The Map of True Places
Brunonia Barry, 2010
HarperCollins
432 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061624810
Summary
Brunonia Barry, author of the beloved New York Times and international bestseller The Lace Reader is back with an emotionally resonant novel of tragedy, secrets, identity, and love.
This is a moving and remarkable tale of a psychotherapist who discovers the strands of her own life in the death of a troubled patient.
The Map of True Places is another glorious display of the unique storytelling prowess that inspired Toronto’s Globe and Mail to exclaim, “Brunonia Barry can write. Boy can she write.” (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Born—1950
• Where— Massachusettes, USA
• Education—Green Mountain College; Uiversity of New Hampshire
• Awards— Baccante Award-Woman’s International Fiction Festival
• Currently—lives in Salem, Massachusetts.
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Brunonia Barry studied literature and creative writing at Green Mountain college in Vermont and at the University of New Hampshire and was one of the founding members of the Portland Stage Company. While still an undergraduate at UNH, Barry spent a year living in Dublin and auditing Trinity College classes on James Joyce’s Ulysses.
Barry’s love of theater led to a first job in Chicago where she ran promotional campaigns for Second City, Ivanhoe, and Studebaker theaters. After a brief stint in Manhattan, where she studied screenwriting at NYU, Barry relocated to California because she had landed an agent and had an original script optioned. Working on a variety of projects for several studios, she continued to study screenwriting and story structure with Hollywood icon Robert McKee, becoming one of the nine writers in his Development Group.
Brunonia’s love for writing and storytelling has taken her all across the country but after nearly a decade in Hollywood, Barry returned to Massachusetts where, along with her husband, she co-founded an innovative company that creates award-winning word, visual and logic puzzles. In recent years, she has written books for the "Beacon Street Girls", a fictional series for ‘tweens. Happily married, Barry lives with her husband and her only child that just happens to be a 12-year-old Golden Retriever named Byzantium. The Lace Reader was her first original novel.
Barry is the first American Writer to win the Woman’s International Fiction Festival’s 2009 Baccante Award (for The Lace Reader). Her second novel, The Map of True Places, was published in 2010. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
[C]onsiderable if overplotted.... This is a lovingly told story with many well-drawn characters, who sooner or later reconsider the courses charted by personal decisions and circumstance. But there is almost too much story here, and Barry...compromises the third act with a weak subplot...[in] an otherwise well-told tale.
Publishers Weekly
Zee’s a vulnerable, likable character, and the dramatic narrative brings her experience to life...readers will be perched on the edge of their seats while consuming this mesmerizing, suspenseful tale.
Library Journal
Like her hit debut, The Lace Reader (2008), Barry’s second novel features an involving, intricately woven story and vivid descriptions of historic Salem.
Booklist
Gripping and emotionally taut, this is a novel brimming with both the messy and the lovely parts of life. A provocative examination of family, aging, and finding your true place in the world, The Map of True Places is sure to smoothly sail up the bestseller list.
BookPage
(Starred review.) Although marred by unnecessary "come-to-realize" moments, this woman-in-jeopardy thriller retooled with gothic elements—shifting identities, secrets and portents, a deserted cottage and a missing suicide note—manages to transcend its component cliches.... [H]ighly readable.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. At the beginning of the novel, Brunonia Barry includes a quote from Herman Melville. "It is not down in any map; true places never are." Why do you think the author chose this quote to begin her story? Is the epigraph contradictory or complementary to the book's title?
2. Three women play a nurturing role in Zee's life'her mother, Maureen; her boss, Liz, and her mother's friend, Ann. Describe Zee's relationship to all three and explore what she learned from each.
3. At the beginning of The Map of True Places we are introduced to a psychological theory propounded by Zee's boss. According to Liz, "a daughter will always live out the unfulfilled dreams of the mother," especially if "those dreams were never expressed." Does this theory hold validity for you? Was Zee living out the unfulfilled dreams of her dead mother, Maureen? What dreams? Explain.
4. Another of Mattie's old adages was that everybody lies, to other people, but most importantly to themselves. What lies did the characters in the book tell themselves? How did they shape their relationships to one another?
5. Why did the death of Zee's patient, Lilly, upset her so deeply? Could Lilly have been saved? What bout Zee's mother? Were Lilly and Maureen alike? Why did Zee blame herself for both tragedies? How can we learn to let go of regrets, to get beyond the "what ifs" in life? Did Zee eventually learn to do so?
6. When she was a girl, Zee had a strong sense of herself, yet as a grown woman, she is unsure of who she is and what she wants from life. How do we lose that sense of certainty we often have as children? How did Zee lose it? Can we retain it, or does the process of maturing overshadow our youthful notions? How do the events of the story transform Zee? Does she find clarity by the novel's end?
7. The loss of self is also evident as Zee's father, Finch, succumbs to Parkinson's Disease and Alzheimer's. What did caring for Finch offer the young woman? Did her father's decline offer clarity or just confuse her more in her struggle to understand herself?
8. Talk about Zee's relationship to her father, Finch, and his significant other Melville. Was she closer to one than the other? What impact did Finch have on Zee's development? What about Melville?
9. Do you agree with Melville's actions concerning the book of Yeats's poetry at the novel's end? What propelled him to do this? Did he ever have anything to be sorry for?
10. How did Maureen's story The Once color Zee's perceptions of love? What impact did it have on how she viewed Hawke? Who did Zee think Maureen was writing about? Maureen never finished The Once. How do you think it should end?
11. Celestial navigation is a theme interwoven throughout the book. What is the significance to the story? Did reading The Map of True Places make you interested in learning more about this lost art? Do you have a constant in your life that helps guide you to safety?
12. Home is another touchstone of The Map of True Places. What is home? What impact does "home" and the idea of home have on our lives and who we are? In Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolfe wrote, "you can't go home again." Do you agree with this?
13. The author skillfully interweaves literature and history into The Map of True Places. Choose any of these elements, such as Zee's full name, Hephzibah, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, the Friendship, and talk about its significance to the story and the characters.
14. What did you take away from reading The Map of True Places? If you read Brunonia Barry's first novel, The Lace Reader, how do the works compare and relate to each other?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Paris in the Present Tense
Mark Helprin, 2017
The Overlook Press
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781468314762
Summary
The magnificent new novel by the gifted, singular #1 New York Times bestselling author of Winter's Tale and A Soldier of the Great War.
Mark Helprin's powerful, rapturous new novel is set in a present-day Paris caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories.
Seventy-four-year-old Jules Lacour — a maître at Paris-Sorbonne, cellist, widower, veteran of the war in Algeria, and child of the Holocaust — must find a balance between his strong obligations to the past and the attractions and beauties of life and love in the present.
In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life — days bright with music, family, rowing on the Seine — Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward.
He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist a third his age.
Against the backdrop of an exquisite and knowing vision of Paris and the way it can uniquely shape a life, Mark Helprin forges a denouement that is staggering in its humanity, elegance, and truth.
In the intoxicating beauty of its prose and emotional amplitude of its storytelling, Paris in the Present Tense is a soaring achievement, a deep, dizzying look at a life through the purifying lenses of art and memory. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1947
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., Harvard University
• Awards—National Jewish Book Award
• Currently—lives in Earlysville, Virginia
Mark Helprin is an American novelist, journalist, conservative commentator, Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, and Member of the Council on Foreign Relations. While Helprin's fictional works straddle a number of disparate genres and styles, he has stated that he "belongs to no literary school, movement, tendency, or trend"
Biography
Helprin was born in Manhattan, New York in 1947. His father, Morris Helprin, worked in the film industry, eventually becoming president of London Films. His mother was actress Eleanor Lynn Helprin, who starred in several Broadway productions in the 1930s and 40s. In 1953 the family left New York City for the prosperous Hudson River Valley suburb of Ossining, New York. He was raised on the Hudson River and later in the British West Indies. Helprin holds degrees from Harvard University, and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Helprin's postgraduate study was at Princeton University and Magdalen College, Oxford, University of Oxford, 1976-77. He is Jewish-American, and he became an Israeli citizen during the late 1970s. He served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force. Helprin is married to Lisa (Kennedy) Helprin. They have two daughters, Alexandra and Olivia. They live on a 56-acre farm in Earlysville, Virginia, and like his father and grandfather who had farms before him, Helprin does much of the work on his land.
Novels, Short Stories and Periodicals
His first novel, published in 1977, was Refiner's Fire: The Life and Adventures of Marshall Pearl, a Foundling. The 1983 novel Winter's Tale is a sometimes fantastic tale of early 20th century life in New York City. He published A Soldier of the Great War in 1991. Memoir from Antproof Case, published in 1995, includes long comic diatribes against the effects of coffee. Helprin came out with Freddy and Fredericka, a satire, in 2005. His latest, In Sunshine and In Shadow, was released in 2012, and has been described as an extended love song to New York City.
Helprin has published three books of short stories: A Dove of the East & Other Stories (1975), Ellis Island & Other Stories (1981), and The Pacific and Other Stories (2004). He has written three children's books, all of which are illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg: Swan Lake, A City in Winter, and The Veil of Snows. His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages.
Helprin's writing has appeared in The New Yorker for two decades. He writes essays and a column for the Claremont Review of Books. His writings, including political op-eds, have appeared in The Wall Street Journal (for which he was a contributing editor until 2006), The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, National Review, American Heritage, and other publications.
Controversy
Helprin published an op-ed for the May 20, 2007 issue of The New York Times, in which he argued that intellectual property rights should be assigned to an author or artist as far as Congress could practically extend it. The overwhelmingly negative response to his position on the blogosphere and elsewhere was reported on The New York Times's blog the next day. Helprin was said to be shocked by the response.
In April 2009, HarperCollins published Helprin's "writer's manifesto", Digital Barbarism. In May, Lawrence Lessig penned a review of the book entitled "The Solipsist and the Internet" in which he described the book as a response to the "digital putdown" heaped upon Helprin's New York Times op-ed. Lessig called Helprin's writing "insanely sloppy" and also criticized HarperCollins for publishing a book "riddled with the most basic errors of fact."
In response to such criticisms Helprin wrote a long defense of his book in the September 21, 2009 edition of National Review, which concluded: "Digital Barbarism is not as much a defense of copyright as it is an attack upon a distortion of culture that has become a false savior in an age of many false saviors. Despite its lack of mechanical perfections, humanity, as stumbling and awkward as it is, is far superior to the machine. It always has been and always will be, and this conviction must never be surrendered. But surrender these days is incremental, seems painless, and comes so quietly that warnings are drowned in silence."
In May 2010, Helprin wrote an article which stated that China's military is "on the cusp" of being able to dominate Taiwan and the rest of the Far East.
Honors and Accomplishments
A Fellow of the American Academy in Rome and a former Guggenheim Fellow, Helprin has been awarded the National Jewish Book Award and the Prix de Rome from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
He is also a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. In 1996 he served as a foreign policy advisor and speechwriter to presidential candidate Bob Dole.
In May 2006, the New York Times Book Review published a list of American novels, compiled from the responses to "a short letter [from the NYT Book Review] to a couple of hundred prominent writers, critics, editors and other literary sages, asking them to identify 'the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years.'" Among the twenty-two books to have received multiple votes was Helprin's Winter's Tale.
In 2006 Helprin received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award. This award is presented annually by the Tulsa Library Trust.
On November 8, 2010, in New York City, Helprin was awarded the 2010 Salvatori Prize in the American Founding by the Claremont Institute. (Adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[Helprin's] generosity of language and emotion allows room for missteps as well as brilliance. His Paris does exist in the present tense, irresistibly, undeniably real and alive, as though summoned by its creator rather than imagined. In this, the novel performs perfectly the function of literature, which is not to escape the world but to enter more completely into it.
Max Byrd - New York Times Book Review
In most of the novels written in the United States since World War II, we find characters who have little or nothing to believe in.… Mark Helprin is one ofthe rare writers for whom this is not the case.… His books are romances in the chivalric mold, in which beauty, love and bravery possess a greater reality than the characters dedicated to honoring them. This is true again in his enchanting new novel, Paris in the Present Tense.… This passionate and uplifting book produces a kind of music that few living writers know how to create.
Sam Sacks - Washington Post
Paris in the Present Tense is a twilight novel, and its love affair, essential to any Helprin work, is a complex one, haunted by time.… Helprin, author of the indelible Winter's Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, has always been most comfortable in the epic mode, retaining a classicist's eye for beauty while preserving enough of the contemporary world to speak to the present. His prose has an aching beauty.|
Saul Austerlitz - Boston Globe
In his seventies, widower Jules Lacour sits at the top of an accomplished life…. But now the pleasures of the present are vying with obligations to past and principle as Jules risks fraud to save a dangerously ill grandson.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) The fluidity of Helprin's prose…makes this novel of ideas so utterly captivating.
Booklist
(Starred review.) A modern-day story of love, music, and death, with echoes of the Nazi retreat in World War II France.… A masterpiece filled with compassion and humanity. Perfect for the pure pleasure of reading.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. How does Mark Helprin use flashbacks to tell Jules Lacour's story? How does this technique affect your reading of the novel, and of Jules as a character?
2. What role do the city of Paris and its history play in the novel?
3. What did you make of Jules' ultimately unsuccessful experience composing Acorn's "telephone hold music"?
4. How did the violent acts on the Pont de Bir-Hakeim change your understanding of Jules? Was Jules' reaction to the events he stumbled upon justified?
5. How does Jules' Jewish faith and heritage inform his actions and beliefs? How is today's rising wave of religious intolerance framed and portrayed in the novel?
6. What does the Seine — the dangerous channel where Jules has rowed against the current for six decades, and the depths into which he submerges himself following the events on the Pont de Bir-Hakeim — symbolize in the story?
7. Characters like Detectives Arnaud and Duvalier, young Elodi the cellist, the insurance agent Armand Marteau, and Professor Amina Belkacem emerge, disappear, and re-emerge throughout the novel. Why are their stories told in this manner? Whose narrative did you find the most powerful or effecting?
8. How does Jules weigh his loyalties and obligations — to Jacqueline and years past, to his grandson Luc and the promise of his family's future, and to his own present feelings and desires for Elodi and Amina — throughout the novel? How do his past experiences affect the decisions he makes?
9. Jules begins the novel as a 74-year-old man with deeply rooted habits and beliefs. How does he change throughout the course of the novel? What, if anything, prompts these changes?
10. The theme of an older man's infatuation with a youth appears throughout literature. For example, Sir Thomas Wyatt's "They Flee from Me," Cohen and Melissa in Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet, Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, and Gustav von Aschenbach in Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, to name just a few. How is Jules similar to his predecessors in this regard, as a man close to death who grasps at the incarnation of youth and life, and how does he differ?
11. Despite his experiences with the Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren, Jules calls music "the oxygen that had kept him alive" (392). How can this be true? What does music mean to Jules, and why?
12. The virtues of right-conduct, courage, modesty, self-discipline and self-sacrifice are largely absent from the modern anti-hero, whose job is often to show them as destructive and hypocritical. This book is different. How? Why? And what is your view?
13. In an interview with Open Letters Monthly, Helprin calls Paris in the Present Tense a novel about, among other themes, "dying well." He says, "knowing how to die well makes it possible to live well." What does it mean to you to "die well"? Does Jules "die well"?
14. The author has stated that the more work you put into a book, the more you get out of it. He has also stated that one of his goals is to draw in, entrance, and transport the reader to the point where, like a dream, at times the book seems more real than reality. These statements may seem contradictory, but are they?
15. Would Paris in the Present Tense make a movie you might like to see — visually, emotionally, musically, and in terms of action, suspense, and even humor.
(Questions issued by the publisher, The Overlook Press.)
Good Luck with That
Kristan Higgins, 2018
Penguin Publishing
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451489395
Summary
Kristan Higgins is beloved for her heartfelt novels filled with humor and wisdom. Now, she tackles an issue every woman deals with: body image and self-acceptance.
Emerson, Georgia, and Marley have been best friends ever since they met at a weight-loss camp as teens. When Emerson tragically passes away, she leaves one final wish for her best friends: to conquer the fears they still carry as adults.
For each of them, that means something different. For Marley, it's coming to terms with the survivor's guilt she's carried around since her twin sister's death, which has left her blind to the real chance for romance in her life.
For Georgia, it's about learning to stop trying to live up to her mother's and brother's ridiculous standards, and learning to accept the love her ex-husband has tried to give her.
But as Marley and Georgia grow stronger, the real meaning of Emerson's dying wish becomes truly clear: more than anything, she wanted her friends to love themselves.
A novel of compassion and insight, Good Luck With That tells the story of two women who learn to embrace themselves just the way they are. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1965
• Raised—Whiteyville, Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., College of the Holy Cross
• Awards—2 RITA Awards
• Currently—lives in Durham, Connecticut
Kristan Higgins is the New York Times, Publishers Weekly and USA Today bestselling author or nearly 20 books. Her works books have been translated into more than 20 languages. She has received dozens of awards and accolades, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, The New York Journal of Books and Kirkus.
Kristan lives in Connecticut with her heroic firefighter husband, two atypically affectionate children, a neurotic rescue mutt and an occasionally friendly cat. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
A friend gave me this book to take along on a long flight home from our annual girlfriend reunion, and at first glance, I wasn’t sure it would be a novel I would enjoy.… Anyway, I full-out fell for this novel. It brought up so many issues women have with their bodies. Also brimming with themes related to family, romance, work, and friendship, it quickly became a compulsive read.… The Readers Guide is readymade for book clubs and weight loss groups. I can imagine some really lively and empathetic discussions taking place around this (ultimately) heartwarming book. (READ MORE…)
Keddy Outlaw - LitLovers
Good Luck With That is a powerful testament to the hard work of self-love… a paean to how it’s never too early (or too late) to be a little kinder to yourself, an inspiring meditation on how to embrace the supportive individuals in your life and stand up to the toxic ones, and a love story.… [Good Luck With That is] the story of learning to love oneself, and living a life that leads with that love, in all its joy, sorrow, failure, and triumph.
Entertainment Weekly
(Starred review) Higgins writes with uncommon grace and empathy about a fraught topic for many people: weight.… This novel is a winner.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Higgins writes with her trademark heart, humor, and emotion, addressing the serious and somber subject of body image.… Highly recommended.
Library Journal
[A] heartbreakingly gorgeous story of female friendship and what it takes to feel comfortable in one’s own skin.
Booklist
Higgins’ astute, perceptive eye to the best and worst of human nature enhances the poignancy of a sensitive topic, which she navigates with humor and grace.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The author chose not to reveal the exact weights and sizes of Georgia and Marley, leaving you to draw your own conclusions? How did you picture Marley and Georgia? How do you think body image affects women who aren’t overweight? Does someone’s weight influence how you judge them?
2. Marley is a twin without a twin and feels the need to fill that void through friendships and relationships. How do you think the ghost of Frankie has helped and hurt her through the years? What about her family’s treatment of Frankie? How much do you think the loss of Frankie affected Marley’s physical self?
3. Marley is someone who embraces the idea of “healthy at any weight.” She eats well most of the time, loves to exercise and has a pretty positive self-image. In one scene, she takes a hard look at her body and decides she will not only accept it in its current size, but appreciate it. Do you think it’s possible to overcome negative stereotypes you hold about yourself?
4. Georgia’s brother, Hunter, is negative, intolerant and often cruel. Have you ever met someone like him? How do you think his treatment of Georgia as a child sabotaged her in her adult life? Do you think it’s possible for someone like Hunter to be a good parent? Do you know anyone like Georgia and Hutner’s mother, who treats her children in a vastly different manner?
5. Emerson’s weight and eating issues are not romanticized—the difficulty of her day-to-day life, her isolation, the lies she tells others and herself, the constant obsession with food. Do you know anyone like her, and if so, do you ever discuss food issues with them? How has that been?
6. Emerson, Georgia and Marley are not the only female characters with weight issues in this book. Who are some of the other characters who have weight problems, and what are the issues they represent in the story?
7. Marley, Georgia and Emerson have a very deep bond. Georgia and Marley see each other more often, but both women still feel very connected to Emerson over the years. How can friends stay close without spending time together? Do you have any long-distance friends who are especially close to you? Why do you think Marley and Georgia remained so close?
8. Do you think our culture has impossible beauty standards?Are these changing at all?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Afterlife
Julia Alvarez, 2020
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781643750255
Summary
The first adult novel in almost fifteen years by the internationally bestselling author of In the Time of the Butterflies and How the García Girls Lost Their Accents.
Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies.
And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep.
Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.
Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—March 27, 1949
• Where—New York, New York
• Raised—Dominican Repubic
• Education—B.A., Middlebury College; M.F.A., University of Syracuse
• Awards—(below)
• Currently—lives in Middlebury, Vermont
Julia Alvarez was born in New York City during her Dominican parents' "first and failed" stay in the United States. While she was still an infant, the family returned to the Dominican Republic—where her father, a vehement opponent of the Trujillo dictatorship, resumed his activities with the resistance. In 1960, in fear for their safety, the Alvarezes fled the country, settling once more in New York.
Education
Alvarez has often said that the immigrant experience was the crucible that turned her into a writer. Her struggle with the nuances of the English language made her deeply conscious of the power of words, and exposure to books and reading sharpened both her imagination and her storytelling skills. She graduated summa cum laude from Middlebury College in 1971, received her M.F.A. from Syracuse University, and spent the next two decades in the education field, traveling around the country with the poetry-in-the-schools program and teaching English and Creative Writing to elementary, high school, and college students.
Writing
Alvarez is regarded as one of the most critically and commercially successful Latina writers of her time. Her published works include five novels, a book of essays, four collections of poetry, four children's books, and two works of adolescent fiction.
Among her first published works were collections of poetry; The Homecoming, published in 1984, was expanded and republished in 1996. Poetry was Alvarez's first form of creative writing and she explains that her love for poetry has to do with the fact that "a poem is very intimate, heart-to-heart." Her poetry celebrates nature and the detailed rituals of daily life, including domestic chores. Her poems portray stories of family life and are often told from the perspective of women. She questions patriarchal privilege and examines issues of exile, assimilation, identity, and the struggle of the lower class in an introspective manner. She found inspiration for her work from a small painting from 1894 by Pierre Bonnard called The Circus Rider. Her poems, critic Elizabeth Coonrod Martínez suggests, give voice to the immigrant struggle.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Alvarez's first novel, was published in 1991, and was soon widely acclaimed. It is the first major novel written in English by a Dominican author. A largely personal novel, the book details themes of cultural hybridization and the struggles of a post-colonial Dominican Republic. Alvarez illuminates the integration of the Latina immigrant into the U.S. mainstream and shows that identity can be deeply affected by gender, ethnic, and class differences. She uses her own experiences to illustrate deep cultural contrasts between the Caribbean and the United States. So personal was the material in the novel, that for months after it was published, her mother refused to speak with her; her sisters were also not pleased with the book. The book has sold over 250,000 copies, and was cited as an American Library Association Notable Book.
Released in 1994, her second novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, has a historical premise and elaborates on the death of the Mirabal sisters during the time of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic. In 1960 their bodies were found at the bottom of a cliff on the north coast of the island, and it is said they were a part of a revolutionary movement to overthrow the oppressive regime of the country at the time. These legendary figures are referred to as Las Mariposas, or The Butterflies. This story portrays women as strong characters who have the power to alter the course of history, demonstrating Alvarez's affinity for strong female protagonists and anti-colonial movements. As Alvarez explains, "I hope that through this fictionalized story I will bring acquaintance of these famous sisters to English speaking readers. November 25, the day of their murders is observed in many Latin American countries as the International Day Against Violence Toward Women. Obviously, these sisters, who fought one tyrant, have served as models for women fighting against injustices of all kinds."
In 1997, Alvarez published Yo!, a sequel to How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, which focuses solely on the character of Yolanda. Drawing from her own experiences, Alvarez portrays the success of a writer who uses her family as the inspiration for her work. Yo! could be considered Alvarez's musings on and criticism of her own literary success. Alvarez's opinions on the hybridization of culture are often conveyed through the use of Spanish-English malapropisms, or Spanglish; such expressions are especially prominent in How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Alvarez describes the language of the character of Laura as "a mishmash of mixed-up idioms and sayings."
In the Name of Salome (2000) is a novel that weaves together the lives of two distinct women, illustrating how they devoted their lives to political causes. It takes place in several locations, including the Dominican Republic before a backdrop of political turbulence, Communist Cuba in the 1960s, and several university campuses across the United States, containing themes of empowerment and activism. As the protagonists of this novel are both women, Alvarez illustrates how these women, "came together in their mutual love of [their homeland] and in their faith in the ability of women to forge a conscience for Out Americas." This book has been widely acclaimed for its careful historical research and captivating story, and was described by Publishers Weekly as "one of the most politically moving novels of the past half century.
Honors and awards
Alvarez has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. Some of her poetry manuscripts now have a permanent home in the New York Public Library, where her work was featured in an exhibit, "The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, From John Donne to Julia Alvarez." She received the Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets in 1974, first prize in narrative from the Third Woman Press Award in 1986, and an award from the General Electric Foundation in 1986.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was the winner of the 1991 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for works that present a multicultural viewpoint. Yo! was selected as a notable book by the American Library Association in 1998. Before We Were Free won the Belpre Medal in 2004, and Return to Sender won the Belpre Medal in 2010. She also received the 2002 Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature. (From Wikipedia and Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
A new short, lyric novel from the author of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies? Yes, please, and thank you.
Washington Post
Alvarez crafts a moving portrait of the lengths people will go to help one another in moments of uncertainty.
Time
[A] remarkable and nuanced novel exploring immigration, humanity and compassion in a bitter and fractured world.
Ms. Magazine
A gorgeously intimate portrait of an immigrant writer and recent widow carving out hope in the face of personal and political grief.
Oprah Magazine
A sweeping tour de force…. [O]ne of the most significant Latina writers of her time.
Entertainment Weekly
Alvarez blends light humor with deep empathy toward her characters, offering a convincing portrait of an older woman’s self discovery. This will satisfy her fans and earn new ones.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Alvarez’s prose is magnetic as she delves into the intricacies of sisterhood, immigration, and grief,… proving her mastery as a storyteller. This stirring novel reminds readers that actions… have a lasting impact—so they should always act with love.
Library Journal
(Starred review) The sisters’ dynamic relationships brim with a funny but genuine Latina exuberance flowing from deep-rooted love.… Antonia’s inner voice is engaging, troubled, and ultimately, hopeful. A charming novel of immigration, loss, and love.
Booklist
(Starred review) A funny, moving novel of loss and love…. Alvarez writes with knowing warmth about how well sisters know how to push on each other's bruises and how powerfully they can lift each other up. In this bighearted novel, family bonds heal a woman's grief.
Kirkus Reviews
(Starred review) In one moving scene after another, Alvarez dramatizes the sustaining power of stories…. True to its title, Afterlife cannily explores what it means to go on after a loss…. This is a beautiful book.
BookPage
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points for AFTERLIFE by JULIA ALVARAZ ... then take off on our own:
1. How is Antonia affected by both the death of her husband, grief of course, but also her retirement?
2. Antonia thinks that should she return to writing; she wants it "to come from that deeper, hurting place." What does she mean? Why must the creative endeavor come from a painful place? And where is "that" place located? In memory, in the psyche, in the soul? In other words, where does creativity come from?
3. Describe Antonia's relationship with her sisters. Their lives have been to some extent ensconced in privilege: they have never had to face the dehumanizing fear and oppression confronting Maria and Estela. Why have they been protected?
4. How does Antonia begin to realize the current life of young migrants and the daily anxieties they must cope with? Consider the sheriff and even Antonia's neighbors.
5. Does Antonia rise to the level of a savior, or does she hesitate, hemming and hawing, hoping to keep a distance between her new friends' problems. She reminds us that "just because she's Latina, doesn't automatically confer on her the… inclinations of a Mother Teresa." What do you think Antonia's moral obligations are? What would yours be in her shoes?
6. Trace the ways in which Antonia begins to define what it means to care for others—starting from the platitudes of self-care to eventually realizing her responsibility to those around her.
7. Afterlife asks us to consider what our obligations as humans are to one another? Does the leave you with a sense of hope for our fractured world… or not?
8. What role does Antonia's love for literature play in this novel? How does it offer her consolation and help her find her place in the larger world? What about you? Does literature provide you solace, does it reveal a vision of your better self and offer a path forward for living it?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
All That's Left to Tell
Daniel Lowe, 2017
Flatiron Books
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250085559
Summary
All That's Left to Tell "celebrates not just the power of storytelling but the deeply human need for it in even the most dire situations. Alternately gripping and dreamy, Daniel Lowe’s debut imagines what the stories we tell reveal about ourselves, and how they may save us.”
—Stewart O’Nan, author of West of Sunset
Every night, Marc Laurent, an American taken hostage in Pakistan, is bound and blindfolded. And every night, a woman he knows only as Josephine visits his cell.
At first, her questions are mercenary: is there anyone back home who will pay the ransom? But when Marc can offer no name, she asks him a question about his daughter that is even more terrifying than his captivity. And so begins a strange yet increasingly comforting ritual, in which Josephine and Marc tell each other stories.
As these stories build upon one another, a father and daughter start to find their way toward understanding each other again. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—N/A
• Where—rural Michigan, USA
• Education—M.F.A., University of Pittsburgh
• Currently—lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Daniel Lowe is an author and professor of creative writing in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was raised in rural Michigan and received his MFA in fiction writing from the University of Pittsburgh.
His fiction and poetry have appeared in West Branch, Nebraska Review, Montana Review, Wisconsin Review, Writing Room, The Bridge, Paterson Literary Review, Ellipsis, Blue Stem, Midway Journal, and The Madison Review. All That’s Left to Tell is his debut. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
The spirit of Scheherazade animates this first novel…. [A] dramatic case for the importance of stories as a way to deal with life’s tragic events. Despite one too many meta-games with the reader, the characters here remain real and memorable, a credit to Lowe’s storytelling skill.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Luscious…. Compelling. Lowe’s elaborate tapestry showcases humankind’s reliance on the power of stories to comfort, correct, and clarify both our hidden feelings and exposed fears. With its shifting points of view and emotional authenticity, Lowe’s masterfully crafted first novel will be a surefire hit with book discussion groups.
Booklist
[H]aunting…. captivating…. Lowe's prose is evocative, the plot gripping, and the attachment that reaches across the alienation between these characters reaches out to the reader as well. A story about storytelling, stirring and effective.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for All That's Left to Tell...and then take off on your own:
1. Marc Laurent is hardly the lucrative executive that captives would hope for in a kidnapping—it's unclear that anyone would ransom him. What in Marc's life or his personality has led to this estrangement? How would you describe him?
2. Who is Josephine and what is her function in the novel?
3. In reading this, is it possible to untangle what's true from what is not? Which story, or whose story, can you believe in?
4Follow-up to Question 3: Daniel Lowe's novel is about storytelling. In what way does the author turn the conventional novel and the reader's need for, or expectations of, verisimilitude on its head...and why?
5. Talk about the alternative lives that Marc and his daughter Claire have in this novel. How do those stories provide comfort? In what ways does the novel suggest we use the stories that we tell ourselves and others to find comfort in life?
6. What is the significance of the book's title?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)