The Reserve
Russell Banks, 2008
HarperCollins
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061430251
Summary
Part love story, part murder mystery, set on the cusp of the Second World War, Russell Banks's sharp-witted and deeply engaging new novel raises dangerous questions about class, politics, art, love, and madness—and explores what happens when two powerful personalities, trapped at opposite ends of a social divide, begin to break the rules.
Twenty-nine-year-old Vanessa Cole is a wild, stunningly beautiful heiress, the adopted only child of a highly regarded New York brain surgeon and his socialite wife. Twice married, Vanessa has been scandalously linked to any number of rich and famous men. But on the night of July 4, 1936, at her parents' country home in a remote Adirondack Mountain enclave known as The Reserve, two events coincide to permanently alter the course of Vanessa's callow life: her father dies suddenly of a heart attack, and a mysteriously seductive local artist, Jordan Groves, blithely lands his Waco biplane in the pristine waters of the forbidden Upper Lake. . . .
Jordan's reputation has preceded him; he is internationally known as much for his exploits and conquests as for his paintings themselves, and, here in the midst of the Great Depression, his leftist loyalties seem suspiciously undercut by his wealth and elite clientele. But for all his worldly swagger, Jordan is as staggered by Vanessa's beauty and charm as she is by his defiant independence. He falls easy prey to her electrifying personality, but it is not long before he discovers that the heiress carries a dark, deeply scarring family secret. Emotionally unstable from the start, and further unhinged by her father's unexpected death, Vanessa begins to spin wildly out of control, manipulating and destroying the lives of all who cross her path.
Moving from the secluded beauty of the Adirondack wilderness to the skies above war-torn Spain and Fascist Germany, The Reserve is a clever, incisive, and passionately romantic novel of suspense that adds a new dimension to this acclaimed author's extraordinary repertoire. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 28, 1940
• Where—Newton, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—University of North Carolina
• Awards—John Dos Passos Award for Fiction
• Currently—lives in upstate New York
Russell Banks was raised in a hardscrabble, working-class world that has profoundly shaped his writing. In Banks's compassionate, unlovely tales, people struggle mightily against economic hardship, family conflict, addictions, violence, and personal tragedy; yet even in the face of their difficulties, they often exhibit remarkable resilience and moral strength.
Although he began his literary career as a poet, Banks forayed into fiction in 1975 with a short story collection Searching for Survivors and his debut novel, Family Life. Several more critically acclaimed works followed, but his real breakthrough occurred with 1985's Continental Drift, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated novel that juxtaposes the startlingly different experiences of two families in America. In 1998, he earned another Pulitzer nomination for his historical novel Cloudsplitter, an ambitious re-creation of abolitionist John Brown.
Since the 1980s, Banks has lived in upstate New York—a region he (like fellow novelists William Kennedy and Richard Russo) has mined to great effect in several novels. Two of his most powerful stories, Affliction (1990) and The Sweet Hereafter (1991), have been adapted for feature films. (At least two others have been optioned.) He has also received numerous honors and literary awards, including the prestigious John Dos Passos Prize for fiction. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The plot of The Reserve, which takes place in the Adirondacks in the summer of 1936, moves not with the swift, sharklike momentum of his best fiction but in a hokey, herky-jerky fashion that never lets the reader forget that Mr. Banks is standing there behind the proscenium, pulling the characters’ strings. Even the language he uses is weirdly secondhand: a bizarre melange of Hemingwayesque action prose and romance-novel cliches that manages to feel faux macho and sickly sweet at the same time.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Banks is a genius at showing people slipping into crises that scramble their moral reason, but this story depends on several startling revelations that alter everything we thought we knew about these characters. In some ways, The Reserve is a romantic thriller laboring away in the heavy costume of social realism. It vacillates oddly between aha moments and long passages of subtle analysis. And the novel's complicated political and aesthetic concerns are too quickly upstaged by romantic angst and bedroom shenanigans.... one more incongruous element in this alternately engaging and frustrating novel.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
Banks’s new novel, The Reserve, may well be the best—and darkest—work of fiction written to date about the storied regiou of high peaks, glacial lakes, and vast forests covering an area nearly teh size of Massachusetts.
Boston Globe
[A] riveting narrative, featuring an almost pot-boiling love story...tantalizing.... Banks works with a vast palette and a sure stylistic command. The Reserve gratifies page by page.
Los Angeles Times
The novel’s strength...is the story Banks has to tell...The Reserve captures the drama, not just of these characters’ lives, but of this moment in American history.
Atlanta Journal-Costitution
This is a vividly imagined book. It has the romantic atmosphere of those great 1930s tales in film and prose, and it speeds the reader along from its first pages. In fact, Banks talents are so large—and the novel so fundamentally engaging—that it continued to pull me in even when, in its climactic moments, I could no longer comprehend why the characters were doing what they were doing. By then, the denouement has been determined largely by the literary expectations of a bygone era where character flaws require a tragic end. Despite that, The Reserve is a pleasure well worth savoring.
Scot Turow - Publishers Weekly
It all begins on July 4, 1936, in the achingly beautiful and unspoiled Adirondack Mountains, where the wealthy built their summer retreats. Vanessa Cole is one of the lucky ones: her family inherited land on "the Reserve" before the implementation of building restrictions, and as such, it owns a secluded lodge that can be reached only by boat and plane. On that July night, Vanessa's father invites local artist Jordan Groves to the lodge to see his art collection, but it's the meeting between Jordan and Vanessa that will show just how destructive this seclusion and sense of privilege can be. Known for his complex and conflicted characters, Banks (Rule of the Bone) here reveals how the mentally unbalanced Vanessa and Jordan, a wealthy, married socialist, are attracted to these contradictions in each other. The plot gets off to a slow start, but the breathtaking scenic descriptions create a setting central to the story. As the chain of events builds to an inevitable and tragic conclusion, we are left with the feeling that no one, not even the well-to-do, can escape the laws of nature. Recommended for all libraries. —Kellie Gillespie
Library Journal
A left-wing artist tangles with a troubled heiress in this characteristically somber, class-conscious novel from Banks. On the evening of July 4, 1936, at their luxurious summer camp in a privately owned Adirondacks wilderness reserve, Carter and Evelyn Cole get a visit from Jordan Groves, a Rockwell Kent-like creator of woodcuts, prints and etchings. Though Jordan's a notorious Red who has little use for people like the Coles (he's there to look at some paintings), it's hard for this inveterate womanizer to resist the attentions of their beautiful daughter Vanessa, twice-divorced veteran of many scandalous love affairs. She is also, Banks reveals not long into the narrative (with a shockingly unexpected image of Evelyn Cole bound and gagged by her daughter), quite crazy. After Dr. Cole has a fatal heart attack the night of Jordan's visit, Vanessa becomes convinced (not without reason) that her mother plans to have her committed once again to a discreet Swiss asylum. So Vanessa ties up Mom and implausibly manages to enlist the help of Hubert St. Germain, one of the many locals whose ill-paid seasonal work comes from serving the summer people. Hubert is also the lover of Jordan's discontented wife Alicia, and learning of their affair drives the artist into Vanessa's arms-though not before her mother has been disposed of in a shotgun accident. Dark hints that Dr. Cole sexually abused Vanessa have been freely scattered, but also cast into serious doubt. A catastrophic fire covers up the evidence of Evelyn's demise, and Hubert gets off scot-free despite having confessed his involvement to the odious manager of the Reserve's country club. Jordan and Vanessa meet theirseparate just deserts in ends that owe more to history (the Hindenburg crash, the Spanish Civil War) than the author's imagination. Banks is one of America's finest novelists, but this oddly distanced work lacks the passionate personal engagement of a masterpiece like Continental Drift (1985) or the bracing historical revisionism of Cloudsplitter .
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)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Reserve:
1. Banks offers a sobering description of the US in the throes of the Great Depression. Talk about the people and hardships he presents in this novel.
2. Much of Banks's book is about socio-economic class. How do class divisions reveal themselves in the book? What does the author's tone suggest about his attitude toward class? In what way do class distinctions exist today...do they exist in the same manner?
3. The staff and servants are are "allowed onto the Reserve and club grounds, but only to work, and not to fish or hunt or hike on their own.... The illusion of wilderness was as important to maintain as the reality." What does Banks mean by that statement? Why is illusion important?
4. What kind of man is Jordan Groves? How would you describe him? Does he have a moral center?
5. What about Vanessa Cole? What do you think of her...and what does Jordan think about her? Why does Jordan allow himself to become entangled with her?
6. Discuss the following passage describing Vanessa's relationship with truth:
The truth was somewhat transient and changeable, one minute here, the next gone. It was something one could assert and a moment later turn around and deny, with no sense of there being any contradiction. Merely a correction.
7. Talk about Hubert S. Germain and the ways in which he differs from Vanessa and Jordan? How does he get caught up in the events of the story? Would you consider him the moral force in the story? Perhaps the most sympathetic?
8. Talk about Alicia. What does her affair with Hubert cause her to realize about her marriage to Jordan?
9. Were you surprised by the plot's twist and turns, the revelations that come later? How do those revelations alter what we know about the characters?
10. Russell Banks intersperses italicized chapters between the formal chapters. Did you have difficulty with them at first? Do they make sense to you now? Do they ever get resolved? Why might Banks have used this time-shifting structure?
11. There has been much talk by critics of Banks channeling Hemingway in the book. Evidences of Ernest are in the name of Banks's lead character (Robert Jordan is the main character in For Whom the Bells Toll), the Spanish Civil War episodes, and the way Banks uses Hemingwayesque prose. Have you read Hemingway's work, particularly For Whom the Bells Toll? If so, can you see similarities in prose style? Why might Banks have drawn from Hemingway? Is this simply a homage to the former writer...or something else?
12. In addition to class issues (see Question #1), the novel is also concerned with individual identity. How do world events—the depression and the rise of facism—affect characters' sense of who they are and what they believe in? To what degree do characters change by the end of the novel...or do they change?
13. The setting is the heavily forested Adirondack mountains in upstate New York. What symbolic significance does the natural setting have in this story? What might the wilderness represent for the characters?
14. Do you care for any of these characters?
15. Is the ending of The Reserve satisfying? Are loose ends tied up, issues and questions resolved? Would you have preferred a different ending?
16. Did you enjoy reading this novel? Have you read other novels by Russell Banks? If so, how does this compare? If not, are you inspired to read others?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Milk Glass Moon: (Big Stone Gap series #3)
Adriana Trigiani, 2002
Random House
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345445858
Summary
(Third in the "Big Stone Gap" quartet.)
Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's bestselling "Big Stone Gap" series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the reader.
Transporting us from Ave Maria's home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Italian Alps, from New York City to the Tuscan countryside, Milk Glass Moon is the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, of a daughter's first love and a mother's heartbreak, of an enduring marriage that contains its own ongoing challenges, and of a community faced with seismic change.
All of Trigiani's beloved characters are back: Jack Mac, Ave Maria's true love, who is willing to gamble security for the unknown; her best friend and confidant, bandleader Theodore Tip-ton, who begins a new life in New York City; librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, who faces a life-or-death crisis. Meanwhile, surprises emerge in the blossoming of crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, the maturing of mountain girl turned savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, and the return of Pete Rutledge, the handsome stranger who turned Ave Maria's world upside down in Big Cherry Holler.
In this rollicking hayride of upheaval and change, Ave Maria is led to places she never dreamed she would go, and to people who enter her life and rock its foundation. As Ave Maria reaches into the past to find answers to the present, readers will stay with her every step of the way, rooting for the onetime town spinster who embraced love and made a family. Milk Glass Moon is about the power of love and its abiding truth, and captures Trigiani at her most lyrical and heartfelt. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Big Stone Gap, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., St. Mary’s College, Indiana, USA
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
As her squadrons of fans already know, Adriana Trigiani grew up in Big Stone Gap, a coal-mining town in southwest Virginia that became the setting for her first three novels. The "Big Stone Gap" books feature Southern storytelling with a twist: a heroine of Italian descent, like Trigiani, who attended St. Mary's College of Notre Dame, like Trigiani. But the series isn't autobiographical—the narrator, Ave Maria Mulligan, is a generation older than Trigiani and, as the first book opens, has settled into small-town spinsterhood as the local pharmacist.
The author, by contrast, has lived most of her adult life in New York City. After graduating from college with a theater degree, she moved to the city and began writing and directing plays (her day jobs included cook, nanny, house cleaner and office temp). In 1988, she was tapped to write for the Cosby Show spinoff A Different World, and spent the following decade working in television and film. When she presented her friend and agent Suzanne Gluck with a screenplay about Big Stone Gap, Gluck suggested she turn it into a novel.
The result was an instant bestseller that won praise from fellow writers along with kudos from celebrities (Whoopi Goldberg is a fan). It was followed by Big Cherry Holler and Milk Glass Moon, which chronicle the further adventures of Ave Maria through marriage and motherhood. People magazine called them "Delightfully quirky... chock full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."
Critics sometimes reach for food imagery to describe Trigiani's books, which have been called "mouthwatering as fried chicken and biscuits" (USA Today) and "comforting as a mug of tea on a rainy Sunday" (New York Times Book Review). Food and cooking play a big role in the lives of Trigiani's heroines and their families: Lucia, Lucia, about a seamstress in Greenwich Village in the 1950s, and The Queen of the Big Time, set in an Italian-American community in Pennsylvania, both feature recipes from Trigiani's grandmothers. She and her sisters have even co-written a cookbook called, appropriately enough, Cooking With My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes, from Bari to Big Stone Gap. It's peppered with anecdotes, photos and family history. What it doesn't have: low-carb recipes. "An Italian girl can only go so long without pasta," Trigiani quipped in an interview on GoTriCities.com.
Her heroines are also ardent readers, so it comes as no surprise that book groups love Adriana Trigiani. And she loves them right back. She's chatted with scores of them on the phone, and her Web site includes photos of women gathered together in living rooms and restaurants across the country, waving Italian flags and copies of Lucia, Lucia.
Trigiani, a disciplined writer whose schedule for writing her first novel included stints from 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. each morning, is determined not to disappoint her fans. So far, she's produced a new novel each year since the publication of Big Stone Gap.
I don't take any of it for granted, not for one second, because I know how hard this is to catch with your public," she said in an interview with The Independent. "I don't look at my public as a group; I look at them like individuals, so if a reader writes and says, 'I don't like this,' or, 'This bit stinks,' I take it to heart.
Extras
From a 2004 Barnes & Noble interview:
• I appeared on the game show Kiddie Kollege on WCYB-TV in Bristol, Virginia, when I was in the third grade. I missed every question. It was humiliating.
• I have held the following jobs: office temp, ticket seller in movie theatre, cook in restaurant, nanny, and phone installer at the Super Bowl in New Orleans. In the writing world, I have been a playwright, television writer/producer, documentary writer/director, and now novelist.
• I love rhinestones, faux jewelry. I bought a pair of pearl studded clip on earrings from a blanket on the street when I first moved to New York for a dollar. They turned out to be a pair designed by Elsa Schiaparelli. Now, they are costume, but they are still Schiaps! Always shop in the street—treasures aplenty.
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, here is what she said:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. When I was a girl growing up in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, I was in the middle of a large Italian family, but I related to the lonely orphan girl Jane, who with calm and focus, put one foot in front of the other to make a life for herself after the death of her parents and her terrible tenure with her mean relatives. She survived the horrors of the orphanage Lowood, losing her best friend to consumption, became a teacher and then a nanny. The love story with the complicated Rochester was interesting to me, but what moved me the most was Jane's character, in particular her sterling moral code. Here was a girl who had no reason to do the right thing, she was born poor and had no connections and yet, somehow she was instinctively good and decent. It's a story of personal triumph and the beauty of human strength. I also find the book a total page turner- and it's one of those stories that you become engrossed in, unable to put it down. Imagine the beauty of the line: "I loved and was loved." It doesn't get any better than that!
(Bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
In the [third] of the "Big Stone Gap" trilogy, Adriana Trigiani returns to the Virginia mountain setting of her first two bestselling novels, 2000's Big Stone Gap and 2001's Big Cherry Holler. Ave Maria, that Italian-American girl from Cracker's Neck Holler, is now teetering on the precipice of middle age. Still married to house contractor Jack MacChesney, she faces the new challenge of raising her quickly developing daughter, Etta.... Smith chronicles the modernization of southern Appalachia, exploring the complex effects of lumber and coal companies that...hover menacingly outside the borders of Big Stone Gap, Trigiani creates and sustains a sweet, nostalgic portrait of bucolic mountains and simple small-town folk. However, those looking for a complex treatment of this region and its people will not find it in this novel.
Book Magazine
The third book in Trigiani's series about the middle-aged but young-at-heart Ave Maria of Big Stone Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains is simply made for the ear. The author colorfully and flawlessly captures the characters' southern and Italian accents, transporting listeners into Ave Maria's charmed world. She's a pharmacist in a small Virginia town but has relatives in Italy; and her daughter Etta has just entered her teen years, causing Ave Maria much heartache and uncertainty. She's torn between wanting Etta to mature and wishing Etta was much younger. She cheerfully discusses affairs from the daily chatter at the drugstore counter to more serious matters, such as the death of her son years earlier and her best friend Iva Lou's breast cancer. The dialogue is always snappy (e.g., after Ave Maria has seen a man she's attracted to, Iva Lou quips, "That's how they keep us hooked... those rats").
Publishers Weekly
The last in the "Big Stone Gap" trilogy (Big Stone Gap, Big Cherry Holler) brings us back to Ave Maria and Jack Mac during daughter Etta's teenage years. Despite upheaval and family tensions, this is a happy book, sprinkled with gentle, down-home humor and a rich sense of place the mountains of both Virginia and Italy. The advice from the Wise County Fair fortune-teller to "redream" or reinvent one's life is perfect for readers of all ages. Trigiani does a fine job of resolving 20-year story lines while still leaving readers wanting more. Fans of the previous novels will savor this title as well while anticipating the film version of Big Stone Gap. —Rebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights.
Library Journal
Windup of the Big Stone Gap trilogy. Big Stone Gap (2000) led us into the sleepy Virginia town of that name via the memories of Ave Maria Mulligan, a spinster pharmacist who learned that her real father was an Italian boy from Bergamo and tracked him down. In Big Cherry Holler (2001), Ave was married with a ten-year-old daughter Etta, grieving memories of a son who died of leukemia, and suspicions that husband Mac had a dish on the side. This last installment is at heart a mother/daughter story. Ave arrives in her 50s, menopausal, worried, and scared. She goes to a fortuneteller who knows all and predicts certain events that the reader awaits to see fulfilled. Etta, verging on adulthood, looks forward to studies in architecture at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville and to a trip to Italy—Bergamo, in fact. This throws Ave deep into trauma, but she comes to learn, as she tells us, "Love may not be enough, but when it's right, it's plenty." Down-home dialogue gives a big lift to Ave's agonies.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Milk Glass Moon, the third book in Adriana Trigiani's bestselling Big Stone Gap series, continues the life story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney as she faces the challenges and changes of motherhood with her trademark humor and honesty. With twists as plentiful as those found on the holler roads of southwest Virginia, this story takes turns that will surprise and enthrall the reader.
Transporting us from Ave Maria's home in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Italian Alps, from New York City to the Tuscan countryside, Milk Glass Moon is the story of a shifting mother-daughter relationship, of a daughter's first love and a mother's heartbreak, of an enduring marriage that contains its own ongoing challenges, and of a community faced with seismic change.
All of Trigiani's beloved characters are back: Jack Mac, Ave Maria's true love, who is willing to gamble security for the unknown; her best friend and confidant, bandleader Theodore Tip-ton, who begins a new life in New York City; librarian and sexpert Iva Lou Wade Makin, who faces a life-or-death crisis. Meanwhile, surprises emerge in the blossoming of crusty cashier Fleeta Mullins, the maturing of mountain girl turned savvy businesswoman Pearl Grimes, and the return of Pete Rutledge, the handsome stranger who turned Ave Maria's world upside down in Big Cherry Holler.
In this rollicking hayride of upheaval and change, Ave Maria is led to places she never dreamed she would go, and to people who enter her life and rock its foundation. As Ave Maria reaches into the past to find answers to the present, readers will stay with her every step of the way, rooting for the onetime town spinster whoembraced love and made a family. Milk Glass Moon is about the power of love and its abiding truth, and captures Trigiani at her most lyrical and heartfelt.
1. Milk Glass Moon is the final book in the Big Stone Gap trilogy. Does it stand on its own as an individual novel? Which themes from Big Stone Gap and Big Cherry Holler carry over into Milk Glass Moon?
2. What does the symbol of the milk glass moon signify? Also, through Etta's interest in astrology, Trigiani presents stars as prominent reoccurring images. What significance do the stars have in the novel?
3. Why does Ave Maria experiences so much friction with Etta, when they have had such a good relationship in the past? Do you think their problems arise from normal adolescence angst, or do they stem from deeper issues? How do you think Ave Maria and Etta's relationship would be if Ave Maria's own mother were still alive?
4. Is Ave Maria too hard on Etta for her mistakes, in particular the coal and drinking incidents? Do you think she overreacts, given the fact that she had very different perceptions from the other characters, or is she justified in her decisions? How do you think Ave Maria's actions would appear to the reader if she were portrayed in third person, without the inner dialogue we are privy to?
5. Ave Maria and Jack's display apparent differences in their reactions and outlooks throughout Milk Glass Moon, especially in the area of parenting. How do you think they have sustained their marriage? What sacrifices have they made for each other? Why does their marriage work?
6. When Ave Maria sees Pete in New York City, old feelings stir within her. Why does Trigiani bring Pete back into the picture? What do you think would have happened if Ave Maria had chosen Pete over Jack? How would their marriage be different? Do you think Ave Maria's physical reactions to Pete are problematic?
7. Ave Maria describes Pete as being the only person who can see the girl in her. What does she mean? Which qualities in particular does Pete pull out of her? Would you pick comfort over excitement, like Ave Maria ultimately does, or vice-versa?
8. Ave Maria believes that it's easier for women to have close relationships and intimate friendships than men. Do you agree with her? Given the history between Ave Maria and Pete, what do you think about Pete and Jack's friendship?
9. Ave Maria is presented with choices throughout the course of Milk Glass Moon; she is tugged between locations, men, and time frames. How do you think she goes about making decisions? If you were her, would you have made the same choices?
10. Ave Maria sometimes seems to be torn between her desire to live in a small town and her wish to explore the allure and excitement of places like New York City and Italy. Throughout the novel, Ave Maria explores the downsides as well as the upsides of living in a small town, and in certain moments, it appears that Ave Maria hasn't quite gotten over the difficulties she long ago experienced in her transition to a small town. Where do you think she ultimately belongs and feels most comfortable? Do you think she and Jack would be happy living in Italy, as their plan at the end of the novel suggests? What kind of environment are you most comfortable in, and why?
11. Does Ave Maria's personality change when she's in a location other than Big Stone Gap? Which hidden qualities we don't usually see in her persona emerge?
12. Etta tells her mother that she knew she was meant to marry Stefano when she was eight years old. How do issues of fate and destiny play out in Milk Glass Moon? In general, do you think every event has a reason for happening?
13. According to Etta, Ave has trouble getting attached to people. Do you think her statement is true? What are some examples that either support or disagree with it?
14. Three different kinds of marriages are explored throughout the novel … those of Ave Maria and Jack, Iva Lou and Louis, and Etta and Stefano. How do they compare?
15. Throughout the course of three books, Ave clearly progresses through various encounters she never planned on facing. How do you think she has changed from the beginning of the trilogy? Which kind of strengths has she gained? Which personality traits has she held onto?
16. Does Trigiani wrap up everything neatly, or does she leave room for any future developments in Big Stone Gap world? Is there anything from these characters that you would like to see more of? Do the themes and characters' situations in Milk Glass Moon come full circle or is anything left unresolved?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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The Year of Pleasures
Elizabeth Berg, 2005
Random House
240 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780812970999
Summary
Betta Nolan moves to a small town after the death of her husband to try to begin life anew. Though still dealing with her sorrow, Betta nonetheless is determined to find pleasure in her simple daily routines. Among those who help her in both expected and unexpected ways are the ten-year-old boy next door, three wild women friends from her college days with whom she reconnects, a young man who is struggling to find his place in the world, and a handsome widower who is ready for love.
Elizabeth Berg's The Year of Pleasures is about acknowledging the solace found in ordinary things: a warm bath, good food, the beauty of nature, music, and art. Above all, The Year of Pleasures is about the various kindnesses people can—and do—provide one another. Betta's journey from grief to joy is a meaningful reminder of what is available to us all, regardless of what fate has in store. This exquisite book suggests that no matter what we lose, life is ready to give bountifully to those who will receive. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—December 2, 1948
• Where—St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
• Education—A.A.S, St. Mary’s College
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Before she became a writer, Elizabeth Berg spent 10 years as a nurse. It's a field, as she says on her website, that helped her to become a writer:
Taking care of patients taught me a lot about human nature, about hope and fear and love and loss and regret and triumph and especially about relationships—all things that I tend to focus on in my work.
Her sensitivity to humanity is what Berg's writing is noted for. As Publishers Weekly wrote in reviewing The Dream Lover, her 2015 portrayal of George Sand, "Berg offers vivid, sensual detail and a sensitive portrayal of the yearning and vulnerability" behind her main character.
Background
Berg was born in St. Paul Minneapolis. When her father re-enlisted in the Army, she and her family were moved from base to base—in one single year, she went to three different schools. Her peripatetic childhood makes it hard for Berg to answer the usually simple question, "where did you grow up?"
Berg recalls that she loved to write at a young age. She was only nine when she submitted her first poem to American Girl magazine; sadly, it was rejected. It was another 25 years before she submitted anything again—to Parents Magazine—and that time she won.
In addition to nursing, Berg worked as a waitress, another field she claims is "good training for a writer." She also sang in a rock band.
Writing
Berg ended up writing for magazines for 10 years before she finally turned to novels. Since her 1993 debut with Durable Goods, her books have sold in large numbers and been translated into 27 languages. She writes nearly a book a year, a number of which have received awards and honors.
Recognition
Two of Berg's books, Durable Goods and Joy School, were listed as "Best Books of the Year" by the American Library Association. Open House became an Oprah Book Club Selection.
She won the New England Booksellers Award for her body of work, and Boston Public Library made her a "literary light." She has also been honored by the Chicago Public Library. An article on a cooking school in Italy, for National Geographic Traveler magazine, won an award from the North American Travel Journalists Association.
Personal
Now divorced, Berg was married for over twenty years and has two daughters and three grandchildren. She lives with her dogs and a cat in Chicago. (Author bio adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
The familiar protagonist of Berg's 13th novel (after The Art of Mending) is a Boston widow of several months, 55-year-old Betta Nolan, who fulfills her dying husband's dream of moving out to the Midwest and starting a new life. "It will give me peace to know that what you will do is exactly what we talked about," says John commandingly before dying of liver cancer; Betta, an author of children's books, sells their Beacon Hill brownstone and takes off, buying an oversized Victorian in the small town of Stewart, Ill., 49 miles from Chicago. Lonely, she finds herself tracking down three former college roommates from the late 1960s, Lorraine, Maddy and Susanna, whom she ditched once she met John. The women reappear one by one and help give her the courage to open a shop called What a Woman Wants (it'll sell "all different stuff that women loved. Beautiful things, but unusual too. Like antique birdcages with orchids growing in them"). Meanwhile, she begins to make friends in town, notably with attractive young handyman Matthew and natty oldster Tom Bartlett. Berg is a pro at putting together an affecting saga of interest to women of a certain age, yet here she seems to be writing in her sleep. There is little effort at cohesion—rather, a kind of serendipitous plot that goes every which way and a series of tentative, aborted romances. The impression readers will be left with is of a woman endlessly nurturing and rarely satisfied.
Publishers Weekly
As evidenced by this 14th novel, Berg's talents grow richer with each book. Her heroine is Betta Nolan, whose marriage boasts such strength and intimacy that she is left completely bereft at husband John's death. Seeking to begin again and following a dream that she and John had shared to move to the Midwest, Betta impulsively purchases a house in a small town. Each day is difficult, and yet by finding and celebrating the simple pleasures of life, Betta catches hope and begins to heal. Berg's unerring sense of the beauties of daily life bursts forth on every page, from her description of "barns faded to the soft red of tomato soup," through cryptic one-word notes that John has left for Betta to find and unravel, to a green bowl, eggs, and a sparrow. Poignant, intimate, and hopeful, this is a novel to read, treasure, and share. Highly recommended. —Caroline M. Hallsworth, City of Greater Sudbury, Ont.
Library Journal
Yet The Year of Pleasures may not be Berg’s best effort to date. A few reviewers criticized a relatively weak plot with its obvious message about love, life, and finding the pleasures in ordinary things—even if it’s all true.
Bookmarks Magazine
The prolific Berg champions middle-aged craziness in an impossibly sunny soap opera. Betta Nolan, 55 and a former children's book author, sells her Boston townhouse after her beloved husband John dies of cancer—and sets out for the center of the country to see what happens next. It's not purely whim that draws Betta to the Midwest; she and John had once dreamed of moving to that part of the country. "We had always been charmed by the people we'd met from there, and it seemed the right place to start a new life: exotic, at least to us, but not as difficult as, say, Prague." Her Boston house sells for $1.9 million, so she won't have to take a waitress job to make ends meet, and she eagerly plunks down a ridiculously low sum for a Victorian treasure in Stewart, Ill. There's still the matter of filling up a life, however, and between bouts of grieving, Betta does just that by looking up three old friends from college, befriending a handsome college student with a bitchy, unworthy girlfriend, and opening the store John once suggested she call "What a Woman Wants." Meanwhile, Betta tries to decipher the scrawled notes her psychiatrist husband left behind. The answer to their mystery, like all the other not-so-very complicated roadblocks in the way of Betta's starting over, is expressed in a platitude ("There is love in holding. And there is love in letting go") that only soapy characters could fathom or follow. "We're all just here, blinking in the light like kittens," Betta's friend Maddy confides. "The older I get, the more I see that nothing makes sense but to try to learn true compassion." What a woman wants, Betta discovers, is to have perfect things in a perfect place, shared with perfect—or at least perfectly interesting—friends. "You don't dishonor the one you loved by being happy," Betta learns. Unhappiness, in Berg's world, isn't an option.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Betta’s departure from Boston at the beginning of the book is abrupt, even rushed. Is her choice to move so quickly a good one? What is she running away from, and what is she running toward?
2. In the early pages of the book, while driving to the Midwest with all her belongings in tow, Betta finds a kind of freedom and relaxation on the road. What does moving, or even driving, have to do with this release Betta feels?
3. Betta refers to a belief that one is sometimes closer to someone after death than before. What does she mean when she says this? Have you experienced this, in your own life?
4. Moving to a new place fulfills a promise Betta had with John, but she makes the move alone. Discuss the ways that Betta finds strength and independence in her new life. In the moments when that strength falters, how does she cope?
5. Betta hopes to love John and to be loved by him after his death. Does she succeed? Do you think love can transcend death?
6. Do you agree with the philosopher Kierkegaard’s suggestion that no matter how many years have passed, when good friends meet again, they will simply pick up where they left off? How does this play out in the novel? In your own life?
7. Is Betta’s relationship with Tom doomed from the start? Why or why not?
8. Why do Betta and Matthew become friends? Do they want the same things from the friendship? Do you agree with the decision Betta makes, to rent the room in his apartment?
9. Betta says there are times when food is not just food. She uses food to heal, to comfort, and to seduce. Are there other ways in which food is important in this novel? In your own life, what roles do food and cooking play?
10. Finding joy in small things is important to Betta, and she uses joy as a vehicle for change. Do you agree with her philosophy? If so, what small things bring you great happiness? If not, why not?
11. What does Betta’s store symbolize? How does opening the store change her personality, and emotions? What is the importance of risk, and taking chances, in creating a new life? Have you ever undertaken a similar project?
12. A major theme of the novel is the transformation from tragedy to joy. Could Betta have found this certain kind of joy without the tragedy of losing John? How does the relationship between tragedy and joy operate, in the book and in your own life?
(Questions issued by publishers.)
Bloodroot
Amy Greene, 2010
Knopf Doubleday
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307390578
Summary
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
The novel is told in a kaleidoscope of seamlessly woven voices and centers around an incendiary romance that consumes everyone in its path: Myra Lamb, a wild young girl with mysterious, haint blue eyes who grows up on remote Bloodroot Mountain; her grandmother Byrdie Lamb, who protects Myra fiercely and passes down “the touch” that bewitches people and animals alike; the neighbor boy who longs for Myra yet is destined never to have her; the twin children Myra is forced to abandon but who never forget their mother’s deep love; and John Odom, the man who tries to tame Myra and meets with shocking, violent disaster. Against the backdrop of a beautiful but often unforgiving country, these lives come together—only to be torn apart—as a dark, riveting mystery unfolds.
With grace and unflinching verisimilitude, Amy Greene brings her native Appalachia—and the faith and fury of its people—to rich and vivid life. Here is a spellbinding tour de force that announces a dazzlingly fresh, natural-born storyteller in our midst. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Amy Greene was born and raised in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, where she lives with her husband and two children. Her debut novel Bloodroot was published in 2010. Her second novel,Long Man, is in the works. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Bloodroot takes place in Appalachia and, yes, Greene lovingly describes its mountains and hollows, its waters filled with bluegills.... But this story is really about the fraught, sometimes dangerous, bonds between children and their mothers, and the appalling spillover of violence from one generation to the next.... In unadorned but assured prose, Greene...takes her readers to the hard-scrabble world of foster homes and juvenile detention centers, of life in a blue-collar Appalachian town.
Lisa Fugard - New York Times
Masterful.... A fascinating and authentic look at a rural world full of love and life, dreams and disappointment.
Boston Globe
If Wuthering Heights had been set in southern Appalachia, it might have taken place on Bloodroot Mountain.... Brooding, dark and beautifully imagined.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Reminiscent of McCarthy’s early Appalachian fiction.... Hard to put down.... What consistently remains is Greene’s spot-on account of a land and its people—with its old-fashioned Scots-Irish dialect and its close-knit communities, its homespun Christianity and its folk remedies.
Milwauke Journal Sentinel
Stirring.... The wild beauty of Appalachia is...entrancing.... The novel’s charm comes from its hints of magical realism. Women with ‘gifts’—to heal, make love potions and put curses on their enemies.
USA Today
In this saga of an Appalachian family haunted by trauma, great gifts, and greater tragedies, the story unfolds in first-person segments by rotating members of the clan, each revealing a different perspective to the same tragic events that span four generations, the principal being a beautiful, free-spirited woman whose choices drastically shape the lives of those who love her. The superb performances by the multiple cast reading the story are a saving grace to a promising but meandering novel. Each reader creates for his or her character a well-suited, textured voice rich with accent and sincerity. From Lorna Raver's sweet, artless, and determined Byrdie to Richard McGonagle's gruff John, the narrators breathe life into the young and old characters of Bloodroot Mountain.
Publishers Weekly
A family saga grounded in Appalachia, Greene's debut follows the story of the Lamb women—Byrdie, Clio, Myra, and Laura—from the Depression to the present day. Poverty, folk culture, and the often harsh conditions of Appalachian life color the loves, hatreds, and losses of the Lamb family; for these women, circumstances beyond their control—and some poor decisions of their own—lead to one unhappy ending after another. Though Greene has a flair for physical description, indistinct characters and frequent shifts in point of view throughout the novel lead to confusion, lessening the impact of the story's dramatic potential. Predictable plotlines detract from the enjoyment as well. VERDICT Fans of Appalachian culture and/or family chronicles may find something to take pleasure in here; casual popular fiction readers should likely pass. —Leigh Wright, Bridgewater, NJ
Library Journal
Greene's debut shows three generations of an eastern Tennessee family struggling against abusive men and narrow middle-class values that try to destroy their unusually active spirits. In the 1960s, Byrdie raises her granddaughter Myra on Bloodroot Mountain. She can tell early on that Myra has "the touch," an extra sensitivity passed down by the women of their family, though it skipped Byrdie. Myra's grandmother is especially devoted to her because all of Birdie's children died young, including Myra's mother Clio, whose car was hit by a train while she was out hell-raising with Myra's dad. The narration of Part One alternates between Birdie and Myra's boyhood friend Doug, who loves the wild girl but knows she'll never be his. Then puberty hits. Poor Doug, the novel's most endearing, least tortured character, disappears from the book after Myra is swept up in a passionate romance with John Odom, whose father owns a local hardware store in the valley. John's family is as "touched" in its way as Myra's. Desire turns into violent possessiveness. Greene manipulates her narrative at this point so that Myra's return to the mountain to raise twins Laura and Johnny without her husband goes unexplained. The twins' accounts alternate in Part Two; Myra and then John narrate the novel's final 100 pages. This fractured chronology builds suspense, allowing for red herrings and portentous foreshadowing like Myra's box holding a ring with a man's finger still attached. When their mother is placed in an insane asylum, the twins are sent to foster care. Laura marries, but her husband drowns, and his mother takes away their baby. Brilliant but troubled Johnny burns down the Odoms' hardware store and seemsheaded for a bad end until he meets the mysterious Ford Hendrix, a reclusive Pulitzer Prize winner who once knew Myra and is missing a finger or two. Pitch-perfect voices tell a story loaded with lyric suffering and redemption-bound to be a huge hit.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Rather than relying on a single narrator to tell this moving, complex story that takes us from the Great Depression to today, Amy Greene uses the voices of six characters in different time periods to share their memories, their family histories, their connections to one another, and the circumstances that have enriched their lives or led to unintended sorrow. Why do you think she chose to tell the story this way? How do the characters’ voices differ from one another—their language, dialect, and colloquialisms—both between and within the generations?
2. Byrdie, for all the losses and heartbreak she’s experienced, remains resilient, selfless, and loving. Why do you think Greene chose to begin Myra’s story by going back into Byrdie’s sometimes painful history? How does Byrdie foreshadow what’s to come for Myra, both in her dreams and premonitions about John Odom, and also through her own experiences—namely her romance with Macon and the loss of her own children? What does Myra learn from Byrdie, and what lessons does she forget too easily?
3. Magic plays an important role in this story, just as it has in the real lives of generations of Appalachian families. Byrdie is the niece of “granny women” who believe that a curse on her family will be lifted when a baby with “haint blue” eyes is born, yet Myra’s birth seems to lead to even more trouble for the Lambs. Why doesn’t Myra’s birth break the curse? Do you think the curse even existed in the first place? Why do tradition and superstition exert such a strong hold on the family, even on an educated character like Ford Hendrix?
4. Appalachia is depicted as an often bleak place in this novel, where poverty, abuse, and violence are endemic. Yet it is also described as a place of great beauty. All of the female characters marry and have babies at a young age, which at times makes their lives more difficult—their husbands can be unreliable, even cruel—but some of their relationships are shown to be warm and loving. How do these contrasts create tension in the story? What social, political, and economic questions do you think the novel raises?
5. In Doug’s narrative, he speaks of the allure of Bloodroot Mountain and the important role the natural world plays in his boyhood relationship with Myra. What does the mountain represent to Doug and Myra, and to the other families who live there? How does their isolation from the rest of the world cause problems, and how does it occasionally benefit them? Why do you think Myra has “itchy feet,” and how does she pass that restlessness on to her children?
6. Wild Rose is an untamable horse with whom Myra seems to have a special, even primal, connection. What does Wild Rose represent for Myra? For Doug?
7. Byrdie passes the blood red ring she stole on to Myra, who in turn gives it to Johnny and Laura. Beyond its material value, why is the ring so important to each of them? What else does Myra pass on to her children—what less tangible legacies does she leave with each of them?
8. Why do you think Myra loves Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey”? How does poetry provide both her and Johnny with a means of escaping reality in some of their worst moments? How does Johnny’s own writing help him get past all the hardship he’s experienced?
9. What life-changing insights does Johnny gain while serving time in jail? What does he mean about becoming empowered and learning to use his anger in more productive ways?
10. How do you view Johnny’s chance meeting with Ford Hendrix? Is it coincidence, or is something more powerful at work? What do Johnny and Myra find appealing in Ford? Do you think Ford’s visions are real, or are they, along with his tales of how he lost his finger, part of his storytelling gifts?
11. What draws Johnny and Ford to Carolina? In addition to her healing gifts, how is she different from other women? How does the experience of living with Ford and Carolina in the idyll they’ve created in the woods—and the way this experience ends—change Johnny?
12. Why is Laura attracted to Clint? What do they have in common? Does Clint share any of Macon’s qualities, and does Laura share any of Byrdie’s? Why does Clint begin to withdraw after their marriage? Why can’t Clint tell Laura what’s troubling him? Do you think he drowns on purpose—is it a suicide or an accident? Why would he want to kill himself?
13. What does the patronizing attitude of Laura’s doctor say about the attitude of the outside world toward the people of rural Appalachia? How does the representative of Children’s Services confirm that attitude? Knowing Laura as you do, do you think it’s possible that she would kill her baby rather than give him up?
14. At the end of Laura’s and Johnny’s narratives, what changes have they undergone that enable them to stop believing in curses and to visit their mother for the first time? How has their relationship—and the fact that they are twins—evolved to come full circle in some ways?
15. At the beginning of the section Myra narrates, we can tell that something is not right with her, and we learn later that she is living in a mental hospital. Do you think Myra is mad, or haunted? Is her institutionalization is unjust? How does her encounter with Hollis affect her? Why do you think she doesn’t want to leave the hospital? Is she really content there?
16. Myra believes she has succeeded in bewitching John Odom into falling in love with her by swallowing a chicken heart; she also comes to believe she too is culpable in the disintegration of their marriage. Do you think Myra shares in the blame, or is John entirely at fault for the brutality that ends their relationship? Or is it in their bloodlines—could they have inherited legacies of violence from their parents? What role does fate play in what happens between them?
17. How does the magic that brings Myra to Ford—if it is magic—differ from that which brings Myra and John together? Compare Myra’s first meeting with Ford to the first time she sees John: do her feelings for Ford provide a counterbalance for her other relationships with men? Does Myra’s time with Ford help her find the courage to leave John, or is it John’s brutality that gives her the power to break down what has kept her prisoner?
18. Why does Myra not seem to care whether Ford or John is the father of her children? Who do you imagine is the father, and does it matter to you either way? Would knowing change the meaning of the novel for you?
19. Is it surprising that John is alive and living up north or that he has long since forgiven Myra, even though his body bears the evidence of her revenge? Do you believe him when he says he still loves Myra? Do you think that, as the product of an abusive father and an alcoholic mother, John has the capacity to be redeemed?
20. Were you surprised, along with John, to see Doug reappear in the story? Do you agree with Doug’s idea that loving Myra has cursed both men?
21. Why did John visit Myra back in 1996? What did he realize about her resilience in spite of her long years in an institution? Is the ending of the book an unexpected coincidence? Or is it perhaps one last magical act, giving John the capacity to change his life? And does he?
22. Thinking about Johnny, Laura, and Sunny at the novel’s conclusion, John Odom says, “I used to think I was born worthless, considering the people I come from. But when I saw that blue-eyed baby years ago, it made me wonder” (pages 364–65). How do Myra and Johnny wrestle with similar questions of their own? What do you think the novel is trying to say about inheritance and destiny?
23. The bloodroot flower has the power to poison and to heal, and while the lives of the characters in Bloodroot often seem bleak, the novel seems to end on a hopeful note. Amy Greene told one interviewer that “the discovery in the novel is that it is possible to take what’s good from the life you’ve lived and move forward, and leave the rest behind.” Do you agree? If so, which characters in the novel do you think illustrate this statement best?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Once and Future King
T.H. White, 1958
Penguin Group USA
640 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780441627400
Summary
The whole world knows and loves this book. It is the magical epic of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlin and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly, of wizardry and war. It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad. It is the fantasy masterpiece by which all others are judged. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 29, 1906
• Where—Bombay, India
• Death—January 17, 1964
• Where—Athens, Greece
• Education—Cambridge University
Terence Hanbury White was an English author best known for his sequence of Arthurian novels, The Once and Future King, first published together in 1958.
White was born in Bombay, British India to English parents, Garrick Hansbury White, an Indian police superintendent, and Constance White. Terence White had a discordant childhood, with an alcoholic father and an emotionally frigid mother, and his parents separated when Terence was fourteen.
White went to Cheltenham College in Gloucestershire, a public school, and Queens' College, Cambridge, where he was tutored by the scholar and occasional author L. J. Potts. Potts became a lifelong friend and correspondent, and White later referred to him as "the great literary influence in my life."
While at Queens' College, White wrote a thesis on Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (without reading it), and graduated in 1928 with a first-class degree in English.
White then taught at Stowe School, Buckinghamshire, for four years. In 1936 he published England Have My Bones, a well-received memoir about a year spent in England. The same year, he left Stowe and lived in a workman's cottage, where he wrote and "revert[ed] to a feral state", engaging in falconry, hunting, and fishing.
White also became interested in aviation, partly to conquer his fear of heights. White wrote to a friend that in autumn 1937, "I got desperate among my books and picked [Malory] up in lack of anything else. Then I was thrilled and astonished to find that (a) The thing was a perfect tragedy, with a beginning, a middle and an end implicit in the beginning and (b) the characters were real people with recognizable reactions which could be forecast[...] Anyway, I somehow started writing a book."
The novel, which White described as "a preface to Malory", was titled The Sword in the Stone and told the story of the boyhood of King Arthur. White was also influenced by Freudian psychology and his lifelong involvement in natural history. The Sword in the Stone was well-reviewed and was a Book of the Month Club selection in 1939.
In February 1939, White moved to Doolistown, Ireland, where he lived out the international crisis and the Second World War itself as a de facto conscientious objector. It was in Ireland that he wrote most of what would later become The Once and Future King; two sequels to The Sword and the Stone were published during this time: The Witch in the Wood (later retitled The Queen of Air and Darkness) in 1939, and The Ill-Made Knight in 1940.
The version of The Sword in the Stone included in The Once and Future King differs in several respects from the earlier version. It is darker, and some critics prefer the earlier version. White's indirect experience of the war had a profound effect on these tales of King Arthur, which include commentaries on war and human nature in the form of a heroic narrative.
In 1946, White settled in Alderney, third largest of the Channel Islands, where he lived for the rest of his life. The same year, White published Mistress Masham's Repose, a children's book in which a young girl discovers a group of Lilliputians (the tiny people in Swift's Gulliver's Travels) living near her house. Mistress Masham's Repose was influenced by John Masefield's book The Midnight Folk. He hosted Julie Andrews, her then-husband Tony, and became close friends with them at this time.
In 1947, he published The Elephant and the Kangaroo, in which a repetition of Noah's Flood occurs in Ireland. In the early 1950s White published two non-fiction books: The Age of Scandal (1950), a collection of essays about 18th-century England, and The Goshawk (1951), an account of White's attempt to train a hawk in the traditional art of falconry. In 1954 White translated and edited The Book of Beasts, an English translation of a medieval bestiary originally written in Latin.
In 1958 White completed the fourth book of The Once and Future King sequence, The Candle in the Wind, though it was first published with the other three parts and has never been published separately. White lived to see his work adapted as the Broadway musical Camelot (1960) and the animated film The Sword in the Stone (1963), both based on The Once and Future King. He died of a heart ailment on 17 January 1964 aboard ship in Piraeus (Athens, Greece), en route to Alderney from a lecture tour in the United States. He is buried in First Cemetery of Athens.
In 1977 The Book of Merlyn, a conclusion to The Once and Future King, was published posthumously.
Personal life
According to Sylvia Townsend Warner's 1967 biography, White was "a homosexual and a sado-masochist." He came close to marrying several times but had no enduring romantic relationships, and wrote in his diaries that "It has been my hideous fate to be born with an infinite capacity for love and joy with no hope of using them."
Broadcaster Robert Robinson has published an account of a bizarre conversation with White, in which he claimed to be attracted to small girls. Robinson concluded that this was really a cover for homosexuality. Julie Andrews wrote in her auto-biography, "I believe Tim may have been an unfulfilled homosexual, and he suffered a lot because of it."
However, White's long time friend and literary agent, David Higham, wrote "Tim was no homosexual, though I think at one time he had feared he was [and in his ethos fear would have been the word]." Higham gave Warner the address of one of White's lovers "so that she could get in touch with someone so important in Tim's story. But she never, the girl told me, took that step. So she was able to present Tim in such a light that a reviewer could call him a raging homosexual. Perhaps a heterosexual affair would have made her blush."
White was also an agnostic, and towards the end of his life a heavy drinker. Warner wrote of him, "Notably free from fearing God, he was basically afraid of the human race."
Influence
Science-fiction writer Michael Moorcock enjoyed White's The Once and Future King, and was especially influenced by the underpinnings of realism in his work. Moorcock eventually engaged in a "wonderful correspondence" with White, and later recalled that "White [gave] me some very good advice on how to write."
J. K. Rowling has said that T. H. White's writing strongly influenced the Harry Potter books; several critics have compared Rowling's character Albus Dumbledore to White's absent-minded Merlyn, and Rowling herself has described White's Wart as "Harry's spiritual ancestor." When asked about the similarities between Harry Potter and his earlier character Timothy Hunter, Neil Gaiman stated he did not think Rowling had based her character on Hunter, stating "I said to [the reporter] that I thought we were both just stealing from T. H. White: very straightforward."
Gregory Maguire was influenced by "White's ability to be intellectually broadminded, to be comic, to be poetic, and to be fantastic" in the writing of his 1995 novel Wicked, and crime fiction writer Ed McBain also cited White as an influence.
Lev Grossman also paid homage to White in The Magicians (2009), in which magicians-in-training at Brakebill College are transformed into geese. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Older works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
[An] impressive work of literature, a far more remarkable flight of imagination, than readers of the earlier versions of The Sword in the Stone, The Witch in the Wood...and The Ill-made Knight could have guessed it would finally be....Mr. White has concluded his dealings with King Arthur by giving us much more than fun. Thought follows laughter..
Ben Ray Redman - New York Times (8/24/58)
Reading these enchanted pages, laughing at their wild comedy, smiling at their ironic humor, delighting in their revelation of the beauty and wonder of life in...once might conclude too soon that this is only an inspire and irreverent reworking of Thomas Malory. But the deeper one penetrates into Mr. White's Forest Sauvage the more one is aware of unseen presences, of dark broodings on the mysteries of human character, the tragic failures of high hopes and the relentless doom that drives men to kill each other in unending wars.
Orville Prescott - New York Times (8/25/1958)
[T]the single finest fantasy novel written in our time, or for that matter, ever written, is, must be, by any conceivable standard, T. H. White's The Once and Future King. I can hardly imagine that any mature, literate person who has read the book would disagree with this estimate. White is a great writer.
Len Carter (fantasy historian and writer)
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Once and Future King:
1. What lessons does Arthur learn from each of his transformations—into fish, hawk, ant, goose, and badger?
2. What does Merlyn mean that Might does not make Right? In what way does his concept challenge the existing ideals of medieval society? How is that concept apropos the history of the 20th century—or any era of history?
3. In what ways does White satirize war in his book? What is his concept of war? Do you agree?
4. The first sections of the book were written during the run-up to, and early years of, World War II, during which time White declared himself a conscientious objector. Does knowing that have any effect on how you read/understand/interpret The Once and Future King?
5. What is the point of Badger's "dissertation"?
6. How—and why—does White play tricks with time? Consider not only Merlyn's living by reverse time, but also the frequent use of anachronisms (modern references).
7. The various castles in The Once and Future King are different, each with its own setting and character. Talk about their variations...and how each embodies the hopes and fears of its inhabitants.
8. What is Arthur's attitude toward the love affair between Lancelot and Guenever. Why does he react the way he does? Do you think he should have reacted differently?
9. What is the meaning of The Round Table? What does Arthur hope to accomplish through its design?
10. What is the significance of the quest for the Holy Grail—and the knights failure to find it?
11. What is the literal—and symbolic—significance of the book's title? What does it mean in the larger scope of history?
12. White suggests in this retelling that good intentions and innocence are not enough in the struggle against evil. What, then, is enough? Is he saying that hope for justice and goodness is futile?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)