Modern Lovers
Emma Straub, 2016
Penguin Publishing
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594634673
Summary
A smart, highly entertaining novel about a tight-knit group of friends from college— and what it means to finally grow up, well after adulthood has set in.
Friends and former college bandmates Elizabeth and Andrew and Zoe have watched one another marry, buy real estate, and start businesses and families, all while trying to hold on to the identities of their youth.
But nothing ages them like having to suddenly pass the torch (of sexuality, independence, and the ineffable alchemy of cool) to their own offspring.
Back in the band's heyday, Elizabeth put on a snarl over her Midwestern smile, Andrew let his unwashed hair grow past his chin, and Zoe was the lesbian all the straight women wanted to sleep with. Now nearing fifty, they all live within shouting distance in the same neighborhood deep in gentrified Brooklyn, and the trappings of the adult world seem to have arrived with ease.
But the summer that their children reach maturity (and start sleeping together), the fabric of the adult lives suddenly begins to unravel, and the secrets and revelations that are finally let loose—about themselves, and about the famous fourth band member who soared and fell without them—can never be reclaimed.
Straub packs wisdom and insight and humor together in a satisfying book about neighbors and nosiness, ambition and pleasure, the excitement of youth, the shock of middle age, and the fact that our passions—be they food, or friendship, or music—never go away, they just evolve and grow along with us. (LitLovers.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1979-80
• Raised—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Oberlin College
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City
Emma Straub is an American author three novels and a short story collection. Raised on Manhattan's Upper West side, she now lives with her husband and two young sons in Brooklyn.
Emma comes by writing naturally: her father is Peter Straub, an award winning writer of horror fiction, a fact which makes even Emma admit to a belief in a writing gene. Here's what she told Michele Filgate of Book Slut:
I believe the writing gene is located just behind the gene for enjoying red wine and just in front of the gene for watching soap operas, both of which I also inherited from my father. What I do know for sure is that I watched my father write for a living my entire childhood, and I understood that it was a job like any other, that one had to do all day, every day. I think a lot of people have the fantasy that a writer sits around in coffee shops all day, waiting for the muse to appear.
So while genes may play a role, so does hard work and grit: determined to become a writer, she pushed on even after her first four books were turned down. As she told Alexandra Alter of the New York Times,
They all got rejected by every single person in publishing, in the world. It’s still true that I will go to a publishing party or event, and the first thing I will think of is, "I know who you are, you rejected novels 2 and 4."
It's nice to think that today Straub is having the last laugh.
Attending Oberlin College, Straub received her B.A. in 2002. She went on to earn her M.F.A. at the University of Wisconsin where she studied with author Lorrie Moore. Returning to New York, she worked for a number of years at the independent Book Court bookstore in Brooklyn.
Her novels include Modern Lovers (2016), The Vacationers (2014), and Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures (2012). Her story collection is titled Other People We Married (2011). Straub's fiction and nonfiction have been published in Vogue, New York Magazine, Tin House, New York Times, Good Housekeeping, and Paris Review Daily. She is also a contributing writer to Rookie. (From .)
Book Reviews
In all of her novels, Emma Straub seems to peer into her characters’ hearts in a most believable way. Her latest is no different: in Modern Lovers, we meet up with way cool college bandmates three decades later. Zoe, Elizabeth, and Andrew—now middle-aged—live near one another in gentrified Brooklyn, yet despite their trendy, almost precious life-styles, Straub manages to bring them to life, far beyond any level of caricature. READ MORE.
Keddy Ann Outlaw - LitLovers
Ms. Straub writes with such verve and sympathetic understanding of her characters…[that] this novel has all the pleasures of reading one of Anne Tyler's compelling family portraits…. In [Straub's] capable hands…even the most hackneyed occasions are transformed into revealing or comic moments…. She captures the jagged highs and lows of adolescence with freshness and precision, and the decades-long relationships of old college friends with a wry understanding of how time has both changed (and not changed) old dynamics.... [D]eftly and thoughtfully written.
New York Times - Michiko Kakutani
[I]n Emma Straub’s witty third novel...[to] be once young and briefly famous and painfully of-the-moment and then morph into regular-people middle age is...insulting, as if your whole life is the worst Instagram fail. And this is where we find the novel’s 40-something friends, past millennial hipness and on into hot flashes.... Modern Lovers hurries to tie up its loose ends, and the interwoven climaxes seem sludgy. The final chapter employs a lazy literary device, a series of announcements...that would seem more at home in the closing credits of Animal House. But up until then, Modern Lovers is a wise, sophisticated romp through the pampered middle-aged neuroses of urban softies.
Alex Kuczynski - New york Times Book Review
Summer in the city has never felt so good.... Modern Lovers celebrates the updated look and feel of familial love and all of its complexities. Straub’s clever and perceptive observations on growing up are gentle reminders that coming of age isn’t just for kids.
Washington Post
In Modern Lovers, Straub’s new intertwined families are stuck in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn, for the summer, but there are plenty of fireworks—including a teen romance and a potential movie about the friends’ punk-rock past.
Newsday
[Modern Lovers] has the smart, cool sensibility of Straub's other novels, and you're sure to love this one just as much.
Elle
Straub lets her characters fall apart and come together in their own messy, refreshingly human ways— always older, sometimes wiser, but never quite done coming of age.
Entertainment Weekly
With a real-estate agent, a chef, a yogi 'guru,' and teens sneaking off to do what teens do when teens sneak off— Straub’s latest has something for everyone.
Marie Claire
Bestseller Emma Straub gives us an insightful look into middle age, parenthood, and the funny way that passions never fade, no matter how much time passes by.
Harper’s Bazaar
[Straub] sets her observational wit on three middle-aged friends (former college bandmates) who find themselves in a crisis of identity as their now-grown children head off to college themselves.
Huffington Post
(Starred review.)Straub spins her lighthearted but psychologically perceptive narrative with a sure touch [and]...excels in establishing a sense of place.... Events move at a brisk pace, and surprises...enliven the denouement.... [A] warmly satisfying novel.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [E]ngaging.... Sprinkled with humor and insight, this is a Brooklyn novel with heart. Straub's characters are well rounded and realistic; even the teenagers are sympathetic.... [A] drama...built around the small moments of life. —Melanie Kindrachuk, Stratford P.L., Ont.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [I]n Straub's fond gaze, [Brooklyn] feels like an enchanted land out of a Shakespearan comedy.... She's a precise and observant writer whose...characters are a quirky and interesting bunch, well aware of their own good fortune, and it's a pleasure spending time with them.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Modern Lovers explores the concept of aging. How do you think these characters feel about their own journeys into adulthood? How does the adults’ description of youth compare with the teenagers’ experience or description of youth? What about their different perspectives on adulthood? Which of them—the adults or the teens—is more accurate? Is one perspective more true than the other?
2. Lydia soared on to become a star, leaving the rest of Kitty’s Mustache behind. How does Lydia’s success—and subsequent death—affect the current actions of these characters? Specifically, Elizabeth, Zoe, and Andrew—do they see themselves in opposition to Lydia? What if she hadn’t died?
3. Do you think Andrew was right in lying to Elizabeth about his relationship with Lydia? How might things have been different if he had told her the truth from the start?
4. Should Elizabeth have gone through with the Kitty’s Mustache documentary, even without Andrew’s approval? Considering the events that are set in motion, do you think this decision helps their marriage or hinders it in the end?
5. Does the fire at Hyacinth, though devastating at the time, actually lead to a happier marriage for Zoe and Jane? Why or why not?
6. Are Ruby and Harry a good romantic fit? Are they too young to know whether they are?
7. Self-image plays an important role in Modern Lovers. All of these characters have specific ideas about themselves, and often, the realities don’t quite match. Discuss how the characters want to be seen, in comparison with who they actually are.
8. Discuss how the characters' friendships change over the years—from college to early parenthood to middle age. How are their relationships with one another and their perceptions of themselves linked? How does one affect the other?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty
Ramona Ausubel, 2016
Penguin Publishers
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781594634888
Summary
From the award-winning author of No One Is Here Except All of Us, an imaginative novel about a wealthy New England family in the 1960s and '70s that suddenly loses its fortune—and its bearings.
Labor Day, 1976, Martha's Vineyard.
Summering at the family beach house along this moneyed coast of New England, Fern and Edgar—married with three children—are happily preparing for a family birthday celebration when they learn that the unimaginable has occurred: There is no more money.
More specifically, there's no more money in the estate of Fern's recently deceased parents, which, as the sole source of Fern and Edgar's income, had allowed them to live this beautiful, comfortable life despite their professed anti-money ideals.
Quickly, the once-charmed family unravels. In distress and confusion, Fern and Edgar are each tempted away on separate adventures: she on a road trip with a stranger, he on an ill-advised sailing voyage with another woman. The three children are left for days with no guardian whatsoever, in an improvised Neverland helmed by the tender, witty, and resourceful Cricket, age nine.
Brimming with humanity and wisdom, humor and bite, and imbued with both the whimsical and the profound, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty is a story of American wealth, class, family, and mobility, approached by award-winner Ramona Ausubel with a breadth of imagination and understanding that is fresh, surprising, and exciting. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1978-79
• Raised—Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
• Education—M.F.A., University of California, Irvine
• Awards—PEN Center USA for Literary Fiction (more below)
• Currently—lives in the San Francisco Bay area of California
Ramona Ausubel is an American writer, the author of two novels and a short story collection. She grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and now lives with her husband and children in the San Francisco Bay area. She holds an MFA from the University of California, Irvine.
Writing
Ausubel's novels include Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty (2016) and No One is Here Except All of Us (2012). Her collection of stories is titled A Guide to Being Born (2013).
Her work has also appeared in The New Yorker, One Story, Electric Literature, FiveChapters, Green Mountains Review, Slice, among others. It has been collected in The Best American Fantasy, Paris Review online.
Her stories have also been included a list of "100 Other Distinguished Stories of 2008″ in the Best American Short Stories and three times as a "Notable" story in the Best American Non-Required Reading.
Recognition and honors
Ausubel is a winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. She has also been a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Story Award and the International Impac Dublin Literary Award. She has also been a finalist for the Puschart Prize and a Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. While in graduate school, she won the Glenn Schaeffer Award in Fiction and served as editor of Faultline Journal of Art & Literature.
Ausubel has taught and lectured at the University of California, Irvine, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Pitzer College and the University of California, Santa Barbara. She has served as a mentor for the PEN Center USA Emerging Voices program. Currently, she is a faculty member of the Low-Residency MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Ausubel's often whimsical prose is in top form yet again as she imbues the story with her signature touch of magic. This one's just lovely.
Elle.com
"There's no more money." This stark discovery by a golden couple triggers a series of funny, touching adventures.... Set in the anything-goes '70s, this story inspires surprising happiness.
Good Housekeeping
Coming from moneyed backgrounds, married couple Edgar and Fern Keating react in a surprising fashion to their impending insolvency.... Ausubel offers an incisive look at...this couple and...family.... There is true wit in the author’s depiction...and with characters this memorable, the pages almost turn themselves.
Publishers Weekly
Ausubel offers a piercing view of the subtleties of class and privilege and what happens when things go awry.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Fortunes and hearts are lost and found in a modern fairy tale set in the 1960s and '70s. Ausubel's trademark combination of realist narrative with fabulist elements shines.... [Her] magical, engrossing prose style perfectly fits this magical, engrossing story.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if they're made available. In the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to kick off a discussion for Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty...then take off on your own:
1. Describe the main characters, Fern and Edgar Keating. Is Edgar a hypocrite, for example, or does he simply live by his own idiosyncratic code of behavior? How do you feel about both of the Keatings, and do those feelings change by the end? Do either of them learn, change, or grow during the course of the novel?
2. Talk about Cricket, James, and Will and how they fend for themselves after their parents' abandonment. Do you find irony in their ability to cope without so-called "adult" supervision...and without dependence on family money? (Who, by the way, are more responsible: parents or children?)
3. Sons and Daughters portrays different reactions to wealth—for instance, taking pleasure in the things money makes possible or viewing wealth as a burden. How do the various characters—Edgar and Fern and the families they came from—approach wealth?
4. Discuss your own attitudes toward money? Given the situation the Keatings find themselves in, how might you react? Is the adage true that money doesn't lead to happiness? Why or why not? Is there a qualifier to that saying?
5. Ramona Ausubel inserts fabulist, folktale-like elements in her otherwise realistic novel. Do these magical additions add to or detract from the story in your opinion?
6. How is the cultural ethos of the 1960s and '70s portrayed in this novel? Talk about how the era's values (or lack of) shape the characters' beliefs and actions. Why might the author have chosen this era as the setting for her story?
7. Will the characters ever achieve happiness? Does the book hint one way or another? What do you think lies in store for the Keating family members?
8. How are animals used to telegraph foreboding in the plot?
9. Given today's political discussions surrounding the 1%, income disparity, a shrinking middle-class, and minimum wage, what were your attitudes toward the privileged when you began reading Sons and Daughters, and has the book altered—or confirmed—your attitudes?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Sweetbitter
Stephanie Danler, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101875940
Summary
A lush, raw, thrilling novel of the senses about a year in the life of a uniquely beguiling young woman, set in the wild, seductive world of a famous New York City restaurant.
"Let's say I was born when I came over the George Washington Bridge..." This is how we meet unforgettable Tess, the twenty-two-year-old at the heart of this stunning debut.
Shot from a mundane, provincial past, Tess comes to New York in the stifling summer of 2006. Alone, knowing no one, living in a rented room in Williamsburg, she manages to land a job as a "backwaiter" at a celebrated downtown Manhattan restaurant.
This begins the year we spend with Tess as she starts to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing, and privileged life she has chosen, as well as the remorseless and luminous city around her. What follows is her education: in oysters, Champagne, the appellations of Burgundy, friendship, cocaine, lust, love, and dive bars.
As her appetites awaken—for food and wine, but also for knowledge, experience, and belonging—we see her helplessly drawn into a darkly alluring love triangle. With an orphan’s ardor she latches onto Simone, a senior server at the restaurant who has lived in ways Tess only dreams of, and against the warnings of coworkers she falls under the spell of Jake, the elusive, tatted up, achingly beautiful bartender.
These two and their enigmatic connection to each other will prove to be Tess’s most exhilarating and painful lesson of all.
Stephanie Danler intimately defines the crucial transition from girl to woman, from living in a place that feels like nowhere to living in a place that feels like the center of the universe. She deftly conjures the nonstop and purely adrenalized world of the restaurant—conversations interrupted, phrases overheard, relationships only partially revealed. And she evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, the fragility and brutality of being young in New York with heart-stopping accuracy.
A lush novel of the senses—of taste and hunger, seeing and understanding, love and desire—Sweetbitter is ultimately about the power of what remains after disillusionment, and the transformation and wisdom that come from our experiences, sweet and bitter. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1983-1984
• Raised—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—M.F.A., New School
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles
Stephanie Danler is an American author, whose debut novel, Sweetbitter, was publishsed in 2016 to both great anticipation and acclaim.
Like her young narrator-herone Tess, Danler came to New York City in her early twenties and worked in restaurants. It was a job she continued up through her late twenties as a way to support herself while getting her MFA at New York's New School.
How she got her book published is the stuff of fairy tales. The story goes that Danler, then working in a West Village restaurant, approached one of the diners, who happened to be a top publisher, and pitched her book. Being polite, he agreed to take a look at it and was later "stunned" by its language, and polish. A high six-figure advance followed, and Sweetbitter was published some 18 months later.
Danler has since left New York and now lives in a 1920's cottage in the Laurel Canyons section of Los Angeles, where she writes, cooks and entertains.
Book Reviews
Ms. Danler is a sensitive observer of the almost wartime camaraderie among workers at a restaurant that's humming at full capacity, of the exhaustion, of the postshift drinking in dive bars until dawn, of the sex and other stimulants—the biggest one simply being young and alive and open to the animal and intellectual possibilities that New York offers…. Ms. Danler is a gifted commenter…on many things, class especially…. Sweetbitter grows darker than you might expect, in terms of where Tess's desires lead her. It's a book about hunger of every variety, even the sort that can disturb you and make you sometimes ask yourself, as does Tess, "Was I a monster or was this what it felt like to be a person?"
New York Times - Dwight Garner
[O]utstanding…. Stephanie Danler's first novel, Sweetbitter, is the Kitchen Confidential of our time, written from the cleaner and infinitely more civilized front-of-the-house perspective…It would be a tired story if it weren't so, well, for one thing true and for another so brilliantly written. A coked-out girl who sees the sun come up as many times as Tess does might cause her writer to run out of metaphors for unwelcome daybreak…but Danler never does, and her description of the panic of the unannounced health department inspection was so engrossing to read, I missed a flight even though I had already checked in and was waiting at the gate…. Tess is a character you root for and collude with. Danler has a deeply endearing habit of inviting you, the reader, to participate in Tess's own becoming.
New York Times Book Review - Gabrielle Hamilton
Danler's novel paints a visceral, evocative portrait of what it's like to move to New York in your early twenties. Her spot-on descriptions of New York 10 years ago and Tess's evolution from naif to world-weary server, all in just one year, elevate Sweetbitter—the opposite of "Bittersweet"—above its chic-lit trappings into an irresistible coming-of-age tale that can truly be savored.
Mae Anderson - Associated Press
Sweetbitter...dresses the bones of a classic coming-of-age story with the lusty flesh and blood of a bawdy early twenty-first-century picaresque.... Danler...quickly draws you into the sparkling surfaces and the shadowy underbelly of the city... [Tess's] insatiable hunger for tactile, sensual satisfaction dares you to tag along. The journey is high-minded and dirty, beastly and bountiful.
Elle
Danler’s ravishing debut is like inhabiting the heady after-midnight hours of a city drunk on its own charms… [Her] descriptions of food and drink go beyond mouth-watering, verging on orgasmic…a first novel [that] tantalizes, seduces, satisfies.
Leigh Haber - O Magazine
Sweetbitter is the rare novel that transcends its hype.... Come for the Meyer-lemon-tart narrator, Tess; stay for author Danler’s lush and precise writing about food, drugs, and dives.
New York
Danler can be a brilliant observer of the city; she can make dialogue snap; she is unafraid to give us a protagonist whose drive can be monstrous.
Newsday
Tess’s sensual awakening to food: creamy, ash-dusted cheeses; anchovies drenched in olive oil; dense, fleshy figs like "a slap from another sun-soaked world" [is] the book’s true romance—the heady first taste of self-discovery, bitter and salty and sweet.
Leah Greenblatt - Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review.) [A] quintessential coming-of-age story.... [Tess] defines the foods and condiments that are sweet and those that are bitter—and her relationships...are ultimately just that... Danler evokes Tess’s...with deft skill. This novel is a treat.
Publishers Weekly
Danler's debut captures the wild abandon of youth set free in a environment where there are no rules. The characters are well drawn, realistic, and enigmatic. Tess's fresh outlook contrasts with the jaded lives of the other employees. —Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
(Starred review.) From her very first sentences...Danler aims to mesmerize, to seduce, to fill you with sensual cravings. She also offers the rare impassioned defense of Britney Spears. As they say at the restaurant: pick up!
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The title appears within one of the novel’s epigraphs, a quote from a poem by Sappho: "Eros once again limb-loosener whirls me / Sweetbitter, impossible to fight off, creature stealing up." How does this fit into Tess’s story?
2. On page 4, Tess likens the Hudson River to Lethe. According to Greek mythology, the dead drink from Lethe to forget their previous lives. On page 13, in her interview with Howard, Tess says, "Or maybe it means we’ve forgotten ourselves. And we keep forgetting ourselves. And that’s the big grown-up secret to survival." What is Tess trying to forget?
3. Throughout the novel, Tess considers the idea that she is a "fifty-one percenter," whose optimistic warmth, intelligence, work ethic, empathy, and self-awareness and integrity made her uniquely qualified to work at the restaurant. How does this concept figure into her developing sense of herself, and her coworkers? Does it prove to be a good thing?
4. Simone is prone to lecturing Tess philosophically. (Appetite "cannot be cured. It’s a state of being, and like most, has its attendant moral consequences." [page 62] "Your senses are never inaccurate—it’s your ideas that can be false." [page 78]) What do these proclamations tell us about Simone’s character? And what do we learn about Tess?
5. "The sharing of secrets is a ceremony, marking kinship. You have no secrets yet, so you don’t know what you don’t know" (page 89). What secrets does Tess develop? Do they help her, or hurt her?
6. What does Simone mean when she tells Tess, "And you want to take every experience on the pulse" (page 95)? And when Tess repeats that phrase to Jake on page 145, why does he say, "You’re too malleable to be around [Simone]"?
7. The concept of "terroir" appears several times in the novel. On page 133, Tess wonders if people can have it. Which characters do you think have terroir? Can a book have it?
8. At what point does it become clear to the reader that Tess has developed a problem with drugs and alcohol? When does she realize it?
9. Simone and Jake each influence Tess greatly. Whose influence proves more beneficial, and whose is more damaging? What does she want from each of them? What does she get?
10. On page 196, Tess tells Jake, "You’re all terrified of young people. We remind you of what it was like to have ideals, faith, freedom. We remind you of the losses you’ve taken as you’ve grown cynical, numb, disenchanted, compromising the life you imagined. I don’t have to compromise yet. I don’t have to do a single thing I don’t want to do. That’s why you hate me." What do you think of her assessment?
11. Several of Tess’s coworkers assign to her nicknames of their own devising—"new girl," "Skipper," "Fluffer," "little one." The reader doesn’t even learn her real name until page 216. What do these names have in common? Are they terms of endearment, or belittling?
12. What role does Howard play in Tess’s coming of age? What does he see in her that she hasn’t yet seen in herself?
13. Tess and Simone each came to New York at twenty-two. How were their paths similar, and how were they different?
14. Tess and Jake both grew up motherless. Simone becomes a mother figure for each. Which of them gets the most out of the relationship: Tess, Jake, or Simone?
15. Why does Samantha’s appearance at the restaurant affect Simone so deeply?
16. Why does discovering Simone’s key tattoo affect Tess so deeply?
17. When examining the photographs pinned to Jake’s wall, Tess thinks, "It reminded me, the way he skirted around those photos, of something Simone had told me during one of our lessons: try not to have ideas about things, always aim for the thing itself. I still did not understand these four photographs, the why of them" (page 291). What does this passage mean? What does she want to know?
18. Why does Tess feel so betrayed when she learns about Jake and Simone’s planned sabbatical? How does the timing, coinciding with the restaurant’s closing, affect her response?
19. Over the course of the novel, Tess devotes herself to studying wine—but after she shares her thoughts on Beaujolais, Mrs. Neely says, "Child, what is wrong with you? There’s no roses in the damn wine. Wine is wine and it makes you loose and helps you dance. That’s it. The way you kids talk, like everything is life or death" (page 335). What does this exchange do for Tess? What does Mrs. Neely represent?
20. When Sasha tells Tess about the reality of Jake and Simone’s relationship, why is she surprised?
21. Why does Tess have sex with Howard?
22. Regularly throughout the novel, the author interrupts Tess’s storytelling with collections of overheard fragments of conversation. What purpose do these poetic interludes serve? What does the final one represent?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Homegoing
Yaa Gyasi, 2016
Knopf Doubleday
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101947135
Summary
Winner, 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award
A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel.
Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.
Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle.
Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery.
One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America.
From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.
Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi’s magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control.
Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1989-1990
• Where—Ghana
• Raised—Huntsville, Alabama, USA
• Education—B.A., Stanford University; M.F.A., Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Award—National Book Critics Circle Award
• Currently—lives in Berkeley, California
Yaa Gyasi was born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama. She holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she held a Dean’s Graduate Research Fellowship. She lives in Berkeley, California. Her debut novel, Homegoing, was published to wide acclaim in 2016, as was her second novel, Transcendent Kingdom, in 2020. (From the publisher.)
Read Slate's interview with Yaa Gyasi. It's far more encompassing than we can do here!
Book Reviews
The novel is work, requiring readers' full attention to follow the connections and lineage between characters while also absorbing details and present-day consequences of historical happenings that are unimaginable. In reward for this effort, Yaa Gasi got in my head, pushing me to further examine my lens and perspective.… Indeed we must. Homegoing captured me and I highly recommend it.
Abby Fabiaschi, AUTHOR - LitLovers READ MORE…
Remarkable...compelling. The novel...provides deep background for today’s controversies over racial justice...and is highly readable. In other words, Homegoing enters a ready and waiting reading world, and it is built to satisfy.... [T]his powerful novel in particular, can reveal the large and small significances of history, while also delivering the pleasures of story.
Rebecca Steinitz - Boston Globe
Tracing three centuries in Ghana, and the wildly different experiences—prosperity, poverty, comfort, captivity—of two half-sisters and their descendants in Ghana and the U.S., Yaa Gyasi's debut novel promises to be a memorable epic of changing families and changing nations.
Laura Pearson - Chicago Tribune
Heart-wrenching.... Gyasi’s unsentimental prose, her vibrant characters and her rich settings keep the pages turning no matter how mournful the plot.... The chapters change narrators effortlessly and smoothly transition between time periods.... Yaa Gyasi’s assured Homegoing is a panorama of splendid faces.
Soniah Kamal - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The brilliance of this structure, in which we know more than the characters do about the fate of their parents and children, pays homage to the vast scope of slavery without losing sight of its private devastation.... [Toni Morrison’s] influence is palpable in Gyasi’s historicity and lyricism.... No novel has better illustrated the way in which racism became institutionalized in this country.
Megan O’Grady - Vogue
Homegoing is an epic novel in every sense of the word—spanning three centuries, Homegoing is a sweeping account of two half-sisters in 18th-century Ghana and the lives of their many generations of descendants in America. A stunning, unforgettable account of family, history, and racism, Homegoing is an ambitious work that lives up to the hype.
Jarry Lee - Buzzfeed
Stunning... [Homegoing] may just be one of the richest, most rewarding reads of 2016. (“19 Summer Books That Everyone Will Be Talking About")
Meredith Turits - Elle
Gyasi gives voice, and an empathetic ear, to the ensuing seven generations of flawed and deeply human descendants, creating a patchwork mastery of historical fiction.
Cotton Codinha - Elle Magazine
[A] commanding debut...will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading. When people talk about all the things fiction can teach its readers, they’re talking about books like this.
Steph Opitz - Marie Claire
(Starred review.) Gyasi’s amazing debut offers an unforgettable, page-turning look at the histories of Ghana and America... [where] prosperity rises and falls from parent to child, love comes and goes....Gyasi writes...with remarkable freshness and subtlety. A marvelous novel.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Gyasi's characters are vividly drawn, sympathetic yet not simplistically heroic... This is an amazing first novel, remarkable in its epic vision. —Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA
Library Journal
Rarely does a grand, sweeping epic plumb interior lives so thoroughly. Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing is a marvel. —Dave Wheeler, associate editor
Shelf Awareness
Gyasi is a deeply empathetic writer, and each of the novel’s 14 chapters is a savvy character portrait that reveals the impact of racism from multiple perspectives.... A promising debut that’s awake to emotional, political, and cultural tensions across time and continents.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Evaluate the title of the book. Why do you think that the author chose the word Homegoing? What is a homegoing and where does it appear in the novel? In addition to the term’s literal meaning, discuss what symbolic meanings or associations the title might have in terms of a connection with our place of birth, our ancestors, our heritage, and our personal and cultural histories.
2. Explore the theme of belief. What forms of belief are depicted in the book and what purpose do these beliefs seem to serve for the characters? Does the author reveal what has shaped the characters’ beliefs? Do these beliefs seem to have a mostly positive or negative impact on the believer and those around them?
3. What perspective does the book offer on the subject of beliefs and otherness? For instance, does the book delineate between superstition and belief? Why does Ma Aku reprimand Jo after he is kicked out of church? What do the Missionary and the fetish man contribute to a dialogue on beliefs and otherness? Does the book ultimately suggest the best way to confront beliefs that are foreign to us?
4. Evaluate the treatment and role of women in the novel. What role does marriage play within the cultures represented in the novel and how are the women treated as a result? Likewise, what significance does fertility and motherhood have for the women and how does it influence their treatment? In the chapter entitled "Effia," what does Adwoa tell Effia that her coupling with James is really about? In its depiction of the collective experiences of the female characters, what does the book seem to reveal about womanhood? How different would you say the treatment and role of women is today? Discuss.
5. Analyze the structure of the book. Why do you think the author assigned a chapter to each of the major characters? What points of view are represented therein? Does any single point of view seem to stand out among the rest or do you believe that the author presented a balanced point of view? Explain. Although each chapter is distinct, what do the stories have in common when considered collectively? How might your interpretation of the book differ if the author had chosen to tell the story from a single point of view?
6. Consider the setting of the book. What time periods are represented and what places are adopted as settings? Why do you think that the author chose these particular settings? What subjects and themes are illuminated via these particular choices? How does the extensive scope of the book help to unify these themes and create a cohesive treatment of the subjects therein?
7. In the chapter entitled "Quey," Fiifi tells Quey that "[the] village must conduct its business like [the] female bird" (53). What does he mean by this and why do you think that Fiifi chooses this approach?
8. Why was Quey sent to England? After his return home, why does Quey say that it was safer in England? Why might he feel that what he faces at home is more difficult than the challenges he faced in leaving home and living abroad?
9. James’s mother, Nana Yaa, says that the Gold Coast is like a pot of groundnut soup (89). What does she mean by this?
10. Why does Akosua Mensah insist to James, "I will be my own nation" (99)? What role do patriotism, heritage, and tradition play in contributing to the injustices, prejudices, and violence depicted in the book? Which other characters seem to share Akosua’s point of view?
11. Explore the theme of complicity. What are some examples of complicity found in the novel? Who is complicit in the slave trade? Where do most of the slaves come from and who trades them? Who does Abena’s father say is ultimately responsible (142)? Do you agree with him? Explain why or why not.
12. Examine the relationships between parents and children in the book. How would you characterize these relationships? Do the children seem to understand their parents and have good relationships with them and vice versa? Do the characters’ views of their parents change or evolve as they grow up? How do the characters’ relationships with their parents influence the way that they raise their own children?
13. What significance does naming have in the book? Why do some of the characters have to change or give up their names? Likewise, what do the characters’ nicknames reveal both about them and about those who give or repeat these names? What does this dialogue ultimately suggest about the power of language and naming?
14. Explore the motif of storytelling. Who are the storytellers in the book and what kinds of stories do they tell? Who is their audience? What might these examples suggest about the purpose and significance of a storytelling tradition?
15. According to Akua, where does evil begin? Where else in the book do readers find examples that support her view? What impact does Akua’s opinion have on Yaw’s lifework? Does he agree with Akua’s view or refute it? Do you agree with her? Discuss.
16. What is history according to Yaw? What does he tell his students is "the problem of history" (226)? Who does Yaw say we believe when reading historical texts and what does he say is the question we must ask when studying history? How might these ideas influence your own reading of Gyasi’s book and reshape your ideas about the historical subjects and themes treated therein?
17. Sonny says that the problem in America "wasn’t segregation but the fact that you could not, in fact, segregate" (244)? What does he mean by this? What does Sonny say that he is forced to feel because of segregation? Which of the other characters experience these same feelings and hardships? Does there seem to be any progress as the story goes on? If so, how is progress achieved? Alternatively, what stymies and slows progress in this area?
18. What is Marcus studying and why isn’t his research going well? What feeling does he indicate that he hopes to capture with his project? Why does Marcus go to Ghana and what does he learn from his experiences there? Marcus believes that "most people lived their lives on upper levels, not stopping to peer underneath (298). What does he mean by this? Where do we find examples of this elsewhere in the book? Are there any characters in the novel who defy this characterization?
19. Consider the book’s treatment of colonialism and imperialism. In the chapter entitled "Esi" at the start of the book, what does Esi’s mother tell her daughter that weakness and strength really are? How does her definition of weakness and strength correspond to the dialogue about colonialism and imperialism that runs throughout the book? Discuss how this dialogue expands into a deeper conversation about freedom and human rights. Have the issues surrounding colonialism, imperialism, freedom, and human rights featured in the book been resolved today or do they linger? If they remain, does the book ultimately offer any suggestions or advice as to how this might be remedied?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Chickasolved! The NEW Bloody French
Zane Walker Morris, 2015
Self-published
214 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780978870515
Summary
DISCOVER THE SECRETS YOUR PARENTS HAVE HIDDEN FROM YOU . . .
CHICKASOLVED, The New Bloody French… (BOOK 2 in the author's SECRETS OF LIFE Series)
Includes These Bullets of Truth:
- Bible Stories Verified
- Evolution Debunked
- Sounds of Words (Social Meaning)
- English based Indian Native Americans
- Life after Death
- Advertising Research based Relationship Advice
- Looking Younger
- Communicating with Spirits (Like Native American Shamans)
- Picking the Perfect Mate (Based on Biology).
Orders include donation to Hollywood Neighbor Regeneration Project.
View a free read of the book at its order site.
Author Bio
• Birth—May 5, 1977
• Raised—Fort Worth, Texas, USA
• Education—Oklahoma State University
• Currently—Tulsa, Oklahoma
Zane Walker Morris is an advertising researcher who has done it all as production in this field. His production work has contributed to over 6 billion dollars moving in the economy since 1996 through the power of compound interest. Due to a stolen car and walk through below freezing temperatures (81 miles through Dallas in the freezing rain) he had an out of body experience. The story is noted in this SECOND BOOK in the (Secrets of Life series). The first book was listed at $138.44 up from $19.99 by used sellers on Barnes and Noble's website. Pictures are available at his website on the about page. This was 5 years after publication when President Bill Clinton's book was listed at 0.01¢ by the same sellers 5 years after its release.
In addition to this, Zane Walker Morris has been an amateur and professional (non-fake) wrestler in Texas for over 36 years. He has also been in professional music and concert promotion as a pro private DJ and advertiser since 1996. Zane Walker Morris is a dual citizen of the United States of America and the Great Chickasaw Nation of America. He is of Chickasaw (Which is ancient Anglo not Hispanic Indian which is covered in this book) and Scottish heritage. (From the author.)
You are invited to follow not friend this author at his Facebook page.
Discussion Questions
1. Have you considered the Bible miracles may be illusion but may be real?
2. Did you know humans are confirmed to not come from Chimps? We only had a common ancestor?
3. Have you considered the same sounds convey the same emotion in both Germanic and Latin languages? Example, OH! means pain in both. Or extreme pleasure. Consider the impact on post-internet written and spoken communication in war, romance, and basic relationships?
4. Did you know some Native Americans came from Asia and some from old England? Before the Dutch and Goths started building castles in 1100 C.E. (A.D.)?
5. Do you know looking similar in the cheek bones creates similar buying, feeding, and mating habits? Mating as in relationships for life?
6. Did you know personal trainers (like the author) use the thought of an age to sculpt the body into the desired fit, like the "biologically immortal" jelly fish found in 2010 and found in the book?
7. Do you know you can use modern technology commonly found in the home to communicate with the spirits of the living and the dead like Native Americans and Scots have done since the founding of Europe? Have you used the technique found in the book (a new technique based on centuries used by the family of the author)?
8. Have you seen a shadow or light apparition like the one featured in print in the book?
9. Do you now have supreme confidence you can double your chances of finding the perfect mate based on the advertising insight found in the book? (Two things don't lie bankruptcy and success.) Have you seen the pictures? Have you added all the insights from each chapter to form a mission in building your perfect romantic and business relationships? What are your romantic goals now?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)