Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions
The Great Night
Chris Adrian, 2011
Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374166410
In Brief
Chris Adrian’s fiction has been hailed for its startling originality and provocative meditations on life and mortality. Inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Great Night infuses Adrian’s storytelling with new levels of creative genius, bringing the imaginary kingdom of Titania and Oberon to San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park.
Midsummer’s Eve, 2008. Molly, Henry, and Will, each of them reeling from the loss of a love, set out for a party but become trapped in the park, which has become the home in exile for a madcap faerie court. Like the three mortals who are ensnared in her world that night, Queen Titania is mourning too: her adopted son has died of leukemia, a disease that defied the most potent magic. The queen’s grief has turned to rage, and on this night she unleashes an ancient beast, along with the fearsome might of her tiny Puckish followers.
As their stories unfold, the cast of characters proves to have surprising shared histories, blurring the line between memory and hope at every turn. For some, retracing the past becomes a way of flirting with immortality. For others, it’s only a reminder of how dark the mortal world can be. Culminating in a staging of the 1970s cult classic Soylent Green—indirectly produced by Titania via a homeless man who wants to bring down a seemingly sinister mayor—the novel unfolds as an unforgettable homage to the power of the imagination. (From the publisher.)
top of page
About the Author
• Birth—1970
• Where—N/A
• Education—B. A., University of Florida; M.D., Eastern
Virginia Medical School; Iowa Writer's Workshop;
Harvard Divinity School
• Awards—Guggenheim Fellowship
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California
Chris Adrian is an American author. Adrian's writing styles in short stories vary a great deal, from modernist realism to pronounced lyrical allegory. His novels both tend toward surrealism, having mostly realistic characters experience fantastic circumstances.
He has written three novels: Gob's Grief, The Children's Hospital, and The Great Night, an updated take on Shakespeare's Midsummer's Night Dream. In 2008, he published A Better Angel, a collection of short stories.
His short fiction has also appeared in the Paris Review, Zoetrope, Ploughshares, McSweeney's, The New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, and Story. He was one of 11 fiction writers to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009.
Adrian completed his Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Florida in 1993. He received his M.D. from Eastern Virginia Medical School in 2001. He completed a pediatric residency at the University of California, San Francisco, was a student at Harvard Divinity School, and is currently in the pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship at UCSF. He is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop. (From Wikipedia.)
top of page
Critics Say . . .
Adrian follows his masterful The Children's Hospital with a disappointing and decidedly less ambitious effort, a flabby retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream that finds a heartbroken Titania loosening a demonic Puck on San Francisco's Buena Vista Park. Caught up in the mayhem are Henry, a neurotic gay man whose affair has just ended; Molly, a young woman turned inward after the suicide of her boyfriend; Will, a lovelorn tree doctor trying to get his lady back; and a group staging a musical remake of Soylent Green to explain the decline of San Francisco's homeless population. Adrian liberally applies surreal sex jokes and populates his adventure with bizarre fairies, impossible events, and extensive backstories, but this investigation into love's labors never ignites. Adrian occasionally channels the wayward, winsome feel of millennial San Francisco, but his characters remains wispy and his plot fails to develop satisfying turns. The book contains flashes of what makes this writer great, but he has better work in him.
Publishers Weekly
William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream deals with illusion—in particular, the illusion that things can be set aright, as if by magic. This riff by New Yorker 20 Under 40 author Adrian (A Better Angel) is a whole lot darker, declaring that no magic can take away the memory of suffering and that in our self-serving scramble we disdain the pain (and indeed the goodness) of others. On the summer solstice in San Francisco, the fairies come out from under their hill in Buena Vista Park to celebrate Great Night. But this year there will be no celebration, for Oberon has vanished and Titania is thoroughly undone by the death of her Boy, one of the many changelings brought to her by Puck—no mischievous sprite but a malevolent spirit. Even as a rowdy bunch rehearse a play aimed at exposing the mayor's crimes against the homeless, three people are trapped in the park by the fairies' madness: uptight Molly, lovesick Will, and gentle, obsessed Henry, who still misses decamped lover Bobby and whose tragic past and connections to other characters unfold tantalizingly. Verdict: Inventive and scarily beautiful, this could wipe out casual readers, but it is an extraordinary novel. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
top of page
Book Club Discussion Questions
1. The book’s epigraph is taken from lines spoken by Shakespeare’s Titania to the laborer Nick Bottom, who has been magically transformed into an ass. Under a spell, Titania has fallen in love with the donkey-headed Bottom. Is fairy life as comfortable as she says it is? Is mortal love a kind of spell, too, as Molly, Henry, and Will experience it?
2. The grim reality of the pediatric oncology ward illuminates the splendor of Titania and Oberon’s world. What does their experience with the Boy demonstrate about parenting, and about the limits of a parent who seems to have unlimited resources? What is good and bad about Titania and Oberon’s parenting? In what way do Beadle and Blork become like parents to the parents?
3. If you’re familiar with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, compare it to The Great Night. How do real and imaginary realms influence each other in both works? Do the authors have the same approach to despondent lovers?
4. As Molly mourns for Ryan, is her family’s religious history, along with her botched chaplain internship, a help or a hindrance?
5. How does Henry’s abduction affect his relationship with Bobby? What is left of Henry’s identity after Bobby leaves? How did you react to the crossroads between Henry’s and Ryan’s youth?
6. What do Will’s parents teach him about relationships and love? Which of their lessons does he unlearn with Carolina?
7. How might the novel have unfolded if it had been told from the other lovers’ points of view: Bobby, Carolina, and (from the grave) Ryan?
8. Do the mayor and Titania have similar problems as rulers?
9. Just as Shakespeare presents a play within a play, staged by Bottom, Adrian imagines a homeless performance of the 1973 cult classic Soylent Green, which is set in a dismal 2022, featuring a world consumed by overpopulation, the greenhouse effect, and a reliance on processed food rations (Soylent Green). How does it affect your reading to watch fiction unfold inside fiction?
10. How did you picture the frightening, unleashed beast? How did you feel when the fear was resolved, and Henry and Titania came to their resolution? What do you suppose the squirrel will tell Bobby?
11. Enchanting, liberating, yet gritty, how do San Francisco and Buena Vista Park mirror the characters in The Great Night?
12. How do love and longing manifest themselves differently in the novel’s two worlds? Whether the characters are mortal or not, what are the greatest sources of oppression and freedom in their lives?
13. Chris Adrian has compared The Great Night to a mixture of “odd-tasting foreign candies.” Which of the many tiny feasts in this novel was the most appealing to you?
14. What aspects of The Great Night echo the struggles captured in Adrian’s previous fiction (Gob’s Grief, featuring Walt Whitman and Victoria Woodhull; The Children’s Hospital, invoking Noah’s Ark; and A Better Angel, a story collection in which the characters contemplate the metaphysical)? Which aspects of The Great Night are unlike anything you have read before?
15. If your world were inhabited by fairies, what would they want from you? How would they manifest themselves in your workplace, your neighborhood, and your love life?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Christmas Wedding
James Patterson, Richard DiLallo, 2011
Little, Brown & Co.
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316097390
Summary
The tree is decorated, the cookies are baked, and the packages are wrapped, but the biggest celebration this Christmas is Gaby Summerhill's wedding.
Since her husband died three years ago, Gaby's four children have drifted apart, each consumed by the turbulence of their own lives. They haven't celebrated Christmas together since their father's death, but when Gaby announces that she's getting married—and that the groom will remain a secret until the wedding day—she may finally be able to bring them home for the holidays.
But the wedding isn't Gaby's only surprise—she has one more gift for her children, and it could change all their lives forever. With deeply affecting characters and the emotional twists of a James Patterson thriller, The Christmas Wedding is a fresh look at family and the magic of the season. (From the publisher.)
Author Bios
• James Patterson has had more New York Times bestsellers than any other writer, ever, according to Guinness World Records. Since his first novel won the Edgar Award in 1977, James Patterson's books have sold more than 210 million copies. He is the author of the Alex Cross novels, the most popular detective series of the past twenty-five years, including Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider. Mr. Patterson also writes the bestselling Women's Murder Club novels, set in San Francisco, and the top-selling New York detective series of all time, featuring Detective Michael Bennett. He writes fulltime and lives in Florida with his family.
• Richard DiLallo is a former advertising creative director. He has had numerous articles published in major magazines. He lives in Manhattan with his wife. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
It's clever, light and as welcoming as an ocean breeze.
People
A lighthearted novel about a widow who suddenly decides to re-marry on Christmas Day.... A perfect plot for a Meryl Streep or Diane Lane happily-ever-after movie.
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 questions for The Christmas Wedding—they were kindly submitted by Sylvie Barton, from Mesa, AZ. Sylvie is the organizer of The Mesa Thematic Book and Movie Club.
1. Was the story credible? The characters credible?
2. Claire’s been summoned by Hank, her husband, and she says, “She did not want a fight today. Or any day, really. She couldn’t stand his blow-ups, but she didn’t know what to do about them. The kids loved Hank. Keep the peace, Claire, she reminded herself.” What would be your suggestion for Claire?
3. On page 27, the author is writing about Claire and says, “Claire knew she was strong—she’d had the twins via natural childbirth (26 hours in labor), still ran three miles a day—but, shoot, she thought, you can be the strongest person in the world and still make bad decisions and have a pretty miserable life.” Are Claire’s attributes truly feats of strength? In what area, if any, is Claire lacking strength?
4. Did you find any similarity in all of the women characters in this book?
5. In the first video that Gaby sends to her children she states, “I needed a big change. Everybody needs a change. If you don’t change, you’re stuck in a rut.” Do agree or disagree with her statement and why or why not?
6. In Gaby’s second video she states: “I think that most people can lead very satisfying lives, as long as they don’t spend too much time staring at their own belly buttons and worrying about things that aren’t within their control." What do you think Gaby is trying to say through this message? Do agree or disagree?
10. What are your feelings or any insights about Jacob’s motto: “Seize what’s been handed you. Make smart decisions. Make decisions because—he said it again—life is a temporary situation.”
11.Marty imparts his wisdom to Gaby’s students on pages 119 and 120. Do you agree or disagree with this pep talk that he provides them. Is it true or false that the most interesting people are in books?
12. On page 121 Marty states: “You see, one of the best things about reading is that you’ll always have something to think about when you’re not reading.” Is reading the only source that provides this?
13. Claire asks for her mom’s approval or disapproval to end her marriage with Hank and Gaby states: “You don’t need me to approve or disapprove. A marriage is the most private thing in the world. Only the people in it know if it works for them or doesn’t.” Do you agree or disagree with Gaby? What are your thoughts on this statement?
19.What are your concerns about this book?
20.At the end of the book, do you feel hope for the characters?
(top of page (summary)
My New American Life
Francine Prose, 2011
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13:
Summary
Lula, a twenty-six-year-old Albanian woman living surreptitiously in New York City on an expiring tourist visa, hopes to make a better life for herself in America.
When she lands a job as caretaker to Zeke, a rebellious high school senior in suburban New Jersey, it seems that the security, comfort, and happiness of the American dream may finally be within reach. Her new boss, Mister Stanley, an idealistic college professor turned Wall Street executive, assumes that Lula is a destitute refugee of the Balkan wars. He enlists his childhood friend Don Settebello, a hotshot lawyer who prides himself on defending political underdogs, to straighten out Lula's legal situation. In true American fashion, everyone gets what he wants and feels good about it.
But things take a more sinister turn when Lula's Albanian "brothers" show up in a brand-new black Lexus SUV. Hoodie, Leather Jacket, and the Cute One remind her that all Albanians are family, but what they ask of her is no small favor. Lula's new American life suddenly becomes more complicated as she struggles to find her footing as a stranger in a strange new land. Is it possible that her new American life is not so different from her old Albanian one?
Set in the aftermath of 9/11, My New American Life offers a vivid, darkly humorous, bitingly real portrait of a particular moment in history, when a nation's dreams and ideals gave way to a culture of cynicism, lies, and fear. Beneath its high comic surface, the novel is a more serious consideration of immigration, of what it was like to live through the Bush-Cheney years, and of what it means to be an American. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1947
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Radcliffe College
• Awards—Pushcart Prize; PEN-America prize for translation; Guggenheim Fellowship
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York
When it comes to an author as eclectic as Francine Prose, it's difficult to find the unifying thread in her work. But, if one were to examine her entire oeuvre—from novels and short stories to essays and criticism—a love of reading would seem to be the animating force.
That may not seem extraordinary, especially for a writer, but Prose is uncommonly passionate about the link between reading and writing. "I've always read," she confessed in a 1998 interview with Atlantic Unbound. "I started when I was four years old and just didn't stop.... The only reason I wanted to be a writer was because I was such an avid reader." (In 2006, she produced an entire book on the subject—a nuts-and-bolts primer entitled Reading Like a Writer, in which she uses excerpts from classic and contemporary literature to illustrate her personal notions of literary excellence.)
If Prose is specific about the kind of writing she, herself, likes to read, she's equally voluble about what puts her off. She is particularly vexed by "obvious, tired clichés; lazy, ungrammatical writing; implausible plot turns." Unsurprisingly, all of these are notably absent in her own work. Even when she explores tried-and-true literary conventions—such as the illicit romantic relationship at the heart of her best known novel, Blue Angel—she livens them with wit and irony. She even borrowed her title from the famous Josef von Sternberg film dealing with a similar subject.
As biting and clever as she is, Prose cringes whenever her work is referred to as satire. She explained to Barnes & Noble editors, "Satirical to me means one-dimensional characters...whereas, I think of myself as a novelist who happens to be funny—who's writing characters that are as rounded and artfully developed as the writers of tragic novels."
Prose's assessment of her own work is pretty accurate. Although her subject matter is often ripe for satire (religious fanaticism in Household Saints, tabloid journalism in Bigfoot Dreams, upper-class pretensions in Primitive People), etc.), she takes care to invest her characters with humanity and approaches them with respect. "I really do love my characters," she says, "but I feel that I want to take a very hard look at them. I don't find them guilty of anything I'm not guilty of myself."
Best known for her fiction, Prose has also written literary criticism for the New York Times, art criticism for the Wall Street Journal, and children's books based on Jewish folklore, all of it infused with her alchemic blend of humor, insight,and intelligence.
Extras
• Prose rarely wastes an idea. In Blue Angel, the novel that the character Angela is writing is actually a discarded novel that Prose started before stopping because, in her own words, "it seemed so juvenile to me."
• While she once had no problem slamming a book in one of her literary critiques, these days Prose has resolved to only review books that she actually likes. The ones that don't adhere to her high standards are simply returned to the senders.
• Prose's novel Household Saints was adapted into an excellent film starring Tracey Ullman, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Lili Taylor in 1993.
• Another novel, The Glorious Ones, was adapted into a musical.
• In 2002 Prose published The Lives of the Muses, an intriguing hybrid of biography, philosophy, and gender studies that examines nine women who inspired famous artists and thinkers—from John Lennon's wife Yoko Ono to Alice Liddell, the child who inspired Alice in Wonderland. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
[A] book that brims with smart surprises.... Lula is alert and full of longing and beautifully out of place. Like many newcomers, she's more aware of American vibes and American history than the family that eventually takes her in. Lula's droll observations, as she navigates between her new life and her Albanian friends, give Prose's novel the verve we've seen in her previous fiction.... Throughout this witty novel, she demonstrates an affecting hunger for an American life, even if she often finds that life plenty weird.
Ron Carlson - New York Times Book Review
The story of a good-hearted immigrant doubles as a snapshot of America during Bush II's second term in Prose's uneven latest. Lula is a 26-year-old Albanian working an undemanding au pair gig in New Jersey. Her employer, Stanley, is a forlorn Wall Street exec recently abandoned by his mentally disturbed wife. He asks only that Lula see to the simple needs of his son, Zeke, a disaffected high school senior. Soon, Stanley and one of his friends, a high-profile immigration lawyer, are taken with the tale-telling, mildly exotic Lula (who speaks English flawlessly) and get to work on securing her citizenship. Lula's gig is cushy if dull, a condition relieved when three Albanian criminals, led by the charming Alvo, arrive at Stanley's house with a quiet demand that Lula harbor a (Chekhovian) gun for them. Prose seeks to show America through the fresh eyes of an outsider with a deeply ingrained, comic pessimism born of life under dictatorship, yet also capable of exuberant optimism, and the results, like Lula, are agreeable enough but not terribly profound.
Publishers Weekly
Desperate to stay in America—she's in New York on a tourist visa that's close to giving out—26-year-old Albanian Lula accepts a job in suburban New Jersey as caretaker to woebegone teenager Zach, whose crazy mother upped and left on Christmas Eve. He and his father have since lived in mutually befuddled silence, though Mister Stanley, as Lula calls Zach's dad, is doing his best. The kindly Mister Stanley even arranges for a lawyer friend to assure Lula's legal status. Then, the day after she's got her papers, a black SUV pulls up in front of the house, and the three young men who pile out lay claim to Lula's attention because they're Albanian, too. Lula goes along with their request to hide a gun, then goes along for a ride and falls for the ringleader, Alvo. Soon she's doing what's she's done all along to survive, fabricating at will to explain her relationship to Alvo while trying to steer Zach away from the abyss. Her hopefulness and initiative contrast sharply with the lassitude and utter cluelessness of her host family. Verdict: Does Lula get the new American life she wants so badly? In this sparkling new work by Prose (Blue Angel), she's on her way. An illuminating and ultimately upbeat look at America's immigrant situation that all fiction readers will enjoy. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Prose is dazzling in her sixteenth book of spiky fiction, a fast-flowing, bittersweet, brilliantly satirical immigrant story that subtly embodies the cultural complexity and political horrors of the Balkans and Bush-Cheney America. Best-selling Prose continues to ascend in popularity and acclaim, having just been honored with the prestigious Washington University International Humanities Medal. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
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 My New American Life:
1. Does this book shed any light on how US immigration works—its politics and process? How in have the events of 9/11 changed the climate for people like Lula?
2. Francine Prose's novel follows a time-honored literary device: an outsider who views the prevailing culture with new eyes—often holding up societal conventions for re-examination. How does Lula see the US—and what cultural assumptions does she offer up for satire? Are her observations funny...or not? What in particular struck you?
3. Follow-up to Questions #2: What does Lula admire most about the US? What puzzles her?
4. What was Lula's life like in Albania?
5. Follow-up to Question #4: How does Lula's background affect her view of America (e.g., the game of musical chairs)?
6. Lula draws astute comparisons between the US and the Balkans. What are some of the differences she comments on? Do those comparisons suggest any similarities (metaphorically or literally?) between the US and the Balkan countries?
7. At one point, Mr. Stanley refers to Lula as "our little Albanian pessimist." No, she quickly corrects him: she's simply a "realist." Who's right...and what is the difference between the two attitudes? How would you describe your attitude toward life?
8. Talk about the folk tales Lula passes off as true. Why does she do so?
9. What about Lula and Alvo—how does she rationalize her relationship with him?
10. How do Lula's feelings toward Mr. Stanley and Zeke change? How does she come to view the idea of family and what it means to be part of one?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Shoot the Moon
Billie Letts, 2004
Grand Central Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446401142
Summary
A tale of a small Oklahoma town and the mystery that has haunted its residents for years.
In 1972, windswept DeClare, Oklahoma, was consumed by the murder of a young mother, Gaylene Harjo, and the disappearance of her baby, Nicky Jack. When the child's pajama bottoms were discovered on the banks of Willow Creek, everyone feared that he, too, had been killed, although his body was never found.
Nearly thirty years later, Nicky Jack mysteriously returns to DeClare, shocking the town and stirring up long-buried memories. But what he discovers about the night he vanished is more astonishing than he or anyone could have imagine. Piece by piece, what emerges is a story of dashed hopes, desperate love, and a secret that still cries out for justice...and redemption. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1937
• Where—Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—B.A., Southeast Missouri State University
• Awards—Percy Walker Award
• Currently—lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Billie Letts is the author of numerous highly acclaimed short stories and screenplay, and a former professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. Her first novel, Where The Heart Is, won the Walker Percy Award, sold more than three million copies, and became a major motion picture. Her second novel, The Honk and Holler Opening Soon, was named the first "Oklahoma Reads Oklahoma" selection. Her third novel, Shoot the Moon and her fourth novel, Made in the U.S.A. were both New York Times bestsellers. Billie Letts is a native Oklahoman, and currently lives in Tulsa. (From the publisher.)
More
Betts was married to professor-turned-actor Dennis Letts, from 1958 until his death from cancer in 2008. Dennis served as Billie's editor for her novels. Together they had three sons: Dana Letts; playwright and actor, Tracy Letts; jazz musician and composer, Shawn Letts. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Letts has shown once again her gift for capturing the personalities that inhabit Oklahoma's small towns-and some of the bigger cities as well.
Tulsa World
Letts has a way of grabbing her audience with a gentle but very firm hand on the neck....She has an overwhelming sense of optimism that overshadows any minor evil lurking around the corner.
Dayton Daily News
A Beverly Hills veterinarian goes south hoping to locate the mother who gave him up for adoption-but finds himself instead investigating a murder, a cover-up, and attempts on his own life. Evoking the closeness of small-town life in DeClare, Oklahoma (epitomized by Teeve's Place, a combined diner and pool hall owned and run by Teeve Narjo), bestselling Letts (Where the Heart Is, 1995, etc.) begins her third outing as handsome Dr. Mark Allbright arrives in town. Mark has just learned that he is adopted and that his mother was Gaylene Narjo, from DeClare, and he now wants to confront her and ask why she didn't want him. But Gaylene, he learns, when he introduces himself to Teeve, was murdered 30 years ago and her son Nicky Jack, then ten-months-old, disappeared and was never seen again. The murder was attributed to a well-regarded African-American, Joe Dawson, who allegedly killed himself in jail. DeClare is a politically correct mix of good guys (Native Americans, a gay lawyer, a crusading anti-Republican journalist) and bad guys (a sadistic white sheriff, O Boy Daniels, a gun-nut, bigoted teachers) that may look good but makes for a blindingly unshaded story. As Mark reads Gaylene's diary, he learns how she dreamed of becoming an artist and how, as a native Cherokee, she was angered by the bigotry she experienced at high school. He also learns that she was pregnant when she graduated, and no one knows who was responsible. With the help of Ivey, Teeve's single and pregnant daughter, and of lawyer Hal Duchamp, Mark begins his search for Gaylene's killer. Some of the locals, though, including O Boy Daniels and the radio station's Arthur McFadden, aren't happy about Mark's continuing presence. Still, even when someone tries to take him out, Mark is not deterred. Eventually, of course, his amateur sleuthing pays off-and he even finds someone to love. Perfect for the beach.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In her novels Billie Letts beautifully captures the personalities in Oklahoma's small towns. Do you think DeClare, Oklahoma could be "Any Town, USA" or is it uniquely a small town in the state of Oklahoma?
2. Key themes in this novel deal with the question of identity and self-knowledge. Mark Albright (Nicky Jack Harjo) doesn't know who he is. What does he learn about himself during the course of the story? Does he change in any fundamental way from the beginning to the end of the book?
3. Do you find the love relationship between Ivy and Mark/Nicky Jack believable? Why or why not?
4. We get to know Gaylene, posthumously, through what other people say about her and through her diaries. Are the two views of her similar or different? Why does she call herself "Spider Woman"?
5. What importance do you think race has in this novel: not much, some, or a great amount? What are some examples of racial discrimination faced by characters? Mark/Nicky Jack doesn't know he is part Cherokee. Is it important that he does know?
6. The book also raises some troubling issues faced by adopted children. What are they? Do you think an adopted child should be given his birth parents' identities? Why or why not?
7. Mark/Nicky Jack talks about having a careful plan for his life, and then fate dramatically changes that plan. He points out that Ivy has no plan at all, and she's drifting through life. What are the pros and cons of each character's approach to life? What is your own approach?
8. What do you make of the domino players? Why are they in the story? What do they contribute besides the title?
9. A frequent situation in the novels of Billie Letts is the dilemma faced by an unmarried pregnant woman about the child she carries. In this book, what choice does each of the unmarried pregnant women make with regard to her unborn child, and what are the consequences of that choice? Do you think each woman makes the best choice for her?
10. Because this is fiction, the author can create any ending she wishes for her characters. Do you agree with the fate she gives to each of the major characters? In particular, how do you feel about what happened to Carrie and her son Kippy? Are you convinced she would have taken his life along with her own?
11. Who would you say is the happiest or most "together" character or characters in this book? Why? Does "shooting the moon" make for happiness?
12. If there is someday a sequel about Mark/Nicky Jack and Ivy, what do you think might happen to them? Do you think their relationship will last?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
top of page
Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter
J. Nozipo Maraire, 1996
Dell Publishing
208 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385318228
Summary
In an extraordinary literary debut—written as a letter from a Zimbabwean mother to her daughter, a student at Harvard—J. Nozipo Maraire transforms the lessons of life into a lyrical narrative. Interweaving history and memories, disappointments and dreams, like the tales of the traditional village storyteller, this letter is a gift from one generation to the next. As her daughter enters a new world, a mother shares the riches of her own through stories of her personal experiences and those of her generation.
She writes of Zimbabwe's struggle for independence, and of the men and women who shaped it: Zenzele's father, an outspoken activist lawyer; her aunt, a schoolteacher by day and a secret guerrilla fighter by night; and her cousin, a maid and spy. Each parable is a shrewd and quite often humorous tale interwoven to form a compelling and powerful story. Every character is a revelation and each story a revolution. Zenzele is for anyone who has ever loved and lost, fought and won. It is a complex tale wherein lies a simple truth: Respect the individual but understand what is vital to the whole. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1966
• Where—Zimbabwe
• Education—B.S., Harvard University, M.D. Columbia
• Currently—lives New Haven, Connecticut, USA
Nozipo Maraire is a Zimbabwean doctor and writer. She is the author of Zenzele: A Letter for My Daughter. She is a practicing neurosurgeon. She got her undergraduate degree from Harvard University and then attended The Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. Soon after she entered a neurosurgery internship at Yale. She currently lives in New Haven, Connecticut. (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
The vision is entirely that of the mother, which is, of course, the point of it all, but also a constriction. There is a didactic quality here, and the reader, standing in for Zenzele, feels a trifle cornered. The wisdoms and warnings sometimes sit uneasily alongside the more telling immediacy of the events that are the core of the book
That grumble out of the way, let it be said that there are plenty of rewards here too—a rich impression of the warmth and color of Zimbabwean family life, a view of the traumas of the struggle for independence through a series of sharp vignettes, and, above all, a sense of the mother's passionate conviction that "Africa needs the hearts and minds of its sons and daughters.... The address to Zenzele is not a plea for the retention of traditional values, though it is a sturdy defense of the importance of recognizing and cherishing your roots.
Penelope Lively - New York Times Book Review
Elegiac stress lends power to the story, resulting in a humane antiminimalism that may owe some of its richness to the work of authenticating in writing a largely unwritten experience. Although Maraire yields at times to rhetorical overflow, she mainly imbues the novel with the complexities of the mother's rural life as it undergoes political transformation in the world of the city. —Molly McQuade
Booklist
Maraire, a Harvard-educated native of Zimbabwe now living in the United States, has written a beautifully poignant first novel about what it means to be a woman in Africa. The novel is written in the form of a letter from a mother to her daughter, Zenzele, who is just beginning her studies at Harvard. The mother writes of her girlhood in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe's colonial name), the struggle for Zimbabwe's independence, and her hopes and fears for the next generation. She has watched villagers send the best of her generation to Europe or America for an education, with the hope that they would return with their newly learned skills to better the lives of their compatriots. Instead, she is saddened when they do not return home to live but come back only for visits, seeming to have lost all remnants of African culture. The mother offers her own stories in hopes that her daughter, while creating herself, will never forget whence she came. Highly recommended for women's studies collections and to general readers seeking an intimate view of another life.—Debbie Bogenschutz
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
top of page (summary)