The Murderer's Daughters
Randy Susan Meyers, 2010
St. Martin's Press
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312674434
Summary
A beautifully written, compulsively readable debut that deals with the aftermath of a shocking act of violence that leaves two young sisters with nothing but each other—in the tradition of White Oleander, this haunting novel is a testament to the power of family and the ties that bind us together, even as they threaten to tear us apart
Mama was “no macaroni-necklace-wearing kind of mother.” She was a lipstick and perfume-wearing mother, a flirt whose estranged husband still hungered for her. After Mama threw him out, she warned the girls to never let Daddy in the house, an admonition that tears at ten-year-old Lulu whenever she thinks about the day she opened the door for her drunken father, and watched as he killed her mother, stabbed her five-year-old sister Merry and tried to take his own life.
Effectively orphaned by their mother’s death and father’s imprisonment, Lulu and Merry, unwanted by family members and abandoned to a terrifying group home, spend their young lives carrying more than just the visible scars from the tragedy. Even as their plan to be taken in by a well-to-do foster family succeeds, they come to learn they’ll never really belong anywhere or to anyone—that all they have to hold onto is each other.
As they grow into women, Lulu holds fast to her anger, denies her father’s existence and forces Merry into a web of lies about his death that eventually ensnares her own husband and daughters. Merry, certain their safety rests on placating her needy father, dutifully visits him, seeking his approval and love at the expense of her own relationships. As they strive to carve lives of their own, the specter of their father, unrepentant and manipulative even from behind bars, haunts them. And when they learn he’s about to be paroled, the house of cards they’ve built their lives on teeters on the brink of collapse. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1952-53
• Where—Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA
• Education—City College of New York (no degree)
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
The dark drama of Randy Susan Meyers' debut novel, The Murderer's Daughters is informed by her years of work with batterers, domestic violence victims, and at-risk youth impacted by family violence.
The Murderer's Daugher was published in 2010; 2013 saw the publishing of her second, The Comfort of Lies. Meyers’ short stories have been published in the Fog City Review, Perigee: Publication for the Arts, and the Grub Street Free Press.
In her words
I was born in Brooklyn, New York, where I quickly moved from playing with dolls to incessantly reading, spending most of my time at the Kensington Branch Library. Early on I developed a penchant for books rooted in social issues, my early favorites being Karen and The Family Nobody Wanted. Shortly I moved onto Jubilee and The Diary of Anne Frank.
My dreams of justice simmered at the fantastically broadminded Camp Mikan, where I went from camper to counselor, culminating in a high point when (with the help of my strongly Brooklyn-accented singing voice), I landed the role of Adelaide in the staff production of Guys and Dolls.
Soon I was ready to change the world, starting with my protests at Tilden High and City College of New York...until I left to pursue the dream in Berkeley, California, where I supported myself by selling candy, nuts, and ice cream in Bartons of San Francisco. Then, world weary at too tender an age, I returned to New York, married, and traded demonstrations for diapers.
While raising two daughters, I tended bar, co-authored a nonfiction book on parenting (Couples with Children), ran a summer camp, and (in my all-time favorite job, other than writing) helped resurrect and run a community center. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A clear-eyed, insightful story about domestic violence and survivor's guilt...an impressively executed novel, disturbing and convincing.
Diane White - Boston Globe
Your heart will go out to Lulu and Merry. The tale of their grief and struggle to find their identities is beautifully written. A great debut novel
Rochelle Olson - Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune
Unshakable truths at every turn.... Meyers, in a remarkably assured debut, details how the sisters process their grief in separate but similarly punishing ways.
Christian Toto - Denver Post
A gut-wrenchingly powerful, emotional novel that takes a very real look at how today's society handles crimes of passions and their consequences. She handles the subject with a tough-love, gloves-off approach that is both sensitive and practical, and as a result gives readers a look into a life that many live and deal with on a daily basis.
Sharon Galligar Chance - Wichita Falls Time Record News
This solid novel begins with young Lulu finding her mother dead and her sister wounded at the hands of her alcoholic father, who has failed at killing himself after attacking the family. Meyers traces the following 30 years for Lulu and her sister, Merry, as they are sent to an orphanage, where Lulu turns tough and calculating, searching for a way into an adoptive family. Eventually, Lulu becomes a doctor specializing in “the almost old,” though her secretiveness about her past causes new rifts to form in her new family. Meanwhile, Merry becomes a “victim witness advocate,” but her life is stunted; she's dependant on Lulu, drugs and alcohol, and she can't find love because she “usually want[s] whoever wants me.” In the background, their imprisoned father looms until a crisis that eerily mirrors the past forces Lulu and Merry to confront what happened years ago. Though the novel's sprawling time line and undifferentiated narrative voices—the sisters narrate in rotating first-person chapters—hinder the potential for readers to fall completely into the story, the psychologically complex characters make Meyers's debut a satisfying read.
Publishers Weekly
Lulu and Merry, ages ten and six, respectively, live with parents for whom marriage is a permanent battleground. One summer day in 1971, their father fatally stabs their mother in their Brooklyn apartment near Coney Island. Merry is also attacked but survives. When their father goes to jail, the sisters are shuffled from relatives to a group home to foster care. Lulu forever blames herself for her father's crimes, and Merry inexplicably continues to carry a torch for her father. How will they come to terms with their horrific past? Readers will follow them well into adulthood, hoping for the best. Verdict: First novelist Meyers draws on the eight years she worked at a batterer intervention program. Much like Janet Fitch's White Oleander or Jacqueline Mitchard's The Deep End of the Ocean, her book takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Readers, get out your handkerchief and prepare to care. —Keddy Ann Outlaw, Houston.
Library Journal
Meyers' empathetic, socially conscious debut considers the burdens carried and eventually shed by two sisters, survivors of domestic violence. Ten-year-old Lulu and eight-year-old Merry are caught up in adult turmoil when their father murders their mother in July 1971. Over the subsequent three decades, Lulu feels ineradicable guilt for letting him into the apartment that day and takes on the responsibility of protecting her sister. Merry, who bears literal scars (their father knifed her too), nevertheless considers it her job to keep him cheery throughout his life sentence. The children suffer relentlessly, both before the murder under the care of their neglectful mother and afterward in a miserable orphanage. A calm phase follows when the kindly Dr. and Mrs. Cohen take them home as foster children, yet both girls grow up deeply marked. Lulu is a short-tempered control freak who lies about her parents; Merry self-destructively depends on booze and unavailable men. Lulu marries successfully and has two children, but the women's lives are finally blown apart when one of the children is briefly held hostage at the courthouse where Merry works as a probation officer. Now the truth comes out, and both Lulu and Merry are liberated, to a degree. Eminently readable, despite some clunky phrasing and an excess of psychology, with affecting moments and insights.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The book begins with the statement, "I wasn't surprised when Mama asked me to save her life." As readers, we soon learn that Lulu, the narrator of this section, is not able to get help in time to save her mother. How does this impossible failure determine the course of Lulu's life? Why do you think the author chose to begin the narrative with this statement, and how does it shape the reader’s response to the violent scene that follows? What does this statement reveal about Lulu's experience as a daughter up to the point of her mother’s murder? How does the burden of this expectation determine her choices in life?
2. The novel begins with the murder of the main characters’ mother by their father, from Lulu's perspective. The narration of the novel then moves back and forth between Merry and Lulu. How do you think this narrative structure allowed you to understand the characters motivations in their different ways of coping with the formative trauma of their childhood?
3. What was your response to Merry’s need to stay attached to her father, and even emotionally care for him, despite his violence to both herself and her mother? How does Merry’s attachment to her father compare to Lulu’s need to deny his existence?
4. Were you surprised when the Cohen family took in Merry and Lulu? Merry and Lulu have trouble adapting to their foster family, just as their foster family has trouble fully embracing Merry and Lulu. The scene of Thanksgiving was particularly difficult for everyone. What was it like for you, as the reader, to experience this family scene? Did you find yourself judging or sympathizing with anyone in particular? How did it connect to the vision of family presented throughout the novel?
5. Both Merry and Lulu choose careers that are related to their early experiences of trauma. The scenes of their respective training, Merry as a victim advocate and Lulu as a doctor, help the reader understand the visceral connection between their early trauma and their professional choices. Do you think that their work lives allow them to create meaning from their suffering, or does it hinder their ability to develop beyond their early experience?
6. Lulu considers Merry’s inability to be in a long-term romantic relationship the result of Merry’s loyalty to their father. Do you think this is accurate? Are you surprised that Merry accepts her father’s help when she returns to school? Despite Lulu’s judgment of their father, Merry feels a duty towards him. Might there be any positive aspects to her filial loyalty?
7. Lulu describes herself as a reluctant mother, and throughout the book she has trouble showing the devotion to motherhood that Drew expects of her. What do you think holds Lulu back from fully surrendering to her role as a mother? How does your understanding of Lulu as a mother change after her daughters are held hostage in the courthouse?
8. Both Merry’s clients and Lulu’s patients depend on them to make life-changing choices about their lives. Their own childhood was bleak; where do you think they found the ability to offer such compassion to others? Do you think they would have made the same types of choices, if Ann Cohen had not been their foster mother?
9. The title of the novel, The Murderer’s Daughters, defines Merry and Lulu by their father’s violence. The novel ends soon after Joey is released from jail, and has served his debt to society. Do you think that Merry and Lulu will ever be able to transcend their role as “a murderer’s daughter,” What would happen to them if they did?
10. What do you think their mother would have wanted for her daughters? Would she have been able to understand their choices about alternately denying and embracing family?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Queen by Right
Anne Easter Smith, 2011
Simon & Schuster
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416550471
Summary
In Cecily Neville, duchess of York and ancestor of every English monarch to the present day, she has found her most engrossing character yet. History remembers Cecily of York standing on the steps of the Market Cross at Ludlow, facing an attacking army while holding the hands of her two young sons.
Queen by Right reveals how she came to step into her destiny, beginning with her marriage to Richard, duke of York, whom she meets when she is nine and he is thirteen. Raised together in her father’s household, they become a true love match and together face personal tragedies, pivotal events of history, and deadly political intrigue. All of England knows that Richard has a clear claim to the throne, and when King Henry VI becomes unfit to rule, Cecily must put aside her hopes and fears and help her husband decide what is right for their family and their country.
Queen by Right marks Anne Easter Smith’s greatest achievement, a book that every fan of sweeping, exquisitely detailed historical fiction will devour. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1950
• Raised—England, Germany, Egypt
• Currently—lives near Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Anne Easter Smith is an English-American historical novelist. She is the aunt of England rugby No. 8, Nick Easter.
Smith's novels are set during the Wars of the Roses, the period during which two branches of the House of Plantagenet, the Houses of York and Lancaster, were in contention for the throne of England. As a Ricardian, Anne Easter Smith's novels show a more sympathetic treatment of Richard III than Shakespeare's famous play — but Shakespeare was writing under the reign of the Tudors, who had taken the throne when forces under the command of the future Henry VII of England defeated Richard III's Yorkists at the Battle of Bosworth.
Easter Smith's first novel, A Rose for the Crown, has as its central theme the love story between Richard, while he was Duke of Gloucester during the reign of his brother Edward IV, and the woman who gave birth to Richard's pre-marriage illegitimate children. History tells us of these children, but never identifies who their mother was (or mothers were...). Easter Smith's well-researched novel puts the real characters in the right places at the right dates, eating the period foods, and suffering from period maladies, while inventing other characters to round out the story.
In her second novel, Easter Smith focuses on Margaret of York, Richard and Edward's sister, who, like all royals of the time, anticipates a marriage negotiated for political advantage. Margaret is wedded to Charles the Bold, ruler of the Duchy of Burgundy, the wealthiest in Europe. Daughter of York tells the story of Margaret's early life in England, her lavish wedding to Charles, and both her personal and public life in Burgundy's leading cities, which at the time included Bruges, Binche, and Mechelen, among others.
Easter Smith's third novel, The King's Grace, explores the identity of Perkin Warbeck, through the eyes of Grace Plantagenet, an illegitimate daughter of King Edward IV. Her fourth novel, Queen by Right, concerns the life of Cecily Neville, mother of Edward IV and Richard III. (From Wikipedia.)
In her words
In my novels, I strive to serve those readers who are looking for accuracy in historical fact and yet also engage those who are looking for a good story with strong characters, a little romance and lots of period detail. A Rose for the Crown, Daughter of York, The King's Grace, and Queen by Right are for those readers who enjoy settling into a book and living with the characters for a good long time.
I spent my childhood in England, Germany and Egypt as the daughter of a British Army colonel. At my boarding school in Surrey a teacher we called "Conky"—after William the Conqueror—inspired my passion for history. When in my early 20s, I read Josephine Tey's A Daughter of Time, I became particularly fascinated by Shakespeare's so-called villain, Richard III.
At age 24, after living and working as a secretary in London and Paris, I came on a lark to New York with my flatmate just for a "two-year stint." Many years, two marriages, two children and five cross-country moves later I'm very definitely a permanent resident of the U.S.—but my love for English history remains.
I began writing professionally a few years after I landed in Plattsburgh, NY near the beautiful Adirondack Mountains with my first husband and daughters, Joanna and Kate. For ten years, I was the Features/Arts Editor for the daily newspaper and wrote articles on every conceivable subject that was not hard news! It proved a wonderful training ground for my foray into authoring.
It was while living in Plattsburgh that I took on another persona as a folksinger, playing in music festivals, clubs, restaurants, and on public radio. When I'm not writing, I can be found either on the local stage or weeding my garden, the latter which I hate almost as much as I do sewing!
My husband, Scott, and I love biking, canoeing, cross-country skiing and sailing, which we can do either near Boston, where we live now, or back in the Adirondacks. I should also add that I'm a member of the Richard III Society and the Historical Novel Society. And my daughter Kate has even got me posting to Anne Easter Smith Facebook page. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Intelligent, compelling and engaging, her novel is lively, believable historical fiction with a heroine readers will take to their hearts.
Romantic Times
Familial betrayal, political scandal, savage wars, decapitations, and licentious affairs.... Fans of medieval historical fiction will undoubtedly appreciate this intimate portrayal of some of the era's key players.
Publishers Weekly
Thanks in no small part to William Shakespeare, history recognizes Richard III, the last king in the Plantagenet dynasty and last ruler of the House of York. But less well remembered is his mother, Cecily of York. An intelligent, dynamic woman unafraid of speaking her mind, she and her husband, also Richard, were a rare love match in a time of marriage as social and political contract. With her signature attention to detail, Smith fully fleshes out the life of this English lady and, through her eyes, skillfully dramatizes the thick of the Wars of the Roses. A master of historical accuracy and complex political intrigues, the author suffers one surprising downfall here; at times flat and at times awkward, the romance between Cecily and Richard works best when the lovers are apart. Verdict: Though this latest is not quite as effortlessly engaging as Smith's previous novels (e.g., The King's Grace), her fans will enjoy it. —Leigh Wright, Bridgewater, NJ
Library Journal
Discussion Questions
1. How would you characterize the initial relationship that develops between Richard Plantagenet and Cecily Neville when Dickon joins the Neville family as a young ward? Why is their betrothal considered a great match for Cecily? How does their formal betrothal ceremony alter the dynamics of their relationship?
2. On a ride through the woods when she is eight, Cecily surprises a white deer and interprets its appearance as a holy sign. Later, at her father's death, she witnesses a white dove, and it to be a symbol that her father will be accepted into Heaven. How would you describe the trajectory of Cecily's faith over the course of her life? How does her faith guide her decisions? What events eventually bring about her disbelief?
3. How does his father's execution during Richard's childhood create a kind of social "guilt by association" that Richard must strive to overcome? How does Richard's behavior at Court bear evidence of his wish to compensate for his family's scandalous past?
4. Given her own station as the noble daughter of an esteemed English family, and the wife of the powerful and well-connected Duke of York, why does Cecily Neville feel a special kinship with Jeanne d'Arc, a young French peasant? What aspects of Jeanne's life might Cecily especially admire or envy? How does their encounter in Jeanne's cell change Cecily's life forever?
5. In the scenes involving Jeanne d'Arc, Cecily undergoes moments of intense spiritual awareness, in which she witnesses what she believes is the physical presence of the Holy Spirit. Have you ever felt a similar awareness of a divine presence or spirit? How were those experiences transformative for you? If you've never felt anything of the sort, can you imagine why such an experience might change someone's life and way of thinking? Why or why not?
6. How does the author's strategic use of flashbacks in the novel's narrative enable you as a reader to see Cecily's life through her own memories? Of the many parts of her life that Cecily reveals through her memories, which ones were most powerful or memorable for you, and why? Consider Cecily's childhood, her relationship with her husband, and the births and deaths of her many children.
7. Cecily is surrounded by women who help her navigate her life—her mother, Joan, who informs her morality; her sister-in-law, Alice Montagu, who explains carnal matters with forthrightness; her attendants, Rowena and Gresilde, who take care of all of her daily needs; and her personal physician, Constance LeMaitre, who helps deliver her children and serves as her confidante. What do these relationships reveal about the sphere inhabited by women in this era? Of the many connections Cecily has with women, which seem to influence her most profoundly?
8. How would you describe Cecily's feelings about motherhood? How do the many children she loses in infancy affect her feelings toward her surviving children? How would you characterize her role in her children's development, and how does it compare to her husband's influence?
9. How does Henry VI's mental instability contribute to volatility in the English kingdom and Europe at large? How is the fragility of his mental state foreshadowed in Queen by Right? Why does the pregnant Margaret of Anjou, Henry's French-born queen, see Richard's efforts to serve as Regent during Henry's illness as a threat to her child's future? To what extent are Margaret's fears warranted?
10. How does Cecily actively subvert the following advice from her mother: "I suppose you will learn the hard way that women will never be a man's equal in this world. We may lend an ear, we may even counsel our husbands when asked, but we are a man's property from one end of our lives to the other." To what extent does her role in her husband's decision-making suggest that her power in their marriage is far greater than meets the eye?
11. What does Cecily's behavior in departing from her embattled castle in Ludlow reveal about her true nature? Why does Henry VI show mercy in sparing her and her young children from execution? Given her frustration with her husband for his absences during other difficult moments in their life together, to what extent were you surprised that Cecily did not bear any resentment toward Richard for putting her in such a dreadful position?
12. How does Richard of York's intense military campaign against Henry VI enable Edward's political rise and eventual crowning as King Edward IV? What does Edward's public reception as a hero and sovereign reveal about the English people's attitudes toward Henry VI? How does Edward's ascent to the English throne impact Cecily Neville personally?
13. If you could relive any periods of Cecily's life, which would you choose to revisit and why? How does Cecily Neville compare to other heroines and historic figures you have encountered in literature?
(Questions issued by publisher. See http://readinggroups.simonandschuster.com/)
The Time in Between
Maria Duenas, 2011
Atrias Books
624 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451616880
Summary
The inspiring international bestseller of a seemingly ordinary woman who uses her talent and courage to transform herself first into a prestigious couturier and then into an undercover agent for the Allies during World War II
Between Youth and Adulthood . . . At age twelve, Sira Quiroga sweeps the atelier floors where her single mother works as a seamstress. At fourteen, she quietly begins her own apprenticeship. By her early twenties she has learned the ropes of the business and is engaged to a modest government clerk. But everything changes when two charismatic men burst unexpectedly into her neatly mapped-out life: an attractive salesman and the father she never knew.
Between War and Peace . . . With the Spanish Civil War brewing in Madrid, Sira leaves her mother and her fiancé, impetuously following her handsome lover to Morocco. However, she soon finds herself abandoned, penniless, and heartbroken in an exotic land. Among the odd collection of European expatriates trapped there by the worsening political situation back on the Continent, Sira reinvents herself by turning to the one skill that can save her: her gift for creating beautiful clothes.
Between Love and Duty . . . As England, Germany, and the other great powers launch into the dire conflict of World War II, Sira is persuaded to return to Madrid, where she takes on a new identity to embark upon the most dangerous undertaking of her career. As the preeminent couturier for an eager clientele of Nazi officers’ wives, Sira becomes embroiled in the half-lit world of espionage and political conspiracy rife with love, intrigue, and betrayal.
Already a runaway bestseller across Europe, The Time In Between is one of those rare, richly textured novels that enthrall down to the last page. María Dueñas reminds us how it feels to be swept away by a masterful storyteller. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Maria Duenas holds a PhD in English Philology and is currently a professor at the University of Murcia. She has also taught at American universities, is the author of several academic articles, and has participated in various educational, cultural, and editorial projects. (From the publisher .)
Book Reviews
A literary cocktail that mixes adventure, espionage, glamour, aristocracy, and passion.
La Vanguardia (Spain)
A tale of frustrated dreams and dreams come true, embodying all the perverse charm of what time, implacably, has swept away.... Don’t pass it by.
El Mundo (Spain)
From a terrific opening line to the final page, chapters zip by at a pulsing pace
USA Today
It is no surprise this debut novel was a runaway success in Europe. American fans of historical fiction looking for a dramatic, uncomplicated escape will be similarly entranced.
Library Journal
Packed with engaging characters, flawlessly researched, and breathlessly paced.
Booklist
"You wore blue. The Germans wore gray." So quoth Humphrey Bogart's character in Casablanca, the tutelary spirit behind bestselling Spanish debut novelist Duenas' high-minded historical soap.... Middlebrow and breezy. A perfect beach read, if a touch off-season, unless you're headed for Casablanca and its waters.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The first sentence of the book, "A typewriter shattered my destiny" is an example of the author's use of foreshadowing of future events. Were you immediately drawn into the story? Were you curious to know whose destiny was shattered and why?
2. What's Sira's relationship with her mother like at the outset of The Time in Between? In what ways does it change throughout the course of the story? Do you think that Sira becomes engaged because she's really in love, or because of pressure from her mother? And, is it her humble beginnings, naivetÉ, or something more that lures Sira into an affair with Ramiro? Can you think of other protagonists who were led astray by a charming older man?
3. Discuss what role heartbreak plays in The Time in Between. How does it change Sira? Do you think it ultimately makes her stronger? Why or why not?
4. Sira is a couture designer who was born on June 8, 1911. The story ends in the early 1940s. Discuss how the world of fashion and Sira changed with the political situation of the time (see pgs.7, 143, 155).
5. What do you think of Candelaria and Dolores? How did each of these women influence Sira's life and future choices?
6. Discuss the characters that Sira encounters in Candeleria's boarding house. What do you think of their interactions over the supper table? Does your opinion of Candelaria change throughout the novel? If so, why?
7. Who is Commissioner Claudio Vazquez? Was he friend, foe, or both to Sira?
8. How did the author give us insight into the political situation in Madrid and Morocco during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s and early World War II?
9. Felix is Sira's Pygmalion. How did their unlikely friendship benefit each of them?
10. Discuss the many ways Sira re-invented herself. How was Sira Quiroga different from Arish Agoriuq?
11. Rosalinda Fox says to Sira on page 197, "Sometimes luck decides to make our decisions for us, no? Asi es la vida. That's life, no?" Do you agree with that statement? Discuss how luck may have played a role in each of their lives.
12. How would you characterize Rosalind Fox? Does knowing that she's real affect your reading of her? How realistic does she seem to you?
13. Why is Sira so reticent about Marcus? What did you think about the revelations they each made about the other at the end?
14. Sira does extraordinary things throughout The Time in Between. Does this make her a heroine? Or, is she simply acting based on circumstances?
15. Like Sira, many of the other characters in The Time in Between take risks, particularly because of the wars. Which ones did you think were the most dangerous? Why? What do you think the title of the book signifies?
16. How would you cast the movie version of The Time in Between? Who would play the role of Sira? Marcus Logan? Ramiro Arribas?
17. Maria Duenas is an academic. Does knowing this influence your reading of the story? If so, in what ways?
Only Time Will Tell (Clifton Chronicles Series 1)
Jeffrey Archer, 2011
St. Martin's Press
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312539566
Summary
The first novel in the Clifton Chronicles, an ambitious new series that tells the story of a family across generations and oceans, from heartbreak to triumph.
The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the words “I was told that my father was killed in the war.” A dock worker in Bristol, Harry never knew his father and expects to continue on at the shipyard, until a remarkable gift wins him a scholarship to an exclusive boys’ school, and his life will never be the same again...
As Harry enters into adulthood, he finally learns how his father really died, but the awful truth only leads him to question: Was he even his father? Is he the son of Arthur Clifton, a stevedore, or the firstborn son of a scion of West Country society, whose family owns a shipping line?
From the ravages of the Great War and the docks of working-class England to the streets of 1940 New York City and the outbreak of the Second World War, this is a powerful journey that will bring to life one hundred years of history to reveal a family story that neither the reader nor Harry Clifton himself could ever have imagined. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 15, 1940
• Where—London; raised in Somerset, England, UK
• Education—Oxford University; Oxford Institute
• Currently—lives in London and the Old Vicarage,
Grantchester
Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare is a best-selling English author and former politician whose political career ended with his conviction and subsequent imprisonment (2001–03) for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Alongside his literary work, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–74), deputy chairman of the Conservative Party (1985–86) and was made a life peer in 1992.
Early years
Jeffrey Howard Archer was born in the City of London Maternity Hospital. He was two weeks old when his family moved to the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, where he spent most of his early life. He has an older brother born out of wedlock, also originally called Jeffrey, who was put up for adoption at an early age. The brother assumed the name David Brown and only discovered his relationship to Archer in 1980.
In 1951 Archer won a scholarship to Wellington School, in Somerset (not to be confused with the public school Wellington College). At this time his mother, Lola, contributed a column "Over the Teacups" to the local press in Weston-super-Mare and wrote about the adventures of her son 'Tuppence'; this caused Archer to be the victim of bullying while at Wellington School.
After Archer left school passing O-levels in English Literature, Art, and History, he worked in a number of jobs, including training with the army and for the police. This lasted only for a few months, but he fared better as a Physical Education teacher; first at Vicar's Hill, a Prep School in Hampshire where he taught fencing amongst other sports, later at the more prestigious independent school Dover College in Kent. As a teacher he was popular with pupils and was reported by some to have had good motivational skills, helping to instil personal confidence in the less confident.
Archer studied for three years, gaining an academic qualification in teaching awarded by the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education. The course was based at Brasenose College, Oxford, although Archer was never registered as an undergraduate student of the College.
He raised money for the charity Oxfam, obtaining the support of The Beatles in a charity fundraising drive. The band accepted his invitation to visit the senior common room of Brasenose College, where they were photographed with Archer and dons of the college, although they did not play there.
It was during this period that Archer met his wife, Mary Weeden, at that time studying chemistry at St Anne's College, Oxford. They married in July 1966. Mary went on to specialise in solar power.
Early career
After leaving Oxford, he continued as a charity fundraiser, working for the National Birthday Trust, a medical charity. He also began a career in politics, serving as a Conservative councillor on the Greater London Council during 1967–70.
One organization Archer worked for, the United Nations Association, alleged discrepancies in his claims for expenses, and details appeared in the press in a scrambled form. Archer brought a defamation action against the former Conservative member of parliament Humphry Berkeley, chairman of the UNA, as the source of the allegations. The case was settled out of court after three years. Berkeley tried to persuade Conservative Central Office that Archer was unsuitable as a parliamentary candidate, but a selection meeting at Louth disregarded any doubts.
Archer set up his own fund-raising company, Arrow Enterprises, in 1969. That same year he opened an art gallery, the Archer Gallery, in Mayfair. The gallery specialised in modern art, including pieces by the acclaimed sculptor and painter Leon Underwood. The gallery ultimately lost money, however, and Archer sold it two years later.
Writing career
His first book, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, was published in 1976. The book was an instant success, with BBC Television adapting the book in 1990, following a BBC radio adaptation in the early 1980s.
Kane and Abel proved to be his best-selling works, reaching number one on the New York Times bestsellers list. It was made into a television mini-series by CBS in 1985, starring Peter Strauss and Sam Neill. The following year, Granada TV screened a ten-part adaptation of another Archer bestseller, First Among Equals, which told the story of four men and their quest to become Prime Minister.
In 2011, Archer published Only Time Will Tell, the first of what will be five books in The Clifton Chronicles, which follow the life of Harry Clifton from his birth in 1920, through to the finale in 2020.
Political career
In 1969 at the age of 29, Archer was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for the Lincolnshire constituency of Louth, holding the seat for the Conservative Party in a by-election on 4 December 1969. Archer won over a substantial proportion of younger members at the selection meeting.
In Parliament, Archer was on the left of the Conservative Party, rebelling against some of his party's policies. He urged free TV licences for the elderly and was against museum charges. Archer voted against restoring capital punishment, saying it was barbaric and obscene.
In 1974, he was a casualty of a fraudulent investment scheme involving Aquablast, a Canadian company, a debacle which lost Archer his first fortune. Fearing imminent bankruptcy, he stood down as an MP at the October 1974 general election. By this time the Archers were living in a large five-bedroom house in The Boltons, an exclusive street in South Kensington. As a result of the Aquablast affair, they were forced to sell the house and move into more modest accommodation for a while.
Archer's political career was revived again in 1985 once he became known for his novel. He was a popular speaker among the Conservative grassroots and made deputy chairman of the Conservative Party by Margaret Thatcher in September 1985.
During his tenure as deputy chairman, Archer was responsible for a number of embarrassing moments, including his statement, made during a live radio interview, that many young, unemployed people were simply unwilling to find work. At the time of Archer's comment, unemployment in the UK stood at a record 3.4 million. Archer was later forced to apologise for the remark, suggesting that his words had been "taken out of context."
Scandals and trials
In 1986 Archer was the subject of an article in The News of the World, "Tory boss Archer pays vice-girl." The story claimed Archer had paid Monica Coghlan, a prostitute, £2,000 through an intermediary at Victoria Station to go abroad.
When the Daily Star also alleged Archer had paid for sex with Coghlan, he responded by suing that paper. The case came to court in July 1987. Explaining the payment to Coghlan as the action of a philanthropist rather than that of a guilty man, Archer won the case and was awarded £500,000 damages. Archer stated he would donate the money to charity. This case would ultimately result in Archer's final exit from front-line politics some years later.
Archer lost a libel case after accusations in his book Twist in the Tale, portraying Major General James Oluleye to be a thief. (Oluleye is the author of Architecturing a Destiny and Military Leadership in Nigeria.)
In 1994, Mary Archer, then a director of Anglia Television, attended a directors' meeting at which an impending takeover of Anglia Television by MAI, which owned Meridian Broadcasting, was discussed. The following day, Jeffrey Archer bought 50,000 shares in Anglia Television, acting on behalf of a friend, Broosk Saib. Shortly after this, it was announced publicly that Anglia Television would be taken over by MAI. As a result the shares jumped in value, whereupon Archer sold them on behalf of his friend for a profit of £77,219. The arrangements he made with the stockbrokers meant he did not have to pay at the time of buying the shares.
An inquiry was launched by the Stock Exchange into possible insider trading. The Department of Trade and Industry, however, announced that Archer would not be prosecuted due to lack of sufficient evidence.
In 1999, Archer had been selected by the Conservative Party as candidate for the 2000 London mayoral election. But when the News of the World published allegations that he had committed perjury in his 1987 libel case (see above), Archer withdrew his candidacy. In July, 2001, Archer was found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice at the 1987 trial. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment, though released after two.
After the perjury allegations broke, Archer was disowned by his party. Conservative leader William Hague explained: "This is the end of politics for Jeffrey Archer. I will not tolerate such behaviour in my party." In 2000 Archer was expelled from the party for five years.
Peerage
When Saddam Hussein suppressed Kurdish uprisings in 1991, Archer, with the Red Cross, set up the charity Simple Truth, a fundraising campaign on behalf of the Kurds. In 1992 Archer was made a life peer, as Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare, of Mark in the County of Somerset. Prime minister John Major recommended him largely because of his role in aid to the Kurds. (Author bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[A]page-turning, heart-stopping saga, with delightful twists, and a surprise ending.... [R]eaders will surely wait for the next [installment] with bated breath.
Publishers Weekly
Internationally best-selling British storyteller Archer launches his most daunting literary project—a five-volume, semiautobiographical, multigenerational epic.... [Readers] will enjoy this unforgettable tale, which abounds with cliff-hangers that propel its intriguing and intricate plot. —Jerry P. Miller, Cambridge, MA
Library Journal
What appears at the outset to be a straightforward coming-of-age tale becomes, by the end, a saga of power, betrayal, and bitter hatred. The novel ends on a deliberately dark note, setting the stage for the sequel.... An outstanding effort from a reliable veteran.
Booklist
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Time Will Tell...then take off on your own:
1. What's the significance of the novel's title, "Only Time Will Tell"? How does it apply to events in the story?
2. What do you think of young Harry Clifton? How would you describe his character?
3. In what way is Harry influenced by his uncle?
4. Did you have an idea as to Harry's paternity? Or were you taken by surprise?
5. Talk about Maisie, Harry's mother. Would you have made the sacrifice that she made for her son? Does her wish for him to have a good life justify her choices?
6. What about young Harry's experiences at boarding school? How does class hierarchy and social snobbery make itself felt at the school?
7. A fun thought experiment: what do you think of Harry's essay on Jane Austen, which purports that...
If Miss Austen had been able to go to university, she might never have written a novel, and even if she had, her work probably wouldn’t have been so insightful.
When challenged by his housemaster, Harry replies that "sometimes it's an advantage to be disadvantaged."
Two questions: 1) what do you think of Harry's statement regarding Austen; 2) what about Harry's response that being disadvantaged can be positive?
8. In what way does Archer draw Harry as a young hero with an almost a mythical quest? What is Harry's quest? And what role, for instance, does Old Jack Tar play in his quest? What about Captain Tarrant?
9. Why might Archer have used different voices to tell his story? What advantages does it offer a writer? Do you find the shifting perspectives illuminating...or distracting? Do you prefer some voices over others? Roger Allam, perhaps, or Emelia Fox?
10. Does the fact that the book ends with a cliff-hanger make you eager for the next installment in the series? Or do you wish this book's ending had offered more closure...a gentler "angel of repose"?
11. A number of readers and critics feel the plot is predictable. Do you agree or disagree? How did you experience the book—with excitement and suspense? Or were you turning pages because ... well, just because pages are meant to be turned?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon
Kaye Gibbons, 1998
Penguin Group USA
273 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060797140
Summary
Emma Garnet Tate, the daughter of a rich plantation owner on the James River in Virginia, is the narrator of Kay Gibbons¹s extraordinary sixth novel, a journey into the past and into the heart of a woman. Although she lives a pampered life, wrapped in the love of her gentle mother and cared for by the warm and feisty servant Clarice, she must bear the crude dictates of her father, a self-made man who has acquired the trappings of wealth but remains marked by his humble origins and the dark secrets of his own childhood.
Emma Garnet refuses to conform to the ideal of Southern womanhood, reading books supposedly not fit for a girl, disturbed by the "peculiar institution" of slavery, indifferent to developing the charms and wiles to attract a well-born Southern husband. When she marries Quincy Lowell, a doctor and the scion of a famous Northern family, her father ceases to communicate with her.
Accompanied by Clarice, she and Quincy settle in Raleigh, where their comfortable life is soon swept aside by the advent of the Civil War. Through the long years of strife, Emma Garnet nurses horribly wounded young men and watches as the ways of the Old South shatter around her. The war reaches deep into her life; when the conflict ends, both Quincy and Clarice succumb to its destructive powers. With her three daughters, Emma Garnet begins life anew in her husband's hometown of Boston.
For her, however, there is only one true home, and she returns to Raleigh to help build a new South, in which all people are treated with respect and humanity. On the occasion of her last afternoon, exploring the poignant, horrific, and joyful events of more than fifty years, she faces death with equanimity, proud of her accomplishments, and at peace with herself. (Also from the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 05, 1960
• Where—Nash County, North Carolina, USA
• Education—North Carolina State University and University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Awards—Hemingway Award Citation, 1987; PEN/Revson
Award, 1988; NEA Grant, 1989; Knighthood of the Order of
Arts & Letters, Paris, 1998; Kaufman Prize, American
Society of Arts & Letters
• Currently—lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, and New York
Kaye Gibbons is the author of eight novels beginning with Ellen Foster. Her later works include, A Virtuous Woman, A Cure for Dreams, and Charms for the Easy Life, Sights Unseen, On the Occasion of My Last Afternoon, Divining Women, The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster. She lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with her husband and five children.
More
Kaye Gibbons was born in Nash County, North Carolina and attended Rocky Mount Senior High School, North Carolina State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her first novel, Ellen Foster, was awarded the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction of the American Academy and Institute of the Arts and Letters and a special citation from the Ernest Hemingway Foundation. She has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and was recently awarded the PEN/Revson Fellowship for A Cure for Dreams. She is writer-in-residence at the Library of North Carolina State University. She and her husband, Michael, and their three daughters Mary, Leslie and Louise, live in Raleigh.
In 1987, a novel detailing the hardships and heartbreaks of a tough, witty, and resolute 11-year-old girl from North Carolina found its way into the hearts of readers all over the country. Ellen Foster was the story of its namesake, who had suffered years of tough luck and cruelty until finding her way into the home of a kind foster mother. Now,
In 2006, some nineteen years later, author Kaye Gibbons wrote a continuation of Ellen's story. Ellen is now fifteen and living in a permanent household with her new adoptive mother. However, Ellen still feels unsettled an incomplete. Due to "the surplus of living" she had "jammed" into the years leading up to this point in her life, Ellen feels as though she is deserving of early admission into Harvard University. However, when this dream does not come to be, she re-embarks on her soul-searching journey, drawing her back to those she left behind in North Carolina.
Good-bye, Ellen Foster?
While it took Gibbons nearly two decades to return to her most-beloved character, she never truly let go of Ellen Foster, even as she was penning bestsellers and critical favorites such as A Cure For Dreams and Charms For the Easy Life. "She is like a fourth child in my house," Gibbons said in an audio interview with Barnes&Noble.com. "Ellen is really like the kid who came to spend the weekend and stayed for twenty years."
Perhaps Gibbons's close association with the little orphan is the result of her own personal connection to the character. She claims that the Ellen Foster books were "emotionally" autobiographical and helped her to come to terms with the most painful experience of her life. When Gibbons was a child, her ailing mother committed suicide—an event that placed her on the same pathless quest for love and belonging as Ellen.
The untimely death of Gibbons's mother provided much of the impetus for her to revisit Ellen in the 2006 sequel. "Before I wrote The Life All Around Me," she confides, "I wasn't obsessed by my mother's suicide, but I was angry about it... and it's something that I thought about every few minutes of the day, and I always wondered what my life would have been like had she stayed. She had extremely awful medical problems and had just had open-heart surgery, and back then we didn't know what we know now about the hormonal changes after heart surgery and the depression that's so typical after it. After I wrote The Life All Around Me, I was amazed that I didn't think about it as much as I did, and I found that I'd forgiven her and understood it."
Now that she has set some of her old demons to rest with Ellen Foster's sequel, which Booklist called "compelling and unique," Gibbons has vowed not to allow another nineteen years to pass before completing the next chapter in Ellen's story. She ensures that Ellen's adventures are just beginning and ultimately intends to tell the tale of her entire life.
I decided to recreate the life of a woman in literature. I always liked to have a big job to do... and I thought about how marvelous it would be at the end of my life to have created a free-standing woman; a walking, talking all-but-breathing person on paper.
Ambitious as this project may sound, a woman who has faced the challenges that Gibbons has shall surely prove herself to be up to the task.
Her Own Words:
From a 2006 Barnes & Nobel interview:
• I wrote A Virtuous Woman while nursing two babies simultaneously, typing with my arms wrapped around them. I turned in stained pages but never called them to anyone's attention for fear they'd be horrified.
• I got a C on an Ellen Foster paper I rewrote for a daughter's tenth-grade English class.
• Writing serious work one wants to be read and to last isn't like a hobby that can be picked up and put down, it's a lovely obsession and a very demanding joy.
• Getting involved with things that don't matter in life will get in the way of it, as they will with anything, like family and home, that do matter.
• To unwind, I watch movies and do collages with old photographs from flea markets or make jewelry with my daughter, and the best way to clear my mind is to walk around New York, where I write most of the time in a tiny studio apartment with random mice I've named Willard and Ben, though I can't tell any of those guys apart!
• My writing is powered by Diet Coke, very cold and in a can. If Diet Coke was taken off the market, I'm afraid I'd never write again!
• When asked what book most influenced her life as a writer, her is her response:
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez. There's a staggering density to the novel as well as an ethereal, magical lightness, and I'm constantly studying passages to divine how García Márquez was able to do both with such uncompromising intellectual conviction.
(Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
A plea for racial tolerance is the subtext of Gibbons's estimable new novel, her first foray into historical fiction. Like her previous books (Ellen Foster, 1997, etc.), it is set in the South, but this one takes place during the Civil War era. Now 70 and near death, Emma Garnet Tate begins her account by recalling her youth as a bookish, observant 12-year-old in 1842, living on a Virginia plantation in a highly dysfunctional family dominated by her foulmouthed father, a veritable monster of parental tyranny and racial prejudice. Samuel Tate abuses his wife and six children but he also studies the classics and buys paintings by old masters. Emma's long-suffering mother, of genteel background and gentle ways, is angelic and forgiving; her five siblings' lives are ruined by her father's cruelty; and all are discreetly cared for by Clarice, the clever, formidable black woman who is the only person Samuel Tate respects. (Clarice knows Samuel's humble origins and the dark secret that haunts him, which readers learn only at the end of the book.) Gibbons authentically reproduces the vocabulary and customs of the time: Emma's father says "nigger" while more refined people say Negroes. "Nobody said the word slave. It was servant," Emma observes. At 17, Emma marries one of the Boston Lowells, a surgeon, and spends the war years laboring beside him in a Raleigh hospital. Through graphic scenes of the maimed and dying, Gibbons conveys the horror and futility of battle, expressing her heroine's abolitionist sympathies as Emma tends mangled bodies and damaged souls. By the middle of the book, however, Emma's narration and the portrayal of Clarice as a wise and forbearing earthmother lack emotional resonance. Emma, in fact, is far more interesting as a rebellious child than as a stoic grown woman. One finishes the novel admiring Emma and Clarice but missing the compelling narrative voice that might have made their story truly moving.
Publishers Weekly
Though she remains focused on the South and has created yet another affecting heroine, Gibbons's book is something of a departure: Emma Garnett Tate was born before the Civil War, and before her long life is over (she tells this story from the vantage point of old age), she'll head north and marry a Boston Lowell. Emma's father is, predicably, astonishingly cruel to his family and slaves alike, her mother long-suffering, and Emma herself "too eager to know matters that would do her no good in making a marriage." Gibbons gets all the historical details just right, and the novel opens with a murder that effectively sums up the contradictions of antebellum culture, but in the end this tale does not draw readers in like Ellen Foster and other vintage Gibbons works. Emma's voice is a bit still, a bit bland, though Gibbons has enough power left over to invest her with some very moving moments.
Library Journal
Gibbons's first outing after anointment by Oprah is a Civil War tale that's historically researched to a fault but psychologically the stuff of melodrama. On what may be the last day of her life, Emma Garnet Lowell, ne‚ Tate, sets out to tell all, from childhood in tidewater Virginia (where she was born in 1830) through marriage, childbirth, the war itself, widowhood, and old age. Everything about the telling in setting and in people is writ large. Of characters who are bad, central and most horrendous by far is Emma's father, Samuel Tate, a crude, tyrannical, pro-slavery plantation owner who's raised himself from nothing, kills one of his own slaves, collects Titians, and prizes his Latin studies. Least bad is Emma's mother Alice, saint and central martyr to this ruffian and gout-plagued husband and father who curses Emma's unborn children when she marries Dr. Quincy Lowell of the Boston Lowells, and moves to Raleigh, North Carolina, taking with her the faithful, kind, stalwart, true household servant Clarice Washington. In Raleigh will be born the couple's three perfect daughters, and there the war will rage, taking an always-greater toll as the years grind on, supplies grow meager, and both Quincy and Emma work beyond endurance in the horrors of the military hospital. History throughout is summoned up in the tiniest of details "her frock, deep green velvet with red grosgrain running like Christmas garlands around her skirt" and though Emma's voice is intended to be of its period, it unfortunately tends also toward the wearying ("Without my brother, I would not have known to use books as a haven, a place to go when pain has invaded my citadel"). A book of saints, sinners,and sorrows offering much pleasure for history-snoopers (hospital scenes among the best) but finding no new ground for the saga of the South.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. As a prelude to this novel, Gibbons offers poetry by Allen Tate and Robert Lowell, poets who share her heroine's surnames. How do the poems foreshadow the events and mood of the novel? What do they, and the novel itself, reveal about the legacy of the Civil War?
2. What insights do Emma Garnet's initial reaction to her father's murder of Jacob give you into the society in which she grew up? How does she conform to antebellum Southern beliefs and behavior, and in what ways does she defy them?
3. Why, despite his impressive accomplishments as a self-educated man, is her father so hostile to his bookish son and so critical of Emma Garnet's interest in learning? Why does he prefer his daughter Maureen? What circumstances beyond his personal background influence the way he treats his children?
4. Why doesn¹t Alice Tate protest her husband's behavior? What, if anything, could Emma Garnet have done to make her mother's life easier?
5. Emma Garnet and Quincy acknowledge Clarice's freedom when they arrive in North Carolina, yet they tell the other servants, who are in fact free as well, that Clarice owns them. Is there any justification for their lie? Do you think Charlie, Mavis, and Martha would have remained with the Lowells, as Clarice did, had Emma Garnet and Quincy been honest with them from the beginning? Why do the three leave immediately when they learn the truth from Clarice?
6. When war breaks out, why does Quincy refuse to take a commission but agree to assume command of a Southern hospital? Given his background and his beliefs, do you think he should have returned to the North? Why does Emma Garnet work so hard in the hospital despite her ambivalence about the Southern cause? Looking back many years later, she writes, "I still hold that it was a conflict perpetrated by rich men and fought by poor boys against hungry women and babies." Do you think this is an accurate portrayal of the Civil War? Is it true of every war?
7. Do you feel any sympathy for Samuel Tate when he arrives in Raleigh after Seven Oaks is taken over? What does Quincy hope to accomplish by telling his father-in-law about the horrors he sees in the hospital every day and reading him newspaper reports about the battles that are devastating the Confederate army? What does Quincy's destruction of the Titian painting symbolize? Do you think that the means by which Samuel Tate dies can be justified?
8. -Just before she dies, Clarice reveals the terrible secret that shaped Samuel Tate's life. Would it have made a difference in their relationship if Emma Garnet had known the truth about her father earlier in life?
9. What kind of life would Emma Garnet have had without Clarice? If she hadn¹t married Quincy? What particular strengths did she get from each of them, and how does she express what she learned in the life she creates for herself after their deaths?
10. How does Emma Garnet's view of the Civil War differ from accounts you¹ve read in history books and gleaned from other novels or movies? Kaye Gibbons is from North Carolina; keeping that in mind, do you think the novel reflects a Southern woman's perspective, or does it embrace a broader point of view?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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