The Labyrinth of the Spirits (Cemetery of Lost Books series 4)
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, 2018
HarperCollins
816 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062668691
Summary
The internationally acclaimed, New York Times bestselling author returns to the magnificent universe he constructed in his bestselling novels The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel’s Game, and The Prisoner of Heaven in this riveting series finale—a heart-pounding thriller and nail-biting work of suspense which introduces a sexy, seductive new heroine whose investigation shines a light on the dark history of Franco’s Spain.
In this unforgettable final volume of Ruiz Zafón’s cycle of novels set in the universe of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, beautiful and enigmatic Alicia Gris, with the help of the Sempere family, uncovers one of the most shocking conspiracies in all Spanish history.
Nine-year-old Alicia lost her parents during the Spanish Civil War when the Nacionales (the fascists) savagely bombed Barcelona in 1938.
Twenty years later, she still carries the emotional and physical scars of that violent and terrifying time. Weary of her work as an investigator for Spain’s secret police in Madrid, a job she has held for more than a decade, the twenty-nine-year old plans to move on.
At the insistence of her boss, Leandro Montalvo, she remains to solve one last case: the mysterious disappearance of Spain’s Minister of Culture, Mauricio Valls.
With her partner, the intimidating policeman Juan Manuel Vargas, Alicia discovers a possible clue—a rare book by the author Victor Mataix hidden in Valls’ office in his Madrid mansion. Valls was the director of the notorious Montjuic Prison in Barcelona during World War II where several writers were imprisoned, including David Martín and Victor Mataix.
Traveling to Barcelona on the trail of these writers, Alicia and Vargas meet with several booksellers, including Juan Sempere, who knew her parents.
As Alicia and Vargas come closer to finding Valls, they uncover a tangled web of kidnappings and murders tied to the Franco regime, whose corruption is more widespread and horrifying than anyone imagined.
Alicia’s courageous and uncompromising search for the truth puts her life in peril. Only with the help of a circle of devoted friends will she emerge from the dark labyrinths of Barcelona and its history into the light of the future.
In this haunting new novel, Carlos Ruiz Zafon proves yet again that he is a masterful storyteller and pays homage to the world of books, to his ingenious creation of the Cemetery of Forgotten, and to that magical bridge between literature and our lives. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—September 25, 1964
• Where—Barcelona, Spain
• Awards—Edebe Children's Literary Award, Best Novel, 1993
• Currently—lives in Barcelona and Los Angeles, California, USA
Carlos Ruiz Zafon is a Spanish novelist. His first novel, El Príncipe de la Niebla (The Prince of Mist, 1993), earned the Edebe literary prize for young adult fiction. He is also the author of three more young adult novels, El Palacio de la Medianoche (1994), Las Luces de Septiembre (1995) and Marina (1999). The English version of El Príncipe de la Niebla was published in 2010.
In 2001 he published the novel La Sombra del Viento (The Shadow of the Wind), his first "adult" novel, which has sold millions of copies worldwide. Since its publication, La Sombra del Viento has garnered critical acclaim around the world and has won many international awards. His next novel, El Juego del Angel, was published in April 2008. The English edition, The Angel's Game, is translated by Lucia Graves, daughter of the poet Robert Graves. It is a prequel to The Shadow of the Wind, also set in Barcelona, but during the 1920s and 1930s. It follows (and is narrated by) David Martin, a young writer who is approached by a mysterious figure to write a book. Ruiz Zafon intends it to be included in a four book series along with The Shadow of the Wind. The Third book in the cycle, El Prisionero del Cielo, appeared in 2011, and was published in English in 2012 as The Prisoner of Heaven.
Ruiz Zafon's works have been published in 45 countries and have been translated into more than 50 different languages. According to these figures, Ruiz Zafon is the most successful contemporary Spanish writer (along with Javier Sierra and Juan Gomez-Jurado). Influences on Ruiz Zafon's work have included 19th century classics, crime fiction, noir authors and contemporary writers.
Apart from books, another large influence comes in the form of films and screenwriting. He says in interviews that he finds it easier to visualize scenes in his books in a cinematic way, which lends itself to the lush worlds and curious characters he creates. (From Wikipedia.)
Extras
From a 2005 Barnes & Noble interview:
• In my tender youth I worked as a musician (composer, arranger and keyboard player/synthesizer programmer, record producer, etc.) and I've also labored for seven long years in the advertising jungle as a cynical mercenary, first as a copywriter, then a creative director (whatever that means) and also producing/directing TV commercials and polluting the world with artifacts glorifying Visa, Audi, Sony, Volkswagen, American Express, and many other evil entities. In 1992, when the lease on my soul was about to expire, I quit to become what I always wanted to do, be a full-time writer. Since then, I've published five novels and also have worked occasionally as a screenwriter.
• I am a curious creature and put my finger in as many cakes as I can: history, film, technology, etc. I'm also a freak for urban history, particularly Barcelona, Paris and New York. I know more weird stuff about 19th-century Manhattan than is probably healthy.
• There are two things that I cannot live without: music and books. Caffeine isn't dignified enough to qualify.
• When asked what authors most influenced his career as a writer, here is his response:
Charles Dickens and all of the 19th-century giants. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) [A] gripping and moving thriller set in Franco’s Spain…. Fans of complex and literate mysteries featuring detectives with integrity working under oppressive and corrupt regimes will be well satisfied.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) At approximately 800 pages, this book is a commitment, but it is one well worth making. Complex characters, rich language, and intrigue make it a story to be savored. —Terry Lucas, Shelter Island P.L., NY
Library Journal
Gothic, operatic, and in many ways old-fashioned, this is a story about storytelling and survival, with the horrors of Francoist Spain present on every page. Compelling.… [T]his is for readers who savor each word and scene.
Booklist
(Starred review) Ruiz Zafón brings his sprawling Cemetery of Forgotten Books tetralogy to a close that throws in everything but the kitchen sink, but that somehow works.… A satisfying conclusion to a grand epic.
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 Testaments
Margaret Atwood, 2019
Knopf Doubleday
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385543781
Summary
The Testaments is a modern masterpiece, a powerful novel that can be read on its own or as a companion to Margaret Atwood’s classic, The Handmaid’s Tale.
More than fifteen years after the events of The Handmaid's Tale, the theocratic regime of the Republic of Gilead maintains its grip on power, but there are signs it is beginning to rot from within.
At this crucial moment, the lives of three radically different women converge, with potentially explosive results.
Two have grown up as part of the first generation to come of age in the new order. The testimonies of these two young women are joined by a third: Aunt Lydia. Her complex past and uncertain future unfold in surprising and pivotal ways.
With The Testaments, Margaret Atwood opens up the innermost workings of Gilead, as each woman is forced to come to terms with who she is, and how far she will go for what she believes.
(From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 18, 1939
• Where—Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., University of Toronto; M.A. Radcliffe; Ph.D., Harvard University
• Awards—Booker Prize (more below)
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Canada
Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels.
In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; The MaddAddam Trilogy; The Heart Goes Last; and Hag-Seed.
She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[A] compelling sequel…. It’s a contrived and heavily stage-managed premise—but… Atwood’s sheer assurance as a storyteller makes for a fast, immersive narrative that’s as propulsive as it is melodramatic.… The Testaments… is less an expose of the hellscape [of] Gilead than a young girl’s chronicle…. Atwood seems to be suggesting [that rebels] do not require a heroine with the visionary gifts of Joan of Arc, or the ninja skills of a Katniss Everdeen or Lisbeth Salander—there are other ways of defying tyranny… or helping ensure the truth of the historical record.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
[A]an entirely different novel in form and tone. Inevitably, the details are less shocking… [and] not nearly the devastating satire of political and theological misogyny that The Handmaid’s Tale is. In this new novel, Atwood is far more focused on creating a brisk thriller than she is on exploring the perversity of systemic repression.
Ron Charles - Washington Post
[Atwood} is interested not in how people become degraded, as objects…, but how they became morally compromised…. The first book was good on the envy between women, when they have no power; The Testaments looks at collaboration—another vice of the oppressed…. The Testaments is Atwood at her best, in its mixture of generosity, insight and control. The prose is adroit, direct, beautifully turned.
Anne Engright - Guardian (UK)
Margaret Atwood’s powers are on full display…. Illicit sex, of course, in this republic founded on sexual control, leads to the complicated, fascinating plot of The Testaments…. Atwood’s braided storyline leads to the best parts of the novel, the conversations between girls and women…. Everyone should read The Testaments and consider the true desires of human nature.
Los Angeles Times
orthy of the literary classic it continues. That’s thanks in part to Atwood’s capacity to surprise, even writing in a universe we think we know so well.
USA Today
[A] plot-driven page turner… [though] this Gilead isn't—and can't possibly be—as fresh and mind-blowing as it was to readers in 1985, but… [it] continue[s] to surprise us…. Testaments is more than 400 pages, but [it is] fast and even thrilling…. The joy of the book isn't in the plot twists but in seeing these women hammer away at the foundations of Gilead
NPR
(Starred review) Atwood's confident, magnetic sequel to The Handmaid's Tale… does not dwell on the franchise or current politics. Instead, she explores favorite themes of sisterhood, options for the disempowered, and freedom's irresistible draw. [E]minently rewarding sequel.
Publishers Weekly
Whatever happened to Offred after the close of Atwood's iconic The Handmaid's Tale? In this talk-of-the-town sequel, we find out. Taking place 15 years later, the narrative is shaped by the testaments of three female narrators from Gilead.
Library Journal
[W]hat Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can.… It's hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid's Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Clothes play a dual role in the novel. They signal life stages as well as status and class: the pink, white, and plum dresses worn by "special girls"; the drab prison-like stripes of the Econofamilies; and the green dresses of the betrothed girls. Did this aspect of the novel strike you as odd? Or is it actually not very different from our own obsession with brands and logos that convey a certain level of wealth and status?
2. Aunt Lydia tells us that Gilead actually has "an embarrassingly high emigration rate." Can those who manage to leave Gilead ever truly "escape"?
3. Daisy/Jade is, to say the least, a reluctant revolutionary. But if you were her age and were asked to absorb all of the shocking information she has to process in a very short period of time, would you have reacted any differently?
4. After Agnes is assaulted, she recalls other girls who reported such incidents having been told that "nice girls did not notice the minor antics of men, they simply looked the other way," which is a troubling parallel between Gilead and reality. Do you think there will ever come a time when women will feel unashamed to speak out when they are sexually assaulted? Or has this time already arrived in the age of #MeToo?
5. When Aunt Lydia dons the garb of the female stadium shooters, she says, "I felt a chill. I put it on. What else should I have done?" What would you have done?
6. Agnes’s interpretation of "Dick and Jane" showcases Margaret Atwood’s trademark wit, but there is more to it than that. Discuss the ways in which the author cleverly builds the sense of suspicion and fear that informs the way Agnes processes the events in her life at Ardua Hall.
7. Several references are made to shortages of basic necessities such as food and electricity. Birth defects and juvenile cancer also seem to plague Gilead. What do you think has caused this? Possibly environmental issues? Or the ongoing war?
8. Agnes considers her admittance to Hildegard Library to be a "golden key" that will reveal "the riches that lay within." But it is here that she learns the truth about the Concubine Cut into Twelve Pieces, as well as the truth about her half-sister. Is there any book that provided you with a similar pivotal and eye-opening experience?
9. When Aunt Lydia relays the Aesop’s Fables story of Fox and Cat, she reveals much about her survival skills. Which are you—Fox or Cat?
10. Did the book inspire you to take action so that Gilead remains fiction? Did you perhaps become more active in local politics or make a charitable donation to an organization that supports women’s rights?
11. The conclusion of The Handmaid’s Tale left readers with many tantalizing questions. Which of your questions were answered by The Testaments? Which were not?
• 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.)
Bluebird, Bluebird
Attica Locke, 2017
Little, Brown & Company
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316363297
Summary
When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules—a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well.
Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.
When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders — a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman — have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes — and save himself in the process — before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.
From a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV show Empire, Attica Locke's Bluebird, Bluebird is a rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1971
• Born—Houston, Texas, USA
• Education—Northwestern University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Attica Locke is an American author of several works of fiction and a screenwriter, perhaps best known for the television series Empire. A native of Houston, Texas, she graduated from Northwestern University and now lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter.
Locke’s first novel, Black Water Rising (2009), was nominated for a 2010 Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize in the UK (now the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction). She followed that novel with three other works: The Cutting Season (2012), Pleasantville (2015), and Bluebird, Bluebird (2017).
In addition to her novels, Locke has worked in film and television. She was a fellow at the Sundance Institute's Feature Filmmakers Lab, has written scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros., Disney, 20th Century Fox, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, HBO, and DreamWorks.
Locke is a member of the academy for the Folio Prize in the UK and is also on the board of directors for the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 10/26/2017.)
Book Reviews
Attica Lock is a highly gifted author whose prose — steeped at times in idiom and lyricism yet sparse and lucid at others — is a joy to read. Laced with flashbacks and bedeviled with twists and turns, the plot propels readers to the end. The good news is that Bluebird, Bluebird is the first in a planned series with Darren Matthews in the lead, and that’s something to look forward to. Highly recommended. READ MORE …
P.J. Adler - LitLovers
Locke writes in a blues-infused idiom that lends a strain of melancholy and a sense of loss to her lyrical style.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times Book Review
Racial tensions are at the core of this elegant thriller, set in Shelby County, Texas. There is injustice here — institutional racism that has its roots in Texas’s history as a confederate state and continues today.… In slow yet gripping chapters, Locke studies the impact of racism on a small town and its people.
Claire Khoda Hazelton - Guardian (UK)
Locke is a brisk writer with a sharp eye for the subtleties of how rural white Southerners tend to act as if their little towns belong to them — and react harshly to black independence. Still, those truths are not necessarily the evidence one finds in a murder investigation in a small town in Texas. Those places are complicated.
Neely Tucker - Washington Post
An emotionally dense and intricately detailed thriller, roiling with conflicting emotions steeped in this nation's troubled past and present.… A rich sense of place and relentless feeling of dread permeate Attica Locke's heartbreakingly resonant new novel about race and justice in America.… Bluebird, Bluebird is no simple morality tale. Far from it. It rises above "left and right" and "black and white" and follows the threads that inevitably bind us together, even as we rip them apart.
James Endrst - USA Today
Attica Locke's stupendous fourth novel is suffused with the blues. Pushing her classic noir plot deep into history and culture, the Houston native sings her own unshakable, timeless lament. Streaked with wit and hard-earned wisdom, Bluebird, Bluebird soars.
Chicago Tribune
Attica Locke's terrific Bluebird, Bluebird simmers with racial tension.… [A] story told with Locke's crystal-clear vision and pleasurably elemental prose.
Seattle Times
Locke pens a poignant love letter to the lazy red-dirt roads and Piney Woods that serve as a backdrop to a noir thriller as murky as the bayous and bloodlines that thread through the region.… Locke shows off her chops as a superb storyteller.… She is adept at crafting characters who don't easily fit the archetypes of good and evil, but exist in the thick grayness of humanness, the knotty demands of loyalties and the baseness of survival. Locke holds up the mirror of the racial debate in America and shows us how the light bends and fractures what is right, wrong and what simply is the way it is — but perhaps not as it should be.
Jaundrea Clay - Houston Chronicle
Powerful.… Locke is a master of plot who's honed her craft.… The deepest pleasures to be found in Bluebird, Bluebird, though, are in her renderings of those who've loved and lost but still want to believe in the world's benevolence.
Leigh Haber - Oprah Magazine
I've never bought the notion of the Great American Novel. I think when literary historians look back, they'll realize this time had many, but if Attica Locke's Bluebird Bluebird isn't on the list, I'm coming back to haunt them.
Carole E. Barrowman - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
[Locke's] mystery novels are top notch.… [T]he book's hero, a black Texas Ranger, and his fight for justice make this a page-turner that brings Texas into sharp focus.
Bustle
Absorbing.… Darren must deal with his conflicting loyalties to his family and to Texas, as well as his identity as a black man, as he struggles for justice in this tale of racism, hatred, and, surprisingly, love.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [A]n atmospheric, convoluted mystery seasoned with racial tension and family loyalty. Verdict: Locke is a gifted author, and her intriguing and compelling crime novel will keep readers engrossed. —Sandra Knowles, South Carolina State Lib., Columbia
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Locke, having stockpiled an acclaimed array of crime novels, deserves a career breakthrough for this deftly plotted whodunit whose writing pulses throughout with a raw, blues-inflected lyricism.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking point to help start a discussion for Bluebird, Bluebird … then take off on your own:
1. Which character is your favorite and why? Whom do you find most engaging?
2. In Chapter 1, we meet Darren Matthews on the witness stand giving testimony in a court case. What do we learn about him — his family, his past, his marriage, his quirks and personality traits — all in that brief chapter? (It's a skillful piece of writing, by they way.)
3. Was Darren right to have driven out to help his friend Rutherford McMillan? Was he right to have filed a report afterward? In other words, where should Darren's loyalty lie: with the Rangers or with an old family friend? What would you have done?
4. Describe the relationship between Geneva Sweet and Darren? Why does Darren seem to want Geneva's approval, or at least her good will? Why does Geneva withhold her friendship from Darren?
5. How would you describe the racial environment in Lark, Texas?
6. Why does Sheriff Van Horn concentrate on solving the death of Missy Dale while ignoring Michael Wright's?
7. When Randi Winston wonders why her husband came to Texas, saying "this was not his home," Darren disagrees (118). What is it about Texas, especially places like Lark and Shelby County, that gives Darren such a keen sense of home despite the both subtle and far-from-subtle racism? Why does he refuse to leave Texas?
8. As Wendy looks around Geneva's cafe, she observes that "Forty-some-odd years after the death of Jim Crow, not much had changed" (8). Although she is initially thinking of the cafe itself, what else in the county-at-large is unchanged?
9. Follow-up to Question 8: Daren's uncles advise Darren to follow the "ancient rules of southern living" (16). What are those rules, and why are they so important to black men?
10. Darren asks Sheriff Van Horn for a copy of the autopsy report for Michael Wright. But Darren already has access to it through his FBI friend Gregg. Why does he pretend he needs a copy?
11. So…are you straight about who killed whom? Who killed (and why) Michael Wright? Who killed (and why) Missy Dale? And who killed (and why) Joe Sweet, Geneva's husband … and Joe Sweet, Jr., Geneva's son? What about Isaac? How did he come to have a role in all of this?
12. Finally, are you clear on who is related to whom?
13. SPOILER ALERT: What about Darren's mother? What does her discovery of Mac's gun indicate? And what power will the fact that she possesses it give her ... and over whom?
14. What are your predictions for Darren and Lisa's marriage? Do you have sympathy for Lisa's position: that she married a young lawyer who would be a steady partner with her but now his job takes him away from her? Or do you think she should accept Darren's desire to be a Ranger?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen
Sarah Bird, 2018
St. Matin's Press
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250193162
Summary
The compelling, hidden story of Cathy Williams, a former slave and the only woman to ever serve with the legendary Buffalo Soldiers.
"Here’s the first thing you need to know about Miss Cathy Williams: I am the daughter of a daughter of a queen and my mama never let me forget it."
Though born into bondage on a "miserable tobacco farm" in Little Dixie, Missouri, Cathy Williams was never allowed to consider herself a slave. According to her mother, she was a captive, destined by her noble warrior blood to escape the enemy.
Her chance at freedom presents itself with the arrival of Union general Phillip Henry "Smash ‘em Up" Sheridan, the outcast of West Point who takes the rawboned, prideful young woman into service.
At war’s end, having tasted freedom, Cathy refuses to return to servitude and makes the monumental decision to disguise herself as a man and join the Army’s legendary Buffalo Soldiers.
Alone now in the ultimate man’s world, Cathy must fight not only for her survival and freedom, but she also vows to never give up on finding her mother, her little sister, and the love of the only man strong enough to win her heart.
Inspired by the stunning, true story of Private Williams, this American heroine comes to vivid life in a sweeping and magnificent tale about one woman’s fight for freedom, respect and independence. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Aka—Tory Cates
• Birth—1949
• Where—Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
• Education—B.A., University of New Mexico; M.A., University of Texas-Austin
• Awards—Texas Literary Hall of Fame; Texas Writer of the Year
• Currently—lives in Austin, Texas
Sarah Bird is a screenwriter and the author of some 10 books, most recently, the 2018 historical novel, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen. Her previous novel, Above the East China Sea (2014) was long-listed for the Dublin International Literary Award.
Although born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Bird's was an air force family, so she and her five siblings moved frequently around the U.S. and overseas to countries including Japan, France, Spain, and the Yucatan Peninsula. A number of her works draw on that part of her life, specifically The Yakoto Officer's Club (2001) and The East China Sea (2014).
Bird attended the University of New Mexico, earning a B.A., and then headed to the University of Texas for her M.A.
In the mid-1980s, Bird co-founded Austin's Third Coast magazine, where she was a contributing editor and feature/humor writer. It was also at this time that Bird she turned to writing fiction: from 1983-1991 she released four novels. An eight-year hiatus followed until 1999, when she began releasing novels every two to four years up to the present. (Bird has also written several Western romances under the pen name Tory Cates.)
Part of Bird's novel writing hiatus was due to the 10 years she spent as a screenwriter for Paramount, CBS, Warner Bros, National Geographic, ABC, TNT, and independent producers. She wrote the screenplay for the 1990 film Don't Tell Her It's Me (starring Shelley Long and Steve Guttenberg), a film based on her own 1989 novel, The Boyfriend School.
In all, Bird turned out a dozen or so film and television scripts—some making it into projects, some not. A real coup, however, came in 2015 when she was selected for the Meryl Streep/Oprah Winfrey Screenwriters’ Lab.
Bird was also chosen for the B&N Discover Great Writers program, NPR's Moth Radio series, the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and New York Libraries Books to Remember list.
Bird is married. She lives with her husband and their son in Austin, Texas. (Adapted from various online sources. Retrieved 10/16/2018.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) [A] rich historical novel…. Bird’s fast-paced, action-packed story is a bittersweet one—grand love and legacy ultimately eluded Williams—but this fearless, often heartbreaking account sheds a welcome light on an extraordinary American warrior.
Publishers Weekly
[T]his novel wraps a fictional narrative around the real-life Cathy Williams, the only woman, disguised as a man, to serve with the Buffalo Soldiers following the Civil War.… [A] not-to-be-missed read for fans of historical military fiction and strong female protagonists. —Wendy W. Paige, Shelby Cty. P.L., Morristown, IN
Library Journal
Bird’s meaty epic provides abundant, intimate details about Cathy’s life as a Buffalo Soldier…. "If you don’t push, you never move ahead," she notes, determining never to be unfree again. An admiring novel about a groundbreaking, mentally tough woman.
Booklist
Bird conveys with epic sweep how Williams’s origins as the granddaughter of an African queen buttressed her strength and verve, whether on the frontlines fighting for westward expansion or, more personally, in the joys and heartbreak of life as an iconoclastic, irrepressible American hero.
National Book Review
[T]he travails of this woman-pretending-to-be-a-man echo across the centuries. Rapturously imagined and shamelessly entertaining.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. "Royal blood runs purple through my veins. And I am talking real Africa blood. Not that tea-water queens over in England have to make due with. My royal blood comes from my grandmother, my Iyaiya, as we call her in For, our secret Africa language" (3).
Discuss Cathy Williams lineage and how she sees herself through the lens of her family’s history and culture. Do you or could you imagine carrying such a sense of self possession or having such a destiny to chase?
2. "Burn every grain of Rebel wheat and every kernel of Rebel corn! Burn it to the ground! I want the crows flying head to have to carry their own rations!" (5)
This is one visceral, violent snap shot of the Civil War and the "total war" style of fighting brought to the battlefield. Did you feel that the more raw, honest writing brought you to the front lines, and into the historical period? Was it an easy leap for you to make?
3. Were you surprised by any realities of a soldier’s life in this era? The sheer inexperience of the young recruits ("strawfoot, hayfoot")? Did you get a strong sense of how an army shapes up together?
4. How do Cathy’s fellow cooks help her integrate into their camp? Are they sympathetic or mostly apathetic to her plight? How does she bond with Solomon?
5. "But I was Mama’s Africa child and if I let the water fall from my eye those tears would of washed away the strength and magic and power Mama had cut into me. Then I’d be like everybody else: A slave not a captive" (21).
What is the distinction Cathy makes between being a slave and being a captive? How does this difference shape the way she resists and persists?
6. "How I wished I could of told those stories in our secret queen language that we spoke when there were no whites about. Iyaiya and Mama and me could paint curlicues, do backward flips, and run across rainbows in that limber tongue" (22).
What is Cathy’s native tongue? What ideas or thoughts might only be expressed in her innermost language? If you are multilingual, are there words or ideas that you find are best kept in your native language? What are they?
7. Why are Clemmie and Cathy both motivated to go West, even if they are following vastly different paths and troops to get there? Is one mode riskier than the other? In what ways?
8. "The woman’s body I was hiding was like an old friend I missed more than I could say.… I whispered to my hidden self and told her she was my twin, my sister, my secret strength"(170).
When does Cathy decide she is going to pose as a male soldier? How does she keep up the act and disguise her female characteristics and hygiene needs? What is at stake if her cover is blown? Do you think you could have had the same level of endurance?
9. "When I spoke, my own words startled me for they came out of a place deeper inside of me than I even knew was there" (129).
How does Iyaiya color the story, even though she never appears physically in the book? What mark has she left on her ancestors, especially on Cathy?
10. "Oh, I was still plenty afraid, but I’d demoted fear to just another condition you have to work around" (87).
What dangers—societal, environmental, physical, emotional—does Cathy face along her journey? Yet how does Cathy embody fearlessness? Where does her battle acumen and ferocious instincts come from?
11. Did you find any of the villains or more unsavory characters of the novel, like Dupree or Vickers, somewhat sympathetic? Who and what actions could you understand the motivations for in a time of war? How does Cathy get her revenge on Vickers for his cruelty?
12. "He tended to me gentle as a mama to her babe" (202).
How does Lem and Cathy’s relationship grow and what do they come to mean for each other? How is Lem’s compassion expressed?
13. What power lies in names? What does "CathyWilliams" come to mean? Or "William Cathy," "Wager Swayne," or "Sergeant Allbright"? Do you believe Wager was afraid to answer Cathy’s first cries of his name?
14. Is it hard to imagine this juncture in history where the West is perceived as a pure and free place to chase one’s destiny? What does Cathy find waiting for her out West? Does it fulfill its promises to her?
15. How might we honor women lost to history with stories like Cathy’s, for their service and sacrifice? In what ways was she a (literal) trailblazer?
16. How did you react when Wager and Cathy at last reunited? How does this union create danger and uncertainty for Cathy? Is the risk worth everything they have both suffered for?
17. "John Horse had the same iron in his soul that was never going to be bent nor beaten into another shape" (223).
Discuss the significance of the meeting with the Black Seminole tribe, John Horse, and key cavalry members. Are their plights not so dissimilar? How are the tribes and the calvary unit both mistreated by the white military leaders, government officials, and settlers? Also, discuss the perception of Native Americans at this juncture in history. How do field reports and graphic storytelling effect policy or the treatment of the tribes?
18. Did you think Cathy’s great mentor General Sheridan betrayed her at the medal ceremony? What did you expect to come from the up-close interaction? Does he redeem himself ultimately? Why do you think Cathy still regards him with tenderness and respect?
19. What did you take away from this book? What surprised you? What were the toughest scenes for you to read, or the most emotionally gratifying?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
The Ten Thousand Doors of January
Alix E. Harrow, 2019
Orbit
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316421997
Summary
In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut.
In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself.
As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.
Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger.
Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.
Lush and richly imagined, a tale of impossible journeys, unforgettable love, and the enduring power of stories awaits in Alix E. Harrow's spellbinding debut—step inside and discover its magic. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Alix E. Harrow is an ex-historian with lots of opinions and excessive library fines, currently living in Kentucky with her husband and their semi-feral children. She won a Hugo for her short fiction, and has been nominated for the Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy awards. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
One for the favorites shelf…. Here is a book to make you happy when you gently close it. Here you will find wonder and questions and an unceasingly gorgeous love of words which compasses even the shape a letter makes against a page.
NPR Books
Harrow quotes at excessive length from The Ten Thousand Doors, a book Julian owns, and January gradually discerns a connection between her own life and that of… a character in Doors. … [For] readers who enjoy portal fantasies featuring adventuresome women.
Publishers Weekly
Harrow’s expressive debut depicts humankind’s resistance to change, repression of the "other," and the desperation of the privileged when their prosperity is threatened. [A] magical coming-of-age tale and allegorical commentary on social justice. —K.L. Romo, Duncanville, TX
Library Journal
The Ten Thousand Doors of January is both whimsical and smart, using engaging writing and a unique plot to touch on serious topics. Harrow's debut reads like a love letter to the art of storytelling itself, and readers will be eager for more from her.
Booklist
Similes and vivid imagery adorn nearly every page like glittering garlands.… This portal fantasy doesn't shy away from racism, classism, and sexism, which helps it succeed as an interesting story. A love letter to imagination, adventure,… and the power of love.
Kirkus Reviews
A stunning debut novel with inventive worlds, sumptuous language and impeccably crafted details... Readers seeking a fresh fantasy with an enduring love story need look no further, and they'll be left wistfully hoping to stumble upon doors of their own.
BookPage
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 TEN THOUSAND DOORS OF JANUARY … then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe January Scaller—when we first meet her? In what way do events change her? Or, perhaps we should ask, how does her true personality emerge during the course of her adventures?
2. In what way does Cornelius Locke (good name, there*) treat January as one of his specimens?
3. January tells us early on about the power of the written word:
[T]here are ten thousand stories about ten thousand doors, and we know them as well as we know our own names. They lead to Faerie, to Valhalla, Atlantis and Lemuria, Heaven and Hell, to all the directions a compass could never take you, to elsewhere.
Talk about the meaning of her observation. In your own reading experience, does literature have the power to immerse you in its stories. What about this book in particular: has it pulled you into its world(s)? What other books have done so for you… or perhaps failed to do so? Is the measure of a book's worth to be judged by its immersive power?
4. Rather than crafting an action-packed thriller, Alix E. Harrow focuses instead on social issues. How does this book, for instance, address racism? What about sexism, including the way women are consigned to asylums for hysteria?
5. How does the book tackle the issue of class and the propensity of the wealthy to protect themselves in the face of threats to their position?
6. What parallels to life in the 21st century do you find in both the story and the story-within-the story?
7. In what way does this fantasy offer hope for change in the real world?
*8. Speaking of names (see Question 2), why the name "January": what does it connote metaphorically? Are there other names that possess symbolic significance?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)