So Cold the River
Michael Koryta, 2010
Little, Brown & Company
508 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316053648
Summary
It started with a documentary. The beautiful Alyssa Bradford approaches Eric Shaw to unearth the life story of her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, a 95-year-old billionaire whose childhood is wrapped in mystery. Eric grabs the job, even though the only clues to Bradford's past are his hometown and an antique water bottle he's kept his entire life.
In Bradford's hometown, Eric discovers an extraordinary past—a glorious domed hotel where movie stars, presidents, athletes, and mobsters once intermingled. Long derelict, the hotel has just been restored to its former grandeur.
But something else has been restored too—a long-forgotten evil that will stop at nothing to settle a decades-old score. And with every move, Eric inches closer to the center of the building storm. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 1, 1982
• Where—Bloomington, Indiana, USA
• Education—B.A., Indiana University
• Awards—Best First Private Eye Novel from Private
Eye Writers of America/St. Martin's Press
• Currently—lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and
Bloomington, Indiana
Michael Koryta (kor REE ta) is an American author of contemporary crime and mystery fiction. He is known for novels such as Tonight I Said Goodbye, Sorrow's Anthem, A Welcome Grave and The Silent Hour (The Lincoln Perry Series).
Koryta has received many awards, including the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and his book Envy the Night has also been chosen for the 2009 Reader's Digest Select Editions. A former private investigator and newspaper reporter, Koryta graduated from Indiana University with a degree in criminal justice
Michael Koryta began writing at a very early age: At the age of 8, he began corresponding with his favorite writers. At 16, he decided he wanted to be a crime novelist—and later in high school started interning with a private investigator. When his crime novel Tonight I Said Goodbye won the St. Martin's Press/Private Eye Writers of America Best First Novel prize, he had yet to reach legal drinking age.
He currently lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Bloomington, Indiana. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
As plot hooks for suspense tales go, haunted water is certainly unexpected. Mr. Koryta decided to use it for a very specific reason. His inspiration for So Cold the River comes from its spectacular setting: the grand old West Baden Springs Hotel in rural Indiana. As a Hoosier with a keen sense of the hotel's history, Mr. Koryta has worked backward to concoct an eerie narrative and used the place for the basis of his own personal version of The Shining.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
A super-natural mystery that intensifies the suspense by thickening the atmosphere. So Cold the River…is a superior specimen, with its eerie tale of a lovely valley in Indiana where at one time an elixir known as Pluto Water bubbled up from the underground springs...Koryta sets a beautiful scene.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review
So Cold the River takes a while to build up momentum, but the material is so fresh and the characters so appealing that my interest never flagged. After reading it, I'm sticking to good old D.C. tap water.
Dennis Drabelle - Washington Post
In this explosive thriller from Koryta (Envy the Night), failed filmmaker Eric Shaw is eking out a living making family home videos when a client offers him big bucks to travel to the resort town of West Baden, Ind., the childhood home of her father-in-law, Campbell Bradford, to shoot a video history of his life. Almost immediately, things go weird. Eric uncovers evidence of another Campbell Bradford, a petty tyrant who lived a generation before the other and terrorized the locals. The older Campbell begins appearing in horrific visions to Eric after he sips the peculiar mineral water that made West Baden famous. Koryta spins a spellbinding tale of an unholy lust for power that reaches from beyond the grave and suspends disbelief through the believable interactions of fully developed characters. A cataclysmic finale will put readers in mind of some of the best recent works of supernatural horror, among which this book ranks.
Publishers Weekly
Edgar Award nominee Koryta breaks from his Lincoln Perry PI series with this work of dark, supernatural horror that demonstrates the quality writing style and well-developed characters for which he is known. Down-and-out filmmaker Eric Shaw agrees to produce a biopic of an elderly billionaire from West Baden Springs, IN. While there, a bottle of "Pluto" water enhances Shaw's psychic abilities as he becomes increasingly caught up in the mystery surrounding his subject's family, in West Baden history, and in the water's source and powers. Actor/Audie Award nominee Robert Petkoff (robertpetkoff.com) renders Eric's visions and descendant Josiah Campbell's ruthless pursuit of fortune with veridical insight. Highly recommended for all audiences. —Sandy Glover, Camas P.L., WA
Library Journal
A gothic horror story set in-wait for it-rural Indiana. Filmmaker Eric Shaw, reduced to preparing video montages for memorial services since the failure of his Los Angeles career caused him to retreat to Chicago and leave his marriage to Claire, is approached by wealthy Alyssa Bradford, who offers him $15,000 to re-create the life of her father-in-law, Campbell, 95 and near death in a nursing home. The only clue to his past is a green glass bottle, still stoppered, that he's kept in his safe-a bottle of something called Pluto Water from some hidden spring between the twin towns of French Lick and West Baden, Ind. Quicker than Stephen King conjures goosebumps, Shaw finds himself hearing train whistles, having visions of an old gent in a bowler hat and suffering world-class headaches. Kellen Cage, a black student working on a doctoral thesis concerning French Lick and West Baden, offers some help. Meanwhile, the last Bradford, ne'er-do-well Josiah, hopes that the video may bring him money. The weather turns ominous. Shaw's headaches worsen. His scary visions continue. Would a sip of that reputed elixir, Pluto Water, help? As the visions intensify, Josiah turns more menacing, killing with no provocation a private eye sent from Chicago to stop Shaw. Old Anne, a weather spotter, senses that the wind is up. Shaw becomes obsessed with finding out more about Pluto Water. But four tornados will hit the county within an hour, the Lost River will rise and a major conflagration will almost annihilate Claire before the Campbell past is bottled up tight once more. A departure from Kortya's Lincoln Perry p.i. series (The Silent Hour, 2009) that's every bit as well-written.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. So Cold the River begins with the line “You looked for the artifacts of their ambition.” What are some examples of such artifacts in the book? Discuss what they reveal about the characters. Do you think that ambition manifests itself differently than other drives? How and why?
2. The first time that Eric Shaw sees the dome of the West Baden Hotel, he is filled with wonder. Have you ever had a similar reaction to a building or place? What was it about the sight that most strongly affected you?
3. On page 134, Anne McKinney thinks to herself, “Rare was the storyteller who got trapped by reality.” Do you think that writers have a responsibility to faithfully represent events as they actually happened? Why or why not? Do you hold writers of fiction to a different standard than you do writers of nonfiction?
4. Discuss Josiah Bradford. Do you think he is in control of his fate, or is he stuck on a predetermined path? Why or why not? Have there been times in your own life when you have felt like you have no control? When?
5. How does ego drive each of the characters? What are the differences between Eric’s, Campbell’s, and Josiah’s vanity?
6. Eric begins to have trouble distinguishing his visions from reality. Have you ever had a dream that was so vivid, you were certain that it was real? Why do you think it affected you so strongly?
7. How do you feel about Eric’s relationship with Claire? Why do you believe their marriage fell apart? What do you think will happen in the future?
8. As one of the oldest people in the two towns, Anne McKinney is a repository of historical information. As a self-taught meteorologist, she also looks toward the future. Can you reconcile these two different outlooks? How does history inform her predictions? What is her role in the story?
9. What do you think about Josiah and Danny’s relationship? Why do you think they are friends? Have you ever had an unequal friendship? Did you do anything to balance it?
10. Discuss the confrontation of perception and objective reality in the novel. When does the line between the two become unclear? Which do you think is more reliable: what one personally experiences or what is recorded or observed by the world?
11. What are the differences in the ways that Josiah and Eric experience their visions? Why do you think these visions occur?
12. Do you think that So Cold the River has a message about revenge or ambition? If so, what do you think it is? If not, why?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Fathermucker
Greg Olear, 2011
HarperCollins
320pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062059710
Summary
A day in the life of a dad on the brink: Josh Lansky—second-rate screenwriter, fledgling freelancer, and stay-at-home dad of two preschoolers—has held everything together while his wife is away on business . . . until this morning’s playdate, when he finds out through the mommy grapevine that she might be having an affair.
What Josh needs is a break. He’s not going to get one. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 13, 1972
• Where—Madison, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Georgetown University
• Currently—lives in New Paltz, New York
Greg Olear is an American writer best known for his novels Fathermucker and Totally Killer. His work is noted for its dark humor and frequent references to pop culture.
He is the senior editor of, and frequent contributor to, Brad Listi's online literary magazine The Nervous Breakdown. His work has also appeared at Babble.com, The Rumpus, The Millions, Chronogram, and Hudson Valley Magazine.
The French-language edition of Totally Killer was published in 2011 and has received favorable notices in L'Express and Rolling Stone.
Born in Madison, New Jersey, he attended Georgetown University, where he studied with theatre professor Donn B. Murphy. He teaches creative writing at Manhattanville College, along with Jonathan Tropper. A longtime resident of New York City, he now lives in New Paltz, New York with his family. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Slipstreaming behind Tom Perotta's Little Children, Olear's familiar take on suburbia is energetically narrated by freelance writer Josh Lansky, a New Paltz, N.Y., Mr. Mom. With his wife, Stacy, a former actress, away on business, Josh must care for their preschoolers, Maude and Roland. But when a female friend suggests that Stacy is having an affair, Josh's orderly world spins off its axis. A single Friday, morning to midnight (with a touch of Saturday thrown in) unfolds in a stream of activities and recollections, sometimes in screenplay form: Roland's Asperger diagnosis; Stacy having sex with another woman before they were married; Josh trying to arrange an interview with an alt-rock sensation; Josh battling recurring imagined scenes of his wife's possible infidelity. Rather than confronting her, Josh confronts the loose-lipped friend, precipitating his own slip and a series of melodramatic questions. Will Josh do the right thing? Will he confront Stacy about the accusation? Will Maude and Roland go to bed without a fuss? Olear's follow-up to Totally Killer is packed with contemporary references (Facebook; Bob the Builder), suburban discontents, and marital dissonances, but also rife with cliche and finished with a pat resolution..
Publishers Weekly
Fathermucker is witty, realistic, and charming, replete with a father’s genuine love for his family. An entertaining choice for book clubs members of both genders, particularly those with young children.
Library Journal
This brilliantly insightful novel explores the trials of modern fatherhood through one hectic day.... Littered with hilariously genuine anecdotes, parental pathos, and a hearty dose of pop culture, this clever, comic, and compassionate novel will appeal to fans of Jim Lindberg and Jonathan Evison.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
1. The book is set in New Paltz, a town in upstate New York. What do you make of New Paltz? Why do you think the author chose to set the book there?
2. Josh frequently applies war metaphors to parenting; he compares raising young children to being in the Flanders trenches, co-sleeping to the war in Iraq, and the distinction of before having kids and after having kids to pre- and post-9/11. He also is fond of equating himself with President Obama. What does this say about Josh? About parenting? Are the metaphors apt?
3. Discuss your feelings about Josh and Stacy’s relationship in the early pages of the book. Does Josh’s initial reaction to Stacy’s supposed infidelity set the reader up to immediately dislike his wife? How does the author weave empathy for Stacy’s situation as the breadwinner versus Josh’s role as a SAHD? How do your feelings about their relationship change by the end of the book?
4. The author manages to convey a wistfulness for the time before Josh became a father by using popular music and contemporary celebrity almost as secondary characters. In many ways, Josh’s fantasy life is richer than the tediousness of his reality. Is Josh really unhappy? Or is it natural to have a certain longing for the past?
5. The author seems to set up a deliberate comparison between Josh and Stacy Lansky and the celebrity couple of Josh Duhamel and Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson. Why does he do this? What is represented by the significance of Us Weekly in Josh’s life?
6. Josh creates playlists for each of his children, managing their moods (and often his own) with music, especially within the confines of the family minivan. The music Josh chooses sets the mood, sort of his own version of behavior modification. How do you think this choice reflects Josh’s parenting style?
7. Masculinity is one of the book’s major themes. Josh spends a lot of time thinking about the shift in traditional gender roles vis-a-vis parenting, and reflecting on how his status as financial dependent impacts his manhood. Do you think he’s successful? What do you make of the sea change in gender roles?
8. We discover through the course of Josh’s day that Roland’s behavioral issues are more than what they seem. In the pivotal scene that takes place during the trip to the pumpkin patch, Josh’s anger and frustration with Roland’s diagnosis become too much to bear. Josh’s reaction to the scene unfolding expresses the universal helplessness experienced by any parent on a daily basis, but in this case, it is magnified by a child who has real needs. Discuss the author’s treatment of Asperger’s.
9. Fathermucker is totally Josh Lansky’s story, yet the cast of characters is expansive; there are even two characters whom we never get to meet. How does this work to flesh out the day in the life? How does this infuse the narrative?
10. One of the pivotal events of Josh’s day occurs when he gets pulled over. What does the police officer represent to Josh? Why do you think the author included this scene?
11. The title is realized at the very end of the novel; it is the last word in the book. What does the title mean?
12. Josh is unprepared for the turn of events when Sharon comes calling. Did Josh cheat on Stacy? What constitutes cheating and what doesn’t? Were you disappointed in Josh?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Montana 1948
Larry Watson, 1993
Milkweed Editions
186 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781571310613
Summary
From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images more vivid and lasting than any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all attempts the years make to erase or fade them...
So begins David Hayden's story of what happened in Montana in 1948.
The events of that small-town summer forever alter David Hayden's view of his family: his self-effacing father, a sheriff who never wears his badge; his clear sighted mother; his uncle, a charming war hero and respected doctor; and the Hayden's lively, statuesque Sioux housekeeper, Marie Little Soldier, whose revelations are at the heart of the story. It is a tale of love and courage, of power abused, and of the terrible choice between family loyalty and justice. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1947
• Raised—Bismark, North Dakota, USA
• Education—B.A., M.F.A., Unversity of North Dakota; Ph.D., University of Utah
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Milwaukee, Wisoconsin
Larry Watson was born in 1947 in Rugby, North Dakota. He grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and married his high school sweetheart. He received his BA and MFA from the University of North Dakota, his Ph.D. from the creative writing program at the University of Utah, and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Ripon College. Watson has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987, 2004) and the Wisconsin Arts Board.
Watson is the author of several novels and a chapbook of poetry. His fiction has been published in more than ten foreign editions, and has received numerous prizes and awards. Montana 1948, published in 1993, was nominated for the first IMPAC Dublin International Literary Prize. The movie rights to Montana 1948 and Justice have been sold to Echo Lake Productions and White Crosses has been optioned for film. His most recent novel, As Good as Gone was released in 2016.
He has published short stories and poems in Gettysburg Review, New England Review, North American Review, Mississippi Review, and other journals and quarterlies. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and other periodicals. His work has also been anthologized in Essays for Contemporary Culture, Imagining Home, Off the Beaten Path, Baseball and the Game of Life, The Most Wonderful Books, These United States, and Writing America.
Watson taught writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for 25 years before joining the faculty at Marquette University in 2003.
Awards
Milkweed National Fiction Prize,
Mountains and Plains Bookseller Award,
Friends of American Writers Award,
Banta Award,
Critics Choice Award,
ALA/YALSA Best Books for Young Adults Winner
(Author bio from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
This story is as fresh and clear as the trout stream fished by its narrator, David Hayden, growing up near the Montana-Canada border.... As universal in its themes as it is original in its particularities, Montana 1948 is a significant and elegant addition to the fiction of the American West, and to contemporary American fiction in general.
Howard Frank Mosher - Washington Post Book World
One of the top 100 novels of the West.
San Francisco Chronicle
Watson' prose is as clean, vivid and uncluttered as the Montana sky. Much like Larry McMurtry and Norman Maclean, Watson takes aim at the great myths of the American West in this page turner.
Book Magazine
Meditative, rich, and written close to the bone, Montana 1948 is a beautiful novel about the meaning of place and evolution of courage. It is a wonderful book.
Louise Erdrich
(Starred review.) Watson indelibly portrays the moral dilemma of a family torn between justics and loyalty; by implication, he also illuminates some dark corners of our national history.
Publishers Weekly
A quiet, almost meditative reflection on the hopelessly complex issue of doing the right thing.
Booklist
A literary page-turner, morally complex and satisfying.
Kirkus Review
Discussion Questions
1. Bentrock is a fictitious prairie town in Montana that recurs as a setting in Larry Watson’s novels. How would you characterize Bentrock? In what ways is the setting, both time and place, reflected in the characters?
2. What is the role and importance of loyalty in the Hayden family and how does it influence Wesley’s reaction to the accusations brought against his brother? How would you characterize the relationships between the Hayden men, Grandpa Hayden, Frank, Wesley and David?
3. How would you characterize Wesley’s opinions about the Indian characters in the novel, such as Ollie Young Bear and Marie Little Soldier? Do you think his prejudices complicate his role as sheriff?
4. David idolizes many of the adult characters in the novel—for what qualities does he admire Marie, Gloria, Uncle Frank and his parents? How do these affections contradict one another as the story unfolds? How do David’s opinions of these characters evolve as the novel progresses?
5. Did you form any predictions as to why Marie was reluctant to see Dr. Frank Hayden, and if so, how accurate were they? At what point in the story did you begin to suspect Frank’s character?
6. David’s mother, Gail readily accepts Marie’s allegations against Frank, while Wesley is reluctant to investigate. What factors do you think make Wesley hesitant to investigate Marie’s accusations and what factors prompt Gail to believe her?
7. Toward the end of the novel, David observes a reversal of his parents’ roles: “My mother now represented practicality and expediency; my father stood for moral absolutism” (144). What, in your opinion, causes this reversal? Do you agree with the assessment that releasing Frank is the practical and expedient option? Do you
agree with the alternate implication, that prosecuting him is morally absolute?
8. At the novel’s conclusion, it is decided to keep the scandal a secret from the larger Bentrock community. What do you think motivates this decision? If the accusations against Uncle Frank were publicized, who would it have affected and how?
9. In the epilogue David states that he “could never believe in the rule of law again” (164). Why do you think he is disillusioned with the justice system? To what extent do you think his father’s, uncle’s and grandfather’s actions in 1948 shaped this opinion?
10. Montana 1948 has been featured as required reading for high school students while simultaneously appearing on a few banned books lists. In what ways and to what degree is Watson’s novel controversial? In
what ways is it educational?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Secret River (Thornhill Trilogy 1)
Kate Grenville, 2006
Canongate U.S.
334 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802197795
Summary
Winner, 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize
The Orange Prize–winning author Kate Grenville recalls her family’s history in an astounding novel about the pioneers of New South Wales. Already a best seller in Australia, The Secret River is the story of Grenville’s ancestors, who wrested a new life from the alien terrain of Australia and its native people. William Thornhill, a Thames bargeman, is deported to the New South Wales colony in what would become Australia in 1806.
In this new world of convicts and charlatans, Thornhill tries to pull his family into a position of power and comfort. When he rounds a bend in the Hawkesbury River and sees a gentle slope of land, he becomes determined to make the place his own. But, as uninhabited as the island appears, Australia is full of native people, and they do not take kindly to Thornhill’s theft of their home.
The Secret River is the tale of Thornhill’s deep love for his small corner of the new world, and his slow realization that if he wants to settle there, he must ally himself with the most despicable of the white settlers, and to keep his family safe, he must permit terrifying cruelty to come to innocent people. (From the publisher.)
The other two books in the Thornhill Trilogy are (2) The Lieutenant ... and (3) Sarah Thornhill
Author Bio
• Birth—October 14, 1950
• Where—Sydney, Australia
• Education—B.A. University of Sydney; M.A. University of
Colorado
• Awards—Vogel Award (Australia); Orange Prize;
Commonwealth Writers Prize, Short-listed, Booker Prize
• Currently—lives in Sydney, Australia
Kate Grenville was born in Sydney, Australia. After completing an Arts degree at Sydney University she worked in the film industry (mainly as an editor) before living in the UK and Europe for several years and starting to write.
In 1980 she went to the USA and completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Colorado, where her teachers included Ron Sukenick, Robert Steiner and Steve Katz.
On her return to Australia in 1983 she worked at the Subtitling Unit for SBS Television. In 1984 her first book, a collection of stories—Bearded Ladies—was published.
Since then she's published six novels and four books about the writing process (one co-written with Sue Woolfe).
The Secret River (2005) has won many prizes, including the Commonwealth Prize for Literature and the Christina Stead Prize, and has been an international best-seller. (It also formed the basis for a Doctorate of Creative Arts from University of Technology, Sydney) The Idea of Perfection (2000) won the Orange Prize.
Her other works of fiction have been published to acclaim in Australia and overseas and have won state and national awards. Much-loved novels such as Lilian's Story (1985), Dark Places (1995), and Joan Makes History (1988) have become classics, admired by critics and general readers alike.
Lilian's Story was filmed starring Ruth Cracknell, Toni Collette and Barry Otto. Dream House was filmed under the title Traps, starring Jacqueline MacKenzie.
Kate Grenville's novels have been widely published in translation, and her books about the writing process are used in many writing courses in schools and universities.
She lives in Sydney with her family. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Magnificent.... an unflinching exploration of modern Australia’s origins.... Grenville’s psychological acuity, and the sheer gorgeousness of her descriptions of the territory being fought over, pulls us ever deeper into a time when one community’s opportunity spelled another’s doom.
The New Yorker
The most remarkable quality of Kate Grenville's new novel is the way it conveys the enormous tragedy of Australia's founding through the moral compromises of a single ordinary man. The Secret River reminds us that national history may be recorded as a succession of larger-than-life leaders and battles, but in fact a country arises from the accretion of personal dreams, private sacrifices and, often, hidden acts of cruelty.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
The stage is set for a confrontation that seems inevitable but never predestined. Grenville is too sly a writer for that. Imperceptibly heightening the suspense, she draws you into Thornhill's London past, then into his struggle to carve a homestead out of an astonishing land that warps reality, tilting perception toward hallucination.... Grenville's admirably plain novel is equally subtle in its portrait of what a man is and what—to his own horror—he can become.
Anna Mundow - Boston Globe
An Australian novelist of impeccable talents conjures this New South Wales as few writers could.... With sentences so astonishingly muscular and right that readers will dream the landscape at night, will flick an imaginary mosquito from their ears.... Unforgettable.... Grenville delivers Thornhill’s emotional journey as meticulously as she charts the sights and sounds of this bewildering New South Wales.... Perfectly rendered. The Secret River is a masterwork, a book that transcends historical fiction and becomes something deeply contemporary and pressing.... Nothing save for genius can explain the quality of this book, the extraordinary—one might even say alchemical—transformation of historical details into story, language into poetry. Against every measure with which a book might be judged, this one transcends. This one deserves every prize it has already received, and every prize yet to come.
Beth Kephart - Chicago Tribune
Orange Prize-winning Grenville's Australian bestseller is an eye-opening tale of the settlement of New South Wales by a population of exiled British criminals. Research into her own ancestry informs Grenville's work, the chronicle of fictional husband, father and petty thief William Thornhill and his path from poverty to prison, then freedom. Crime is a way of life for Thornhill growing up in the slums of London at the turn of the 19th century—until he's caught stealing lumber. Luckily for him, a life sentence in the penal colony of New South Wales saves him from the gallows. With his wife, Sal, and a growing flock of children, Thornhill journeys to the colony and a convict's life of servitude. Gradually working his way through the system, Thornhill becomes a free man with his own claim to the savage land. But as he transforms himself into a trader on the river, Thornhill realizes that the British are not the first to make New South Wales their home. A delicate coexistence with the native population dissolves into violence, and here Grenville earns her praise, presenting the settler-aboriginal conflict with equanimity and understanding. Grenville's story illuminates a lesser-known part of history—at least to American readers-with sharp prose and a vivid frontier family.
Publishers Weekly
In this follow-up to her Orange Prize-winning The Idea of Perfection, Australian writer Grenville turns to her own family history for inspiration. To depict the settling of her native land, Grenville focuses on William Thornhill, an illiterate bargeman driven to steal to survive hard times in London. When his death sentence is commuted to extradition to New South Wales (which would later become Australia), Thornhill and his growing family again find themselves struggling to make ends meet. When Thornhill tries to pull himself up in the world by laying claim to a plot of land along the Hawkesbury River, he finds himself at war with the native people. The narrative offers a fascinating look at the uneasy coexistence between the settlers and the aborigines, as well as at the internal pressures of a marriage where husband and wife nurture contradictory dreams. Thornhill and his wife, Sal, are interesting and complex characters, and the story builds in intensity toward an inevitable climax. Recommended. —Evelyn Beck, Piedmont Technical Coll., Greenwood, SC
Library Journal
(For Adult/High School) William Thornhill, a boatman in pre-Victorian London, escapes the harsh circumstances of his lower-class, hard-scrabble life and ends up a prosperous, albeit somehow unsatisfied, settler in Australia. After being caught stealing, he is sentenced to death; the sentence is commuted to transportation to Australia with his pregnant wife. Readers are filled with a sense of foreboding that turns out to be well founded. Life is difficult, but through hard work and initiative the Thornhills slowly get ahead. During his sentence, William has made his living hauling goods on the Hawkesbury River and thirsting after a piece of virgin soil that he regularly passes. Once he gains his freedom, his family moves onto the land, raises another rude hut, and plants corn. The small band of Aborigines camping nearby seems mildly threatening: William cannot communicate with them; they lead leisurely hunter/gatherer lives that contrast with his farming labor; and they appear and disappear eerily. They are also masterful spearmen, and Thornhill cannot even shoot a gun accurately. Other settlers on the river want to eliminate the Aborigines. The culture clash becomes violent, with the protagonist unwillingly drawn in. The characters are sympathetically and colorfully depicted, and the experiencing of circumstances beyond any single person's control is beautifully shown. —Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA
School Library Journal
A riveting narrative unfolds into a chilling allegory of the mechanics and the psychology of colonialism in the veteran Australian author's rich historical novel. In a follow-up to her Orange Prize-winning The Idea of Perfection (2002), Grenville reaches back to Australia's origins, in an expansive tale similar in plot and theme to Patrick White's 1976 masterpiece, A Fringe of Leaves. It's the story of William Thornhill, a London bargeman who turns to petty crime after an impoverished childhood and when marriage and paternity severely test his survival skills. Sentenced to death for theft (he stole a load of wood), he receives a commutation of his sentence thanks to the emotional importunings of his devoted wife Sal, and when he is "transported" to New South Wales as a convict laborer, William's family dutifully accompanies him. Australia beckons as a land of opportunity, though the hamlet of Sydney is at this time (1806) little more than a cluster of crude huts. William adapts to this strange new environment, following the examples of other convicts and fortune-hunters, and stakes out a parcel of land (shaped, with fine symbolic irony, like a man's thumb), grandly naming it Thornhill's Point. Then things begin unraveling. Native aborigines who already inhabit the land, and to whom the concept of ownership is utterly alien, are initially passive, then resentful, eventually confrontational. Misunderstandings crop up and multiply, and subsequent actions lead to a horrific massacre—in which William grimly, reluctantly participates. His "triumph" is plaintively contrasted to the stoical endurance of the aborigine Jack, the lone survivor of the massacre, who possesses a primal connection to the land and its spirit that William's act of "ownership" can never displace. No fingers are pointed: We understand only too well what brought these people together and then thrust them apart, and the story's resolution achieves genuine tragic grandeur. Grenville's best, and a giant leap forward.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. “Strangers”, we are introduced to William Thornhill, who has been transported to New South Wales as a criminal. “There was no need of lock, of door, of wall: this was a prison whose bars were ten thousand miles of water” (p. 3). Considering William’s confrontation on the first night, is the sentence ironic? In these few pages how is the alien landscape and his visceral reaction to it established? Why do you think that Grenville chose to begin the book with this out-of-sequence chapter?
2. Part 1 of the novel puts us back at Thornhill’s desperately impoverished childhood in a large family in London at the early part of the nineteenth-century. “He grew up a fighter. By the time he was ten years old the other boys knew to leave him alone. The rage warmed him and filled him up. It was a kind of friend” (p. 15). Discuss the effects of poverty on Thornhill and how it shapes the rest of his life.
3. In the London portion of The Secret River, readers may notice similarities with Charles Dickens’s depiction of the poverty and moral tone in nineteenth-century London. The Dickens version has become an archetype. Grenville is very effective at evoking the period, as well. How does her portrayal differ from the familiar Dickensian one? What devices does she use to articulate the era?
4. William meets Sal Middleton, through his sister Lizzie, “She was no beauty, but had a smile that lit up everything around her. The only shadow in her life was the graveyard where her brothers and sisters were buried” (p. 17). Talk about the early relationship between William and Sal. What is the attraction of each to the other? How do the differences in their early lives affect their relationship throughout the years of their marriage?
5. William spends seven years as an apprentice waterman to Sal’s father. “Folk always needed to get from one side of the river to the other, and coal and wheat always had to be got to the docks from the ships that brought them. As long as he kept his health he would never outright starve. He swore to himself that he would be the best apprentice, the strongest, quickest, cleverest. That when freed in seven years he would be the most diligent waterman on the whole of the Thames”(p. 25). What important lessons in addition to his trade do William learn from this experience? What do we learn about William’s fundamental character? At this point, what kind of a man would you say that he is?
6. After William marries Sal and they have their first child, their luck starts to change, and in spite of William’s good intentions they are driven to thievery. When inevitably William is caught, convicted, and sentenced to death, how do the differences in their characters (refer back to Question 4) affect the outcome? What kind of a woman is Sal?
7. Grenville’s descriptions of Sydney are very vivid and quickly establish a stark contrast with the urban landscape of London. “It was a raw scraped little place. There were a few rutted streets, either side of the stream threading its way down to the beach, but beyond them the buildings were connected by rough tracks like animals’ runs, as kinked among the rocks and trees as the trees themselves” (p. 79). How do the Thornhills react and adjust to their new surroundings and circumstances?
8. After Thornhill and Blackwood encounter Smasher Sullivan for the first time, Blackwood advises William, “Ain’t nothing in this world just for the taking.... A man got to pay a fair price for taking.... Matter of give a little, take a little” (p. 104). What does Blackwood already know and what is he trying to express to his friend?
9. When Thornhill goes up the river with Thomas Blackwood in The Queen a whole new world opens up to him. His hunger to own land is immediate and almost atavistic. Sal on the other hand is appalled at the thought of settling the land and becoming farmers. “Perhaps it was because she had not felt the rope around her neck. That changed a man forever” (p. 111). Do you agree with William’s reasoning?
10. Right from the beginning when the Thornhills stake out “their” land there is always a vague feeling of intrinsic threat. “My own, he kept saying to himself. My place. Thornhill’s place. But the wind in the leaves up on the ridge was saying something else entirely” (p. 139). Nothing in William’s experience has prepared him for the mysteries of this new land and its people. What does the land mean to him? What are his biggest delusions? Did you find him aggressive, ignorant, innocent, naïve, full of rationales? Explain.
11. What is the biggest difference in Aboriginal culture and the white settlers’ culture? How does this impact everything that happens from the time that the Thornhills move from Sydney?
12. “For himself, he could take or leave a lot of them, but he made them welcome for Sal’s sake” (p. 162). Discuss your impressions of each of the Thornhill’s neighbors—Saggity, Mrs. Herring, the Webbs, Loveday, and of course Smasher and Blackwood. Smasher and Blackwood are at two extremes in their attitudes and behavior. Where would you place the others in relation to these two? How would you rank Thornhill? How do the white settlers interact? Are they helpful or harmful to one another?
13. In Kate Grenville’s depiction of Sal and of Mrs. Herring, what do you infer about the women who helped to settle New South Wales? What was Sal’s role, and how did it influence her behavior toward her husband and children? What always seems to keep her somewhat removed from William? Do you think that it took a certain kind of woman to endure the hardships of resettlement, or did all women of the lower classes have to endure difficult lives? What is the impression of women settler’s place in the history of Australia that you draw from this novel?
14. Thornhill goes to Sydney to acquire two convict servants, Dan and Ned, from amongst the newly transported English prisoners. Although they come from very similar circumstances, what makes Thornhill stand apart? How is it possible for him to slip into the role of master with such ease? Had the years in New South Wales changed his basic nature?
15. When young Dick is learning to make fire from one of the natives, we see that his perceptions differ greatly from his fathers. “Going on five, that child born at sea between one world and another was a solemn creature with a dreamy face in which Thornhill could not see any echo of his own. He could sit for hours crooning to himself and fiddling about with a few stones” (p. 119). In the end, Dick goes to live with Blackwood. What does this connote?
16. When things start to go very badly for the settlers, the government, in the persons of Captain McCallum and his soldiers, are sent to resolve the situation. There are many other historical occasions where this tragic scenario played itself out. Why is their plan doomed to failure?
17. Once the Thornhill’s corn crop is ruined, Sal’s forbearance is pushed past its limit. After she delivers her ultimatum, what changes forever between husband and wife? How does this change affect the outcome? Do you think it was inevitable?
18. Discuss the final battle scene as seen through the eyes of William Thornhill. “He closed his eyes. Like the old man on his knees he felt he might become something other than a human, something that did not do things in this sticky clearing that could never be undone” (p. 308). In today’s terms we would characterize Thornhill as conflicted. What are the elements at work in his psyche?
19. At the end it appears that William and Sal have realized all that they set out to do. They are successful, rich, and leading a life they could never have dreamed of back in London. However, their beautiful, grand new house isn’t quite right and Sal’s garden will not grow. Why, in spite of hard work and sacrifice don’t they have everything they wanted?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Woman in White
Wilkie Collins, 1860
~700 pp. (Varies by publisher.)
Summary
Generally considered the first English sensation novel, The Woman in White features the remarkable heroine Marian Halcombe and her sleuthing partner, drawing master Walter Hartright, pitted against the diabolical team of Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde.
A gripping tale of murder, intrigue, madness, and mistaken identity, Collins's psychological thriller has never been out of print in the more than 140 years since its publication. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 8, 1824
• Where—London, England, UK
• Death—September 23, 1889
• Where—London, England
• Education—studied law at Lincoln's Inn, London
Wilkie Collins has long been overshadowed by his friend and collaborator Charles Dickens—unfortunately for readers who have consequently not discovered one of literature's most compelling writers.
His novels are ceremonious and none too brief; they are also irresistible. Take the opening lines of his 1852 story of marital deceit, Basil:
What am I now about to write? The history of little more than the events of one year, out of the twenty-four years of my life. Why do I undertake such an employment as this? Perhaps, because I think that my narrative may do good; because I hope that, one day, it may be put to some warning use.
It's a typical Collins opening, one that draws the reader in with a tone that's personal, but carries formality and import.
With his long, frizzy black beard and wide, sloping forehead, Collins looked like a grandfatherly type, even in his 30s. But his thinking and lifestyle were unconventional, even a bit ahead of his time. His characters (particularly the women) have a Henry James–like predilection for bucking social mores, and he occasionally found his work under attack by morality-mongers. Collins was well aware of his books' potential to offend certain Victorian sensibilities, and there is evidence in some of his writings that he was prepared for it, if not welcoming of it. He writes in the preface to Armadale, his 1866 novel about a father's deathbed murder confession...
Estimated by the clap-trap morality of the present day, this may be a very daring book. Judged by the Christian morality which is of all time, it is only a book that is daring enough to speak the truth.
Career
Collins began his career by writing his painter father's biography. He gained popularity when he began publishing stories and serialized novels in Dickens's publications, Household Words and All the Year Round. His best-known works are The Woman in White and The Moonstone, both of which—along with Basil—have been made into films.
Collins often alludes to fantastic, supernatural happenings in his stories; the events themselves are usually borne out by reasonable explanations. What remains are the electrifying effects one human being can have upon another, for better and for worse. His main characters are often described in terms such as "remarkable," "extraordinary," and "singular," lending their actions—and thereby the story—a special urgency. In one of his great successes, 1860's The Woman in White, Collins spins what is basically a magnificent con story into something almost ghostly: The fates of two look-alike women—a beautiful, well-off woman and a poor insane-asylum escapee—are intertwined and manipulated by two evil men. One of those is among the best fictional villains ever created, the kill-'em-with-kindness Count Fosco. Fosco is emblematic of another Collins hallmark—antagonists who manage to throw their victims off guard by some powerful charm of personality or appearance.
The Moonstone, published in 1868, is regarded by many to be the first English detective novel. Starring the unassuming Sergeant Cuff, it follows the trail of a sought-after yellow diamond from India that has fallen into the wrong hands. Like The Woman in White, the novel is told in multiple first person narratives that display Collins's gift for distinctive and often humorous voices. Whether it is servants, foreigners, or the wealthy, Collins is an equal-opportunity satirist who quietly but deftly pokes fun at human foibles even as he draws nuanced, memorable characters.
Though The Woman in White and The Moonstone are Collins's standouts, he had a productive, consistent career; the novels Armadale, No Name, and Poor Miss Finch are worthwhile reads, and his short stories will particularly appeal to Edgar Allan Poe fans. Fortunately in the case of this underappreciated writer, there are plenty of titles to appreciate. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
(Classic books have few, if any, mainstream reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
It all makes for delicious reading—stolen inheritance, adultery, insanity, drugs, and a mysterious unidentified figure. Poor half-sister Marian—she of the light moustache, not lovely enough to land a husband—becomes the story's most appealing character, if not in appearance surely in spirit and intelligence! Collins must have rattled some Victorian cages when he created such an independent, resourceful female figure.
A LitLovers LitPick (Nov. '09)
Discussion Questions
(Below you'll find two sets of questions: one from Penguin and the other from Random House.)
1. Laura is presented as an ideal of Victorian womanhood, obedient, respectful of social conventions, and willing to sacrifice her own wishes for others. How does her double, Anne Catherick, illuminate the dark side of that ideal?
2. "You will make aristocratic connections that will be of the greatest use to you in life," Collins's father told him when he started school. But Collins lived a life on the periphery of respectable English society that his father would not have condoned. In the novel, how is pedigree intertwined with deception and immorality? Where do the lines blur between servants and the served? How are the underprivileged used as a screen for viewing the upper-crust characters?
3. Why is Marian so mesmerized by Fosco, who she says "has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him"? Why is Fosco able to see Marian, despite her physical unattractiveness, as a "magnificent creature"?
4. When Hartright returns from Honduras to restore Laura's true identity, he brings tactics he had first used "against suspected treachery in the wilds of Central America" to "the heart of civilised London." Why is he forced to work outside the laws and conventions of society to achieve his aim? Why did he have to leave England and return in order to make this change?
5. One critic has suggested that Marian and Fosco might be considered the true protagonists of The Woman in White. (In many ways they are much closer to Collins's own bohemian sensibilities than Hartright and Laura.) In what sense might this be true? How would you interpret the story's conclusion— especially Marian and Fosco's fate—in this light?
6. The use of multiple narrators was one of Collins's favorite storytelling techniques. What qualities does each narrator bring to the story? How does each change our view of the characters? Could the story have been told from a single viewpoint, and if so, whose?
(Questions issued by Penguin—cover image, top-right.)
________________
1. Wilkie Collins has been hailed as the creator of the “sensation novel”. Citing examples from The Woman in White, how would you define this Victorian literary genre?
2. In his preface to the 1860 edition of The Woman in White, Collins wrote, “An experiment is attempted in this novel, which has not (so far as I know) been hitherto tried in fiction. The story…is told throughout by the characters of the book.” Was the experiment a success? What is gained and what is lost in telling the story exclusively through first person narratives?
3. In her Introduction to this Modern Library edition, Anne Perry asks, “What is there in The Woman in White that transcends the change in culture from 1860 to the present, and beyond?” How would you answer this question?
4. Collins has been widely praised for his fully drawn portraits. Which characters stand out as the most vivid, and why?
5. Throughout the novel, how does Collins use premonitions, coincidences and dreams to foreshadow key events?
6. “Walter Hartright is very much a man of his time, ” declares Anne Perry. “His view of women is almost unbelievably naïve compared with today’s.” Drawing on Hartright’s descriptions of Marian Halcombe and her sister Laura, as well as Anne Catherick and her mother, do you agree with Perry’s comment? Do you think that Wilkie Collins shared his protagonist’s view of women?
7. Why does Mrs. Catherick allow her own daughter to be placed in an insane asylum, and how does she justify her actions?
8. In his concluding narrative, Count Fosco describes “thefirst and last weakness” of his life. What is the nature of Fosco’s self-described “deplorable and uncharacteristic fault”?
9. Throughout the novel, how does Collins explore the themes of respectability and social class?
(Questions issued by Random House.)
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