A Column of Fire (Kingsbridge Series, 3)
Ken Follett, 2017
Penguin Publishing
928 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781509858200
Summary
International bestselling author Ken Follett has enthralled millions of readers with The Pillars of the Earth and World Without End, two stories of the Middle Ages set in the fictional city of Kingsbridge. The saga now continues with Follett’s magnificent new epic, A Column of Fire.
In 1558, the ancient stones of Kingsbridge Cathedral look down on a city torn apart by religious conflict. As power in England shifts precariously between Catholics and Protestants, royalty and commoners clash, testing friendship, loyalty, and love.
Ned Willard wants nothing more than to marry Margery Fitzgerald. But when the lovers find themselves on opposing sides of the religious conflict dividing the country, Ned goes to work for Princess Elizabeth.
When she becomes queen, all Europe turns against England. The shrewd, determined young monarch sets up the country’s first secret service to give her early warning of assassination plots, rebellions, and invasion plans. Over a turbulent half century, the love between Ned and Margery seems doomed as extremism sparks violence from Edinburgh to Geneva.
Elizabeth clings to her throne and her principles, protected by a small, dedicated group of resourceful spies and courageous secret agents.
The real enemies, then as now, are not the rival religions. The true battle pitches those who believe in tolerance and compromise against the tyrants who would impose their ideas on everyone else—no matter what the cost.
Set during one of the most turbulent and revolutionary times in history, A Column of Fire is one of Follett’s most exciting and ambitious works yet. It will delight longtime fans of the Kingsbridge series and is the perfect introduction for readers new to Ken Follett. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 5, 1949
• Where—Cardiff, Wales, UK
• Education—B.A., University College, London
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Hertfordshire, England
Kenneth Martin Follett is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels who has sold more than 150 million copies of his works. Many of his books have reached number 1 on the New York Times Best Seller list, including Edge of Eternity, Fall of Giants, A Dangerous Fortune, The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple, Winter of the World, and World Without End.
Early years
Follett was born in Cardiff, Wales, the first child of four children, to Martin Follett, a tax inspector, and Lavinia (Veenie) Follett. Barred from watching films and television by his Plymouth Brethren parents, he developed an early interest in reading but remained an indifferent student until he entered his teens. His family moved to London when he was ten years old, and he began applying himself to his studies at Harrow Weald Grammar School and Poole Technical College.
He won admission in 1967 to University College London, where he studied philosophy and became involved in center-left politics. He married his wife Mary in 1968, and their son was born in the same year. After graduating in the autumn of 1970, Follett took a three-month post-graduate course in journalism, working as a trainee reporter in Cardiff on the South Wales Echo. A daughter was born in 1973.
Career
After three years in Cardiff, Follett returned to London as a general-assignment reporter for the Evening News. He eventually left journalism for publishing, having found it unchallenging, and by the late 1970s became deputy managing director of the small London publisher Everest Books.
During that time, Follett began writing fiction as a hobby during evenings and weekends. Later, he said he began writing books when he needed extra money to fix his car, and the publisher's advance a fellow journalist had been paid for a thriller was the sum required for the repairs. Success came gradually at first, but the 1978 publication of Eye of the Needle, became an international bestseller and sold over 10 million copies, earning Follett wealth and international fame.
Each of Follett's subsequent novels, some 30, has become a best-seller, ranking high on the New York Times Best Seller list. The first five best sellers were fictional spy thrillers. Another bestseller, On Wings of Eagles (1983), is a true story based on the rescue of two of Ross Perot's employees from Iran during the 1979 revolution.
Kingsbridge series
For the most part, Follett continued writing spy thrillers, interspersed with historical novels. But he usually returned to espionage. Then in 1989, Follett surprised his readers with his first non-spy thriller, The Pillars of the Earth (1989), a novel about building a cathedral in a small English village during the Anarchy in the 12th century.
Pillars was wildly successful, received positive reviews, and stayed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 18 weeks. All told, (internationally and domestically), it has sold 26 million copies and even inspired a 2017 computer game by Daedalic Entertainment of Germany.
Two sequels followed a number of years later — in 2007 and 2017. World Without End (2007) returns to Kingsbridge 200 years after Pillars and focuses on lives devastated by the Black Death. A Column of Fire (2017), a romance and novel of political intrigue, is set in the mid-16th century — a time when Queen Elizabeth finds herself beset by plots to dethrone her.
Century trilogy
Follett initiated his Century trilogy in 2010. The series traces five interrelated families — American, German, Russian, English and Welsh — as they move through world-shaking events, beginning with World War I and the Russian Revolution, up through the rise of the Third Reich and World War II, and into the Cold War era and civil-rights movements.
Adaptations
A number of Follett's novels have been made into movies and TV mini series. Eye of the Needle was made into an acclaimed film, starring Donald Sutherland. Seven novels have been adapted as mini-series: The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, On Wings of Eagles, The Third Twin (rights were sold for a then-record price of $1,400,000), The Pillars of the Earth, World Without End, and A Dangerous Fortune.
Follett also had a cameo role as the valet in The Third Twin and later as a merchant in The Pillars of the Earth.
Awards
2013 - Grand Master at the Edgar Awards (New York)
2012 - Que Leer Prize-Best Translation (Spain) - Winter of the World
2010 - Libri Golden Book Award-Best Fiction (Hungary) - Fall of Giants
2010 - Grand Master, Thrillerfest (New York)
2008 - Honorary Doctor of Literature - University of Exeter
2007 - Honorary Doctor of Literature - University of Glamorgan
2007 - Honorary Doctor of Literature - Saginaw Valley State University
2003 - Corine Literature Prize (Bavaria) - Jackdaws
1999 - Premio Bancarella Literary Prize (Italy) - Hammer of Eden
1979 - Edgar Award-Best Novel - Eye of the Needle
Personal life
During the late 1970s, Follett became involved in the activities of Britain's Labour Party when he met the former Barbara Broer, a Labour Party official. Broer became his second wife in 1984.
Follett, an amateur musician, plays bass guitar for Damn Right I Got the Blues. He occasionally plays a bass balalaika with the folk group Clog Iron. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/4/2017.)
Book Reviews
Deeply researched… compelling.… A Column of Fire is absorbing, painlessly educational, and a great deal of fun.
Washington Post
Follett’s historical epics, including this one, evoke the Romantic adventures of Alexandre Dumas. Derring-do and double-crosses.… A Column of Fire burns bright throughout.
Christian Science Monitor
English-history mavens will find much to savor in Follett’s third Kingsbridge novel.
AARP
[A]n immersive journey through the tumultuous world of 16th-century Europe and some of the bloodiest religious wars in history. Follett’s sprawling novel is a fine mix of heart-pounding drama and erudite historicism.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Several climactic scenes — including a truly horrific execution and massacres in the streets of Paris — dramatize the vast social and religious divide of the era. Verdict: …Follett has written another masterly historical novel. —Jane Henriksen Baird, Anchorage P.L., AK
Library Journal
A fiery tale set in the latter half of the sixteenth century.… As always, Follett excels in historical detailing, transporting readers back in time with another meaty historical blockbuster.
Booklist
lIt's all a bit overwrought for what is, after all, a boy-loves-girl, boy-swashbuckles-to-win-girl yarn, but it's competently done. Follett's fans will know what to expect — and they won't be disappointed.
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)
(We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available.)
The Clockmaker's Daughter
Kate Morton, 2018
Atria Books
496 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451649390
Summary
A rich, spellbinding new novel from the author of The Lake House—the story of a love affair and a mysterious murder that cast their shadow across generations, set in England from the 1860s until the present day.
My real name, no one remembers.
The truth about that summer, no one else knows.
In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor on the banks of the Upper Thames. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity.
But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.
Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.
Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?
Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a story of murder, mystery, and thievery, of art, love, and loss.
And flowing through its pages like a river, is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker’s daughter. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1976
• Where—Berri, South Australia
• Education—B.A., and M.A., University of Queensland
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Australia
Kate Morton is the eldest of three sisters. Her family moved several times before settling on Tamborine Mountain where she attended a small country school. She enjoyed reading books from an early age, her favourites being those by Enid Blyton.
She completed a Licentiate in Speech and in Drama from Trinity College London and then a summer Shakespeare course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. Later she earned first-class honours for her English Literature degree at the University of Queensland, during which time she wrote two full-length manuscripts (which are unpublished) before writing the story that would become the 2006 novel The House at Riverton.
Following this she obtained a scholarship and completed a Master's degree focussing on tragedy in Victorian literature. She is currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program researching contemporary novels that marry elements of gothic and mystery fiction.
Kate Morton is married to Davin, a jazz musician and composer, and they have two sons.
Works & recognition
Works and recognition
Morton's novels have been published in 38 countries and have sold three million copies.
♦ The House at Riverton was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller in the UK in 2007 and a New York Times bestseller in 2008. It won General Fiction Book of the Year at the 2007 Australian Book Industry Awards, and was nominated for Most Popular Book at the British Book Awards in 2008.
♦ Her second book, The Forgotten Garden, was a #1 bestseller in Australia and a Sunday Times #1 bestseller in the UK in 2008.
♦ In 2010, Morton's third novel, The Distant Hours, was released, followed by her fourth, The Secret Keeper, in 2012. He rmost recent novel, Lake House, came out in 2015. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 9/23/2015.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
(Starred review) Morton explores the tangled history of people and place in her outstanding, bittersweet sixth novel.… At the novel’s emotional core …is the intersection of lives across decades, united …by a shared experience.… [B]rilliantly told.
Publishers Weekly
Elodie Winslow gets shivers when she discovers the photograph of a woman in Victorian garb…. What's her connection to Oxfordshire's Birchwood Manor, where in 1862 …a summer of creative fun… ended tragically? [M]ultilayered, sink-in-it appeal.
Library Journal
The ratcheting between eras… [is] challenging, while the powerful theme of bereft childhood gets lost…. [A] leisurely and meditative read, with lush settings, meticulous period detail, and slowly unfurling enigmas …[but] overpopulated and overworked.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Clockmaker’s Daughter begins with the assertion that "We came to Birchwood Manor because Edward said that it was haunted. It wasn’t. Not then." (p. 3) Who is narrating this passage? How does it create a sense of mystery surrounding Birchwood Manor? What are your initial impressions of the ground and house at Birchwood Manor?
2. Birdie describes Lily Millington as "her salvation." (p. 99) How does Lily help Birdie adjust to life at Mrs. Mack’s? What survival skills does Lily teach Birdie? How else does Lily impact Birdie’s life and legacy?
3. Birchwood Manor feels like another character in the book. Edward writes "it has called to me for a long time, you see, for my new house and I are not strangers." (p. 210) Discuss the connection that Edward feels to the house. What other characters feel a strong connection? Have you ever felt an attachment to a house where you’ve lived or visited?
4. Why do you think Kate Morton chose to title her novel The Clockmaker’s Daughter? Who is she? How does her story tie the other plotlines in the novel together? Did you find any of the connections surprising?
5. One of Edward’s most famous paintings is View from the Attic Window. Describe the painting? Birdie says that when she views the painting, "I do not associate it with the fields outside Birchwood Manor …it makes me think instead of small dark spaces, and stale air." (p. 337) Why does View from the Attic Window make her feel claustrophobic? Describe the inspiration behind the painting.
6. Describe Elodie’s relationship with Alastair. She "had been flattered when [he] asked her to marry him." (p. 24) Explain this statement. Why do you think that Elodie says yes to Alastair’s proposal? When does Elodie begin to realize they’re not well suited?
7. Why do you think that Pale Joe shows Birdie kindness? Describe their friendship. What does each offer the other? Were you surprised to realize who Pale Joe is? Why do you think Birdie is willing to share her nickname with Pale Joe?
8. Storytelling is a central theme in the novel. When Elodie asks her father about the bedtime story from her childhood, he tells her that he thought it might be too scary for a child but that Lauren, Elodie’s mother, felt that "childhood was a frightening time and that hearing scary stories was a way of feeling less alone." (p. 20) Do you agree with Lauren? What other purposes does storytelling serve? How does Kate Morton connect the characters within The Clockmaker’s Daughter?
9. Penelope suggests that Elodie walk down the aisle at her wedding accompanied by a video of her mother, Lauren Adler, playing the cello. Why do you think that Penelope makes the suggestion? What does Pippa think? Do you agree with her? Why or why not? Were you surprised by Elodie’s final decision with regard to the videos? Explain your answer.
10. Elodie handles the archives of James Stratton. Who is he and why are his archives significant? Were you surprised to learn of his connection to Birchwood Manor? Based on James’s romantic history, "[i]t seemed to Elodie almost as if he’d set our purposely to choose women who wouldn’t—or couldn’t—make him happy." (p. 16) Do you agree? Why do you think that James chose the partners that he did?
11. According to Birdie, Fanny "has become a tragic heroine, impossible though that is for one who knew her in life to believe." (p. 131) What did you think of Fanny? Describe her relationship with Edward. Compare his relationships with Fanny and Birdie. How is Edward different when he is with Birdie?
12. What did you think of Mrs. Mack? What kind of activities does she require Birdie to take part in to earn her keep? Why do you think that Mrs. Mack takes pains to remind Birdie that her mother had been a proper lady? Do you think she takes good care of Birdie?
13. When Ada learns that she is going to be staying at Miss Radcliffe’s School for Young Ladies, the narrator writes "School. Young ladies. Welcome. Ada liked words—she collected them—but those four hit her like bricks." (p. 159) What do you think of Ada’s school and how her parents told her that she would be attending?
14. "Ada’s parents had left her at Miss Radcliffe’s School for Young Ladies in the misguided expectation that she would be magically transformed into a proper English schoolgirl." (p. 164) Do you agree that this is the mission of Miss Radcliffe’s school? Does she achieve it? Explain your answer.
15. What did you think of Jack? How does his life intersect with Elodie? What do they discover together? How does their chance encounter affect their lives?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Mr. Nobody
Catherine Steadman, 2020
Random House
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781524797683
Summary
Who is Mr. Nobody?
When a man is found on a British beach, drifting in and out of consciousness, with no identification and unable to speak, interest in him is sparked immediately.
From the hospital staff who find themselves inexplicably drawn to him, to international medical experts who are baffled by him, to the national press who call him Mr. Nobody, everyone wants answers. Who is this man? And what happened to him?
Some memories are best forgotten.
Neuropsychiatrist Dr. Emma Lewis is asked to assess the patient in a small town deep in the English countryside. This is her field of expertise, this is the chance she’s been waiting for, and this case could make her name known across the world.
But therein lies the danger. Emma left this same town fourteen years ago and has taken great pains to cover all traces of her past since then.
Places aren’t haunted… people are.
But now something—or someone—is calling her back. And the more time she spends with her patient, the more alarmed she becomes that he knows the one thing about her that nobody is supposed to know. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—February 8, 1987
• Where—New Forest in Southern England, UK
• Education—Oxford School of Drama
• Currently—lives in North London, England
Catherine Steadman is an English actress and author, best known for playing Mabel Lane Fox in Downton Abbey (series 5, 2014). She is the author of two psychological thrillers, Something in the Water (2018) and Mr. Nobody (2020).
Steadman trained at the Oxford School of Drama and made her screen debut playing Julia Bertram in the ITV adaptation of Mansfield Park opposite Billie Piper, James D'arcy, Rory Kinnear & Michelle Ryan. Since then she has appeared in television dramas such as the CBC/Showtime co-production The Tudors (playing Joan Bulmer), Holby City, Law & Order: UK, Missing, Lewis, Quirke (alongside Gabriel Byrne), Fearless (opposite Helen McCrory(, and Victoria.
Most notably she played Nurse Wilson in the ITV drama Breathless, Maggie Lewis in Tutankhamun, as well as Mabel Lane Fox in Downton Abbey. She has also appeared in several comedy series such as The Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat, Trying Again and Bucket. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 6/20/2018.)
Book Reviews
[A] tricky psychological puzzle…. It’s a joy to encounter a suspenseful book whose turns lurk, rather than lumber, around the corner. The story in Mr. Nobody corkscrews and somersaults…. Past mysteries haunt the present in ways that are both startling and claustrophobic…. [Steadman] is even better at writing than acting. If her first book, Something in the Water, was the Steadman gateway drug, then Mr. Nobody is the heroin that will get you hooked. Let’s hope, for purposes of withdrawal mitigation, there’s a third.
New York Times Book Review
[A] highly imaginative tale tinged with Hitchcockian tension and kinetic pacing…. Steadman’s deliciously provocative novel dishes up enough questions to fill the entire space devoted to this review. She cleverly cloaks them in more mysteries, turns and shocking revelations. Much like Something in the Water, Mr. Nobody pits fascinating characters against each other and allows them to act on their worst impulses…. Her literary instincts are spot on, and the protagonists she creates feel as alive as some of the characters she’s inhabited on film…. This talent for inhabiting characters carries over into her writing: Mr. Nobody and Emma Lewis, though invented, seem so real. Mr. Nobody turns out to be somebody, and his unmasking makes for a delightfully compelling story.
Washington Post
A mesmerizing psychological thriller…. In a series of exciting twists and shocking turns, Emma and Mr. Nobody come to discover they are connected in ways neither could have imagined. Steadman’s story is wholly unique and exceedingly well executed. Suspense is peppered in all the right places, and every bread crumb dropped throughout the story returns in wildly imaginative ways.
Associated Press
[Mr. Nobody] somberly explores trauma and its aftermath, but ample twists and a rollicking pace make it a perfectly thrilling read.
Vanity Fair
[O]ver-the-top psychological thriller…. Point of view shifts diminish the novel’s readability at times, but the elaborate plot, filled with seemingly impossible twists, drives to a suspenseful conclusion. Readers will look forward to Steadman’s next.
Publishers Weekly
From an Olivier-nominated actress whose debut, Something in the Water, was a New York Times best seller and an ITW Thriller Award finalist.
Library Journal
Steadman once again brilliantly paces the action from the very first scene.… As in all good thrillers, lights unexpectedly snap out, a creepy house is hidden down a tree-woven lane, and long-buried secrets emerge.… A spellbinding thriller perfect for dark and stormy nights.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our GENERIC MYSTERY QUESTIONS to start a discussion for Mr. Nobody … then take off on your own:
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they flat, one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers embed hidden clues in plain sight, slipping them in casually, almost in passing. Did you pick them out, or were you...clueless? Once you've finished the book, go back to locate the clues hidden in plain sight. How skillful was the author in burying them?
4. Good crime writers also tease us with red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray? Does your author try to throw you off track? If so, were you tripped up?
5. Talk about the twists & turns—those surprising plot developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray.
- Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense?
- Are they plausible or implausible?
- Do they feel forced and gratuitous—inserted merely to extend the story?
6. Does the author ratchet up the suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? A what point does the suspense start to build? Where does it climax...then perhaps start rising again?
7. A good ending is essential in any mystery or crime thriller: it should ease up on tension, answer questions, and tidy up loose ends. Does the ending accomplish those goals?
- Is the conclusion probable or believable?
- Is it organic, growing out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 3)?
- Or does the ending come out of the blue, feeling forced or tacked-on?
- Perhaps it's too predictable.
- Can you envision a different or better ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
(Generic Mystery Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Rules of Magic
Alice Hoffman, 2017
Simon & Schuster
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781501137471
Summary
From beloved author Alice Hoffman comes the spellbinding prequel to her bestseller, Practical Magic.
Find your magic.
For the Owens family, love is a curse that began in 1620, when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for loving the wrong man.
Hundreds of years later, in New York City at the cusp of the sixties, when the whole world is about to change, Susanna Owens knows that her three children are dangerously unique. Difficult Franny, with skin as pale as milk and blood red hair, shy and beautiful Jet, who can read other people’s thoughts, and charismatic Vincent, who began looking for trouble on the day he could walk.
From the start Susanna sets down rules for her children: No walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no cats, no crows, no candles, no books about magic. And most importantly, never, ever, fall in love. But when her children visit their Aunt Isabelle, in the small Massachusetts town where the Owens family has been blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong, they uncover family secrets and begin to understand the truth of who they are. Back in New York City each begins a risky journey as they try to escape the family curse.
The Owens children cannot escape love even if they try, just as they cannot escape the pains of the human heart. The two beautiful sisters will grow up to be the revered, and sometimes feared, aunts in Practical Magic, while Vincent, their beloved brother, will leave an unexpected legacy. Thrilling and exquisite, real and fantastical, The Rules of Magic is a story about the power of love reminding us that the only remedy for being human is to be true to yourself. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 16, 1952
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., Adelphi University; M.A., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Boston, Massachusetts
Alice Hoffman was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island. After graduating from high school in 1969, she attended Adelphi University, from which she received a BA, and then received a Mirrellees Fellowship to the Stanford University Creative Writing Center, which she attended in 1973 and 74, receiving an MA in creative writing. She currently lives in Boston ,Massachusetts.
Beginnings
Hoffman’s first novel, Property Of, was written at the age of twenty-one, while she was studying at Stanford, and published shortly thereafter by Farrar Straus and Giroux. She credits her mentor, professor and writer Albert J. Guerard, and his wife, the writer Maclin Bocock Guerard, for helping her to publish her first short story in the magazine Fiction. Editor Ted Solotaroff then contacted her to ask if she had a novel, at which point she quickly began to write what was to become Property Of, a section of which was published in Mr. Solotaroff’s magazine, American Review.
Since that remarkable beginning, Alice Hoffman has become one of our most distinguished novelists. She has published a total of twenty-three novels, three books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults.
Highlights
♦ Her novel, Here on Earth, an Oprah Book Club choice, was a modern reworking of some of the themes of Emily Bronte’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights.
♦ Practical Magic was made into a Warner film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman.
♦ Her novel, At Risk, which concerns a family dealing with AIDS, can be found on the reading lists of many universities, colleges and secondary schools.
♦ Hoffman’s advance from Local Girls, a collection of inter-related fictions about love and loss on Long Island, was donated to help create the Hoffman Breast Center at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA.
♦ Blackbird House is a book of stories centering around an old farm on Cape Cod.
♦ Hoffman’s recent books include Aquamarine and Indigo, novels for pre-teens, and the New York Times bestsellers The River King, Blue Diary, The Probable Future, and The Ice Queen.
♦ Green Angel, a post-apocalyptic fairy tale about loss and love, was published by Scholastic and The Foretelling, a book about an Amazon girl in the Bronze Age, was published by Little Brown. In 2007 Little Brown published the teen novel Incantation, a story about hidden Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, which Publishers Weekly has chosen as one of the best books of the year.
♦ More recent novels include The Third Angel, The Story Sisters, the teen novel, Green Witch, a sequel to her popular post-apocalyptic fairy tale, Green Angel.
♦ The Red Garden, published in 2011, is a collection of linked fictions about a small town in Massachusetts where a garden holds the secrets of many lives.
Recognition
Hoffman’s work has been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Her novels have received mention as notable books of the year by the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, and People magazine. Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in the New York Times, Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Harvard Review, Ploughshares and other magazines.
She has also worked as a screenwriter and is the author of the original screenplay "Independence Day," a film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Wiest. Her teen novel Aquamarine was made into a film starring Emma Roberts.
In 2011 Alice published The Dovekeepers, which Toni Morrison calls "... a major contribution to twenty-first century literature" for the past five years. The story of the survivors of Masada is considered by many to be Hoffman’s masterpiece. The New York Times bestselling novel is slated for 2015 miniseries, produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett, starring Cote de Pablo of NCIS fame.
Most recent
The Museum of Extraordinary Things was released in 2014 and was an immediate bestseller, the New York Times Book Review noting, "A lavish tale about strange yet sympathetic people, haunted by the past and living in bizarre circumstances… Imaginative…"
Nightbird, a Middle Reader, was released in March of 2015. In August of 2015, The Marriage Opposites, Alice’s latest novel, was an immediate New York Times bestseller. "Hoffman is the prolific Boston-based magical realist, whose stories fittingly play to the notion that love—both romantic and platonic—represents a mystical meeting of perfectly paired souls," said Vogue magazine. (Adapted from the author's website.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Hoffman delights in this prequel to Practical Magic, as three siblings discover both the power and curse of their magic.… The spellbinding story, focusing on the strength of family bonds through joy and sorrow…. Fans of Practical Magic will be bewitched.-
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Hoffman deftly weaves in dramatic events from the era, including the Vietnam War… without sacrificing the fairy-tale feeling of her story.… [R]eaders who…prefer to be kept at something of a remove from the grittiness of life's tragedies will relish this book. —Sharon Mensing, Emerald Mountain School, Steamboat Springs, CO
Library Journal
No one's more confident or entertaining than Hoffman at putting across characters willing to tempt fate for true love. Real events…enter the characters' family history, as well as a stunning plot twist — everything fans… could hope for.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. We learn that the rules of magic are to harm no one, remember that what you give will be returned to you threefold, and fall in love whenever you can. Do Franny, Jet, and Vincent live by these rules? What happens when they break them? What set of rules would you live by?
2. Make note of the part titles. What do the titles add to the narrative? Why do you think the author chose the titles she did?
3. Alice Hoffman’s novels are often woven with qualities that earn them a place in the genre of magical realism. Discuss how she achieves this writing style. What details do you notice she includes? What sources of inspiration does she draw from?
4. When the Owens siblings visit Aunt Isabelle for the first time, she tells them a story about a cousin named Maggie, who was turned into a rabbit. She warns Franny, Jet, and Vincent that this "is what happens when you repudiate who you are" (page 30). Each is certain that the harrowing tale was meant to caution her or him specifically. How do they interpret it differently? Why do you think Isabelle shared this story?
5. If you are familiar with Practical Magic, you already know that the Owenses’ ancestor, Maria, cast a curse that brought an end to any man who fell in love with a member of the family. In The Rules of Magic, we uncover the secret that they are "all descendants of a witch-finder and a witch" (page 138). What is revealed about Maria’s love affair? Does it help us understand the reasoning behind the curse?
6. Frances in particular seems to wrestle the most with the curse, even with her Maid of Thorns reputation. Why is this so? Why do you think she can’t embrace love the way her siblings do?
7. Forgiveness quickly becomes a large theme of the novel. After their parents die, Jet develops a deep self-hatred. The distrust between Franny and Haylin only grows after the incident at Turtle Pond, and Vincent’s own heavy secrets burden him. Discuss how the characters work through their conflicts, and whether or not they are able to resolve the issues.
8. There is something magical about Vincent’s music. Audiences are spellbound by his performances, even early on in Isabelle’s garden. His song, "I Walk at Night," seems to tell the past and the future, like a prophecy. Discuss which lines you liked best. Did you notice any that foreshadowed events? What references do the lyrics make? When he says, "I walked at night, I longed to fight" (page 217), what do you think he means?
9. One summer night while walking his dog, Harry, Vincent stumbles upon the Stonewall riots, often recognized as the origin of the gay rights movement in the United States. What do you know about this historical event? Do you think the revolt changed him? How do the riots contrast with Vincent and William’s trip to California during the Summer of Love?
10. Jet also wanders through a historical event inspired by the Human Be-In, held in Central Park on Easter Sunday of 1967. She accidentally ingests LSD and almost drowns herself in one of the park’s ponds. What brought Jet to this moment? Would you consider it her rock bottom? When she meets Rafael, he begins to pull Jet out of her despair. How does their love help her recover, and how does it differ from her relationship with Levi?
11. When Vincent and William visit April in California, she remarks, "Fate is what you make of it.… You can make the best of it or you can let it make the best of you" (page 220). In a novel that often seems ruled by fate, how do the characters determine their own destinies? How is the advice applicable to April’s own life?
12. Vincent’s fate is altered when he is drafted to Vietnam in one of the country’s most unpopular and controversial wars. Do you think his sisters did the right thing by smuggling him out of the country? What would you have done if you or a loved one were drafted at the time?
13. When Haylin, the love of Franny’s life, dies from cancer, she asks her sister, "How will I ever love anyone again?" Of course, Sally and Gillian Owens, recently orphaned through a tragedy of their own, become the answer to that question. Still, this is an issue that resurfaces throughout the book. In a family where love is destined to bring loss, how do the characters continue to find the courage to love more, not less?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Last Ballad
Wiley Cash, 2017
William Morrow
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062313119
Summary
Twelve times a week, twenty-eight-year-old Ella May Wiggins makes the two-mile trek to and from her job on the night shift at American Mill No. 2 in Bessemer City, North Carolina.
The insular community considers the mill’s owners — the newly arrived Goldberg brothers — white but not American and expects them to pay Ella May and other workers less because they toil alongside African Americans like Violet, Ella May’s best friend.
While the dirty, hazardous job at the mill earns Ella May a paltry nine dollars for seventy-two hours of work each week, it’s the only opportunity she has. Her no-good husband, John, has run off again, and she must keep her four young children alive with whatever work she can find.
When the union leaflets begin circulating, Ella May has a taste of hope, a yearning for the better life the organizers promise. But the mill owners, backed by other nefarious forces, claim the union is nothing but a front for the Bolshevik menace sweeping across Europe.
To maintain their control, the owners will use every means in their power, including bloodshed, to prevent workers from banding together. On the night of the county’s biggest rally, Ella May, weighing the costs of her choice, makes up her mind to join the movement—a decision that will have lasting consequences for her children, her friends, her town—indeed all that she loves.
Seventy-five years later, Ella May’s daughter Lilly, now an elderly woman, tells her nephew about his grandmother and the events that transformed their family. Illuminating the most painful corners of their history, she reveals, for the first time, the tragedy that befell Ella May after that fateful union meeting in 1929.
Intertwining myriad voices, Wiley Cash brings to life the heartbreak and bravery of the now forgotten struggle of the labor movement in early twentieth-century America — and pays tribute to the thousands of heroic women and men who risked their lives to win basic rights for all workers. Lyrical, heartbreaking, and haunting, this eloquent novel confirms Wiley Cash’s place among our nation’s finest writers. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1977-78
• Where—Gastonia, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., University of North Carolina;
Ph.D., University of Louisiana
• Currently—lives in Wilmington, North Carolina
Wiley Cash is from western North Carolina, a region that figures prominently in his fiction. A Land More Than Home, his first novel was published in 2012, followed by This Dark Road to Mercy in 2014, and The Last Ballad in 2017.
Wiley holds a B.A. in Literature from the University of North Carolina-Asheville, an M.A. in English from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette (where he studied under author Ernest Gaines).
He has received grants and fellowships from the Asheville Area Arts Council, the Thomas Wolfe Society, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo. His stories have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Roanoke Review and Carolina Quarterly, and his essays on Southern literature have appeared in American Literary Realism, South Carolina Review, and other publications.
Wiley lives with his wife and two daughters in Wilmington, North Carolina. He serves as the writer-in-residence at the University of North Carolina-Asheville and teaches in the Mountainview Low-Residency MFA. (Adapted from previous and current bios on the author's website. Retrieved 10/4/2017.)
Book Reviews
In the retelling of the Loray Mill strike and the courageous role of Ella May Wiggins, Cash vividly blends the archival with the imaginative. As the historian Perry Anderson has noted, good historical fiction has the ability “to waken us to history, in a time when any real sense of it has gone dead.” … Cash, with care and steadiness, has pulled from the wreckage of the past a lost moment of Southern progressivism. Perhaps fiction can help us bear the burden of Southern history, which is pressing down hard on us today.
Amy Rowland - New York Times Book Review
With his vibrant imagination, vigorous research, and his architectural skill in structuring this novel, Wiley Cash has lifted the events of the past into the present and immortalized a time that holds valuable lessons for our country today.
Charlotte Observer
Cash transports readers into the world of real-life ballad singer Ella May Wiggins, a central figure in workers’ battle for unionization in North Carolina textile mills.… [S]uspenseful, moving… [it] will resonate with readers of John Steinbeck or Ron Rash.
Publishers Weekly
Cash…writes with earnestness and great sympathy but reveals the outcome early, taking the bite out of the story's climax. Verdict: Admirers of Ron Rash's Serena and its Appalachian setting will find much to like here. —Michael Pucci, South Orange P.L., NJ
Library Journal
Wiley Cash’s third novel is a sweeping, old-fashioned saga with an inspirational but ill-fated heroine at its center… Ella May is such a rich, sympathetic character.… Powerful and moving, exploring complex historical issues that are still with us today.
BookPage
Although it is initially a bit difficult to keep so many points of view straight, it is satisfying to see them all connect.… Cash highlights the struggles of often forgotten heroes…. A heartbreaking and beautifully written look at the real people involved in the labor movement.
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 The Last Ballad … then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the quality, or more like the lack of quality, of Ella May Wiggins's life and her daily struggles to support herself and children. What are the particular challenges she faced?
2. Describe the abusive working conditions in the Loray Mill, which eventually led to the workers' strike in 1929.
3. Many, if not all, of the strike leaders were communists. How did its leadership's affiliation affect the national media and general public support?
4. Even though it ultimately failed, what role did the strike play in galvanizing the national labor movement?
5. The workers were captivated and empowered by Wiggins's songs. Later, the failed strike inspired other songwriters of the era, such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Why does music hold such power over us?
6. Consider Wiggins's rise to union leadership. Her actions were incredibly risky; do you think those risks were unfair to her four children? Would any of us today have had her courage?
7. Why do you think Cash decided to use the voices of Wiggins's daughter, the mill-owner's wife, a black Pullman porter, and the old man who pulls the "dope wagon" to tell the story? What does each bring to the telling that gives it a unique perspective?
8. Today's labor movement has shrunk in both numbers and power. Use Cash's book as a starting point to discuss the pros and cons of organized labor in the U.S. — it's history, its demise, and whether or not it is needed today.
9. Does story resonate in today's world, given the growth of populism and concern over income disparity?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)