the most memorable characters in American fiction. Former small-town basketball star Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom struck a responsive chord with readers and critics alike and catapulted Updike into the literary stratosphere.
Updike would revisit Angstrom in 1971, 1981, and 1990, chronicling his hapless protagonist's jittery journey into undistinguished middle age in three melancholy bestsellers: Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich, and Rabbit at Rest. A concluding novella, "Rabbit Remembered," appears in the 2001 story collection Licks of Love.
Although autobiographical elements appear in the Rabbit books, Updike's true literary alter ego is not Harry Angstrom but Harry Bech, a famously unproductive Jewish-American writer who stars in his own story cycle. In between—indeed, far beyond—his successful series, Updike has gone on to produce an astonishingly diverse string of novels. In addition, his criticism and short fiction remain popular staples of distinguished literary publications.
Extras
• Updike first became entranced by reading when he was a young boy growing up on an isolated farm in Pennsylvania. Afflicted with psoriasis and a stammer, he escaped from his into mystery novels.
• He decided to attend Harvard University because he was a big fan of the school's humor magazine, The Harvard Lampoon.
• Updike has basically won every major literary prize in America, including the Guggenheim Fellow, the Rosenthal Award, the National Book Award in Fiction, the O. Henry Prize, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Union League Club Abraham Lincoln Award, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and the National Medal of the Arts. (Author bio from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
More emotionally credible work than its predecessor. Mr. Updike is less interested here in scoring didactic points against feminism than he is in exploring the wages of time and age shared by men and women alike, and there is an elegiac tone to the novel not dissimilar to that in the last Rabbit novel, Rabbit at Rest (1990). The mood here reflects his characters' realization that the past now weighs more than the future in the scale of their lives, and that the noisy imperatives of sex, which once got them in to so much trouble, have given way to whispered worries about bodily ailments and medical woes.... His leading ladies are more compelling not as supernatural sorceresses but as ordinary women, haunted by the sins of their youth, frightened of the looming prospect of the grave and trying their best to get by, day by day by day.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Updike's predictably ingenious sequel, set 30-plus years later. The mood and tone are very different—relaxed and contemplative…The genius inheres in the precise observation, in the equally precise language, but above all in the illusion that the image has been received and processed in real time, when in truth Updike has slowed events to a dreamlike pace and given them a dream's hyperreality, so that the distinction between the actual and the imagined feels erased.
Sam Tanenhaus - New York Times Book Review
Motivated by advancing age, loneliness, latent guilt and a sense of unfinished business, the erstwhile Witches of Eastwick return to their former Rhode Island coastal town in this tepid sequel to the 1984 novel. Alexandra, the fleshy Earth Mother; Jane, the wasp-tongued snob; and Sukie, a would-be a sexpot operating beyond her expiration date, have each survived the second marriages that took place following their flight from Eastwick in the early '70s, after a rival, Jenny Gabriel, died as a result of their spell. Where before they were strong, sassy, lusty and empowered, now in late middle-age they are vulnerable, fearful and in thrall to their aging bodies. Witchcraft is now beyond them; when they try to resurrect their supernatural powers to atone for their guilt, an inadvertent death ensues. While Updike remains amazingly capable of capturing women's thoughts about their bodies and their sex lives, the plot never gains momentum; the first hundred pages, in fact, are tedious travelogues covering the widows' travels to Egypt and China. Updike's observations about culture and social disharmony flash with their customary brilliance—a less than sparkling Updike novel is still an Updike novel.
Publishers Weekly
Twenty-four years after they flew into our lives, those audacious and lovable Witches of Eastwick are back. Now widowed and living in various parts of the country, Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie get together for a return trip to the Rhode Island village that they haunted so many years ago and that was the scene of one of their most murderous acts. Once they arrive, they find the welcome mat rolled up and the village's citizens angry, bewildered, anxious, and vengeful. As they meet up with old lovers, children, and friends, the three soon find themselves tangled in a mysterious and magical web of fateful events that ruins their trip and alters their lives forever. Like most of his recent novels—with the exception of Terrorist—this latest is an unsatisfying rumination on the loss of sexual vitality and death. As elegant a writer as he is, Updike has not quite been able to create fully drawn women characters who have vital lives and personalities of their own. Still, fans of The Witches of Eastwick who have always wondered what happened to the trio will want to read this novel, and most libraries will want to own any Updike novel.
Library Journal
Once again summoning characters from his previous books, Updike catches up with the fetching trio of amateur sorceresses introduced in The Witches of Eastwick (1984). Though they share the state of widowhood, geographical distance and the whims of fortune have long since separated the women. There's Junoesque Alexandra ("Lexa," the eldest, having reached 70-something), surviving in Taos, N.M., on her late husband's modest estate; tightly wound Jane, who married money and now has oodles of it; and resourceful Sukie, who has channeled her pert sexuality into a string of bestselling romance novels. Deflecting mortality's momentum by compulsive traveling (Canada, China, Egypt—each "done" memorably, thanks to Updike's unerring grasp of revelatory indigenous detail), the reunited trio undertake a summer in Rhode Island, where their "coven" was formed, and dangerous mischief was performed. Old acquaintances, victims and enemies greet and threaten them, and Lexa's nagging fears of bodily breakdown and looming death create an inhibiting atmosphere of entrapment. Their former collaborator in sexual malfeasance, Darryl Van Horne (memorably enacted on film by a leering Jack Nicholson), has left potent traces of his influence. This is a most curious novel. Updike haters will quickly point out its lax pacing, encyclopedic sufficiency of laboriously assimilated information and tedious fixation on lubricious sexual detail. Admirers will note its seamless blending of dexterously plotted narrative with penetrating characterizations that evoke with nearly Tolstoyan poignancy the weary, resigned clairvoyance of old age (e.g., Lexa's intuition that "the cells of my body are getting impatient with me. They're bored with housing my spirit"). A work of old age that takes its time, gently drawing us into its knowing orbit. We inhabit this story as we do the later stages of our own lives. Some will not like the book, but it is a vital part of the Updike experience.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
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The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party (No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series #12)
Alexander McCall Smith, 2011
Knopf Doubleday
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307378392
Summary
At a remote cattle post south of Gaborone two cows have been killed, and Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s No. 1 Lady Detective, is asked to investigate by a rather frightened and furtive gentleman. It is an intriguing problem with plenty of suspects—including, surprisingly, her own client.
To complicate matters, Mma Ramotswe is haunted by a vision of her dear old white van, and Grace Makutsi witnesses it as well. Is it the ghost of her old friend, or has it risen from the junkyard? In the meantime, one of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni’s apprentices may have gotten a girl pregnant and, under pressure to marry her, has run away. Naturally, it is up to Precious to help sort things out.
Add to the mix Violet Sephotho’s newly launched run for the Botswana Parliament and a pair of perfect wedding shoes—will wedding bells finally ring for Phuti Radiphuti and Grace Makutsi?—and we have a charming and delightful tale in the inimitable style of Alexander McCall Smith. (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
Mma Ramotswe’s observations not only inevitably expose her suspects, but also reveal much about humanity as a whole.... [McCall Smith] is a master.... There’s beauty and revelation of one kind or another woven expertly into every line.
Christian Science Monitor
Charming and hilarious.... In its own way, McCall Smith’s world is as stylized and hermetic as those created by P.G. Wodehouse or Damon Runyon—a sweet and timeless bubble with its own morality, language and customs. Entering it can be a source of great comfort in these uncertain times.
Seattle Times
The best, most charming, honest, hilarious and life-affirming books to appear in years.
Cleveland Plain Dealer
(Starred review.) [McCall Smith] again makes the sublime look easy…. [He] has few peers in capturing the quiet moments of people’s lives, and his empathetic lead has one of the biggest hearts in modern literature. Even newcomers will quickly be drawn into Mma Ramotswe’s unconventional approach to investigations and rapidly feel that they are with old friends.
Publishers Weekly
Precious Ramotswe dreams that she is driving her dear, departed white van—and then she learns that the van is out there, just waiting for her to find it. Meanwhile, an apprentice has gotten a girl pregnant, cattle are being poisoned, and Violet Sephotho is running for Parliament. A no-brainer for mystery fans.
Library Journal
You’ll never get through the wedding with dry eyes.
Kirkus Reviews<
Discussion Questions
1. The New York Times Book Review has noted, "As always in Alexander McCall Smith s gentle celebrations of life in this arid patch of southern Africa, the best moments are the smallest." Discuss how this is true. Does your reading of these novels inspire you to appreciate the small, precious moments and things in your own life?
2. Why is Precious Ramotswe so attached to her little white van, even after it is long gone? What is it about certain physical objects for us? Do you have one particular object, large or small, that you are especially attached to? Why? Is it the object itself that you cling to or is it to the memories that you have associated with it?
3. Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is always referred to as "that fine man" or "that excellent man," proprietor of Tloweng Road Speedy Motors. What makes him fine and excellent? And why is his job always attached to his name, even by his wife?
4. How much importance do you put on efficiency? Why does Mma Ramotswe think that, if efficiency were the only value in this life, then we would be content to eat bland, but nutritious food everyday. (p. 5) What other values are equally, if not more important in this life in work and in play?
5. It is very clear, over the course of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, that Charlie (Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni s apprentice) did not follow the old Botswana ways. (p. 19) What does this mean? What are the old Botswana ways ? Who does follow them?
6. In The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, Mma Ramotswe says, Each of us had something that made it easier to continue in a world that sometimes, just sometimes, was not as we might wish it to be. (p. 54) What is that you need to get your mind off anxieties or problems in your own life a drive in the country...a quiet cup of tea ? Why do we all need these small pleasures to release us from looming problems and issues?
7. Mma Ramotswe remembers witnessing with her father a group of birds being attacked by a snake, and he encouraged her not to do anything. Why? What lesson was he teaching young Precious?
8. Mma Ramotswe periodically quotes from Clovis Anderson's The Principles of Private Detection. One she particular believes in and repeats is "the more you listen, the more you learn" (p. 110). What is it about this book and the pithy sayings it offers that appeals to Mma Ramotswe in moments of indecision? Do you have a book you turn to when you need reassurance or pleasure?
9. There is much talk of beef stews and pumpkins and cake in these novels, and in one instance in The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party, Mma Ramotswe thinks about dinner and says, Life was very full. Describe some of the dishes you remember in the novel.
10. Do you think Mma Ramotswe makes the right decision to turn to Mpho s mother when the little boy shares the secret of the crime he committed? What would you have done in this predicament?
11. Discussions about the differences between men and women come up quite a bit in the novels, and in this novel in particular. What are some of the stereotypes that various characters discuss? Do you agree with them?
12. Mma Ramotswe appreciates the people in her life: her husband, her assistant detective/friend, her father. That we have the people we have in this life, rather than others, is miraculous, she thought, a miraculous gift. Discuss the people in your life that you are most thankful for and why.
13. Discuss how Grace Makutsi and Mma Ramotswe react differently to Charlie and his problem. Why is Grace more judgmental that her boss? Why do you think Mma Ramotswe is more successful in dealing with Charlie?
14. Mma Ramotswe tells Charlie she likes him, and she reflects that all humans need to hear that others like them, need to have the pleasure of knowing and hearing that others care about them. Why is she so kind to Charlie after all he has done?
15. The Christian Science Monitor has written that in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels," Kindness is paramount." Do you agree with this? And what do you think Alexander McCall Smith is trying to promote by writing these kind novels?
16. Discuss the titles of each of the chapters and the title of the book. What do these offer to the experience of reading the novel? Do you think Alexander McCall Smith has fun coming up with these titles?
17. Mma Ramotswe walks around her garden every morning and evening, noticing the flowers, trees, and birds. She also revels in the beauty of the Botswana countryside. Discuss the importance of nature in this novel.
18. Alexander McCall Smith is clearly a master wordsmith. Why do you think he chooses to use relatively simple language and plot lines in his novels? How does the language and rhythm correspond to the message of the novels? Connect this to one of the final sentences of the novel, simple questions and simple answers were what we needed in life. What is Alexander McCall Smith saying about life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Dovekeepers
Alice Hoffman, 2011
Scribner
512 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501103711
Summary
The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of imagination and research, set in ancient Israel.
In 70 C.E., nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path.
Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the horrifically brutal murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and an expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power.
The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love. Taking more than five years to be written, The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s masterpiece. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 16, 1952
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Adelphi Univ.; M.A., Stanford Univ.
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
Born in the 1950s to college-educated parents who divorced when she was young, Alice Hoffman was raised by her single, working mother in a blue-collar Long Island neighborhood. Although she felt like an outsider growing up, she discovered that these feelings of not quite belonging positioned her uniquely to observe people from a distance. Later, she would hone this viewpoint in stories that captured the full intensity of the human experience.
After high school, Hoffman went to work for the Doubleday factory in Garden City. But the eight-hour, supervised workday was not for her, and she quit before lunch on her first day! She enrolled in night school at Adelphi University, graduating in 1971 with a degree in English. She went on to attend Stanford University's Creative Writing Center on a Mirrellees Fellowship. Her mentor at Stanford, the great teacher and novelist Albert Guerard, helped to get her first story published in the literary magazine Fiction. The story attracted the attention of legendary editor Ted Solotaroff, who asked if she had written any longer fiction. She hadn't — but immediately set to work. In 1977, when Hoffman was 25, her first novel, Property Of, was published to great fanfare.
Since that remarkable debut, Hoffman has carved herself a unique niche in American fiction. A favorite with teens as well as adults, she renders life's deepest mysteries immediately understandable in stories suffused with magic realism and a dreamy, fairy-tale sensibility. (In a 1994 article for the New York Times, interviewer Ruth Reichl described the magic in Hoffman's books as a casual, regular occurrence — "...so offhand that even the most skeptical reader can accept it.") Her characters' lives are transformed by uncontrollable forces — love and loss, sorrow and bliss, danger and death.
Hoffman's 1997 novel Here on Earth was selected as an Oprah Book Club pick, but even without Winfrey's powerful endorsement, her books have become huge bestsellers — including three that have been adapted for the movies: Practical Magic (1995), The River King (2000), and her YA fable Aquamarine (2001).
Hoffman is a breast cancer survivor; and like many people who consider themselves blessed with luck, she believes strongly in giving back. For this reason, she donated her advance from her 1999 short story collection Local Girls to help create the Hoffman Breast Center at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA
Extras
From a 2003 Barnes & Noble interview:
• Hoffman has written a number of children's books, including Fireflies: A Winter's Tale (1999), Horsefly (2000), and Moondog (2004).
• Aquamarine was written for Hoffman's best friend, Jo Ann, who dreamed of the freedom of mermaids as she battled brain cancer.
• Here on Earth is a modern version of Hoffman's favorite novel, Wuthering Heights.
• Hoffman has been honored with the Massachusetts Book Award for her teen novel Incantation.
• When asked what books most influenced her life or career, here's what she said:
Edward Eager's brilliant series of suburban magic: Half Magic, Magic by the Lake, Magic or Not, Knight's Castle, The Time Garden, Seven-Day Magic, The Well Wishers. Anything by Ray Bradbury, Shirley Jackson, J. D. Salinger, Grace Paley. My favorite book: Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
Nothing [Hoffman's] written would prepare you for the gravitas of her new book, an immersive historical novel about Masada during the Roman siege in the 1st century. The Dovekeepers is an enormously ambitious, multi-part story, richly decorated with the details of life 2,000 years ago.... Hoffman doesn't ignore the larger-than-life leaders and their deadly clash, but her creative path into Masada is from the ground up: not through its generals and warriors, but through its mothers, daughters and wives. The result is a high-minded feminist story of unassailable seriousness.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Almost too dense to bear, Hoffman's 23rd novel is brimming with doom, based on the story of the mass suicide of Jewish Zealots at Masada as recorded by the historian Josephus.... Hoffman can tell a tale and knows about creating compassionate characters, but the leaden archaic prose style she uses tells more than it shows. Massive descriptive paragraphs slow the action, until, by the end, the reader is simply worn out.
Publishers Weekly
Only two women and five children of more than 900 people survived the Roman siege of Masada in the year 73 C.E. after the suicide pact of the Jewish rebels there, according to the historian Josephus. In this well-researched novel, Hoffman vividly brings this tragedy to life.... [A] owerful and gripping novel about survival and endurance. —Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA
Library Journal
Hoffman births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.... The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel is split into four principal parts, with each of the main characters—Yael, Revka, Aziza, and Shirah—narrating one section. Which of these women did you find most appealing, and why? Were you surprised to find you had compassion for characters who were morally complex and often made choices that later caused guilt and sorrow?
2. Yael describes her relationship with Ben Simon as "a destroying sort of love" (p. 46). What does she mean by that? Are there other relationships in the novel that could be described in the same way?
3. From Yael's setting free the Romans' lion, to Shirah's childhood vision of a fish in the Nile, to the women's care of the doves, animals are an important component in the book. What did animals mean to the people of this ancient Jewish society, and what specific symbolic forms do they take in the novel?
4. The figure of Wynn, "The Man from the North," who comes to serve the women in the dovecote, is based upon archeological finds at Masada. In what ways does Wynn come to bring the women together? Compare Yael's relationship with Ben Simon to her relationship with Wynn.
5. How do spells function in the novel? What is the relationship between Shirah's Jewish beliefs and her use of magic? If you have read other Alice Hoffman novels that include mystical elements—such as Practical Magic or Fortune's Daughter—how do they compare to The Dovekeepers and its use of magic?
6. How do Shirah's daughters react to the intimate friendship that develops between Yael and their mother? Is Shirah a good mother or not?
7. What do you make of Channa's attempt, essentially, to kidnap Yael's baby Arieh? Is Channa different from the other major female characters in the book? Do you find your opinion of her changes?
8. "You don't fight for peace, sister," Nahara tells Aziza. "You embrace it." (p. 343) What do you think of Nahara's decision to join the Essenes? Is she naÏve or a true believer? Do you see similarities between the Essenes and the early Christian movement?
9. Why is the Roman Legion preparing to attack the Jews at Masada? From historical references in the book, as well as your own knowledge of history, explain the roots of the conflict. Do you feel the lives of the women in The Dovekeepers echo the lives of women in the modern world who are experiencing war and political unrest?
10. Revka's son-in-law, the warrior known as The Man from the Valley, asks Aziza, "Did you not think this is what the world was like?" (p. 378). Describe the circumstances of this question. After all her training for battle, why is Aziza unprepared for the experience of attacking a village filled with women and children?
11. In the final pages of the book, Yael sums up those who perished at Masada, remembering them as "men who refused to surrender and women who were ruled by devotion" (p. 478). Do you agree with her description?
12. For the women at Masada, dreams contain important messages, ghosts meddle in the lives of the living, and spells can remedy a number of human ills. How does their culture's acceptance of the mystical compare to our culture's view on such things today? Do mystical and religious elements overlap? How do they compare to your own views?
13. In the letter below, Hoffman explains that the historical foundation of her story comes from Josephus, the first-century historian who has written the only account of the massacre. How does knowing that the novel is based on history and archeological findings affect your reading of the book?
14. Women's knowledge in The Dovekeepers is handed down from mother to daughter, sister to sister, friend to friend. Why do you think it is so difficult to know what the lives of ancient women were really like? Do you see any connection with the way in which your own family stories are handed down through the generations?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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