The Ninth Hour
Alice McDermott, 2017
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374280147
Summary
A magnificent new novel from one of America’s finest writers—a powerfully affecting story spanning the twentieth century of a widow and her daughter and the nuns who serve their Irish-American community in Brooklyn.
On a dim winter afternoon, a young Irish immigrant opens the gas taps in his Brooklyn tenement. He is determined to prove—to the subway bosses who have recently fired him, to his badgering, pregnant wife—"that the hours of his life belong to himself alone."
In the aftermath of the fire that follows, Sister St. Savior, an aging nun appears, unbidden, to direct the way forward for his widow and his unborn child.
We begin deep inside Catholic Brooklyn, in the early part of the twentieth century. Decorum, superstition, and shame collude to erase the man’s brief existence. Yet his suicide, although never spoken of, reverberates through many lives and over the decades testing the limits and the demands of love and sacrifice, of forgiveness and forgetfulness, even through multiple generations.
The characters we meet, from Sally, the unborn baby at the beginning of the novel, who becomes the center of the story to the nuns whose personalities we come to know and love to the neighborhood families with whose lives they are entwined, are all rendered with extraordinary sympathy and McDermott’s trademark lucidity and intelligence.
Alice McDermott’s The Ninth Hour is a crowning achievement by one of the premiere writers at work in America today. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 27, 1953
• Where—Brooklyn, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., State University of New York-Oswego;
M.A., University of New Hampshire
• Awards—National Book Award; American Book Award
• Currently—lives in Bethesda, Maryland
Alice McDermott is an American writer and university professor. For her 1998 novel Charming Billy she won an American Book Award and the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction.
McDermott is Johns Hopkins University's Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities. Born in Brooklyn, New York, McDermott attended St. Boniface School in Elmont, New York, on Long Island (1967), Sacred Heart Academy in Hempstead (1971), and the State University of New York at Oswego, receiving her BA in 1975. She received her MA from the University of New Hampshire in 1978.
She has taught at UCSD and American University, has been a writer-in-residence at Lynchburg College and Hollins College in Virginia, and was lecturer in English at the University of New Hampshire. Her short stories have appeared in Ms., Redbook, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker and Seventeen. She has also published articles in the New York Times and Washington Post.
Ms. McDermott lives outside Washington, D.C. with her husband, a neuroscientist, and three children.
Works
• 1982—A Bigamist's Daughter
• 1987—That Night (finalist for National Book Award, Pen/Faulkner Award, and Pulitzer Prize)
• 1992—At Weddings and Wakes (finalist for Pulitzer Prize)
• 1998—Charming Billy (winner, National Book Award and American Book Award)
• 2002—Child of My Heart (nominated for International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award)
• 2006—After This (finalist for Pulitzer Prize)
• 2013—Someone
• 2017—The Ninth Hour
(Author bio from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/14/13.)
Book Reviews
Alice McDermott has taken the risk of writing about nuns, and the risk has been more than worth it.… Known and admired for her portrayal of Irish-American family life, she has now extended her range and deepened it, allowing for more darkness, more generous lashings of the spiritual.... McDermott has extended her range and deepened it, allowing for more darkness, more generous lashings of the spiritual.… Vivid and arresting.… Marvelously evocative.
Mary Gordon - New York Times Book Review
Beautifully observed, quietly absorbing.… This enveloping novel, too, is a tonic, if not a cure.
Heller McAlpin - NPR
[T]he precision of a master.… [A] great novel.
Wall Street Journal
Stunning.… McDermott has created a haunting and vivid portrait of an Irish Catholic clan in early 20th century America.
Associated Press
Brilliant.… [P]erhaps her finest work to date.
Michael Magras - Houston Chronicle
McDermott is a poet of corporeal description.… [I]t's the way she marries the spirit to the physical world that makes her work transcendent.… The Ninth Hour is a story with the simple grace of a votive candle in a dark church.
Sarah Begley - Time
(Starred review.) [A]n immense, brilliant novel about the limits of faith, the power of sacrifice, and the cost of forgiveness.… Scenes detailing her benevolent encounters…are paradoxically grotesque and irresistible.… McDermott exhibits a keen eye for character.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [S]eamlessly written…McDermott asks how much we owe others, how much we owe ourselves, and…how much we owe God.… In lucid, flowing prose, McDermott weaves her character’ stories to powerful effect.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [E]nveloping, emotionally intricate, suspenseful.… McDermott is profoundly observant and mischievously witty.… This is one of literary master McDermott’s most exquisite works. —Donna Seaman
Booklist
(Starred review.) Everything that her readers, the National Book Award committee, and the Pulitzer Prize judges love about McDermott's stories of Irish-Catholic American life is back in her eighth novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Despite his suicide in the opening pages, Annie’s husband, Jim, remains a presence throughout The Ninth Hour. He abandons his pregnant wife and defies the tenets of his faith to prove that "the hours of his life… belonged to himself alone." How does Annie choose to remember him? How is his daughter, Sally, like him? When his grandchildren finally learn the truth about his death, what is their response?
2. How did Sister Lucy, Sister Jeanne, and Sister Illuminata each come to the convent of the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, Congregation of Mary Before the Cross? How does the work each of them chose suit their talents and personalities? How do they differ in their beliefs about God and faith, sin and human weakness?
3. What wisdom do the old impart to the young? What is gained when older and younger characters connect with each other, as Sister St. Saviour with Annie when she is newly widowed? What is lost when they fail to connect, as Patrick Tierney’s father and grandfather?
4. Who are the people and what are the events that influence Sally’s character, values, and beliefs as she grows into adulthood? How is the girl who left for Chicago to enter the convent different from the girl who returns home the next day? What happens that changes her? What does she still have to learn that the nuns can’t teach her?
5. Sally and Patrick are infants the first time we see them together. Their mothers were introduced by Sister Lucy. Patrick has jokingly told his children that when he saw their mother riding in her baby carriage, he immediately said to himself, "There’s the girl I’ll marry." Over the years, how do Annie and Liz Tierney support each other? As a young girl, how does Sally feel about Liz’s household? What kind of man is Patrick?
6. The Ninth Hour is as much a series of linked stories as it is one story told chronologically. How do the individual stories deal with themes such as truth, faith, motherhood, love, and sacrifice? What is the Ninth Hour, and how is it observed in the convent? What is its biblical meaning? Why might Alice McDermott have chosen it as her title?
7. The full name of the order to which the sisters belong and that Sally decides to join is the Little Nursing Sisters of the Sick Poor, Congregation of Mary Before the Cross, Stabat Mater. To Sister Jeanne, Stabat Mater symbolizes the triumph of love over brutality. To Sister Illuminata, it means that love applied to suffering is "like a clean cloth to a seeping wound." Why is "Stabat Mater" the title of the chapter about Sally coming home from Chicago and discovering the truth about Annie and Mr. Costello?
8. What do we know about Sally and Patrick’s married life? What strengths and faults have each of them brought to their life together? What do we know about the lives of their children? Sister Jeanne remains close to the family into her old age. What is the "pernt" of the story she tells about Jeanne Jugan? What else does she teach the Tierney children?
9. In contrast to Sister Jeanne, Sister Lucy seems skeptical, pragmatic, and often disgruntled. "All joy was thin ice to Sister Lucy," McDermott writes. But Sister Lucy is also a skilled nurse and a fierce advocate of people who are poor, sick, or mistreated. What does Sally learn from Sister Lucy, not only about nursing, but also about the human capacity for cruelty and kindness?
10. Who is Red Whelan? How does his fate reverberate down through the generations of the Tierney family? What are other examples of sacrifice?
11. Liz and Annie become close friends when their children are small, yet their lives are very different. What kind of Catholic is Liz Tierney? What is her opinion of the nuns? How are her beliefs and the practice of her faith not like Annie’s?
12. Sister Jeanne teaches the Tierney children that "God wants us to know the truth in all things," yet there are many parts of their family story they do not know the truth about. Who are the truth tellers in the book? Who lies, embellishes, or withholds the truth? How does the family’s story change as it is told and retold? How might Patrick and Sally each tell the story of the day they fell in love?
13. What do the other characters think about Annie’s relationship with Mr. Costello? Why is she not dismissed from the convent laundry when the nuns learn of what they call her "indiscretion?" What are the different kinds of "hunger" in the chapter "A Tonic"? What is the tonic?
14. Is Mrs. Costello a pathetic or a sympathetic character? How does Sister Lucy feel about her? What are Sally’s motives for choosing to spend time with her? How is Sally changed by her death?
15. What is the sequence of events leading up to Mrs. Costello’s death? Does Sister Lucy believe that the nuns were doing the right thing by keeping her alive when she wanted to die? What does Sister Jeanne mean when she tells Sally, "God is fair. He knows the truth." Why, years later, does Sister Jeanne tell Sally’s children that she has "lost heaven"?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Transcription
Kate Atkinson, 2018
Little, Brown and Company
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316176637
Summary
A thrilling new novel from the bestselling author of Life After Life
In 1940, eighteen-year old Juliet Armstrong is reluctantly recruited into the world of espionage.
Sent to an obscure department of MI5 tasked with monitoring the comings and goings of British Fascist sympathizers, she discovers the work to be by turns both tedious and terrifying.
But after the war has ended, she presumes the events of those years have been relegated to the past forever.
Ten years later, now a radio producer at the BBC, Juliet is unexpectedly confronted by figures from her past. A different war is being fought now, on a different battleground, but Juliet finds herself once more under threat.
A bill of reckoning is due, and she finally begins to realize that there is no action without consequence.
Transcription is a work of rare depth and texture, a bravura modern novel of extraordinary power, wit and empathy. It is a triumphant work of fiction from one of the best writers of our time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1951
• Where—York, England, UK
• Education—M.A., Dundee University
• Awards—Whitbread Award; Woman's Own Short Story Award; Ian St. James Award; Saltire Book of the Year Award; Prix Westminster
• Currently—lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
Kate Atkinson was born in York, and studied English Literature at the University of Dundee, gaining her Masters Degree in 1974. She subsequently studied for a doctorate in American Literature which she failed at the viva stage. During her final year of this course, she was married for the first time, although the marriage lasted only two years.
After leaving the university, she took on a variety of miscellaneous jobs from home help to legal secretary and teacher. She lived in Whitby, Yorkshire for a time, before moving to Edinburgh, where she taught at Dundee University and began writing short stories. She now lives in Edinburgh.
Writing
She initially wrote for women's magazines after winning the 1986 Woman's Own Short Story Competition. She was runner-up for the Bridport Short Story Prize in 1990 and won an Ian St James Award in 1993 for her short-story "Karmic Mothers," which she later adapted for BBC2 television as part of its Tartan Shorts series.
Atkinson's breakthrough was with her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, which won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year award, ahead of Salman Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh and Roy Jenkins biography of William Ewart Gladstone. The book has been adapted for radio, theatre and television. She has since written several more novels, short stories and a play. Case Histories (2004) was described by Stephen King as "the best mystery of the decade." The book won the Saltire Book of the Year Award and the Prix Westminster.
Her work is often celebrated for its wit, wisdom and subtle characterisation, and the surprising twists and plot turns. Four of her novels have featured the popular former detective Jackson Brodie—Case Histories (2004), One Good Turn (2006), When Will There Be Good News (2008), and Started Early, Took My Dog (2010). She has shown that, stylistically, she is also a comic novelist who often juxtaposes mundane everyday life with fantastic magical events, a technique that contributes to her work's pervasive magic realism.
Life After Life (2013) revolves around Ursula Todd's continual birth and rebirth. Janet Maslin of the New York Times called it "a big book that defies logic, chronology and even history in ways that underscore its author's fully untethered imagination."
A God in Ruins (2015), the companion book to Life After Life, follows Ursula's brother Todd who survived the war, only to succumb to disillusionment and guilt at having survived.
Atkinson was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to literature. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[A] suspenseful novel… enlivened by its heroine’s witty, sardonic voice as she is transformed from an innocent, unsophisticated young woman into a spy for Britain’s MI5 during WWII.… [A] transportive, wholly realized historical novel.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) [S]uperb…. With a fascinating cast of characters, careful plotting, and lyrical language in turns comical and tragic, Atkinson's complex story carefully unveils the outer demands and inner conflicts that war inflicts on people. A delight. —Penelope J.M. Klein, Fayetteville, NY
Library Journal
(Starred review) Atkinson never fails to take us beyond an individual's circumstances to the achingly human, often-contradictory impulses within. [T]his is a wonderful novel about making choices, failing to make them, and living, with some degree of grace, the lives our choices determine for us.
Booklist
(Starred review) [A] sort of demystified thriller… [with] intrigue …[and] surprises.… The deepest pleasure …is the author's language. As ever, Atkinson is sharp, precise, and funny.… Another beautifully crafted book from an author of great intelligence and empathy
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, 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)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Bookish Life of Nina Hill
Abbi Waxman, 2019
Penguin Publishing
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451491879
Summary
Meet Nina Hill: A young woman supremely confident in her own shell.
The only child of a single mother, Nina has her life just as she wants it: a job in a bookstore, a kick-butt trivia team, a world-class planner and a cat named Phil. If she sometimes suspects there might be more to life than reading, she just shrugs and picks up a new book.
When the father Nina never knew existed suddenly dies, leaving behind innumerable sisters, brothers, nieces, and nephews, Nina is horrified. They all live close by! They're all—or mostly all—excited to meet her! She'll have to Speak. To. Strangers.
It's a disaster! And as if that wasn't enough, Tom, her trivia nemesis, has turned out to be cute, funny, and deeply interested in getting to know her. Doesn't he realize what a terrible idea that is?
Nina considers her options.
1. Completely change her name and appearance. (Too drastic, plus she likes her hair.)
2. Flee to a deserted island. (Hard pass, see: coffee).
3. Hide in a corner of her apartment and rock back and forth. (Already doing it.)
It's time for Nina to come out of her comfortable shell, but she isn't convinced real life could ever live up to fiction. It's going to take a brand-new family, a persistent suitor, and the combined effects of ice cream and trivia to make her turn her own fresh page. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1970
• Where—England, UK
• Education—University College London
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Abbi Waxman is a novelist whose books include The Garden of Small Beginnings (2017), Other People's Houses (2018), and The Bookish Life of Nina Hall (2019). She worked in advertising for many years, which is how she learned to write fiction.
Wasman is a chocolate-loving, dog-loving woman who lives in Los Angeles and lies down as much as possible. She has three daughters, three dogs, three cats, and one very patient husband. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Meet our bookish millennial heroine—a modern-day Elizabeth Bennet, if you will.… Waxman’s wit and wry humor stand out. She is funny and imaginative, [landing] "Bookish"… a step above run-of-the-mill romantic comedy fare.
Washington Post
Abbi Waxman offers up a quirky, eccentric romance that will charm any bookworm…. For anyone who’s ever wondered if their greatest romance might come between the pages of books they read, Waxman offers a heartwarming tribute to that possibility.
Entertainment Weekly
It's a shame The Bookish Life of Nina Hill only lasts 350 pages, because I wanted to be friends with Nina for far longer.
Refinery29
I hope you're in the mood to be downright delighted, because that's the state you'll find yourself in after reading The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.
PopSugar
In this love letter to book nerds, Waxman introduces the extraordinary introvert Nina Hill…. With witty dialogue and a running sarcastic inner monologue, Waxman brings Nina to vibrant life as she upends her introverted routine and becomes part of the family.
Publishers Weekly
Full of pop culture references (bonus points for readers who catch the Men at Work one), and the handwritten planner entries are reminiscent of those in Bridget Jones’s diary….Will appeal to chick lit fans who enjoy copious rapid-fire dialog.
Library Journal
(Starred review) Book nerds will feel strong kinship with the engaging, introverted Nina Hill, who works in a bookstore, plays pub trivia, and loves office supplies… Readers will be captivated by Nina’s droll sense of humor.
Booklist
(Starred review) If you love writing plans and sticking to them, you'll love Nina Hill. If you roll your eyes at people who make daily schedules, you'll love Nina Hill, too. [Nina is] a thoroughly engaging character in this bookish, contemplative, set-in-her-ways woman. Be prepared to chuckle.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. At the outset of the novel Nina appears very happy, although she really prefers to be alone. How does that change by the end of the novel? What role does solitude play in your life?
2. Nina loves books and is a self-proclaimed introvert. What does she find so appealing about reading? Do you think both extroverts and introverts can be passionate about reading books? How do you think the experience is similar and different for both personality types? Why do you enjoy reading?
3. Pages from Nina’s planner were included in the book. Do you feel that added to the narrative? How did Nina’s planner pages reflect her state of mind? Do you find planning and organizing helps you feel more in control?
4. Nina’s mind is constantly moving, filling with ideas, facts, and information. How does this help and hinder Nina? What do you think are the pros and cons of having such an active brain?
5. Nina has found a group of friends who share her love of books, trivia, and popular culture. At the opening of the novel these people are her chosen family. What interests are you passionate about? Do you have a chosen family of like-minded people, or are your friends drawn from a wider pool?
6. Nina was raised by her nanny, Louise, a woman who wasn’t her biological parent, but who loved and cared for her very deeply. Does Nina consider Lou family? What part do you think biology plays in the formation of family?
7. After discovering her father, Nina realizes his personality resembles hers in many ways, something she feels conflicted about. What traits does Nina share with her father? What does she like about sharing certain personality characteristics with him? What does she find difficult about it? What attributes or flaws do you share with your parents, and how does that make you feel about yourself and about them?
8. Do you think Nina will be permanently changed by discovering her family, or will she remain essentially the same?
9. Nina struggles badly with anxiety, which is often quite debilitating. What are her coping mechanisms? Do you think they are healthy ways to deal with her stress? How do you handle anxieties and fears in your own life?
10. For Nina, a bookstore or library represents sanctuary. Why do you think that is? Do you feel similarly? What are some of your favorite bookstores and libraries? What are other happy places in your life?
11. Tom is not a bookish person, but his character complements Nina’s. Why do you think Nina and Tom work so well together as a couple? How do they complement one another? In what ways have your relationships succeeded or failed because of how well you "fit" together?
12. Nina works in an independent bookstore and seems to enjoy the physical-paper version of books. Do you prefer to read physical books or ebooks? Is your enjoyment of books affected by whether or not you read them on paper? In the street battle over books that happens toward the end of the novel, which side would you be on?
13. Los Angeles is a major city, but Larchmont is clearly a very defined neighborhood, with a small-town atmosphere. Are you surprised by that aspect of Los Angeles, and does it conflict with the way the city is normally portrayed in popular culture?
14. In addition to her deep love of books, Nina also loves all forms of popular culture, including movies and TV shows. Do you think that is common, or do most people prefer one over the other? Which do you prefer?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500 Year History
Kurt Andersen, 2017
Random House
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781400067213
Summary
The single most important explanation, and the fullest explanation, of how Donald Trump became president of the United States … nothing less than the most important book that I have read this year. —Lawrence O’Donnell
How did we get here?
In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, Kurt Andersen shows that what’s happening in our country today—this post-factual, "fake news" moment we’re all living through—is not something new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by hucksters and their suckers. Fantasy is deeply embedded in our DNA.
Over the course of five centuries—from the Salem witch trials to Scientology to the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, from P. T. Barnum to Hollywood and the anything-goes, wild-and-crazy sixties, from conspiracy theories to our fetish for guns and obsession with extraterrestrials—our love of the fantastic has made America exceptional in a way that we've never fully acknowledged.
From the start, our ultra-individualism was attached to epic dreams and epic fantasies — every citizen was free to believe absolutely anything, or to pretend to be absolutely anybody. With the gleeful erudition and tell-it-like-it-is ferocity of a Christopher Hitchens, Andersen explores whether the great American experiment in liberty has gone off the rails.
Fantasyland could not appear at a more perfect moment. If you want to understand Donald Trump and the culture of twenty-first-century America, if you want to know how the lines between reality and illusion have become dangerously blurred, you must read this book. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 22, 1954
• Where—Omaha, Nebraska, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard University
• Awards—Langum Prize-Historical Fiction
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, New York
Kurt Andersen is an American novelist who is also host of the Peabody-winning public radio program Studio 360, a co-production between Public Radio International and WNYC. Andersen was born in Omaha, Nebraska where he attended high school. Later, he graduated, magna cum laude, from Harvard where he edited the Harvard Lampoon.
Journalism
In 1986 he co-founded Spy magazine with E. Graydon Carter, which was sold in 1991; it continued publishing until 1998. He has been a writer and columnist for New York ("The Imperial City"), The New Yorker ("The Culture Industry"), and Time ("Spectator"). He was also the architecture and design critic for Time for nine years.
Andersen was fired in 1996 from New York magazine, where he was an editor-in-chief, a position he occupied for two-and-a-half years. The ostensible reason was the publication's financial results, but Andersen attributed the firing to his refusal to kill a story regarding the rivalry between investment bankers Felix Rohatyn and Steven Rattner. The story had upset Henry Kravis, one of the magazine's owners.
In 1999 Anderson co-founded an online media news web site and biweekly magazine called Inside, which he and his co-founders sold to Primedia; Primedia closed the site in October 2001. From 2001 to 2004 he served as a senior creative consultant to Barry Diller's Universal Television, and from 2003 to 2005 as editorial director of Colors magazine. More recently, he co-founded the email cultural curation service Very Short List, was a guest op-ed columnist for The New York Times and editor-at-large for Random House.
Books
Andersen is the author of three novels, including Turn of the Century (1999), which was a national bestseller and New York Times Notable Book of the year, and the bestseller Heyday (2007), which won the Langum Prize for the best American historical fiction of 2007. He published his third novel, True Believers (2012). His short fiction was published in the anthology, Stories: All-New Tales (2010).
Andersen has also published a book of humorous essays, The Real Thing (1980, 1982, and 2008), about "quintessentialism." He co-authored two humor books — Tools of Power (1980), a parody of self-help books on becoming successful, and Loose Lips (1995), an anthology of edited transcripts of real-life conversations involving celebrated people. Along with Graydon Carter and George Kalogerakis he assembled a history and greatest-hits anthology of Spy called Spy: The Funny Years (2006).
He also wrote Reset (2009), about the causes and aftermath of the Great Recession, and he has contributed to a number of other books. His bestselling cultural history, Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History (2017), attempts to explain American society's peculiar susceptibility to illusions.
Personal life
Andersen lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, the author Anne Kreamer, and their two daughters. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/3/2017.)
Book Reviews
Kurt Andersen's latest opus [tells of] a people who have committed themselves … to florid, collective delusion.… If there's a flaw in this book, it's repetitiveness. Andersen…goes for wide rather than deep So he doesn't examine, for example, how we would separate the junk from the gems.… "You're entitled to your own opinions and our own fantasies, but not your own facts — especially if your fantastical facts hurt people," he says.… But the attempt is brief and feels halfhearted … [and] leaves a reader worried that a short manifesto on facts won't save us.
Hanna Rosin - New York Times Book Review
Americans believe what they want. That’s the heart of… the new book by Kurt Andersen.… He begins with Old World colonists seeking to forge a New World based on self-determination and freedom of thought, and ends with Donald Trump.… He offers not so much a diagnosis of a country alienated from its values but a second opinion.
Christopher Borrelli - Chicago Tribune
Calling it the "fantasy-industrial complex," Andersen documents the myriad entities — business, religion, politics, entertainment — that have produced a populace that eschews reality for fantasy, facts for fiction, real life for make-believe.… In this absorbing, must-read polemic, Andersen exhaustively chronicles a development eating away at the very foundation of Americanism.… "The good news …is that America may now be at peak Fantasyland. We can hope."
Paul Alexander - Newsday
With this rousing book, [Kurt] Andersen proves to be the kind of clear-eyed critic an anxious country needs in the midst of a national crisis.
San Francisco Chronicle
Andersen interprets American history, beginning with the Puritans, in part as a myth-driven, religiously fundamental mental, antiscientific engine that ultimately paved the way for the presidency of Donald Trump.… Verdict: [E]ngaging… for general readers and scholars alike. —Karl Helicher, formerly with Upper Merion Twp. Lib., King of Prussia, PA
Library Journal
[A]n entertaining tour of American irreality."… Do your own thing, find your own reality, it's all relative." … A spirited, often entertaining rant against things as they are.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Fantasyland … then take off on your own:
1. Kurt Andersen refers to the "fantasy-industrial complex," a nod to President Eisenhower's "military-industrial complex." What does Andersen mean by the term, and do you think he is accurate in his assessment ... or that he overreaches?
2. The overarching thesis of Fantasyland is that Americans have come to believe that "opinions and feelings are the same as facts." Does the author make a convincing argument? What evidence does he marshal to support his premise?
3. Andersen presents a historical perspective, starting with the landing at Plymouth Rock. How does his portrayal of the Puritans converge with, or — diverge from — your understanding of colonial history? What did you learn in your history courses in school?
4. Follow-up to Question 3: Andersen writes about 17th-century colonist Anne Hutchinson, saying that she was uniquely American "because she was so confident in herself, in her intuitions and idiosyncratic, subjective understanding of reality." She lacked self-doubt. Don't many of us have those very traits — which we often refer to as "self-confidence"? Don't we, in fact, see those traits as positive? So … how can we know whether what we believe in is opinion or fact? How do we separate out fact from alternative facts … truth from fake news … reality from fantasy? How can we self-check our own subjectivity?
5. Andersen points to the 1960s era in which the culture of fantasyland "becomes a permanent feature of the American mental landscape." What does he hold up as examples?
6. As Andersen writes toward the end of the book, "You're entitled to your own opinions and your own fantasies, but not to your own facts — especially if your fantastical facts hurt people." Can you give specifics of some of those fantasies that cause damage to others?
7. Talk about the ways in which Hollywood (radio, film, and TV), fantasy games and reenactments, the internet, Oprah Winfrey, and even hair dye have contributed to the prevalence of fantasy in everyday life.
8. According to Andersen, our propensity for delusions/illusions has led to the presidency of Donald Trump. Do you agree … or disagree with his analysis?
9. Andersen skewers many public figures, both liberal and conservative. Does he take aim at particular individuals or institutions that you hold dear? If so, which ones?
10. Despite some attempt at even-handedness, modern Republicans come in for a lot of the blame in Fantasyland. Why does Andersen point the finger at the Right? Do you agree … or disagree?
11. Follow-up to Question 4: What does Andersen propose as a solution to the American fantasyland?
(Questions issued by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Manhattan Beach
Jennifer Egan, 2017
Scribner
448 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501189913
Summary
The long-awaited, daring, and magnificent novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad.
Manhattan Beach opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family.
Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war.
Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war.
She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career with the Ziegfeld Follies, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub, she chances to meet Dexter Styles again, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.
Mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful, with the pace and atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan’s first historical novel is a masterpiece, a deft, startling, intimate exploration of a transformative moment in the lives of women and men, America and the world. Manhattan Beach is a spectacular novel by one of the greatest writers of our time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 7, 1962
• Where—Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Raised—San Francisco, California
• Education—University of Pennsylvania; Cambridge
University (UK)
• Awards—Pulitizer Prize; National Book Critics Circle Award
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, New York
Jennifer Egan is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn, New York City. She is perhaps best known for her 2010 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won both the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.
Background/early career
Egan was born in Chicago, Illinois, but grew up in San Francisco, California. She majored in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania and, as an undergrad, dated Steve Jobs, who installed a Macintosh computer in her bedroom. After graduating from Penn, Egan spent two years at St John's College at Cambridge University, supported by a Thouron Award.
In addition to her several novels (see below), Egan has published short fiction in The New Yorker, Harper's, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Ploughshares, among other periodicals. Her journalism appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. She also published a short-story collection in 1993.
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Egan has been hesitant to classify her most noted work, A Visit from the Goon Squad, as either a novel or a short story collection, saying,
I wanted to avoid centrality. I wanted polyphony. I wanted a lateral feeling, not a forward feeling. My ground rules were: every piece has to be very different, from a different point of view. I actually tried to break that rule later; if you make a rule then you also should break it!
The book features genre-bending content such as a chapter entirely formatted as a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. Of her inspiration and approach to the work, she said,
I don’t experience time as linear. I experience it in layers that seem to coexist.… One thing that facilitates that kind of time travel is music, which is why I think music ended up being such an important part of the book. Also, I was reading Proust. He tries, very successfully in some ways, to capture the sense of time passing, the quality of consciousness, and the ways to get around linearity, which is the weird scourge of writing prose.
Bibliography (partial)
Novels
1995 - The Invisible Circus
2001 - Look at Me
2006 - The Keep
2010 - A Visit from the Goon Squad
2017 - Manhattan Beach
Short fiction
1993 - Emerald City (short story collection; released in US in 1996)
2012 - "Black Box" (short story, released on The New Yorker's Twitter account)
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/3/2017.)
Book Reviews
Immensely satisfying.… [Manhattan Beach] is a dreadnought of a World War II-era historical novel, bristling with armaments yet intimate in tone. It’s an old-fashioned page-turner, tweaked by this witty and sophisticated writer so that you sometimes feel she has retrofitted sleek new engines inside a craft owned for too long by James Jones and Herman Wouk.… She is masterly at displaying mastery.… Egan’s fiction buzzes with factual crosscurrents, casually deployed.… Egan works a formidable kind of magic.… This is a big novel that moves with agility.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
The prevalence of the ocean in this story is not simply atmospheric; it is central to the symbolism.… Turning their backs on the crowded constraints of their urban lives, all three look to the ocean as a realm that while inherently dangerous also promises the potential for personal discovery and an almost mystical liberty. This is a novel that deserves to join the canon of New York stories.
Amor Towles - New York Times Book Review
[P]olished to a high sheen. Manhattan Beach — longlisted for a National Book Award even before it was released — is a historical novel set during World War II in New York.… Manhattan Beach may not offer the brilliant variety of forms found in Goon Squad, but Egan is still blending a jazzy range of tones in these chapters, from Tennessee Williams’s apartment-trapped despair to Herman Melville’s adventures at sea… [and] a particularly rich noir romance.… [Manhattan Beach] dares to satisfy us in a way that stories of an earlier age used to.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
This truly fine novel, so rich in period and emotional atmosphere and so cunningly plotted, is a joy — one of the standouts of the year.
Newsday
Egan’s most remarkable accomplishment yet.… At once a suspenseful novel of noir intrigue, a gorgeously wrought and richly allusive literary tapestry, and a transporting work of lyrical beauty and emotional heft, Manhattan Beach is a magnificent achievement.
Boston Globe
A work of remarkable cinematic scope. . . . This is a novel that will pull you in and under and carry you away on its rip tides.… Its resonances continue to wash over the reader long after the novel ends.
Guardian UK
Manhattan Beach is ambitiously and deliciously plot-driven.
NPR's Fresh Air
Egan’s prose is transparent and elegant.… But the chief joy of reading Manhattan Beach lies in diving under the surface pleasures of the plot (which are plentiful — it’s immersive and compelling), and sinking slowly to its dark and unknowable depths. There are deep truths there.
Vox
Egan’s first foray into historical fiction makes you forget you’re reading historical fiction at all.
Elle
The novel’s crooked politicians, organized-crime bosses, and shady cops make it read like a fast-paced, hard-boiled drama.
Marie Claire
(Starred review.) [S]plendid.… More straightforwardly narrated than some of Egan's earlier work … the novel is tremendously assured and rich, moving from depictions of violence and crime to deep tenderness. The book's emotional power once again demonstrates Egan's extraordinary gifts.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This large, ambitious novel shows Egan at the top of her game. Anna is a true feminist heroine, and her grit and tenacity will make readers root for her.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Egan’s propulsive, surprising, ravishing, and revelatory saga, a covertly profound page-turner that will transport and transform every reader, casts us all as divers in the deep, searching for answers, hope, and ascension.
Booklist
(Starred review.) After stretching the boundaries of fiction in myriad ways Pulitzer Prize winner Egan does perhaps the only thing left that could surprise: she writes a thoroughly traditional novel.… Realistically detailed, poetically charged, and utterly satisfying: apparently there's nothing Egan can't do.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the first chapter, on the beach, Anna walks barefoot despite the cold and says, "It only hurts at first. After a while you can’t feel anything." Dexter admires Anna for her strength, which he senses comes from her father. He reflects that "men’s children gave them away" (pages 8–9). How does this meeting between Dexter, Ed, and Anna set the tone for the rest of the novel?
2. Why is the thought of what Lydia "might have looked like, had she not been damaged. A beauty. Possibly more than Agnes," (page 16) so painful to Ed? Why is he unable even to cope with Lydia, much less love her, as Anna and Agnes do?
3. "Each time Anna moved from her father’s world to her mother and Lydia’s, she felt as if she’d shaken free of one life for a deeper one. And when she returned to her father, holding his hand as they ventured out into the city, it was her mother and Lydia she shook off, often forgetting them completely. Back and forth she went, deeper — deeper still — until it seemed there was no place further down she could go. But somehow there always was. She had never reached the bottom" (page 26). What does this passage reveal about Anna? What allows, even compels, her to shift between worlds?
4. Ed, looking back on his decision to work with Dexter, reflects that he needed a change, that "[h]e'd take danger over sorrow any day of the week" (page 34). Is Ed right to do this? Is Ed’s philosophy a noble or a selfish one?
5. What draws Anna to Nell? And Nell to Anna? How are they each not "angels" and how does this bond them?
6. Even at a young age, Dexter wants to know what’s beneath the surface of things. "For him, the existence of an obscure truth recessed behind an obvious one, and emanating through it allegorically, was mesmerizing" (page 91). How does this fascination shape Dexter’s life and his career?
7. How does Anna’s sexual relationship with Leon, during which she thinks things like "I might not be here" and "This might not be me" (page 120), relate to her feeling abandoned by her father? Why does she later invoke her father as "an abstract witness to her virtue" (page 122)?
8. Why does Anna set herself such a difficult task — becoming a diver, "breaking" the lieutenant, facing opposition at every turn? Why does she feel "that she had always wanted [an enemy]" (page 149)?
9. Why does Lydia’s death solidify Agnes’s determination to be done with her husband, after so many years, whether he returns or not (page 179)?
10. Leaving Charlie Voss at the club to spend the night with Dexter, Anna releases herself to the dark: "she had … disappeared through a crack in the night. Not a soul knew where to find her" (page 234). What do you make of her need to be lost, to be a part of the dark and its danger?
11. Ed is simultaneously drawn to and infuriated by the bosun. Discuss why there is a push and pull between these two characters.
12. Why does Dexter insist on diving with Anna to try to find her father’s corpse? What does this effort represent for him? What do you think he comes to understand?
13. Visions of Lydia push Anna to not go through with her abortion. Discuss the connection between Lydia and Anna’s unborn child.
14. When Anna takes the train west, there’s a moment when she "bolted upright. She had thought of her father. At last, she understood: This is how he did it" (page 426). What allows her to understand and perhaps reconcile with her father?
15. Luck plays an important role throughout the novel and has particular significance for Anna, Dexter, and Ed. How does luck shape each of their lives? Good luck and bad luck?
16. Throughout the novel, characters create new identities for themselves and start over. How do these individual stories of reinvention relate to the spirit of optimism, the quest for the new that is so common among Americans at this time?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)