The Other Queen (Tudor Court, 8)
Philippa Gregory, 2008
Simon & Schuster
438 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781416549147
Summary
Philippa Gregory presents a new and unique view of one of history's most intriguing, romantic, and maddening heroines. Biographers often neglect the captive years of Mary Queen of Scots, who trusted Queen Elizabeth's promise of sanctuary when she fled from rebels in Scotland and then found herself imprisoned as the "guest" of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury and his indomitable wife, Bess of Hardwick.
The newly married couple welcome the doomed queen into their home, certain that serving as her hosts and jailors will bring them an advantage in the cutthroat world of the Elizabethan court.
To their horror, they find that the task will bankrupt them, and as their home becomes the epicenter of intrigue and rebellion against Elizabeth, their loyalty to each other and to their sovereign comes into question. If Mary succeeded in seducing the Earl, or if the great spy master William Cecil linked them to the growing conspiracy to free Mary from her illegal imprisonment, they will all face the headsman.
Heralded as "the queen of royal fiction" by USA Today, Philippa Gregory uses new research and her passion for historical accuracy to place a well-known heroine in a completely new story full of suspense, passion, and political intrigue. The Other Queen is the result of her determination to present a story worthy of this extraordinary heroine (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 9, 1954
• Where—Nairobi, Kenya
• Raised—Bristol, England, UK
• Education—B.A., Sussex University; Ph.D., Edinburgh University
• Currently—lives in the North York Moors, Yorkshire, England
Philippa Gregory is a British historical novelist, writing since 1987. The best known of her works is The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), which in 2002 won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award from the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Early life and academic career
Philippa Gregory was in Nairobi, Kenya, the second daughter of Elaine (Wedd) and Arthur Percy Gregory, a radio operator and navigator for East African Airways. When she was two years old, her family moved to Bristol, England.
She was a "rebel" at Colston's Girls' School where she obtained a B grade in English and two E grades in History and Geography at A-level. She then went to journalism college in Cardiff and spent a year as an apprentice with the Portsmouth News before she managed to gain a place on an English literature degree course at the University of Sussex, where she switched to a history course.
She worked in BBC radio for two years before attending the University of Edinburgh, where she earned her doctorate in 18th-century literature. Gregory has taught at the University of Durham, University of Teesside, and the Open University, and was made a Fellow of Kingston University in 1994.
Private life
Gregory wrote her first novel Wideacre while completing a PhD in 18th-century literature and living in a cottage on the Pennine Way with first husband Peter Chislett, editor of the Hartlepool Mail, and their baby daughter, Victoria. They divorced before the book was published.
Following the success of Wideacre and the publication of The Favoured Child, she moved south to near Midhurst, West Sussex, where the Wideacre trilogy was set. Here she married her second husband Paul Carter, with whom she has a son. She divorced for a second time and married Anthony Mason, whom she had first met during her time in Hartlepool.
Gregory now lives on a 100-acre (0.40 km2) farm in the North York Moors national park, with her husband, children and stepchildren (six in all). Her interests include riding, walking, skiing, and gardening.
Writing
She has written novels set in several different historical periods, though primarily the Tudor period and the 16th century. Reading a number of novels set in the 17th century led her to write the bestselling Lacey trilogy — Wideacre, which is a story about the love of land and incest, The Favoured Child and Meridon. This was followed by The Wise Woman. A Respectable Trade, a novel of the slave trade in England, set in 18th-century Bristol, was adapted by Gregory for a four-part drama series for BBC television. Gregory's script was nominated for a BAFTA, won an award from the Committee for Racial Equality, and the film was shown worldwide.
Two novels about a gardening family are set during the English Civil War: Earthly Joys and Virgin Earth. She has also written contemporary fiction—Perfectly Correct; Mrs Hartley And The Growth Centre; The Little House; and Zelda's Cut. She has also written for children.
Some of her novels have won awards and have been adapted into television dramas. The most successful of her novels has been The Other Boleyn Girl, published in 2002 and adapted for BBC television in 2003 with Natascha McElhone, Jodhi May and Jared Harris. In the year of its publication, The Other Boleyn Girl also won the Romantic Novel of the Year and has subsequently spawned sequels—The Queen's Fool, The Virgin's Lover, The Constant Princess, The Boleyn Inheritance, and The Other Queen. Miramax bought the film rights to The Other Boleyn Girl and produced a film of the same name starring Scarlett Johansson as Mary Boleyn and co-starring Natalie Portman as Anne Boleyn, Eric Bana as Henry Tudor, Juno Temple as Jane Parker, and Kristin Scott Thomas as Elizabeth Boleyn. It was filmed in England and generally released in 2008.
Gregory has also published a series of books about the Plantagenets, the ruling houses that preceded the Tudors, and the Wars of the Roses. Her first book The White Queen (2009), centres on the life of Elizabeth Woodville the wife of Edward IV. The Red Queen (2010) is about Margaret Beaufort the mother of Henry VII and grandmother to Henry VIII. The Lady of the Rivers (2011) is the life of Jacquetta of Luxembourg, mother of Elizabeth Woodville, first married to John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford, younger brother of Henry the Fifth. The Kingmaker's Daughter (2012) is the story of Anne Neville, the daughter of the Earl of Warwick, the wife of Richard III. The next book, The White Princess (2013), centres on the life of Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII and the mother of Henry VIII.
Controversy
In her novel The Other Boleyn Girl, her portrayal of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn drew criticism. The novel depicts Anne as cold and ruthless, as well as heavily implying that the accusations that she committed adultery and incest with her brother were true, despite it being widely accepted that she was innocent of the charges. Novelist Robin Maxwell refused on principle to write a blurb for this book, describing its characterisation of Anne as "vicious, unsupportable." Historian David Starkey, appearing alongside Gregory in a documentary about Anne Boleyn, described her work as "good Mills and Boon" (a publisher of romance novels), adding that: "We really should stop taking historical novelists seriously as historians. The idea that they have authority is ludicrous." Susan Bordo criticized Gregory's claims to historical accuracy as "self-deceptive and self-promoting chutzpah", and notes that it is not so much the many inaccuracies in her work as "Gregory’s insistence on her meticulous adherence to history that most aggravates the scholars."
Media
Gregory is a frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers, with short stories, features and reviews. She is also a frequent broadcaster and a regular contestant on Round Britain Quiz for BBC Radio 4 and the Tudor expert for Channel 4's Time Team. She won the 29 December 2008 edition of Celebrity Mastermind on BBC1, taking Elizabeth Woodville as her specialist subject.
Charity work
Gregory also runs a small charity building wells in school gardens in The Gambia. Gardens for The Gambia was established in 1993 when Gregory was in The Gambia, researching for her book A Respectable Trade.
Since then the charity has dug almost 200 low technology, low budget and therefore easily maintained wells, which are on-stream and providing water to irrigate school and community gardens to provide meals for the poorest children and harvest a cash crop to buy school equipment, seeds and tools.
In addition to wells, the charity has piloted a successful bee-keeping scheme, funded feeding programmes and educational workshops in batik and pottery and is working with larger donors to install mechanical boreholes in some remote areas of the country where the water table is not accessible by digging alone. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/22/2013.)
Book Critics
A cynical observer might think the world could get along without another book about Mary Queen of Scots. The cynic would be missing a bet. Philippa Gregory's novel looks at Mary Stuart and her times from a fresh and engaging angle, while making an unusual point about history in general.... One of the most admirable things about The Other Queen is the delicate way in which Gregory drops bits of historical allusion into a very personal story. We're never distracted by information, but there's enough of it to make the past both factually comprehensible and emotionally accessible. In the author's view as well as Bess Shrewsbury's, questions of religion and political allegiance always come down in the end to money. That's true, but fiction rarely focuses primarily on the economic basis of history; this novel is a refreshing exception. Above all, the book is an examination of the nature of loyalty, as well: to a spouse, to a monarch, to a family or a family name, to a religion, to political ideals and especially to one's sense of self.
Diana Gabaldon - Washington Post
In her latest foray into the lives and minds of Elizabethan shakers and movers, Gregory (The Other Boleyn Girl) takes on Mary Queen of Scots during her 16-year house arrest. By the secret order of her cousin, Elizabeth I, Mary is held at the estate of George Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife, Bess of Hardwick; the latter three share first-person narrative duties. The book centers on Mary's never-ending clandestine efforts to drum up enough support to take her cousin's throne, but the real story is in the clash of two women and the earl who stands between them. Shrewsbury's refusal to recognize superior intelligence and force of will in his wife, who runs the estate, and in Mary, who tries to make him her instrument at every turn, makes for one delicious conflict after another. The voices are strong throughout, but Gregory's ventriloquism is at its best with Bess of Hardwick, a woman who managed to throw off the restrictions of birth, class and sex in order to achieve things that proved beyond her titled husband.
Publishers Weekly
Gregory makes a return trip to Tudor England, focusing on the period when Mary, Queen of Scots, fleeing from rebel Scottish lords, found herself imprisoned in England by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. The story is narrated from multiple perspectives: that of Queen Mary as well as her two jailors, George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his new wife, Bess of Hardwick, a much-married and canny financial administrator as well as a spy for the ruthless William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth's chief adviser. As the months, then years, pass, George's hopeless, forever unfulfilled love for the Queen of Scots wars with his desire to retain his honor and serve Queen Elizabeth, and also destroys the affectionate business relationship that united him and his wife in amiable marriage. Bess watches the substantial fortune she amassed through well-chosen husbands, good investments and careful accounting dwindle in support of Queen Mary's extravagant lifestyle. And, of course, Mary plots and plots again, to little avail. Reading the novel is a bit like witnessing a fixed tennis match: Queen Mary shuttles back and forth between various castles, her return to Scotland always imminent until each grand scheme fails. Meanwhile, the reader marks time waiting for the queen's inevitable walk to the scaffold. Gregory vividly evokes her three protagonists, but their personalities remain static to the point of tedium; however, it's fair to say that each one's inability to change is the very thing that leads to their joint tragedy. Mary believes that her beauty and royal status allow her to do whatever she likes with impunity; Bess, despite her wealth and title, can never surmount her humble origins; and George, in the face of obvious evidence that his way of life is dying, stubbornly insists that noble blood, not ambition, must determine rank. Not without interest, but this claustrophobic novel should be more intriguing than it is.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Bess describes George and herself as newlyweds happy and in love. On page 2, she says, "Only my newly wedded husband is so dotingly fond of me that he is safe under the same roof as such a temptress." What is it that first makes Bess uneasy about her husband's feelings towards Queen Mary?
2. Authors often challenge themselves by writing from the point of view of characters of the opposite sex. Do you think Gregory does a convincing job of creating her main male character, George Talbot? Do you think he is more or less realistic than the women in this novel, such as his wife, Bess, or Queens Mary and Elizabeth?
3. George and Bess marry for choice and admiration. Identify how they describe one another early in the novel, and discuss how their opinions change over the course of the story. Do you think they ever really knew one another, or do you think their affection is just another casualty of Mary and Elizabeth's treacherous conflict?
4. On page 55, George compares Elizabeth and Mary. He says, "My queen Elizabeth is a most solid being, as earthy as a man. But this is a queen who is all air and angels. She is a queen of fire and smoke." How else are the two queens compared throughout the novel by different characters? How do they describe themselves in comparison to each other?
5. George holds tightly to a noble, genteel way of life that has all but slipped away in England under Elizabeth's rule. How do you feel about his devotion to Queen Elizabeth given the circumstances of the times? Do you think Bess ultimately betrays her husband, or does she save him from himself? How might you deal with your own spouse if your fundamental beliefsand loyalties rested on opposite sides?
6. Examine both Mary's reasoning for her belief that her cousin Elizabeth must naturally support her as the heir to the English throne and restore her to the Scottish throne, and Elizabeth's reasoning for the actions she takes to keep Mary subordinated and under a watchful eye. With whom do you sympathize most, and why?
7. At the heart of the conflict between Queens Elizabeth and Mary is a power struggle between the "new ways" of Protestant England and the "old ways" of Catholicism. How has the transition to Protestantism changed England as portrayed in this novel? In what ways do George and Bess serve as representatives of these two Englands?
8. Set in a religious time period, God naturally played an important role in all aspects of these characters' lives. Compare and contrast the various characters' interpretation of religion and their relationship to God with respect to their Papist or Protestant sensibilities. How do the characters differ in their use of God as justification and enlightenment?
9. Bess thinks George is a great fool. Mary finds him entirely honorable, and yet she relates to her rapist and captor, Bothwell, more powerfully. What do you think of these men? How do these two men compare to other significant male characters in the novel such as Cecil, Hastings, the Duke of Norfolk, and Ralph Sadler?
10. Throughout the novel, George and Bess are constantly in opposition. George fears and detests the "new England" that he believes Cecil has created, while Bess sees Cecil's reforms as part of a golden dawn for England and for all Protestants. Who has the stronger character? Which side do you think you'd choose?
11. On page 225, Bothwell tells Mary, "The magic of royalty is an illusion that can be shattered by a man without a conscience." What significance does this observation have for the novel and for this time in history? Using examples from the novel to support your opinion, explain why you either agree or disagree. Similarly, discuss the parallels between the effects of lifting the mystery of royalty and lifting the mystery of religion as described in this novel.
12. What understanding do Bess and Mary finally come to about one another? Do you think either can truly understand the other's perspective, given such wildly different upbringings?
13. In the end, George is utterly heartbroken to learn that Mary has lied to him and to most everyone else. In her defense, Mary explains that she cannot possibly give her "true word" while under duress and imprisoned. Do you think this is just an excuse? Why or why not?
14.. The Shrewsburys and Queen Mary trek back and forth across the English countryside multiple times throughout the novel. Make a map tracing their journeys complete with a timeline of dates to get a visual representation of how unsettling this time period must have been for the entire household.
15. The Other Queen presents a darker Elizabeth than has currently been popularized in movies such as Elizabeth (1998) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). Watch these films with your book club and compare their portrayal of various historic figures to their counterparts in Gregory's novel.
16. Get a better sense of the time period in which this novel takes place by doing a little research on Tudor England. You can start with local histories.org/tudor.html. You can also read more about some of the estates that served as settings for this novel, including Chatsworth, Tutbury Castle, and Bess's own home of Hardwick Hall.
(Questions issued by publishers.)
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The Golems of Gotham
Thane Rosenbaum, 2002
HarperCollins
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780060959456
Summary
Part ghost story, part haunting fable inspired by Jewish mysticism and folklore, The Golems of Gotham tells the story of Oliver Levin, a bestselling gothic mystery writer and his teenage daughter, Ariel, who suddenly emerges as a precocious klezmer violinist and amateur kabbalist. Ariel tries to bring her father out of writer's block by summoning the spirit of his dead parents, both Holocaust survivors and suicide victims.
On the surface it is a story about a daughter's longing to rescue her father. But on another level, The Golems of Gotham is a wildly imaginative exploration of how the Holocaust became part of our shared consciousness, and what will happen once it retreats from the center of our collective memory.
By invoking the ancient legend of the Golem, the novel pays tribute to the way imagination is used in the spirit of repair. It also contemplates the price that artists pay when they look too deeply into the heart of atrocity, illuminating how the mind conjures both its own prison, and liberation. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A. University of Florida; M.P.A. Columbia
University; J.D. University of Miami
• Awards—Edward Lewis Wallant Award
• Currently—teaches at Fordham University in New York, NY
Rosenbaum is a novelist, essayist, law professor, and author of three novels—The Golems of Gotham (2002, a San Francisco Chronicle Top 100 Book), Second Hand Smoke (1999, a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award), and Elijah Visible (1996, which received the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for the best book of Jewish-American fiction).
His articles, reviews, and essays appear frequently in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and Huffington Post, among other national publications. He appears frequently at the 92nd Street Y where he moderates an annual series of discussions on Jewish culture and politics.
He is the John Whelan Distinguished Lecturer in Law at Fordham Law School, where he teaches human rights, legal humanities, and law and literature, and where he directs the Forum on Law, Culture & Society. He is the author of The Myth of Moral Justice: Why Our Legal System Fails to Do What’s Right (2004), which was selected by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the Best Books of 2004. His most recent book is an anthology entitled, Law Lit, From Atticus Finch to "The Practice": A Collection of Great Writing About the Law (2007). (From Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
Appealing.... The Golems of Gotham is also a complex novel. Rosenbaum has a fluent style that can pivot and change direction on a single word, and the novel is rich in detail and vignette.
New York Times Book Review
A vivid sense of how the Holocaust, far from being a discrete and completed event, is an open wound in the Jewish psyche.... Rosenbaum writes something strong and true.
Washington Post
A book at once magical and natural.... Rosenbaum’s novel is at once chilling and warm, rigorous and fanciful, savagely witty and profoundly reasoned. The Golems of Gotham charms as it frightens and moves us, and shows a novelist moving into the fullness of his imaginative capacity.
San Francisco Chronicle
Hilarious...more touching than tragic, more absurd than abject, ... very funny and a joy to read.... Comparisons to Michael Chabon’s brilliant The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay are unavoidable.... Written in an offhand, approachable prose that’s full of lyrical pyrotechnics.... With compelling characters, both dead and alive, prose that captures your attention but keeps you rooted in the story, serious issues addressed amid humor and fantasy, The Golems of Gotham is eminently readable, deeply personal and surprisingly satisfying
Denver Post
Mr. Rosenbaum’s novel is filled with wonderful comic invention ...but there is a much more serious point hiding behind Mr. Rosenbaum’s high jinks.... If the novel is filled with the fantastical, it is also just as full of the prophetic, and it is the latter that resonates long after the leaps of a very playful imagination have receded. No review can do justice to the richness packed into the 367 pages of The Golems of Gotham. I found myself rereading whole sections for the shape and ring of their paragraphs as well as the sheer emotional power packed into every catalogue, every observation of the world.
Florida Sun-Sentinel
A half-dozen ghosts of famous literary figures return to New York to help unblock a Jewish writer in Rosenbaum's intriguing but undisciplined second novel (after Second Hand Smoke), which begins with the suicide of a pair of elderly Holocaust survivors, Lothar and Rose Levin. Their deaths prove devastating to their son, Oliver, a successful author who was already struggling with a serious case of writer's block when his wife, Samantha, left him. Oliver's 14-year-old daughter, Ariel, responds to her father's struggles by conjuring up an illustrious group of literary golems who committed suicide in the wake of the Holocaust a group that includes the likes of Primo Levi and Jerzy Kosinski, as well as Oliver's deceased parents. They quickly provide Oliver with the inspiration to write a serious Holocaust novel as they commit various acts of mayhem around the city, and their rehabilitation project coincides with the rise of Ariel, a prodigal klezmer violinist whose talent lands her a gig at a major New York venue. Rosenbaum's far-fetched modern fairy tale is entertaining, despite some sappy moments, but his focus wanders frequently, particularly when he goes off on tangents about the golems as they work their strange magic. Moreover, he never comes close to capturing the essence of the writers, and by the end of the book they are little more than literary clowns. The author's passion for his subject permeates these pages, but it will be tough for this book to earn an audience beyond readers who share Rosenbaum's devotion to keeping the lessons of the Holocaust alive.
Publishers Weekly
When mystery writer Oliver Levin suffers writer's block, his 14-year-old daughter, Ariel, uses the kabbalah and forms a golem to summon help from her grandparents, Holocaust survivors who committed suicide when their only son was in college.... With this very accessible novel full of appealing characters, Rosenbaum...should help ensure that we never forget. —Michele Leber
Booklist
Rosenbaum's latest (Second Hand Smoke, 1999, etc.) promises an engagement with the relations between art, suffering, and memory, but delivers Mel Brooks without the rim shots in the tale of a blocked Jewish mystery writer whose daughter resurrects ghosts to release his creativity.
Kirkus Reviews
Book Club Discussion Questions
1. In the novel's riveting first scene, Lothar Levin shoots himself in the head while standing at the bima of his Miami synagogue. His wife, Rose, dies simultaneously in the sanctuary after taking cyanide. Why did the couple choose to commit suicide during a temple service? How are the details of their deaths— the location, the methods, etc.—significant to the story?
2. In the same scene, Rosenbaum reflects on what may have been in Rose's and Lothar's minds before they killed themselves: God, he suggests, "had become irrelevant, a lame-duck divinity, a sham for a savior, a mere caricature of a god who cared." (p. 3) How, if at all, might their sentiments have changed after their return to earth as golems? What "proof" does Rosenbaum give for God's concern or indifference to us?
3. A lighthouse on the Hudson River figures largely in the book —as the place where Ariel finds the clay to create the Golems, as the setting for Oliver's wedding, and later, his attempted suicide. How does the story of the lighthouse, which Oliver used to read to Ariel when she was very young, tie into its role in the novel? What does Ariel mean when she thinks, "I'm a lot like the lighthouse. All kids are really tiny lighthouses trying to rescue their parents"?
4. Ariel comments that "Some family histories are so big, the future can't overshadow the past. The climax and crescendo has already happened, and nothing will ever rate as large again. The Holocaust is that way with us." (p. 42) Can you think of any major events that have impacted future generations of your own family? How has the Holocaust affected your life? What about the events of September 11?
5. Oliver, an orphan, never knew the reasons for his parents' suicide. Likewise, Ariel doesn't know why her mother left her and Oliver. What are some of the long-term effects on children whose parents have willingly disappeared from their lives? How does such abandonment affect the relationships they form as adults?
6. The ghosts of Primo Levi and Jean Amery represent two opposing views of humanity. In the story, Levi is a "life-affirming optimist," while Amery asserts that faith in humanity could never again be recaptured. How does Rosenbaum use his novel as a forum to examine these divergent views? Where do you fall in the spectrum?
7. What do you think of the fantasy element of Rosenbaum's book? What is the effect of the author's juxtaposing ghosts, images of the Holocaust Jewish mysticism and renewal, and medieval Jewish history onto the bustling streets of a modern city?
8. How does Rosenbaum use comedy in the novel? Does the Golems' squabbling, their comic actions, and the slapstick detract from the book's more somber themes—or enhance them?
9. Was Ariel's experiment with the Golems successful? Did they go too far in their efforts to remind the world about the Holocaust and how had the world failed them yet again? What made them decide that they had accomplished their task?
10. What role does Tanya Green play in the novel? She herself admits that she can't instruct Ariel on the violin. What can she teach her? What does she offer Oliver?
11. On page 149 Rosenbaum writes, "In the modern world the family cannot be sheltered, cannot save itself from itself, from dissolution and divorce and, in the extreme cases, annihilation. The family is a highly vulnerable entity, always in a perpetual state of code blue, too listless to fight back, and too fragile to resuscitate." Do you agree with this assessment of modern life? What steps does this book suggest we take to strengthen all families, not just Jewish ones?
12. How does this novel comment on the lives and works of writers, musicians, and other artists? Is it an artist's duty to confront horrible truths, even if those truths lead him or her to suicide? As a writer, how do you think Oliver will compare to Levi, Kosinski, Celan and others mentioned in the novel?
13. Early in the novel, Jean Amery spurns the phrase, "Never again," which he calls the "best slogan ever written," but also as trivial and ineffective. At the end of the novel, he reminds Oliver, "Never forget...which isn't the same thing as shouting Never Again!" What does he mean by this? Can words change history? Can you give examples of ways that slogans have been used to encourage or discourage certain kinds of behavior? Are they effective?
14. Various characters in the novel decry modern society for trivializing, diluting, and forgetting about the Holocaust. Do you agree with this assessment? If so, what can we do to assure that the Holocaust is not forgotten—and not repeated?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big Ass Novel: Stuff We Didn't Do, but Could Have, and May Yet
Jill Conner Browne with Karin Gillespie, 2007
Simon & Schuster
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780743278348
Summary
How much more? The #1 New York Times bestselling author of five works of nonfiction now serves up The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel: Stuff We Didn't Actually Do, but Could Have, and May Yet. The humor in this uproarious coming-of-queen novel is more delicious than a favorite dessert (the Queens favor Chocolate Stuff™, of course).
In Jackson, Mississippi, Mary Bennett, Patsy, Gerald, and Jill are high school classmates whose daily routine is paced like a shuffle through the local red dirt—until the arrival of a redheaded newcomer banishes monotony forever. With her luxurious mane and voluptuous figure, Tammy Myers aspires to join the silver-spooners, who make things happen in their lives. When Jill convinces Tammy and the others that money might buy a certain kind of good time and that true friendship has no price tag, the "Sweet Potato Queens" are born. "If it ain't fun, we ain't doin' it," runs their official club motto, and the Queens are true to their word.
Together, the Queens laugh out loud as they step down the long—and not altogether pretty—road toward making their very own queen dust, the sparkle that comes from livin' and lovin' their own lives. The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel: Stuff We Didn't Actually Do, but Could Have, and May Yet reveals that the journey isn't always easy, but in the company of the Queens, you can sparkle, too. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1953
• Where—Tupelo, Mississippi, USA
• Education—N/A
• Currently—lives in Jackson, Mississippi
Those without a sense of humor need not read any further.
Now that that's out of the way, welcome to the world of Jill Conner Browne, self-proclaimed "Sweet Potato Queen" and internationally-proclaimed fabulously funny writer of romantic advice, tantalizingly tasty recipes, and—now, for the first time —rip-roaring fiction!
While Browne is no doubt the queen-bee of the Sweet Potato set, apparently there are factions of other such queens all across the nation. You may even have one in your very own neighborhood; they can always be recognized by their flashy sunglasses, even flashier red fright wigs, their sly pseudonyms of "Tammy" (which they acquire to protect their identities'), and the chilly margaritas inevitably clenched in their hands. The illustrious Sweet Potato Queens have all loved and lost, maybe they're approaching middle-age, and they certainly enjoy a bawdy tale as much as a frosty beverage. As their ranks continue to grow, Jill Conner Browne's popularity and success does, as well—which is quite an improvement over her less than ideal beginnings.
About fifteen years ago, Browne was awash in financial troubles, twice divorced, and responsible for a little girl and a sickly mother. To combat her less-than-glamorous life, she and a clutch of friends took on the absurdly glamorous personas of the Sweet Potato Queens, parading around the streets of Mississippi in a sweet potato farm truck, dolled up in outrageous tiaras and feather boas. Soon enough the Sweet Potato Queens became something of a local phenomenon, which Browne parlayed into hilariously in-your-face columns about love, life, family, and men.
The publication of her very first book The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love followed. The volume was an all-out explosion of ribald, good-natured advice (ex: "The True Magic Words Guaranteed to Get Any Man to Do Your Bidding") and, of course, a smashing recipe for the perfect margarita. With the massive success of Browne's first book, her life suddenly took a turn for the better and she became one of the hottest writers going. Her uproarious sequel God Save the Sweet Potato Queens solidified Browne's status as a role model for other women looking to break out of their shells. The book offered up more advice ("Dating for the advanced, or advancing"; "The joys of marriage—if you must"), as well as more lip-smacking recipes.
Such recipes were the chief focus of The Sweet Potato Queens' Big-Ass Cookbook (and Financial Planner) , a carefree compendium of secret recipes ("The Gooiest Cake in the World"; "Bitch Bar Bacon Swimps") and some tongue-in-cheek financial advice ("Hope that Daddy lives forever").
By now, the Sweet Potato Queens had grown into a veritable nationwide army, eager to devour new titles like The Sweet Potato Queens' Field Guide to Men and The Sweet Potato Queens' Wedding Planner/Divorce Guide. With The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel, Browne's first foray into fiction, the origin of the Queens is finally (and fictionally) revealed.
Extras
• Now that Browne has introduced the world to the Sweet Potato Queens via her hilarious books, she is continuing to spread the word in person. She regularly does public appearance tours in which she speaks "about all things Queenly."
• Browne is not the only writer in the Conner clan. Her sister Judy is the author of the similarly humorous Southern Fried Divorce. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
After five nonfiction bestsellers, Browne leaps into fiction (with assistance by Bottom Dollar Girls creator Karin Gillespie) and delivers a GEN-U-WINE page-turner of a novel. Fans won't be surprised that Browne's combination of bawdy humor and self-empowerment affirmations easily translates in novel form. An unexpected delight is how deftly Browne creates fully dimensional supporting characters surrounding her first-person narrator, Jill Connor. (In her nonfiction adventures, all the other queens are named Tammy and intentionally blend together.) Beginning in 1968 with five high school misfits thrown together, Browne traces the core members of the Sweet Potato Queens through two decades of weddings, funerals and disastrous relationships. While readers learn the origins of "The Promise" and the motto "Never wear panties to a party," Browne also invents some new lingo (tyrants at work are "bossholes" and men adept in bed "know about the little man in the boat"). Fans of the Queen's artery-choking recipes are in luck; after the final chapter, Browne offers menu items from Rest in Peace, a restaurant the Queens would love to open that would only serve food found at Southern funerals. Browne's hilarious and heartwarming debut sets sturdy groundwork for future fictional follies.
Publishers Weekly
More vignette than novel, this is the tale of a group of Southern gals and a gay guy as they help one another through marriages, divorces, funerals, and other life experiences, served up with plenty of wit in roughly five-year updates. The characters are colorful and likable, but the humor is mostly coarse and overly peppered with profanities. The book seems more an inconsistent retelling of Browne's previous nonfiction material now cast in a fiction mold rather than a tour de force of fresh, new stories. Browne's reading of her work is clear and solid. Also included are some recipes and an interview with the author. Recommended for larger libraries or for adult chick-lit collections
Denise A. Garofalo - Library Journal
Five high-school friends from Jackson, Miss., forge an enduring bond, based on their mutual belief in each other's fabulousness. As an antidote to the snooty clubs that won't have them, offbeat teens Jill, Mary Bennett, Patsy, Tammy and Gerald come together to form the Sweet Potato Queens, founded on the principle "If it ain't fun, we ain't doing it." Sharing humor and outsider status in school, the pals regularly get together to eat lots of pork and to gossip, and each year they dress in red wigs and sequin gowns and attend the St. Patrick's Day parade. The friends remain close long after graduation, despite taking divergent paths. Rich-girl-with-a-secret Mary Bennett heads off to soap-star fame in Hollywood; Gerald (to no one's surprise) comes out in San Francisco; and beautiful aspiring singer Tammy becomes a local TV weathergirl who drowns her numerous insecurities in a string of extramarital affairs. Midwestern-transplant Patsy moves to Atlanta and becomes a mom, while Boss Queen Jill muddles through a dull job and even duller love life. Tall and athletic, she eventually hits her stride, finding satisfaction as an in-demand personal trainer and a popular local columnist. Meanwhile, the queens experience the requisite laughter, tears and general messiness of life, all culminating in a last-minute London intervention to save Tammy from her latest bad decision. This fictionalized account of the origins of Browne's real-life SPQs (The Sweet Potato Queens' Wedding Planner and Divorce Guide, not reviewed, etc.) has a slapdash feel. Co-written with Gillespie, author of the Bottom Dollar Girls series, it reads less like a novel than what it is: the latest extension of this successful southern-fried brand. Breezy, but likely to move only existing fans of the Sweet Potato Queens.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The novel begins with the question "Is a queen created or is she born that way?" (1) Do you agree that we must learn to "make our very own queen dust" (6), or do you think some people naturally sparkle more than others? Jill claims you can see "the gleam of a queen" (1) in baby pictures of Queen Elizabeth, Cher, and RuPaul. What other celebrities—male, female, or somewhere in between!—might have been born with a queenly glimmer in their eyes?
2. Jill narrates the novel in the first-person voice. How does this affect the way the story unfolds? Discuss what the novel might be like from the point of view of another one of the Queens. Could Mary Bennett, Gerald, Patsy, or Tammy capture the uproarious humor of Jill's narration?
3. Jill introduces the city of Jackson, Mississippi, by emphasizing the divide of Yazoo Road: "If you lived north of Yazoo, like Marcy Stevens did, you peed champagne and blew your nose in silk. If you lived south—as I did—you peed Dixie Beer and blew your nose in burlap" (9). What is the "personality" of Jackson? How is the town like another character in the book, or even another Queen? If this novel were set in your hometown, how would it be different?
4. Jill describes her thirteen-year-old self like this: "I was so skinny?that when I ran I looked like an eggbeater coming down the road. If I turned sideways and stuck out my tongue, I looked like a zipper" (6). Think back to your own early teenage years. How would you humorously describe what you looked like back then? Were you as awkwardasyoung Jill?
5. Jill's friends describe her as "a whiz at motivating people," "a born leader," and "a helluva cook" (44). So why does Jill think, "I must have been absent when God handed out talents" (45)? What do you think is behind her late-blooming career and unsatisfying love life? What has been holding her back?
6. The Sweet Potato Queens' four food groups are sweet, salty, fried, and au gratin! What are yours? Are they just as indulgent as the Queens'?
7. One of the themes of the novel is the importance of creating your own positive self-image. Take Tammy as an example. Discuss how her character evolves, from the Key Club incident in high school to realizing she's been "royalty in Jackson all along" (271). What mistakes does Tammy make, and how do they affect her self-image? What does it take for Tammy to accept herself as a real-life Sweet Potato Queen, instead of a fantasized "Lady Tammy" (218)?
8. Jill's writing career grows over the course of the novel, from joking about sending her articles to the Fish Wrapper Gazette (148), to her beloved column in The Diddy Wah Diddy, to realizing she should write a book about the Sweet Potato Queens. What helps Jill gain confidence in her writing? Do you think she successfully balances her career as a personal trainer with her love for writing?
9. How does Ross quickly win over Jill, who admits, "It was positively head-spinning how quickly my feelings for Ross had grown. I was like a sports car that had gone from zero to sixty in three dates" (183)? What are some of the warning signs that Ross is too good to be true? If you were in Jill's position, do you think you would fall for Ross's charms? Why or why not?
10. Compare the Tammys' 1968 homecoming float (on pages 38 to 42) to the Sweet Potato Queens' St. Paddy's Day Parade of 1989 (pages 271 to 278). What has changed on their float over the years, and what has remained the same?
11. What is Patsy's special talent, which earns her the nickname "Queen Poot" (274)? How does Patsy use her unique skill on Marcy Stevens? Does Marcy get what's coming to her?
12. What do you think of the novel's ending? Is this a happy ending for Jill, who has not yet found love? Discuss what Jill means by this statement: "Some day my king will come... . For the very first time, I thought I might be willing to let it happen" (278).
13. Which of the Sweet Potato Queens do you relate to the most, and why? Which Queen do you find the most comical, and which is the most practical?
14. The novel ends in 1989. Where do you see Jill, Tammy, Mary Bennett, Patsy, and Gerald in 2007, eighteen years later? Do you think the middle-aged Queens would still look just as fabulous in their St. Paddy's Day Parade prom gowns?
15. Name a scene in the book that made you laugh out loud. Did other members of your book club chuckle at the same moments?
16. If you've read any of Browne's other Sweet Potato Queens books, how does the Big-Ass Novel compare to her previous nonfiction titles? If this is your first time with the Sweet Potato Queens, are you planning to read the rest of the series?
Enhance Your Book Club:
1. If you haven't already, start your own O-fficial Chapter of the Sweet Potato Queens! There are more than five thousand chapters registered nationwide. Come up with a name and a motto, and nominate a member (or yourself) as Boss Queen. To get inspired, registered, and fully accessorized, visit the Sweet Potato Queens website.
2. Have members of your book club make some of the recipes in The Sweet Potato Queens' First Big-Ass Novel. Share the food at your book club meeting. You might want to call your meeting to order by announcing, "COME AND GIT IT! (That's y'allbonics for bon appétit.)" (280)
3. Do a little research on Jackson, Mississippi. Have each member of your book club bring in one fun fact about the town, or a map or picture of a Jackson landmark. Maybe your group will want to take a field trip next March, for Mal's St. Paddy's Day Parade!
(Questions issued by publisher.)
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Bartleby and Benito Cereno
Herman Melville, 1853 and 1856
Dover Publications
112 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780486264738
Summary
(This slender volume by Dover contains two of Melville's best-known stories. We have developed a set of discussion questions below for each story.)
Benito Cereno is a harrowing tale of slavery and revolt aboard a Spanish ship—and regarded by many as Melville's finest short story.
"Bartleby the Scrivener" accompanies Benito. When a New York lawyer needs to hire another copyist, it is Bartleby who responds to his advertisement, and arrives "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn." At first a diligent employee, he soon begins to refuse work, saying only "I would prefer not to." So begins the story of Bartleby—passive to the point of absurdity yet extremely disturbing—which rapidly turns from farce to inexplicable tragedy.
(Adapted from the Penguin edition.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 1, 1819
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Death—September 28, 1891
• Where—New York, New York
• Education—Albany Academy until age 15
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet, whose work is often classified as part of the genre of dark romanticism. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and novella Billy Budd, the latter of which was published posthumously.
Melville was born in New York City in 1819, as the third child of Allan and Maria Gansevoort Melvill. (After her husband Allan died, Maria added an "e" to the family surname.) Allan Melvill sent his sons to the New York Male School (Columbia Preparatory School). Overextended financially and emotionally unstable, Allan eventually declared bankruptcy, dying soon afterward and leaving his family penniless when Herman was 12.
Melville attended the Albany Academy from October 1830 to October 1831, and again from October 1836 to March 1837, where he studied the classics. Melville's roving disposition and a desire to support himself led him to seek work as a surveyor on the Erie Canal. This effort failed, and his brother helped him get a job as a cabin boy on a New York ship bound for Liverpool. He made the voyage, and returned on the same ship. Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) is partly based on his experiences of this journey.
After teaching for a stint (1837-1840), Melville spent the next four years at sea, travelling in the South Pacific Ocean, stopping off for periods in Hawaii and the Marquesas Islands (where he lived mong the Typee natives). He returned to Boston in 1844. These experiences were described in Typee (1846), Omoo (1847), and White-Jacket (1850), which gave Melville overnight notoriety as a writer and adventurer.
In 1847, Melville married Elizabeth Shaw (daughter of chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Lemuel Shaw); the couple had four children, two sons and two daughters. In 1850 they purchased Arrowhead, a farm house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, now a museum. Here Melville lived for thirteen years, occupied with his writing and managing his farm. While living at Arrowhead, he befriended the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who lived in nearby Lenox. Melville, an intellectual loner for most of his life, was tremendously inspired and encouraged by his new relationship with Hawthorne during the period he was writing Moby-Dick (1851). Melville dedicated that work to Hawthorne, though their friendship was on the wane only a short time later, when Melville wrote Pierre (1852). Sadly, these works did not achieve the popular and critical success of his earlier books.
His The Confidence-Man (1857), winning general acclaim in modern times, received contemporary reviews ranging from the bewildered to the denunciatory.
By 1866 his professional writing career can be said to have come to an end. To repair his faltering finances, Melville's wife and her relatives used their influence to obtain a position for him as customs inspector for the City of New York (a humble but adequately paying appointment), and he held the post for 19 years. In a notoriously corrupt institution, Melville soon won the reputation of being the only honest employee of the customs house.
As his professional fortunes waned, Melville's marriage was unhappy, plagued by rumors of his alcoholism and insanity and allegations that he inflicted physical abuse on his wife. Her relatives repeatedly urged her to leave him, and offered to have him committed as insane, but she refused.
In 1867 his oldest son, Malcolm, shot himself, perhaps accidentally. While Melville worked, his wife managed to wean him off alcohol, and he no longer showed signs of agitation or insanity. But recurring depression was added-to by the death of his second son, Stanwix, in San Francisco early in 1886.
Melville retired in 1886, after several of his wife's relatives died and left the couple legacies that Mrs. Melville administered with skill and good fortune.
Upon his death in September 1891, he left an unfinished piece; not until the literary scholar Raymond Weaver published it in 1924 did the book—which we now know as Billy Budd, Sailor—come to light. Later it was turned into an opera by Benjamin Britten, a play, and a film by Peter Ustinov. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
(Sorry. Classic works have few, if any, mainstream press reviews online. See Amazon and Barnes & Noble for helpful customer reviews.)
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for both "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "Benito Cereno":
Questions for "Benito Cereno"
1. Captain Delano is a curious figure. How would you describe him? Discuss his "blindness" to what's going on around him. What are the numerous—and obvious—signs that he continues to misinterpret? How does he explain away things that initially trouble him?
2. Why might Melville have chosen Delano to tell the story, in order that we see the story through his eyes? Do we fall prey to the same tunnel vision as he does?
3. How does Delano represent "benign racism"? What are his views of the slaves on the ship?
4. "Follow your leader" is an expression used throughout the story, and its meaning differs according to who utters it. Talk about the different meanings it has. What irony lies behind the phrase—does Delano, for instance, think that slaves are capable of leadership?
5. Melville wrote this story in 1856, five years before the Civil War broke out. It was a time frought with politics that pitted northern abolitionists against large land- and slave-owners in the South. What would Melville's position have been—can you guess from this story? Who was he warning...what morality is at stake? Consider the fact that both Cereno and Babo die by the end.
6. The story has been posited as cautionary tale of good vs. evil. But who in this story represents the good—and who repsents the evil? There is depravity on both sides...is one depravity worse or less than another?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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Questions for "Bartleby the Scrivener"
1. How does the narrator describe himself at the onset of the story? It's important to establish his character early on so as to determine the accuracy of his self-portrayal and the degree to which it seems to change throughout the course of the story. He tells us, for instance, that "he does a snug business" in his "snug retreat"; he's safe and prudent. What else does he tell us?
2. How does the lawyer describe Bartleby as he first appears? What do you make of Bartleby...and how does your idea of him change during the story?
3. There are numerous mentions of the word "wall" in this story. What symbolic significance does it have to the story? Consider, for instance, that Bartleby is isolated from the other copyists, placed with his desk facing a wall. What effect might this have had on him?
4. What is the significance of the fact that the story occurs in the financial district of New York? How well does the narrator accommodate himself to his surroundings—and how well does Bartleby fit in?
5. Discuss the other workers in the office, Bartleby's colleagues. Can you sense Melville's humor as he writes about the office situation?
6. What is the significance of Bartleby's resistance? What does it mean? Don't feel the need to take Bartleby "literally"; consider what he might represent, metaphorically.
7. How does the narrator react when Bartleby makes his first utterance, "I would prefer not to"? How does he continue to react to Bartleby...and why?
8. When the narrator discovers that Bartleby is living in the office, he had been on his way to church. But he changes his mind and decides not to attend. Why? What does this say about his religious beliefs, particularly in light of the fact that he considers Bartleby " a lost soul"? Overall, how does the lawyer's discovery of Bartleby affect him? What does he come to feel? Do you think these are novel emotions for him?
9. Bartleby refuses to leave when dismissed. Discuss the irony of the lawyer and his decision to move his office. What happens during the confrontation with Bartelby...what does the lawyer offer him? Why does he still feel responsible for Bartleby?
10. When, at the end, the narrator says that Bartleby is sleeping "with kings and counselors." What does he mean? And why might Wall Street have had a role in Bartleby's demise? What is the significance of the story's final words, "Ah, humanity"?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Color of the Sea
John Hamamura, 2006
Knopf Doubleday
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780307386076
Summary
Growing up in a time between wars, Sam Hamada finds that the culture of his native Japan is never far from his heart. Sam is rapidly learning the code of the samurai in the late 1930s on the lush Hawaiian Islands, where he is slowly coming into his own as a son and a man.
But after Sam strikes out for California where he meets Keiko, the beautiful young woman destined to be the love of his life, he faces crushing disappointment—Keiko's parents take her back to Japan, forcing Keiko to endure their attempts to arrange her marriage. It is a trial complicated by how the Japanese perceive her—as too Americanized to be a proper Japanese wife and mother—and its pain is compounded by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which ignites the war that instantly taints Sam, Keiko, and their friends and family as enemies of the state."
Sam himself is most caught between cultures when, impressed by his knowledge of Japanese, the U.S. Army drafts and then promotes him, sending him on a secret mission into a wartime world of madness where he faces the very real risk of encountering his own brother in combat.
From the tragedies of the camps through to the bombing of Hiroshima, where Sam's mother and siblings live, Sam's very identity both puts his life at risk and provides the only reserve from which he can pull to survive. In this beautifully written historical epic about a boy in search of manhood, a girl in search of truth, and two peoples divided by war, Sam must draw upon his training, his past, and everything he has learned if he's ever to span his two cultures and see Keiko, or his family, again. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1945
• Where—U.S. Army hospital, Minnesota, USA
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Alex Award, American Library Assn.; Honor Book,
Asian/Pacific American Librarians Assn.;
• Currently—lives in Oakland, California, USA
I was born in the final year of World War II. Mom's parents and sister were interned at Rohwer in southern Arkansas. Dad was a GI training Japanese-American translators. Hiroshima was Dad's hometown. His mother and sister survived the atomic bomb.
My childhood was a puzzle—starting with kindergarten in Grant Heights, just north of Tokyo. An all-American town, complete with miniature white picket fences, where the supermarket was called PX and the surrounding landscape of green and golden rice fields was dotted with low small bowl-perfect hills, each hiding a domed cave in which farmers stored tools and rice. Mom scolded me for playing there, said the hills were old bomb shelters, but never explained what that meant. I spent summer vacations at Grandma’s house in Hiroshima, 2.5 miles from ground zero. Sometimes in dreams I am still that boy standing at the wire fence that separated Grant Heights from Grandma and Aunt Chizuko and all the others who looked like me, but were called Japanese Nationals, while I was a Japanese-American.
I waited years until I was old enough to ask the right questions and to hear the stories the adults would never share with children. I did not choose these stories, I was born into them. And they shaped me, just as my novel, The Color of the Sea, developed out of the puzzle pieces of my family history. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
True and truly felt. Hamamura has produced a valuable corrective to an often one-sided view of Japan and Japanese Americans during the war years.
San Francisco Chronicle
Through beautifully written prose, artful imagery and achingly real characters, John Hamamura sweeps his reader away to a time in history that shook the world and a love story that will resonate long after the final page.
Asian American Press
Hamamura's broad debut follows a Japanese language teacher raised in Hawaii as he finds love and as the U.S. and Japan drift into war. Isamu "Sam" Hamada, born in Hawaii to Japanese parents and raised in Japan until age nine, leaves Japan in 1930 to be reared by a Japanese-American family in Hawaii, before moving to California. A constant for the intense but likable Sam is his dedication to the martial arts, a passion shared by Yanagi Keiko, the American-born young woman he meets in California. Their love is haunted by an earlier liaison of Sam's, but Keiko and Sam press on until she leaves for Japan in the spring of 1940 to finish high school and, it is planned, marry a man chosen by her grandparents. As the war begins, Keiko's family is deported from Japan to the U.S., while Sam is recruited by the U.S. military intelligence, and a slim second chance comes into view. The romantic material is solid if idealized; various martial arts chapters have a clumsily formal quality; Sam's final military adventure at Okinawa strains credibility; an extended passage on the bombing of Hiroshima is motivated only by placing Sam's parents and siblings there. But Hamamura has a real command of the relevant history and packs a great deal of it into several dense but lucid and accessible story lines.
Publishers Weekly
Presented through a series of short chapters and divided into five major sections, this multilayered first novel spans 1930-47 and recounts the Japanese American experience through the life of Isamu "Sam" Hamada, the Hawaiian-born eldest son and descendant of a samurai family. As a nine-year-old, he leaves his mother and siblings in Japan to work on a Hawaiian plantation with his alcoholic father. Upon the older man's return to Japan, he suddenly dies, leaving Sam to fulfill his destiny as the family's "winning lottery ticket." He moves to California to attend college, and a blooming romance is interrupted by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. After proudly serving his country, Sam contemplates suicide through the ancient samurai ritual of seppuku (disembowelment) when he learns the fate of his family back in Hiroshima. Overall, these plot highlights hardly delineate Hamamura's fine characterization. His writing honestly portrays the individual struggles of the immigrant experience as well as defines the equally difficult struggles of their American-born offspring. Hamamura shines as a storyteller and is definitely a name to watch. Highly recommended for Asian American fiction collections and for most public and academic libraries. —Shirley N. Quan, Orange Cty. P.L., Santa Ana, CA
Library Journal
To be a Japanese American in mid-twentieth-century America was to be perceived as neither Japanese nor American, and it is this conflict that informs Hamamura's ambitious coming-of-age novel, in which the fate of two people amid the devastation of war reveals how the promises of honor and the security of love can rescue souls and restore faith. —Carol Haggas
Booklist
This is truly a multicultural story of a young man born in Japan, raised in Hawaii and Japan and forced to confront his nationality as he moves between the Japanese and American culture as he comes of age right before Pearl Harbor. At the age of 13, Isamu, or Sam in America, begins his training as a samurai by learning to see the many colors in everything. His intelligence and calm spirit help him when he moves to Hawaii to be with his father and has to deal with the lower status of the Japanese there. Sam is tricked into a relationship with a young woman who is the mistress of her employer, but his true love is Keiko, a girl he has grown up with. When he receives a letter saying the first girl has had his son, his sense of honor forces him to give up his love for Keiko, and he is torn by his conflicting loves. He is also torn between his loyalty to the US, in spite of the maltreatment of the Japanese Americans, including his family and friends, and his love for Japan. The book is beautifully written, drawing the readers into the character of Sam and creating an unusual picture of that difficult time in Japan's and America's history. —Nola Theiss
KLIATT
Before and during WWII, Japanese-Americans find both countries inhospitable in this heartfelt debut. The protagonists are Isamu-later Americanized to Sam-and Keiko, both beautiful, bright and brave, and both tormented by racism. Sam, whose formative years are spent in Hawaii and California, experiences the unvarnished, in-your-face U.S. brand of hate. Keiko, a California girl, suffers the somewhat subtler Japanese variation when she's taken there by her parents in June 1940. In this tale of two countries, it's up for grabs as to which form of the disease Hamamura considers more virulent. On the day Pearl Harbor is bombed, Sam, 20, is arrested as an enemy alien, and, together with stunned friends and neighbors, unceremoniously hauled off to prison. In response to their cry of, "Why are you treating us like this, we're Americans," the FBI retorts, "No, you're not, you're Japs." Transplanted Keiko encounters the kind of arrogance that is the concomitant of nationalistic fervor. Which are you, a teacher demands-American or Japanese? Both, replies a confused, torn 18-year-old, enraging her teacher. For Keiko, challenges to defend boorish America are frequent, and intensifying, of course, when war breaks out. The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor; the U.S. employs the atom bomb; and Sam and Keiko, star-crossed lovers, lead complicated and troubled lives against a turbulent background, searching for identity and ways they can be together. A poignant, fresh story told with feeling and sincerity.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How do the characters and plot express the archetypal symbol of the yin-yang? Which scenes play on the opposition or merging of cultures, East and West? Consider the yin and yang of Keiko, raised to be demur and yielding, traveling with her parents to Japan in search of an arranged marriage... how was her femininity and womanhood redefined by practicing with a warrior’s weapon, the naginata? Consider the yin and yang of Sam, raised to be a samurai, trained in the martial arts...and yet what did his final “tests” demand?
2. Discuss the theme of the collision between fantasy and reality, for example in the samurai jitterbug or the wedding night chapters. How do fantasy and reality color the different kinds of love experienced by the characters? How do the characters react when their dreams and expectations regarding romance bump into the limitations and awkwardness of real life? What do they learn, and how does it change them?
3. Discuss some of the deeper conflicts between philosophical ideals, like those expressed in the characters’ easily uttered words, and their subsequent hard-to-live reality. How are the characters shaped and driven by the theme of promises, kept and broken? By the adherence to the samurai code of honor vs. the demands of true love or the horrors of actual warfare? What aspects of Sam’s martial arts training prove most useful at the ravine and the cave or his visit to the temple? What is the cost of Al and Dewey’s loyalty and patriotism in their quest to rescue the Lost Battalion? What is the quality and nature of Sam’s loyalty, patriotism, and sense of honor and duty, juxtaposed against the atomic bombing of his mother and sister?
4. Consider the yin and yang of East and West. Explore the cultural differences and similarities in their definitions of love, home, enemy, loyalty and sacrifice. In what ways does being a good Japanese clash or harmonize with a character’s need to be a good American and vice versa?
5. Use ideas and scenes from the novel to illuminate how differing cultural demands have shaped your own life. Name your own ancestral origins. Then comparing yourself to the characters in the novel, identify some points where your ancestral cultural values conflict or mesh with the definitions and demands of where you now reside. If your ancestors’ nation, religious beliefs or cultural values were so at odds with (the USA or the country where you live) that you and your family were deemed undesirable aliens or a threat to national security, how would you feel? If the two countries you loved most were at war, and you were ordered to pack no more than two suitcases for yourself and each family member, to leave everything else behind, your car, your pets, your homes and businesses, to be sent to an undisclosed location to live for an unspecified length of time, how would you feel, and more importantly, what would you do?
6. If your friends or neighbors were the ones being targeted and sent away, how would feel, what would you do? Would your feelings and reactions depend on the nature and degree of the threat to the nation? At what point would you close your door and turn your back on your friends or neighbors? If you were drafted into the military during a war against the country where your mother and siblings lived, how would you feel? After the war, how might you feel about journeying home to face the surviving members of your family?
7. How do perseverance, acceptance and forgiveness shape the characters? Discuss the scenes in which compassion and forgiveness toward others or self open the gates to spiritual enlightenment.
(Questions from author's website.)
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