The Orphan Mother
Robert Hicks, 2016
Grand Central Publishing
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446581769
Summary
An epic account of one remarkable woman's quest for justice from the author of The Widow of the South and A Separate Country.
In the years following the Civil War, Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock—the "Widow of the South"—has quietly built a new life for herself as a midwife to the women of Franklin, Tennessee.
But when her ambitious, politically-minded grown son, Theopolis, is murdered, Mariah—no stranger to loss—finds her world once more breaking apart.
How could this happen? Who wanted him dead?
Mariah's journey to uncover the truth leads her to unexpected people—including George Tole, a recent arrival to town, fleeing a difficult past of his own—and forces her to confront the truths of her own past.
Brimming with the vivid prose and historical research that has won Robert Hicks recognition as a "master storyteller" (San Francisco Chronicle). (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 30, 1951
• Where—West Palm Beach, Florida, USA
• Education—unspecified college in Nashville, Tennessee
• Currently—lives in Franklin, Tennessee
Robert Hicks is the author of New York Times bestseller, The Widow of the South (2005) and two other novels in the Southern saga, A Separate Country (2009) and The Orphan Mother (2016). Hicks was born and raised in South Florida, moving to Williamson County, Tennessee, in 1974. He now lives at "Labor in Vain," his late-eighteenth-century log cabin near the Bingham Community.
Because of his writing, as well as his work in music, art, and historical preervation, Hicks made the #2 spot in the "Top 100 Reasons to Love Nashville." The list was featured in a 2015 issue of Nashville Lifestyles, which dubbed Hicks "Nashville's Master of Ceremonies."
Music and art
Hicks's interest in the arts are varied: over the years he has worked in music as a publisher and an artistic manager in both country and alternative-rock music. He has also been a partner in the B. B. King's Blues Clubs—located in Nashville, Memphis, Orlando, and Los Angeles—and continues to serve as the company's "Curator of Vibe."
As a lifelong art collector, Hicks was the first Tennessean ever to be listed among Art & Antiques's Top 100 Collectors in America. He focuses on artists such as Howard Finster and B.F. Perkins, as well as on different genres, such as Tennesseana and Southern Material Culture.
Hicks has also served as curator of the exhibition "Art of Tennessee" at the First Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. The exhibition—first conceived at Hicks's kitchen table—was seven years in the making, opening in September 2003. Hicks also co-edited of the exhibition's award winning catalog, Art of Tennessee.
Historic preservation
Hicks has long been fascinated by the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864—a particularly bloody fight that weakened the Confederate's ability to win the Civil War. Hick's interest led him to found Franklin's Charge, an organization that saved what remained of the eastern flank of the battlefield—turning it into a public battlefield park. It was a massive project, considered "the largest battlefield reclamation in North American history" by the American Battlefield Protection Program.
By the end of 2005, Franklin's Charge had already raised over 5 million dollars toward this goal, surpassing anything ever achieved by other communities in America to preserve battlefield open space. As Jim Lighthizer, President of the Civil War Preservation Trust said, "There is no 'close second' in any community in America, to what Robert Hicks and Franklin's Charge has done in Franklin."
In addition to his work for the battlefield park, Hicks has served on the boards of the Historic Carnton Plantation (a focal point of the Franklin Battle), Tennessee State Museum, The Williamson County Historical Society, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He presently serves on the board of directors of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans.
Historical novels
Hicks's interest in the Franklin battlefield—and a chance meeting with Civil War historian and author Shelby Foote—inspired an idea for a book, eventually leading to The Widow of the South, his first novel, which was published in 2005. Hick's intent for the book was to bring national attention to those five bloody hours on the Franklin battlefield and the impact the battle had in remaking us a nation.
A Separate Country, Hicks's second novel published in 2009, takes place in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War. It is based on the life of John Bell Hood, one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army—and one of its most tragic figures.
In 2016, Hicks released his third book in the Civil War saga, The Orphan Mother. The story follows Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock—the "Widow of the South"—who has built a new life for herself as a midwife during the post-war Reconstruction Era.
Other writing
Hicks has written other works in addition to his novels. His first book, published in 2000, is a collaboration with French-American photographer Michel Arnaud: Nashville: the Pilgrims of Guitar Town. In 2008, he co-edited (with Justin Stelter and John Bohlinger) the story collection, A Guitar and A Pen: Short Stories and Story-Songs By Nashville Songwriters.
He has also written the introduction to two books on historic preservation authored by photographer Nell Dickerson, GONE: A Photographic Plea for Preservation and Porch Dogs.
Hicks's essays on regional history, southern material culture, furniture and music have appeared in numerous publications over the years. He also writes op-eds for the New York Times on contemporary politics in the South and is a regular contributor to Garden & Gun.
More
Hicks travels throughout the nation speaking on a variety of topics ranging from "Why The South Matters" to "The Importance of Fiction in Preserving History to Southern Material Culture" and "A Model for the Preservation of Historic Open Space for Every Community."
In January 2016 Hicks was a panelist and featured speaker at the third annual Rancho Mirage Writers Festival in California. Along with American historian H.W. Brands, Hicks took part in the panel discussion "The War that Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Matters."
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Franklin, in 2014 Hicks released the first small batch of his bourbon whiskey Battlefield Bourbon. Each of the 1,864 bottles is numbered and signed by Hicks. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/14/2016.)
Book Reviews
The ingredients for a compelling drama are there, but The Orphan Mother falls short. The storyline is plodding and there’s no real drama.... In Mariah, Hicks has created a strong and noble soul, whose comfort with herself allows her to withstand the indignities of racism.... Mariah’s reaction to Theopolis’ death lacks the passion or devastation of a parent whose only child has been viciously murdered.... The story gives readers some idea about the conflicts that marred Reconstruction and fueled Jim Crow, but it falls short of tying America’s racial past to its present.
Jeanne Marie Brown - Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Hicks is a talented storyteller, and this story moves at a clip, but it feels deliberate and inorganic, his characters sometimes seemingly just vehicles moving the story forward.... Only George seems truly flesh and blood, and is the most memorable character.
Publishers Weekly
Hicks's bittersweet novel reveals a woman discovering a new sense of self in slavery's aftermath. She becomes driven by a demand for justice, though justice for blacks is almost impossible to imagine. A beautifully rendered portrait for all lovers of Civil War fiction. —Bette-Lee Fox
Library Journal
Hicks extends his Tennessee-set historical saga into the...Reconstruction Era [which] was one of the messiest times in American history, not least because establishing civil and political rights for African-Americans newly freed from slavery was left unfinished for another century. That turmoil forms the setting for Hicks' latest... Satisfying historical fiction.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for The Orphan Mother...then take off on your own:
1. What kind of picture does Robert Hicks paint of the South after the Civil War? How would you describe the relations between former slaves and whites?
2. How much did you know about the Reconstruction Era before you read the Orphan Mother?
3. Talk about Mariah. Some reviewers have trouble liking her, seeing her as somewhat one-dimensional. Her anger is front and center; however given her history and all she has suffered, is her anger justified? What do you think?
4. Was Theopolis naive? Did he not expect to stir up resentment and anger among certain individuals? Or was his hope of election a real possibility?
5. What about George Tole? Talk about his past and how it has shaped the man he has become.
6. In what way does Mariah's role as a midwife elevate her status in the community?
7. What is the relationship between Mariah and her former mistress, Carrie McGovick. How do they renegotiate their new relationship with Mariah now a free woman?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
A Separate Country: A Story of Redemption in the Aftermath of the Civil War
Robert Hicks, 2009
Grand Central Publishing
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780446581653
Summary
Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army—and one of its most tragic figures.
Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated.
Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins.
But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever.
A Separate Country is the heartrending story of a decent and good man who struggled with his inability to admit his failures-and the story of those who taught him to love, and to be loved, and transformed him. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 30, 1951
• Where—West Palm Beach, Florida, USA
• Education—unspecified college in Nashville, Tennessee
• Currently—lives in Franklin, Tennessee
Robert Hicks is the author of New York Times bestseller, The Widow of the South (2005) and two other novels in the Southern saga, A Separate Country (2009) and The Orphan Mother (2016). Hicks was born and raised in South Florida, moving to Williamson County, Tennessee, in 1974. He now lives at "Labor in Vain," his late-eighteenth-century log cabin near the Bingham Community.
Because of his writing, as well as his work in music, art, and historical preervation, Hicks made the #2 spot in the "Top 100 Reasons to Love Nashville." The list was featured in a 2015 issue of Nashville Lifestyles, which dubbed Hicks "Nashville's Master of Ceremonies."
Music and art
Hicks's interest in the arts are varied: over the years he has worked in music as a publisher and an artistic manager in both country and alternative-rock music. He has also been a partner in the B. B. King's Blues Clubs—located in Nashville, Memphis, Orlando, and Los Angeles—and continues to serve as the company's "Curator of Vibe."
As a lifelong art collector, Hicks was the first Tennessean ever to be listed among Art & Antiques's Top 100 Collectors in America. He focuses on artists such as Howard Finster and B.F. Perkins, as well as on different genres, such as Tennesseana and Southern Material Culture.
Hicks has also served as curator of the exhibition "Art of Tennessee" at the First Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. The exhibition—first conceived at Hicks's kitchen table—was seven years in the making, opening in September 2003. Hicks also co-edited of the exhibition's award winning catalog, Art of Tennessee.
Historic preservation
Hicks has long been fascinated by the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, on November 30, 1864—a particularly bloody fight that weakened the Confederate's ability to win the Civil War. Hick's interest led him to found Franklin's Charge, an organization that saved what remained of the eastern flank of the battlefield—turning it into a public battlefield park. It was a massive project, considered "the largest battlefield reclamation in North American history" by the American Battlefield Protection Program.
By the end of 2005, Franklin's Charge had already raised over 5 million dollars toward this goal, surpassing anything ever achieved by other communities in America to preserve battlefield open space. As Jim Lighthizer, President of the Civil War Preservation Trust said, "There is no 'close second' in any community in America, to what Robert Hicks and Franklin's Charge has done in Franklin."
In addition to his work for the battlefield park, Hicks has served on the boards of the Historic Carnton Plantation (a focal point of the Franklin Battle), Tennessee State Museum, The Williamson County Historical Society, and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He presently serves on the board of directors of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans.
Historical novels
Hicks's interest in the Franklin battlefield—and a chance meeting with Civil War historian and author Shelby Foote—inspired an idea for a book, eventually leading to The Widow of the South, his first novel, which was published in 2005. Hick's intent for the book was to bring national attention to those five bloody hours on the Franklin battlefield and the impact the battle had in remaking us a nation.
A Separate Country, Hicks's second novel published in 2009, takes place in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War. It is based on the life of John Bell Hood, one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army—and one of its most tragic figures.
In 2016, Hicks released his third book in the Civil War saga, The Orphan Mother. The story follows Mariah Reddick, former slave to Carrie McGavock—the "Widow of the South"—who has built a new life for herself as a midwife during the post-war Reconstruction Era.
Other writing
Hicks has written other works in addition to his novels. His first book, published in 2000, is a collaboration with French-American photographer Michel Arnaud: Nashville: the Pilgrims of Guitar Town. In 2008, he co-edited (with Justin Stelter and John Bohlinger) the story collection, A Guitar and A Pen: Short Stories and Story-Songs By Nashville Songwriters.
He has also written the introduction to two books on historic preservation authored by photographer Nell Dickerson, GONE: A Photographic Plea for Preservation and Porch Dogs.
Hicks's essays on regional history, southern material culture, furniture and music have appeared in numerous publications over the years. He also writes op-eds for the New York Times on contemporary politics in the South and is a regular contributor to Garden & Gun.
More
Hicks travels throughout the nation speaking on a variety of topics ranging from "Why The South Matters" to "The Importance of Fiction in Preserving History to Southern Material Culture" and "A Model for the Preservation of Historic Open Space for Every Community."
In January 2016 Hicks was a panelist and featured speaker at the third annual Rancho Mirage Writers Festival in California. Along with American historian H.W. Brands, Hicks took part in the panel discussion "The War that Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Matters."
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Franklin, in 2014 Hicks released the first small batch of his bourbon whiskey Battlefield Bourbon. Each of the 1,864 bottles is numbered and signed by Hicks. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/14/2016.)
Book Reviews
Robert Hicks's riveting new novel takes up Hood's life after the war. Anyone who has ever lived in New Orleans must be prepared to be made homesick, and the bizarre cast of characters, including a dwarf, a burly priest and a boy of mixed and mysterious parentage, wouldn't seem right in any city but this one. I read A Separate Country with breakneck speed for that most old-fashioned of reasons: I wanted to see what happened next. And then I eagerly read it a second time to make sure I got the complicated twists and turns. Is there a better recommendation?"
Charlotte Hays - Washington Post
After the War, Hood scampered down to New Orleans in order to try to live as fully as possible. That's where Robert Hicks enters in his marvelous new book, which looks back on the legendary and monstrous general of the Civil War with a brand new set of eyes. Hicks doesn't ever let us forget that this was once a man who "cared very little for the men [he] ruined." Yet at the same time, this is a work which seems designed to remember Hood neither as a legend nor a monster but as a man.
Miami Herald
A Separate Country is a powerful evocation of New Orleans as it was in 1879, a book thick with history, rich in atmosphere. The characters walk the city's rough and tumble streets, witness the corruption of the Louisiana Lottery and the toll of the yellow fever epidemic, enact their very human love affairs, hide their secrets. To read it is to visit, for the length of its pages, an all-enveloping, passionately rendered past, beautiful and hallucinatory. "This city is not for the fainthearted," Hicks writes
New Orleans Times Picayune
[A] grand, ripped-from-the-dusty-archives epic of Confederate general John Bell Hood.... Hicks's stunning narrative volleys between Hood, Anna Marie and Eli, each offering variety and texture to a story saturated in Southern gallantry and rich American history.
Publishers Weekly
Suffused with racial tension, brutality, sweltering heat, and sickness, this is the tale of a warrior knowing "nothing about death, only killing" who finally seeks love and a reconciliation with God. Readers must see past the bugs and the stench of New Orleans to unravel the puzzle of these picaresque characters.... [[P]recise, evocative writing. —Bette-Lee Fox
Library Journal
A tale of mixed-up foolscap, dark secrets, a dwarf and a wharf. Tennessee-based Hicks...ventures here into Reconstruction-era New Orleans.... Hicks spins a taut tale, told in many voices, of tangled webs, vengeance and other unfinished business. Expertly written, with plenty of unexpected twists—a pleasure for...fans of literary mysteries.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What role does the city of New Orleans play in the lives of Hood and his family?
2. Describe the relationship between Eli and General Hood. Why does Hood call upon Eli to complete the task of transporting/destroying his memoirs? Why does Eli accept the request? What would you have done in Eli’s place? Hood’s?
3. What is the "separate country" to which the title alludes? Is there more than one answer to this question? If so, name them.
4. What do Anna Marie and Hood provide one another? What is their relationship based on? How does this change over the years?
5. How do the three different narrative voices affect the reader’s perception of the story?
6. Why do you think it is that Hood fell from wealth and respect to poverty and dishonor? Can his fall be entirely blamed on the war? If not, what were the other factors?
7. What is the effect of having two narrators and one intended reader (Lydia) who pass away at the beginning of the story? Does the power and symbolism of the writing change with the passing of their authors?
8. How does meeting Michel, Rintrah, and Paschal change Anna Marie? Is it a positive change or a negative one?
9. Discuss Eli’s assertion that "Beauty was accidental and fleeting, and even if you were on the lookout and caught it at the right moment, that beautiful thing would break your heart no doubt, and all you’d have to show for it was ashes" (page 100). Here he is discussing his old feelings of revenge for Hood, but to what other aspects of the story could this quote be alluding to?
10. Upon seeing the portrait that Anna Marie painted of him, Hood comments, "I must live up to it now.…That is the face of a different man" (page 112). In her letter to Lydia, Anna Marie wrote, "I thought he was insulting the painting, or making a joke. Later, I knew he was talking about himself. He would have to become the different man." What changes did Hood have to make after the war? Was he successful? How did his attempt at change affect Anna Marie and the others around them?
11. In talking to his daughter about Hood, Anna Marie’s father says, "…a man who is willing to face criticism, ridicule, failure, because he prefers to believe that men are good, such a man is closer to God than the rest of us" (page 132). Is he proven correct in his assessment? Would Hood agree with this evaluation of himself? Would Eli?12. How are Hood and Anna Marie affected by the lynching of Paschal at the hands of Sebastien? Why does Sebastien continue to have a presence in the couple’s lives?
13. When explaining her relationship with Paschal, Anna Marie admits, "Acquiescence was the price of eternal membership in a society that would swaddle me and give me warmth for as long as I lived" (page 153). How does this concept come up throughout the story? How can it be applied to society today?
14. Why do Hood and his wife hide acquaintances from their past from one another? Were these decisions wise?
15. Is it true that Hood "created" Sebastien Lemerle? Can one battle during a war really alter a man completely?
16. Before encountering Paschal, Hood asserts that he did not want to be forgotten (page 196). Was his desire reasonable, and did he effectively move toward achieving it while he was alive? In what ways did his wishes come true?
17. Hood and Anna Marie both take blame for Paschal’s death. In what ways were they at fault, and in what ways (if any) was his death inevitable, regardless of what either of them did?
18. Hood declares again and again that his sole strength and purpose is to fight and kill. Do you think that people have a set function in life, as Hood believes? If so, did Hood correctly identify his?
19. Hood admits to Sebastien that he refuses to fail at aiding the sick, but has more ambivalent feelings toward his family and his business (page 251). Why are his convictions so seemingly conflicted? He makes some conjectures about the reasons, but what do you think draws him to those who suffer from yellow fever?
20. Anna Marie reminds her daughter,
Epidemics, whether of disease or of violence or of heresy, rob the living of a sense of the past or the future. All is compressed into this day, and this night. The living become paranoid, at first vigilant against strangers and outsiders, and then suspicious of neighbors and friends. The things that once seemed important seem insignificant (page 267).
Discuss how this observation applies beyond the yellow fever outbreak of 19th century New Orleans.
21. How much truth is there in Sister Mary Therese’s accusation that Anna Marie purposefully cast Paschal out of her life (page 271)?
22. Why does Anna Marie take it upon herself to visit M and ask her to take care of Eli?
23. Do you agree that Eli owes his survival in New Orleans to Paschal, as Rintrah asserts when he’s coercing Eli to help him kill Sebastien (page 291)?
24. "All roads led back to the mother superior, it seemed like" (page 301), Eli observes. Describe Sister Mary Therese’s part in the story. How is she connected to each of the characters?
Questions issued by the publisher.)
Leave Me
Gayle Forman, 2016
Algonquin Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616206178
Summary
Every woman who has ever fantasized about driving past her exit on the highway instead of going home to make dinner, and every woman who has ever dreamed of boarding a train to a place where no one needs constant attention—meet Maribeth Klein.
A harried working mother who’s so busy taking care of her husband and twins, she doesn’t even realize she’s had a heart attack.
Surprised to discover that her recuperation seems to be an imposition on those who rely on her, Maribeth does the unthinkable: she packs a bag and leaves.
But, as is often the case, once we get where we’re going we see our lives from a different perspective. Far from the demands of family and career and with the help of liberating new friendships, Maribeth is able to own up to secrets she has been keeping from herself and those she loves.
With bighearted characters—husbands, wives, friends, and lovers—who stumble and trip, grow and forgive, Leave Me is about facing the fears we’re all running from.
Gayle Forman is a dazzling observer of human nature. She has written an irresistible novel that confronts the ambivalence of modern motherhood head on and asks, what happens when a grown woman runs away from home? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 5, 1970
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—N/A
• Awards—British Fantasy Award
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Gayle Forman is a journalist, as well as an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author whose many young adult novels include I Was Here, Just One Day, and If I Stay, which became a motion picture. She made her foray into adult literature with her 2016 novel, Leave Me. Forman lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
Forman began her career with Seventeen magazine, writing articles primarily focusing on young people and social concerns. Later she did freelance writing for Details Magazine, Jane Magazine, Glamour, The Nation, Elle and Cosmopolitan.
In 2002, she and her husband Nick traveled around the world, which allowed her to gather ideas and information. She drew on her travel experiences to publish her first book in 2005, a travelogue—You Can't Get There From Here: A Year On The Fringes Of A Shrinking World. Two years later, in 2007, Forman published her first young adult novel Sisters in Sanity, which she based on an article she had written for Seventeen.
All told, Forman has written seven novels for young adult, plus her 2016 novel for adults, Leave Me. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/14/2016.)
Book Reviews
Gayle Forman is known for her dreamy but hard-hitting young adult novels, including the best-selling If I Stay. With her first foray into grown-up fiction, Leave Me, she doesn’t shy away from the tough questions in this deep-diving and highly entertaining read. It’s hard not to relate to—and root for—Maribeth even as she does the unthinkable: abandons her children.
Family Circle
YA author Forman’s successful foray into adult fiction features...an über-organized mom who is juggling her stressful job, a self-involved husband, and a set of preschool twins.... With humor and pathos, Forman depicts Maribeth’s complicated situation and her thoroughly satisfying arc, leaving readers feeling as though they’ve really accompanied Maribeth on her journey.
Publishers Weekly
Forman is no stranger to complex and emotional stories, having written the best-selling YA novel If I Stay.... While it may leave fans of Forman's previous books wanting more, this novel is sure to be in demand and will especially interest adoptees and their families. —Stephanie Sendaula
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Popular teen author Forman’s adult debut examines just what it means to be a working mother—beholden to everyone, seemingly obligated to forget who you really are. Maribeth’s search for her birth mother and the way she settles into her new—albeit temporary—life away from home will strike a chord with readers, especially those who enjoy Jennifer Weiner and Meg Wolitzer.
Booklist
Award-winning teen author Forman's adult debut nails the frustrations of working motherhood, though the love complications conveniently disappear and the frayed ends of Maribeth's life are retied too easily. An appealing fairy tale for the exhausted and underappreciated.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points for Leave Me...then take off on your own:
1. How did you feel, initially, about Maribeth's decision to pack up and leave her family, especially the twins. Are her actions credible, or believable, as a character? Did your opinion of her change as you read further into the novel?
2. Describe Maribeth's family constellation: the twins, her husband, and her mother. How do they contribute to Maribeth's decision to leave? If this were your family (ooh, maybe it is!) how would you react?
3. Do Maribeth's actions resonate with you? Are there times you harbor similar desires to escape the stress and demands of daily life—or simply feel that life is overwhelming? In other words, do you ever fantasize about doing what Maribeth does?
4. Discuss the supporting characters who enter Maribeth's new life: Sunita, Todd, Stephen, and Janice. What do you think of each of them and the role each plays in helping Maribeth heal?
5. Talk about Maribeth's journey back to wholeness. What does she come to realize?
6. Are you satisfied with the way the story ends? Would you e prefer a different ending?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Mischling
Affinity Konar, 2016
Little, Brown and Co.
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316308106
Summary
One of the most harrowing, powerful, and imaginative books of the year" (Anthony Doerr) about twin sisters fighting to survive the evils of World War II.
Pearl is in charge of: the sad, the good, the past.
Stasha must care for: the funny, the future, the bad.
It's 1944 when the twin sisters arrive at Auschwitz with their mother and grandfather. In their benighted new world, Pearl and Stasha Zagorski take refuge in their identical natures, comforting themselves with the private language and shared games of their childhood.
As part of the experimental population of twins known as Mengele's Zoo, the girls experience privileges and horrors unknown to others, and they find themselves changed, stripped of the personalities they once shared, their identities altered by the burdens of guilt and pain.
That winter, at a concert orchestrated by Mengele, Pearl disappears. Stasha grieves for her twin, but clings to the possibility that Pearl remains alive.
When the camp is liberated by the Red Army, she and her companion Feliks—a boy bent on vengeance for his own lost twin—travel through Poland's devastation. Undeterred by injury, starvation, or the chaos around them, motivated by equal parts danger and hope, they encounter hostile villagers, Jewish resistance fighters, and fellow refugees, their quest enabled by the notion that Mengele may be captured and brought to justice within the ruins of the Warsaw Zoo.
As the young survivors discover what has become of the world, they must try to imagine a future within it.
A superbly crafted story, told in a voice as exquisite as it is boundlessly original, Mischling defies every expectation, traversing one of the darkest moments in human history to show us the way toward ethereal beauty, moral reckoning, and soaring hope. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1978
• Where—raised in California
• Education—B.A., San Francisco State University; M.F.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Affinity Konar was raised in California. She studied fiction at San Francisco State University and received her M.F.A. at Columbia University.
While writing her 2016 novel, Mischling, she worked as a tutor, proofreader, technical writer, and editor of children's educational workbooks. Her first book, The Illustrated Version of Things, was published in 2009
Konar is of Polish-Jewish descent and currently lives in Los Angeles, California. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
…Ms. Konar makes the emotional lives of her two spirited narrators piercingly real, as they recount, in alternating chapters, the harrowing story of their efforts to survive…What is most haunting about the novel is Ms. Konar's ability to depict the hell that was Auschwitz, while at the same time capturing the resilience of many prisoners, their ability to hang on to hope and kindness in the face of the most awful suffering—to remain, in [Elie] Wiesel's words, humane "in an inhumane universe."
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
There is a reason Mengele’s experiments are rarely discussed. Even in the context of the Holocaust, they are almost unspeakably horrible. Konar’s novel takes an unorthodox, though not unprecedented, approach to these horrors: She describes them beautifully, lyrically, in the language of a fable. Mischling is not for everyone, not least because it is excruciating to read about such pain. I do not remember the last time I shed so many tears over a work of fiction. And it will surely offend those who still chafe at the idea of fictionalizing the Holocaust. But readers who allow themselves to fall under the spell of Konar’s exceptionally sensitive writing may well find the book unforgettable.
Ruth Fanklin - New York Times Book Review
In alternating chapters, the girls chronicle their diametrically opposed mechanisms for coping with the horrors they experience.... Konar unveils Mengele’s atrocities gradually and only in glimpses.... It gets much worse before it gets better.... The novel’s second half takes place after the camp’s liberation. Konar constructs a sinuous plot from the chaos of the postwar landscape. The faster pace frees her from the burden of having the children quite so lyrically narrate their own suffering.... Readers will have varying levels of credulity about 12-year-olds, even precocious ones, forming such perceptions while being starved and tortured.
Lisa Zeidner - Washington Post
Konar does not dwell on the horrors, but she does not stint on them either.... But the gruesome plot detail leads to the biggest narrative chance Konar takes: to continue the twins’s story after the liberation of Auschwitz. She follows each to a semi-happy ending in Poland.... That Stasha can express that possibility feels hopeful and extraordinary.... I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to read a happy ending...when, in the balance of history, so many were slaughtered.
Rachel Shtier - Boston Globe
Horrible and beautiful.... It seems a refutation of Theodor Adorno's famous pronouncement that: "After Auschwitz, to write poetry is barbaric." Konar's novel is filled with exquisitely crafted phrases.... Nevertheless, the aesthetic achievement of Mischling cannot redeem the world after Auschwitz. It merely illuminates it, woefully, brilliantly.
Steven G. Kellman - USA Today
(Stared review.) Without sentimentality, Konar’s gripping novel explores the world of the children who were the subjects of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele’s horrifying experiments at Auschwitz.... Konar makes every sentence count; it’s to her credit that the girls never come across as simply victims.... This is a brutally beautiful novel.
Publishers Weekly
(Stared review.) Titled after the pejorative Nazi German word for "mixed blood,"...this searing work deepens our understanding of the Holocaust. It is highly recommended for that reason and for its stunningly original approach to a subject that would be too awful to read about if rendered in straightforward prose. —Edward B. Cone, New York
Library Journal
(Stared review.) Fiction of rare poignancy—and astonishing hope.... An unforgettable sojourn of the spirit.
Booklist
Konar is clearly most interested in language, in metaphor and invention. Surely, there are readers who will appreciate this. Some, though, might find that the poetry puts too much distance between the reader and the reality of Auschwitz. Konar approaches a difficult subject with artistic ambition.
Kirkus Reviews
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 of Mischling...then take off on your own :
1. How did you experience this novel? Was it overly gruesome, or did you find rays of hope by the end?
2. Mischling has generated a fair amount of comment by reviewers who have difficulty accepting Affinity Konar's beautiful prose. There is a sense that her poetic writing masks, even separates readers from facing, the horror of Mengele's Zoo. A couple of reviewers mention a famous pronouncement by German philosopher Theodor Adorno in 1949: "after Auschwitz, to write poetry is barbaric." What do you think? Is it immoral to write so poetically about such barbarous actions? Or is Konar's writing a way for us to bear witness to events that are otherwise too terrible to describe and read about?
3. Talk, if you can bear to, about Mengele. How do you come to grips with his monstrosity? How does Mengele eventually die?
4. What about Stasha and Pearl? How do they support one another? How are they alike (aside from appearance) and how do they differ? Consider, especially, their diametrically opposed coping mechanisms.
5. In the twins' narrations, were you able to discern whether they were recounting dreams or suffering hallucinations as a result of Mengele's injections?
6. The children in the Zoo are asked to call Mengele "Uncle Doctor." How does Stasha, in particular, perceive his occasional kindness and at other times his acts of viciousness?
7. What about Dr. Miri and the role she plays? As a Jew, she is wracked by guilt over the surgery she performs in Mengele's Zoo. What is her choice—does she have any? Is it possible to justify her participation in the horrors of Auschwitz?
8. What else do readers learn about the larger world of Auschwitz, which the children hear through gossip?
9. Before handing over her two girls, Pearl and Stash's Mama tells Mengele that Stasha has an imagination. What role does imagination play as a survival tool? By the novel's end, Stasha says emphatically: "I wanted the death of my imagination more than anything. It had no place in this world after war." Is she right? Could her imagination ever offer solace again?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Family Tree
Susan Wiggs, 2016
William Morrow
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062425430
Summary
A powerful, emotionally complex story of love, loss, the pain of the past—and the promise of the future.
Sometimes the greatest dream starts with the smallest element. A single cell, joining with another. And then dividing. And just like that, the world changes.
Annie Harlow knows how lucky she is. The producer of a popular television cooking show, she loves her handsome husband and the beautiful Los Angeles home they share. And now, she’s pregnant with their first child.
But in an instant, her life is shattered. And when Annie awakes from a yearlong coma, she discovers that time isn’t the only thing she’s lost.
Grieving and wounded, Annie retreats to her old family home in Switchback, Vermont, a maple farm generations old. There, surrounded by her free-spirited brother, their divorced mother, and four young nieces and nephews, Annie slowly emerges into a world she left behind years ago: the town where she grew up, the people she knew before, the high-school boyfriend turned judge.
And with the discovery of a cookbook her grandmother wrote in the distant past, Annie unearths an age-old mystery that might prove the salvation of the family farm.
Family Tree is the story of one woman’s triumph over betrayal, and how she eventually comes to terms with her past. It is the story of joys unrealized and opportunities regained. Complex, clear-eyed and big-hearted, funny, sad, and wise, it is a novel to cherish and to remember. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 17, 1958
• Where—N/A
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Awards—4 RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America: for Best Romance, Favorite Book of the Year, and twice for Best Short Historical; Holt Medallion; Career Achievement Award from Romance Times (twice)
• Currently—lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington, USA
Susan Wiggs is an American author of historical and contemporary romance novels. She began writing as a child, finishing her first novel, A Book About Some Bad Kids, when she was eight. She temporarily abandoned her dream of being a novelist after graduating from Harvard University, becoming a math teacher instead . She continued to read, especially reveling in romance novels.
Writing
After running out of reading material one evening in 1983, Wiggs began writing again, using the working title A Book About Some Bad Adults. For three years Wiggs continued to write, and in 1987 Zebra Books published her first novel, a Western historical romance named Texas Wildflower. Her subsequent historical and contemporary romances have been set in a wide range of settings and time periods. Many of her novels are set in areas where she's lived or visited. She gave up teaching in 1992 to write full-time, and has since completed an average of two books per year.
In 2000, Wiggs began writing single-title women's fiction stories in addition to historical romance novels. The first, The You I Never Knew, was published in 2001. After writing mass-market original novels for several years, Wiggs made her hardcover debut in 2003 with Home Before Dark.
Many of her novels are connected, allowing Wiggs to revisit established characters. Her books have been published in many languages, including French, German, Dutch, Latvian, Japanese, Hungarian and Russian.
Recognition
Wiggs's books are frequently named finalists for the RITA Award, the highest honor given in the romance genre. She received the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Romance of the year in 1993 for Lord of the Night. She won a second RITA in 2000 when The Charm School was named "Favorite Book of the Year."
She has also won the RITA in 2001 for Best Short Historical for The Mistress and, again, in 2006 for Lakeside Cottage. She has also been the recipient of the Holt Medallion, the Colorado Award of Excellnce, and the Peninsula Romance Writer's of America Blue Boa Award. Romantic Times has twice named her a Career Achievement Award winner.[4]
Personal
Wiggs lives on Bainbridge Island, Washington with her family. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 5/9/2012.)
Book Reviews
Emotionally honest, poignant and including a delightful thread of humor…. Family Tree is a story of one woman’s journey through betrayal and pain to emerge triumph as she learns to embrace the new challenges life has in store for her.
Romance Times Reviews
(Starred review.) Soul-satisfying.... Wiggs writes with effortless grace about what breaks families apart and what brings them back together. Add this to her gift for crafting exquisitely nuanced characters and flair for perfectly capturing the rhythm of life in a small town.
Booklist
This sweet yet dramatic and winding love story demonstrates the realities and complexities of love. Recommended for fans of realistic, heartwarming romances full of second chances.
Library Journal
Wiggs… [tackles] a complicated dual storyline with her typical blend of authenticity and sensitivity. A compelling exploration of self, family, love, and the power of new beginnings.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Family Tree takes place in picturesque small-town Vermont. How does the setting shape the characters and add depth to the story?
2. Describe Annie Rush. Compare the Annie we get to know before the accident, and the woman who emerges in its aftermath. How does the accident shape her future?
3. Think about Annie’s relationship with her family, beginning with her grandmother, Sugar. How do the lessons Annie learns from Gran about cooking and life shape the woman becomes? Does any of Gran’s advice especially touch you?
4. Do you think Annie is more similar to her mother or to her father? How does her parents’ marriage affect her own outlook about love and relationships?
5. Talk about Annie and Fletcher. What draws her to him? What does she see in him that her family initially does not? How would you describe Fletcher?
6. If the incident in the repair shop had not befallen Fletcher’s father, what do you think Fletcher would have pursued as a career? Do you think the path he chose suits him?
7. Like many teenagers, adolescent Annie dreams of embracing life to its fullest. “Poised to leave home and make her own way in the world, she wanted her life to be amazing, spectacular, singular, exciting...everything it was not on Rush Mountain in Switchback, Vermont.” How do Annie’s ambitions shape her choices about love and career? What does she believe the world outside offers that small-town Vermont does not?
8. While Annie eventually achieves everything her younger self wants, is she truly happy prior to her accident? Could she ever be fulfilled without Fletcher? What does he offer her that no one else can?
9. What, ultimately, is the most important thing to Annie? What about to Fletcher? What are the key moments in each of their lives, and how do they affect their relationship and transform each of them?
10. Do you think that Annie has to leave home to truly find where she ultimately belongs?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)