Margaret the First
Danielle Dutton, 2016
Catapult
176 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781936787357
Summary
Margaret the First dramatizes the life of Margaret Cavendish, the shy, gifted, and wildly unconventional 17th-century Duchess.
The eccentric Margaret wrote and published volumes of poems, philosophy, feminist plays, and utopian science fiction at a time when “being a writer” was not an option open to women. As one of the Queen’s attendants and the daughter of prominent Royalists, she was exiled to France when King Charles I was overthrown.
As the English Civil War raged on, Margaret met and married William Cavendish, who encouraged her writing and her desire for a career. After the War, her work earned her both fame and infamy in England: at the dawn of daily newspapers, she was “Mad Madge,” an original tabloid celebrity.
Yet Margaret was also the first woman to be invited to the Royal Society of London—a mainstay of the Scientific Revolution—and the last for another two hundred years.
Margaret the First is very much a contemporary novel set in the past. Written with lucid precision and sharp cuts through narrative time, it is a gorgeous and wholly new approach to imagining the life of a historical woman. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—October 18, 1975
• Where—Visalia, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California, Santa Cruz; M.F.A., School of the Art Institute of
Chicago; Ph.D., University of Denver
• Currently—lives in St. Louis, Missouri
Danielle Dutton, an American writer and publisher, was born in Visalia, California. She received her BA in History from the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1997, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a PhD in English and Creative Writing at the University of Denver.
During her time at Denver University, she served as the Associate Editor of the Denver Quarterly, under editor Bin Ramke. For several years she taught courses in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University.
In 2011 she joined the MFA program in creative writing at Washington University in St. Louis as an assistant professor.
Writing
Of her first book, Attempts at a Life, a collection of short lyrical narratives published in 2007 by Tarpaulin Sky Press, novelist Daniel Handler wrote in Entertainment Weekly: “Indescribably beautiful, also indescribable. In fact, I’m not quite sure what this book’s about, really. Read it; remind yourself that comprehending things all the time is really boring.”
Dutton's second book was the experimental novel S P R A W L, published by the LA-based art press Siglio. It was a finalist for the Believer Book Award in 2011. The editors of The Believer wrote: "Dutton’s sentences are as taut and controlled as her narrator’s mind, and a hint at what compels both ('I locate my body by grounding it against the bodies of others') betrays a fierce and feral searching. S P R A W L makes suburban landscapes thrilling again." In Bookforum, Leigh Newman wrote: "Sprawl in fact does not sprawl at all; rather, it radiates with control and fresh, strange reflection."
Margaret the First was published in 2016. About the 17th century Duchess of Cavendish, Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and called the book "a sensuous appreciation of the world and unconventional approach to fictionalized biography. Dutton’s boldness, striking prose, and skill at developing an idiosyncratic narrative should introduce her to the wider audience she deserves."
Dutton's fiction has appeared in magazines including Harper's, BOMB, Noon, Fence, Places: Design Observer, and in anthologies including A Best of Fence: The First Nine Years and I'll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women.
Publishing
After finishing her PhD, Dutton joined the staff of Dalkey Archive Press, first as managing editor and then as production manager and book designer. She designed covers for more than 100 books and was interviewed for her designs by Elle magazine.
In 2010, Dutton founded the indie press Dorothy, a publishing project. According the the press's website, Dorothy, is dedicated "to works of fiction, or near fiction, or about fiction, mostly by women." The press publishes two books per year. To date, it has published books by Renee Gladman, Barbara Comyns, Manuela Draeger (translated from the French by Brian Evenson), Suzanne Scanlon, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Amina Cain, Joanna Ruocco, and Nell Zink. Its work has garnered wide praise and reviews of its books in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Vice, New York Times, and Harper's.
In a 2014 article in the Chicago Tribune, critic Laura Pearson wrote: "Truthfully, we'd check out anything from Dorothy, a publishing project, so keen is editor Danielle Dutton's eye for weird, wonderful manuscripts—most of which happen to be by women. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/17/2016.)
Book Reviews
It is to Danielle Dutton’s credit that her novelistic take on the duchess never swells this celebrity into false intellectual brilliance. Instead, we encounter a prickly, shy, arrogant, imaginative, contradictory, curious, confused, melancholic, ambitious and restless heroine.... Dutton surprisingly and delightfully offers not just a remarkable duchess struggling in her duke’s world but also an intriguing dissection of an unusually bountiful partnership of (almost) equals.
Katharine Grant - New York Times Book Review
This vivid novel is a dramatization of the life of 17th-century Duchess Margaret Cavendish... While the novel takes place in the 1600s, the explorations of marriage, ambition, and feminist ideals are timeless.
Boston Globe (Pick of the Week)
Although Margaret the First is set in 17th century London, it's not a traditional work of historical fiction. It is an experimental novel that, like the works of Jeanette Winterson, draws on language and style to tell the story.... There is a restless ambition to [Danielle Dutton's] intellect.
Michele Filgate - Los Angeles Times
Danielle Dutton engagingly embellishes the life of Margaret the First, the infamous Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Vanity Fair
With refreshing and idiosyncratic style, Dutton portrays the inner turmoil and eccentric genius of an intellectual far ahead of her time.
Jane Ciabattari - BBC.com
(Starred review.) [R]remarkable...vividly imaginative as its subject, the 17th-century English writer and eccentric Margaret Cavendish.... Dutton’s boldness, striking prose, and skill at developing an idiosyncratic narrative should introduce her to the wider audience she deserves.
Publishers Weekly
A fabulous (and fabulist) re-imagining of the infamous Margaret Cavendish... Margaret the First isn’t a historical novel, however; magnificently weird and linguistically dazzling, it’s a book as much about how difficult and rewarding it is for an ambitious, independent, and gifted woman to build a life as an artist in any era as it is about Margaret herself. Incredibly smart, innovative, and refreshing, Margaret the First will resonate with anyone who’s struggled with forging her own path in the world.
BookRiot
Despite its period setting and details, this novel...feels rooted in the experiences of contemporary women with artistic and intellectual ambitions. Margaret's alternating bursts of inspiration and despair about her work may feel achingly familiar to...aspiring writers.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for Margaret the First...then ta:
1. How would you describe Margaret Cavendish? Talk about the trajectory of her life, from young Margaret Lucas, lady-in-waiting, to Lady Cavendish, and eventually back in England as Mad Madge. What drives her, always?
2. Author Danielle Dutton says she discovered Margaret through Virginia Woolf; indeed Woolf hovers over this book. If you haven't already, consider reading Woolf's A Room of One's Own and look for parallels between the two works—in language and imagery, as well as subject matter.
3. Talk about the traditional role of women in the 1600s and the ways in which Margaret eschews tradition.
4. Follow-up to Question 3: In what ways could Margaret be considered a 21st century woman? Consider, especially her drive for independence and creative expression. How does Margaret's story speak across the centuries to women of today?
5. In what way is Danielle Dutton's book not typical of historical fiction? Might the author's idiosyncratic style be a fitting manner in which to tell Margaret Cavendish's story?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, feel free to use these, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Life of Elves
Muriel Barbery, 2015 (2016, US edition)
Europa Editions
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781609453152
Summary
A moving and deeply felt homage to the power of nature and art by one of the world's most beloved authors.
Maria lives in a remote village in Burgundy, where she learns that she has a gift for communicating with nature. Hundreds of miles away in Italy, Clara discovers that she possesses a stunning musical genius and is sent from the countryside to Rome to develop her preternatural abilities.
Barbery's The Life of Elves tells the story of two children whose extraordinary talents will bring them into contact with magical worlds and malevolent forces. If, against all odds, they can be brought together, their meeting may shape the course of history.
Seven years after the publication of her international bestseller, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery returns with a lyrical novel about the quest for enchantment in a world that seems to have forgotten such a thing ever existed.
With its cast of unforgettable characters, each fighting to preserve a sense of enchantment, The Life of Elves is a poetic meditation on art, nature, dreams, and the role of the imagination. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 28, 1969
• Where—Casablanca, Morocco
• Education—Ecole Normale Superieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud
• Currently—lives outside of Paris, France
Muriel Barbery is a French novelist and professor of philosophy.
She was born in Casablanca, Morocco, although her parents left when she was only two months old. She studied at the Lycee Lakanal (comparable to American high schools) in the outskirts of Paris and then entered the Ecole Normale Superieure de Fontenay-Saint-Cloud in 1990. In 1993 she obtained her agregation in philosophy (secondary teaching degree).
She then taught philosophy in a lycee (at the Universite de Bourgogne) and at the Saint-Lo IUFM (teacher training college). After she quit her job, she lived for two years in Japan (2008 and 2009). She currently lives in the countryside, south of Paris.
Barbery attained fame with her second novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog. The book topped the French best-seller lists for 30 consecutive weeks and was reprinted 50 times. By May 2008 it had sold more than a million copies and has been a bestseller in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, South Korea, and many other countries. The novel concerns the inhabitants of a small upper-class Paris apartment block, notably its autodidact concierge, Renee. In 2009 the book was adapted to film, titled The Hedgehog.
Her third novel, The Life of Elves, a fantastical fable in which elves serve as intermediaries between the human and natural worlds, is a departure from Barbery's normal realism. It was released in 2015 (2016 in the U.S.).
Books
2000 - Gourmet Rhapsody, Europa Editions (2009, Engl.)
2006 - The Elegance of the Hedgehog (2008, Engl.)
2015 - The Life of Elves (2016, Engl.)
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/17/2016.)
Book Reviews
The Life of Elves fully delivers on its title. Ms. Barbery unleashes a complete magical menagerie, a kaleidoscopic cast that includes not only elves but also unicorns; a giant squirrel; a fantastical, shape-shifting wild boar; and an otter with a human face.... [The author delivers] an enigmatic and beguiling fairy tale, unicorns and all.
Alexandra Alter - New York Times
Obscurity may be [the book's] downfall, in both individual sentences and as a whole. Despite Alison Anderson’s skillful translation, Barbery’s images can unspool into incomprehensible abstraction.... At times, it’s simply hard to know what’s going on.... [Still, as] often as The Life of Elves confounds, in its many moments of weird lucidity it also beguiles. It’s then that Barbery explores the mystical connections between nature, art and the human heart with vividness and clarity.
Emily Barton - New York Times Book Review
As long as Barbery describes the concrete, known world of the villagers, her vision is clear, the details precise.... It’s when she tries to cross over to her other world, where an entity can have multiple essences...that Barbery’s uncertain language betrays an uncertainty of vision..... Try as I might, I could never quite believe in Barbery’s world of elves.... Sadly my all-too-frequent margin note was “What?!”
Pauline Holdstock - Toronto Globe and Mail
The Life of Elves is at once realistic and dreamlike. Barbery's poetic language and her endearing characters will direct readers.
La Vie (France)
Muriel Barbery has composed a hymn-and a call-to the ancient complicity of hands, minds, and nature.
Le Figaro
Nearly a decade ago, Muriel Barbery enchanted readers the world over with her novel The Elegance of the Hedgehog — and she’s back with a still-more twee tale of two children brought together by their almost supernatural connections to music and the natural world.
Huffington Post
Despite elven politics, Christianity, and war, the plot feels secondary and downplayed.... Just as battle is coming, readers are stopped by descriptions of the numerous participants, breaking the tension and typifying a reading experience in which the parts are greater than the whole.
Publishers Weekly
[A] gauzy, glimmering fantasy that has...drawn worldwide acclaim.... The magical frame and lush loveliness of the writing might be oversweet for some readers, but many fans of both Barbery and fantasy from writers like Alice Hoffman and Sarah Addison Allen will be enchanted.
Library Journal
Vivid imagery and a thread of mystery draw readers into the timeless and ethereal world of these young girls with a destiny to fulfill. Passionate and lyrical...a richly imagined tale full of enchanting characters whom readers will love.
Booklist
The conjoined powers of two magical children bring about a new alliance to thwart evil and unite the natural world in this fantastical novel.... Although possibly too abstract for children and too fey for some adults, this fervent, idiosyncratic fable is undeniable evidence of a richly lyrical imagination.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Life of Elves...then take off on your own:
1. Describe the world of the elves and the elves themselves. Why do they need Clara and Maria?
2. Talk about the two girls. What personal gifts or powers does each bring to bear upon the elfin world?
3. Talk about the upcoming battle of the elves. What is at stake?
4. Describe how everything—nature, elves, humans and art—are connected in Muriel Barbery's vision. What is the thematic message we are presented with in The Life of Elves? Is there a lesson Barbery is imparting?
5. Do you agree or disagree with the passage below? What does it mean?
True faith, it is a well known fact, has little regard for chapels, but it does believe in the communion of mysteries, and with its unworldly fusion of beliefs, it crushes any temptations that prove too intolerant (p. 56).
6. What does the elfin motto, "siempre mantendre" (always maintain) mean?
7. If you have read J.R.R. Tolkien, how do these elves compare with those in The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings series?
8. In what historical era do you believe the novel is set? What clues are you using to make your "guesstimate"? Why do you think Barbery isn't more specific in terms of when the action takes place? Does it matter?
9. Many reviewers have made much of Barbery's obscure and difficult language, saying that it gets in the way of understanding the story. Others, though, have found the writing lush and beautifully descriptive. What do you think?
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, feel free to use these online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Free Men
Katy Simpson Smith, 2016
HarperCollins
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062407597
Summary
From the author of the highly acclaimed The Story of Land and Sea comes a captivating novel, set in the late eighteenth-century American South, that follows a singular group of companions—an escaped slave, a white orphan, and a Creek Indian—who are being tracked down for murder.
In 1788, three men converge in the southern woods of what is now Alabama.
Cat, an emotionally scarred white man from South Carolina, is on the run after abandoning his home. Bob is a talkative black man fleeing slavery on a Pensacola sugar plantation, Istillicha, edged out of his Creek town’s leadership, is bound by honor to seek retribution.
In the few days they spend together, the makeshift trio commits a shocking murder that soon has the forces of the law bearing down upon them. Sent to pick up their trail, a probing French tracker namecard Le Clerc must decide which has a greater claim: swift justice, or his own curiosity about how three such disparate, desperate men could act in unison.
Katy Simpson Smith skillfully brings into focus men whose lives are both catastrophic and full of hope—and illuminates the lives of the women they left behind.
Far from being anomalies, Cat, Bob, and Istillicha are the beating heart of the new America that Le Clerc struggles to comprehend. In these territories caught between European, American, and Native nations, a wilderness exists where four men grapple with the importance of family, the stain of guilt, and the competing forces of power, love, race, and freedom—questions that continue to haunt us today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1985-86
• Where—Jackson, Mississippi, USA
• Education—B.A., Mount Holyoke College; M.F.A. Bennington College; Ph.D., University
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
• Currently—lives in New Orleans, Louisiana
Katy Simpson Smith was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. She attended Mount Holyoke College and received a PhD in history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. She has been working as an adjunct professor at Tulane University and lives in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Books
2013 - We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835.
2014 - The Story of Land and Sea
2016 - Free Men
(Author bio adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
With this collage of experiences twisted together and soaked in blood, Smith cuts to the bone of our national character. Then, as now, for all its violence and desperation, it’s noble and inspiring, too.
Washington Post
[A] brilliant, wild ride…. Not only does Smith step boldly into the terrain of the classics of the American canon, her novel feels like one of those classics. Smith has succeeded in writing a novel of American masculinity that deserves comparison with Cormac McCarthy, Jim Harrison and Herman Melville.
Jackson Clarion-Ledger
[G]limpses into a vanished but fully realized world, one which has completely engaged us by [the] novel’s satisfying end.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
We are lucky to be in a position to follow an amazing author at the start of her publishing career…. Smith applies her close attention to historical subjects, a feel for evocative language and the undertone of a woman’s longing and adds to that structured suspense and epic ambition.
Asheville Citizen-Times
Free Men marries exhaustive research into the time period with effortless prose and insight into her characters that makes a story from several centuries ago feel immediate.
Huffington Post
Set in 1788 and drawing from a historical incident, Smith’s searching second novel probes connection and isolation, forgiveness and guilt.... [T]his novel evokes the complexity of a fledgling America in precise, poetic language. Though likely too slow-paced for some readers, it is rich with insights about history and the human heart.
Publishers Weekly
[I]lluminating.... An uncommon story of three men on the run as well as a complex tale about freedom of the individual and justice in society. There's much to ponder after reading the last page. —Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Palisade, CO
Library Journal
Smith deftly evokes the swamp heat, fetid woods, and pitiless inhabitants of a barely settled region of the nascent United States.... Despite crisp, vivid prose, the exciting premise becomes bogged down by the multiple narrators, whose voices blend until they are too similar to distinguish, while their complicated back stories become too crowded.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does the setting of the novel affect the actions of the characters? How might their stories unfold differently in another place or time?
2. Le Clerc is fascinated and confused by the bond among the three fugitives. Why do they feel connected, and why do they decide to stay together after the events at the creek?
3. For Le Clerc, "disorder was intoxicating" and "flashes of the undomesticated soothed [him]." What kind of upbringing is he reacting against, and why does he believe he'll be more fulfilled in America?
4. Bob's mother countered their captivity as slaves by telling stories "like they were rare sugar." How might such storytelling help during extreme, unjust hardship? What roles can memory and imagination play with making sense of our lives?
5. Throughout his life, Bob finds comfort in incessant talking, even when void of much truth or meaning. Why has he developed this habit? What might he mean later in his life when he says that "talking is how to cross over all the holes in the world"?
6. Beck is an enslaved woman who had "given up...having any feeling again that even tasted like love." In what ways is Bob influenced by her rejection of him? In what significant ways is his wife Winna similar or different? What lessons does he learn about the shape love takes in slavery?
7. For their daughters Delphy and Polly, Bob wants freedom while Winna wants safety. In a situation where these are mutually exclusive, which is more important? Why?
8. How is Cat's tragic upbringing similar to or different from the childhoods of Bob, Istillicha, or even Le Clerc? How do these formative years shape their sense of the world?
9. Cats gruesome experience working as a medical assistant taught him that "no man is never hurt" and to be "precious toward [his] body." How do these ideas influence his behavior and decision-making?
10. How is it that Cat is the least guilty of wrongdoing and yet believes he's the most deserving of punishment and retribution?
11. Istillicha, in his constant arranging of leaves and sticks, believes that in life "there was little to control besides debris." What might this mean? What does the idea imply about how to live one's life?
12. On the verge of his first tribal battle, Istillicha tells himself that "to bend the paths of little beings to your own vision" is the "peak of all living." To what extent is this true or not? What role has such an idea played in human history? Does Istillicha's belief change as he gains more experience?
13. Istillicha believes that power comes only from violence or money. Would the other men agree? What might be other significant sources of power?
14. How do three fugitives and even Le Clerc justify their own acts of violence and harm?
15. Many characters in the novel are literally or psychologically "orphaned." What is central to this experience? How do these feelings of isolation or abandonment affect each of the characters? Is a lack of attachment the same as freedom?
16. In what ways do the women in the book make different choices about their lives than the men do? Why might this be? What social and cultural factors in this era make women's lives even more constrained, and how do they react against this?
17. Consider the old woman who lives alone in the woods. What important qualities does she possess? How does her treatment of each of the men affect them? She refers to Bob, Cat, and Istillicha, for instance, as both "bandits" and sons, and her rings shock Le Clerc into thoughts of his mother. What do these scenes add to the narrative exploration of the nature of family, intimacy, and loneliness?
18. Le Clerc observes that "despite the rhetoric" about equality in America, there are "few encounters between rich and poor" and at meetings about liberty "slaves would circulate with glasses of wine." How did such blatant hypocrisy lay the foundation for the next few centuries of American history? Why was Le Clerc expecting to see something different in the new world?
19. In his quest for a universal connection, or "sublayer," among all people, Le Clerc considers that the fugitives' desperation has them, "like all men here...pursuing...advancement, or hope." What might this mean? If that sublayer isn't fear or grief or faith, what might it be?
20. What does freedom actually mean for each of the characters, and how does it change over the course of the novel? In what ways can freedom be burdensome or undesirable? What is the best balance between individual liberty, bonds of family or kinship, and social connection?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Burning Down the House
Jane Mendelsohn, 2016
KnopfDoubleday
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101875452
Summary
It begins with a child . . .
So opens Jane Mendelsohn’s powerful, riveting new novel. A classic family tale colliding with the twenty-first century, Burning Down the House tells the story of two girls.
Neva, from the mountains of Russia, was sold into the sex trade at the age of ten; Poppy is the adopted daughter of Steve, the patriarch of a successful New York real estate clan, the Zanes.
She is his sister’s orphaned child. One of these young women will unwittingly help bring down this grand household with the inexorability of Greek tragedy, and the other will summon everything she’s learned and all her strength to try to save its members from themselves.
In cinematic, dazzlingly described scenes, we enter the lavish universe of the Zane family, from a wedding in an English manor house to the trans-global world of luxury hotels and restaurants—from New York to Rome, Istanbul to Laos.
As we meet them all—Steve’s second wife, his children from his first marriage, the twins from the second, their friends and household staff—we enter with visceral immediacy an emotional world filled with a dynamic family’s loves, jealousies, and yearnings.
In lush, exact prose, Mendelsohn transforms their private stories into a panoramic drama about a family’s struggles to face the challenges of internal rivalry, a tragic love, and a shifting empire. Set against the backdrop of financial crisis, globalization, and human trafficking, the novel finds inextricable connections between the personal and the political.
Dramatic, compassionate, and psychologically complex, Burning Down the House is both wrenching and unputdownable, an unforgettable portrayal of a single family caught up in the earthquake that is our contemporary world. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1965
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Jane Mendelsohn is an American author. Her novels are known for their mythic themes, poetic imagery, and allegorical content. Her novel I Was Amelia Earhart (1996) was an international bestseller and short-listed for the Orange Prize.
Background
Mendelsohn was born in New York City, the daughter of a psychiatrist and an art historian. She graduated from Horace Mann School in New York and went on to Yale University where she graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1987. She attended Yale Law School for one year before beginning a career as a writer/journalist.
She has worked as an assistant to the literary editor at The Village Voice and as a tutor at Yale University. Mendelsohn is married and lives in New York with her husband, producer Nick Davis, and two daughters.
Novels
1996 - I Was Amelia Earhart
2000 - Innocence
2010 - American Music
2016 - Burning Down the House
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/16/2016.)
Book Reviews
[T]he bitter horror of a Russian girl sold as a sex slave...can’t offset the flat main characters of the novel.... As the Zanes' world crumbles, the details are well-wrought in Mendelsohn's articulate voice, but the whole package never departs from the melodramatic.
Publishers Weekly
Mendelsohn had a New York Times best seller with I Was Amelia Earhart, and this work promises to be an eye-opener.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [D]ramatic...incendiary.... With gorgeous, feverishly imaginative descriptions of her tormented character’s psyches...Mendelsohn, oracular, dazzling, and shocking, creates a maelstrom of tragic failings and crimes, exposing the global reach of the violent sex-trafficking underworld, and excoriating those among the "planetary elite" who allow it to metastasize. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
Mendelsohn tracks the slow and gruesome fall of an elite New York family caught up in the darker side of capitalism.... [T]he book gets its emotional heft from its supporting cast:... [Alix] may not be the heart of the novel, but she is its soul. A family saga about the grotesque underbelly of wealth.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Where does the title of the book come from? What major themes of the novel does it expose or support? In addition to any literal references to fire or burning, what symbolic significance might the title have?
2. The author opens the novel with the sentence "It begins with a child." She also repeats this sentence elsewhere in the book. Why do you think that the author chose to begin the novel with this sentence and to repeat it as a motif? How, for instance, does the book address the themes of childhood and innocence?
3. Evaluate the theme of interconnectedness in the novel. How are the characters impacted by one another’s actions and decisions? Consider examples of cause and effect. Does the book ultimately support the notion of interconnectedness or does it suggest rather that interconnectedness is an illusion?
4. What view—or views—of love does the novel present? What kinds of love and relationships are depicted in the novel? Does one kind of love seem to triumph over all of the other kinds? Explain. How does love ultimately seem to be defined by the book’s end?
5. Poppy "always tells people that her family is like the House of Agamemnon or something out of Faulkner" (45). What does she mean by this? How would you categorize her family? How does the Zane family compare with other families in world literature? Alternatively, what makes them unique?
6. Who narrates the novel? Does any single point of view seem to stand out from all of the rest? If so, why do you think this is so? How do you think that your interpretation of or reaction to the story would differ if the story had been presented from a single point of view?
7. Evaluate the structure of the novel. How does it help to expose or support major themes of the book or assist in revealing or otherwise echoing the state of the characters and the Zane family as a whole?
8. How has Neva been affected by her experiences as a sex slave? Why does she find solace in comparing herself with a river? What has allowed her to go on and find strength in her new life? Has she found healing? If so, how? Why do you think that she chooses to share her story with Steve in particular, and how does he react to this?
9. Would you categorize Burning Down the House as a tragedy? What elements of classical Greek tragedy does the book contain? How does the book otherwise challenge, defy, resist, or transcend this genre?
10. Poppy says that Ian 1. Where does the title of the book come from? What major themes of the novel does it expose or support? In addition to any literal references to fire or burning, what symbolic significance might the title have?
11. In Chapter 21, Patrizia acknowledges that she believes she is having "not a crisis but an awakening" (139). What is awakening within her and what seems to be causing this awakening? How does she believe she has changed? Is her awakening ultimately a positive or beneficial one? Explain.
12. Jonathan muses in Chapter 24 that "nothing was pure" and that "we are all complicit" (164). What does he believe that everyone is complicit in? Do you agree? Why or why not? What examples are found in the novel? What seems to cause these characters to choose complicity? Do any of the characters in the novel resist? If so, what are the consequences of their actions?
13. What does Steve believe is the antithesis of democracy? What does he say democracy demands above emotion? How does he believe freedom is defined? How have these values been corrupted according to the novel? Does the book provide any indication of how this might be remedied?
14. Evaluate the motif of secretkeeping. Why does Ian choose not to tell Poppy the truth? Do you agree with his decision? Why or why not? What are the consequences of his decision? Why does Steve keep the secret of Poppy’s paternity from all involved for so long? Likewise, how does Poppy’s inability to be truthful with her family affect her own trajectory? What other secrets are kept and revealed in the novel and what are the effects of these actions? What does this ultimately suggest about truth?
15. In Chapter 27, Ian wonders if what has befallen him is "[a]n accident of nature or an intentional, ironic twist of fate" (202). Which notion does the novel ultimately seem to support—a vision of nature and the accidental or the power of destiny and fate? How much control do the characters ultimately have over their lives? Could the tragedies in the novel have been avoided? Explain.
16. In conversation with Alix, Ian says: "People are not just who they are. They are histories, feelings, mistakes, what we imagine them to be" (257). What does he mean by this? Do you agree with him? Why or why not? Do the characters in the novel seem to know one another well? Does what they imagine one another to be match closely with reality? If not, what prevents them from really knowing one another?
17. What unites or draws the various characters of the novel together? Why does Neva confess that she feels close to the Zane family even though she did not relate to those families she worked for previously? Consider the other close relationships featured in the book. How does intimacy seem to be defined within the novel?
18. What does the book seem to suggest about the arts? Who are some of the artists in the novel and why do they choose to engage in the arts? Is their participation in the arts beneficial to them in any way? What do the arts offer to them that they need? Likewise, what does their own artistic output offer to others?
19. At the end of the book, when Poppy asks Neva for some words that will help her, how does Neva respond? Is her response surprising? Why or why not? What does Neva say "conquers all" (278)? Do you agree with her? Explain.
20. Evaluate the conclusion of the story, including the Epilogue. What happens to the surviving members of the Zane family and to Ian and Neva after Steve’s death? Is there any evidence of forgiveness, healing, or redemption by the book’s end? If so, can we tell what helps the characters attain catharsis?is not one kind of person; like all of us, he has many aspects" (62). Later, Neva wonders, is Steve "the personification of evil or a wise man? Could anyone be all one or the other?" (181) Does the book ultimately support a fixed notion of good and evil or does it seem to support a more nuanced and complicated view of humanity and ethics? For example, do the characters in the novel seem to be defined more by nature or by their ethical choices?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
I'm Glad About You
Theresa Rebeck, 2016
Penguin Books
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399172885
Summary
The pathos and missed connections of One Day meet the hilarity of Crazy Rich Asians in this comedic and tender novel.
Their meeting in a parking lot outside a high school football game was both completely forgettable and utterly life-changing. Because no matter how you look at it, it is piss-poor luck to meet the love of your life before your life has even started.
Fierce and ambitious, Alison is determined to shed her Midwestern roots and emerge an actress. Kyle, all heart and spiritual yearning, believes medicine can heal the world.
What could these mismatched souls have to do with each other? Everything and nothing. Even as their fates rocket them forward and apart, neither can fully let go of the past.
When Alison gets her lucky break in New York City, she ends up on the fast track to stardom and a world far more different from Cincinnati than she could have ever imagined. Back home in Ohio, Kyle marries in haste and repents at leisure. Reluctantly embracing life in suburban hell, he becomes a pediatrician.
While Kyle’s dreams begin to molder, Alison learns that the spotlight is always circled by shadows. As their lives inevitably intersect, Alison and Kyle must face each other in the revealing light of their decisions.
I’m Glad About You is a glittering study of how far the compromises two people make will take them from the lives they were meant to live. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 19, 1958
• Where—Kenwood, Ohio, USA
• Education—B.A., University of Notre Dame; M.A., M.F.A., Ph.D., Brandeis University
• Awards—Edgar Award; Athena Film Festival Award (see below)
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Theresa Rebeck is an American playwright, television writer, and novelist. Her work has appeared on the Broadway and Off-Broadway stage, in film, and on television. Among her awards are the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award. In 2012, she received the Athena Film Festival Award for Excellence as a Playwright and Author of Films, Books, and Television.
Early life and education
Rebeck was born in Kenwood, Ohio, and graduated from Cincinnati's Ursuline Academy in 1976. She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame in 1980, and followed that with three degrees from Brandeis University: an MA in 1983, a M.F.A. in Playwriting in 1986, and a Ph.D. in Victorian era melodrama, awarded in 1989.
Career
Plays
Past New York productions of her work include Mauritius on Broadway at the Biltmore Theatre in a Manhattan Theater Club production; The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels at Second Stage Theatre; Bad Dates and The Butterfly Collection at Playwrights Horizons; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop.
Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre in 2003. Her play The Understudy, premiered at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in the summer of 2008, with a cast including Reg Rogers, Bradley Cooper and Kristen Johnson, and ran in New York at the Roundabout Theatre from October 2009 - January 2010, featuring Julie White, Justin Kirk, and Mark-Paul Gosselaar in the cast.
Her play Seminar, starring Alan Rickman, opened on Broadway in 2011; it later opened at the San Francisco Playhouse, receiving outstanding reviews. Poor Behavior premiered at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum in 2011 and opened in 2014 at Primary Stages on Off-Broadway. Her play Fool premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas, in 2014.
Screenplays/TV
In television, Rebeck has written for Dream On, Brooklyn Bridge, L.A. Law, American Dreamer, Maximum Bob, First Wave, and Third Watch. She has been a writer/producer for Canterbury’s Law, Smith, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and NYPD Blue. Through March 2012 she was one of the executive producers for the NBC musical series Smash, which she created, and which also debuted in 2012. Her produced feature film screenplays include Harriet the Spy, Gossip, and the independent feature Sunday on the Rocks.
Books and essays, etc.
Rebeck’s other publications include Free Fire Zone, a book of comedic essays about writing and show business. Her first novel, Three Girls and Their Brother, was published in 2008. Her second novel, I'm Glad About You, was released in 2016. She has also written for American Theatre magazine and has had excerpts of her plays published in the Harvard Review.
Recognition
She has received awards including the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar Award, the Writers Guild of America Award for Episodic Drama, the Hispanic Images Imagen Award, and the Peabody Award, all for her work on NYPD Blue.
She has won the National Theatre Conference Award (for The Family of Mann), and was awarded the William Inge New Voices Playwriting Award in 2003 for The Bells. Mauritius was originally produced at Boston’s Huntington Theatre, where it received the 2007 IRNE Award for Best New Play as well as the Elliot Norton Award. In 2010, Rebeck was honored with the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for an American playwright in mid-career.
Rebeck is a board member of The Dramatists Guild and the Lark Play Development Center in New York City, and has taught at Brandeis University and Columbia University. In 2014 she joined the faculty of the University of Houston School of Theatre and Dance as a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Playwriting.
Rebeck lives with her husband, Jess Lynn, and two children, Cooper and Cleo, in Brooklyn. Her first novel Three Girls and their Brother is dedicated to both Cooper and Cleo.
In an article in the New York Times in September 2007, she said that her plays were about "betrayal and treason and poor behavior. A lot of poor behavior." (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 3/16/2016.)
Book Reviews
Theresa Rebeck's take of two star-crossed Midwesterners passed my screen test with flying colors. You know the one—you have a little pocket of time (15 minutes in the eye doctor's waiting room, three minutes while waiting for the coffee to perk), and you have a choice: You can check your phone or dip into a book. When you pick the book, you know you're reading a winner. I'm Glad About You is one of those novels… Allison and Kyle may fall short of Catherine and Heathcliff's iconic love, but…I still found myself more invested in them than I've been in any thwarted couple since Ross and Rachel dominated Thursday nights…satisfying…funny, heartfelt…[Allison's] a scrappy, deliciously flawed character, impossible not to root for… [I'm Glad About You] strikes a buzzworthy balance between down-home charm and Hollywood glitter. People will be talking about this one. Remember, you heard it here first.
Elisabeth Egan - New York Times Review
This tale of thwarted former high school sweethearts is a pleasurable blur of inside dish, major erotic energy and refreshing realism about love and destiny.
People
Bombshells, assemble: The Smash creator is once again training her shrewd spotlight on the inner workings of the entertainment industry, introducing a new can’t-help-but-cheer-for-her ingenue.... [A] smart, heartfelt tale about the price of our dreams—and whether they’re ultimately worth it.
Entertainment Weekly
Can small-town romance compete with big-ticket success? The award-winning playwright and creator of NBC’s Smash examines how love fits into the fame game.
Cosmopolitan
[This] unputdownable novel pairs the competing fates of two former lovers...both defined by their inability to forget the other.
Vogue.com
Rebeck’s sharply funny I’m Glad About You is a cautionary tale—choose your dreams with your eyes open.
Vanity Fair
Rebeck...puts her showbiz expertise to good use, following a young actress in NYC. While Alison’s future looks bright, she can’t shake the memory of an old flame.
Us Weekly
Rebeck takes on a lot, including the vagaries of entertainment media...as well as the problematic impact [of] religion.... [S]he entertainingly gets her message across that celebrity is not as fabulous as it looks and that people who follow their dreams need to stay true to themselves to find true happiness.
Publishers Weekly
"You never get over your first love" seems to be the premise of this novel.... Rebeck is strongest when portraying Alison's experiences in Hollywood after she's discovered in New York, no surprise given her screenwriting credentials as the creator of the television series Smash. —Christine Perkins, Whatcom Cty. Lib. Syst., Bellingham, WA
Library Journal
Rebeck’s comedic and heartbreaking love story...is anything but predictable. From Hollywood red carpets to Midwestern mansions, Rebeck takes us on a wild ride through the lives of two high-school sweethearts who just can’t seem to get it right.... [A] refreshingly honest character study that explores how flawed people attempt to build a love that thrives in a messy, complicated world.
BookPage
Like Nick Hornby and David Nicholls, Rebeck possesses an effortless prose style that edifies as much as it entertains.... Rebeck delivers some hilarious riffs on the venal nature of show business, even as she also imparts some hard truths on the need for compromise in relationships.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A rare honest story about love, ambition, and compromise.... The snappy dialogue and plot you'd expect from a veteran dramatist plus the rich exploration of character that novels are made for.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. While Alison and Kyle both dream of leaving Cincinnati behind, only Alison ends up leaving. Why do you think this is? Do you think people can be constrained by younger perceptions of themselves and how their lives will be? How is your own life different from the way you thought it would turn out?
2. The novel moves between life in New York City and life in Cincinnati, Ohio. Why do you think the novel is set in these cities? How is life different in each? Which would you prefer?
3. Kyle dreams of being a Doctor Without Borders, but instead finds himself a pediatrician. Do you think that he compromised his goals? Do you think that childhood dreams are sometimes worth reevaluating? Why or why not?
4. After moving to New York, Alison seems embarrassed by her Cincinnati background. Why does she feel the need to escape her past? When she first visits Cincinnati for Christmas she looks at Dennis and thinks, "If he left Ohio he would have turned into nothing, but it would have made a man of him.... He’ll turn into nothing here and it will just make him even more bitter than he is already." What does Alison mean? Do you agree with her? Does her reading of Dennis stay true throughout the novel?
5. Catholicism is a determining factor in Kyle’s life, and a huge part of the community in which both Kyle and Alison were raised. Discuss the role of religion in the novel.
6. At first, Alison struggles to meet the physical expectations of her agent and network television, but when she stops eating she notices that even her family is impressed by her new look. Discuss how the novel handles women’s body issues in Hollywood. Do you think expectations in these industries are changing? Should Alison have fought these standards more?
7. Kyle never sleeps with Alison because "he believed what he was told: Sex is a sacrament, which belongs in marriage. He loved Alison and he refused to have sex with her" (p. 48). How did you feel when Kyle slept with Van so quickly, after waiting with Alison for so many years? Do you think Kyle made the right choice in either instance? Why or why not?
8. Van’s relationship with Kyle is continually troubled by Alison: "No matter how distant her rival was in this situation, the mere fact of Alison’s presence—her significant presence—in Kyle’s past was an unacceptable irritant" (p. 50). How do you feel about her description of their marriage? Were you surprised by the developments in Kyle and Van’s marriage?
9. Did you ever sympathize with Van? Why or why not? Would you have behaved differently if you were in her shoes?
10. Why don’t Kyle and Alison end up together? Should they have? What do you think might have happened if Alison had stayed in Cincinnati?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)