The Floating World
C. Morgan Babst, 2017
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616205287
Summary
In this dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, C. Morgan Babst takes readers into the heart of Hurricane Katrina and the life of a great city.
As the storm is fast approaching the Louisiana coast, Cora Boisdore refuses to leave the city.
Her parents, Joe Boisdore, an artist descended from freed slaves who became the city’s preeminent furniture makers, and his white “Uptown” wife, Dr. Tess Eshleman, are forced to evacuate without her, setting off a chain of events that leaves their marriage in shambles and Cora catatonic — the victim or perpetrator of some violence mysterious even to herself.
This mystery is at the center of Babst’s haunting and profound novel.
Cora’s sister, Del, returns to New Orleans from the successful life she built in New York City to find her hometown in ruins and her family deeply alienated from one another. As Del attempts to figure out what happened to her sister, she must also reckon with the racial history of the city and the trauma of a disaster that was not, in fact, some random act of God but an avoidable tragedy visited on New Orleans’s most vulnerable citizens.
Separately and together, each member of the Boisdore clan must find the strength to remake home in a city forever changed.
The Floating World is the Katrina story that needed to be told—one with a piercing, unforgettable loveliness and a vivid, intimate understanding of this particular place and its tangled past. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
C. Morgan Babst is a native of New Orleans. She studied writing at New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Yale, and NYU, and her essays and short fiction have appeared in such journals as Garden and Gun, Oxford American, Guernica, Harvard Review, and New Orleans Review. The Floating World is her first novel. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
In scripture, the great flood was a purifying event. When, after 40 days and nights, the rain ceased and the waters receded, wickedness had been cleansed from the earth. (It grew back stronger than ever, but never mind.) But real floods, C. Morgan Babst reminds us in The Floating World… don’t wash away human contamination; they bring it to the surface.
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal
The Floating World is the most striking New Orleans novel inspired by Hurricane Katrina so far, a story as complex and nonlinear as the map of the Crescent City, interweaving the troubles caused by the storm with the specific difficulties one family already faced before the first raindrop fell.
Marion Winik - Newsday
Set in New Orleans, this important and powerful novel follows the Boisdore family…in the months after Katrina. A profound, moving and authentically detailed picture of the storm’s emotional impact on those who lived through it.
People
C. Morgan Babst's portrait of a troubled New Orleans family that fractures further during and after Hurricane Katrina is poetic and suspenseful.… [A]n ambitious novel.
NPR.org
This is a spot-on examination of race and the tumult natural disasters leave in their wake.
Marie Claire
This powerful family drama (with a mystery at its core) promises to be an emotional read. A dazzling debut about family, home, and grief, The Floating World takes readers into the heart of Hurricane Katrina with the story of the Boisdores, whose roots stretch back nearly to the foundation of New Orleans.
Paste Magazine
This unforgettable and timely novel tells the story of those who lost everything in the hurricane and the lives they sought to rebuild.
RealSimple.com
Set in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this wrenching and hypnotic book will give you chills with its descriptions of the flooding.
Bustle
Babst’s tightly written debut focuses on the fractured Boisdore clan, whose familial tensions are brought to a head in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.… [T]his is a riveting novel about the inescapable pull of family.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) A richly written, soak-in-it kind of book.… The mystery of what really happened unfolds with breath-holding poignancy throughout the shifting narrative.… Utterly affecting.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [A] powerful, important novel.… Deeply felt and beautifully written; a major addition to the literature of Katrina.
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::
1. In The Floating World, the flood functions as both plot point and symbol. It "had hidden the mess, lifted everything up, given the city of a sense of buoyancy." What is the meaning of that observation? What is the mess that is hidden, and what is lifted up — both literally and figuratively?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: How else does the storm become a metaphor? Consider the uprooted magnolia tree that has crashed through the roof or the water that puts everything adrift.
3. How was it that Cora is left in New Orleans while her parents evacuated? Is Joe to be blamed for her refusal to leave?
4. Describe the Boisdore couple, Joe and Tess, and their marriage. What are the fissures in their relationship that are widened irreparably during Katrina? What slights, aspirations, observations, and disappointments do Joe and Tess grapple with yet rarely discuss openly?
5. How would you describe Del as well as her relationship with her family? What effect does her return to New Orleans have on the rest of the Boisdores?
6. In what way do race and culture drive the action of this novel, as much as, perhaps even more so, than Katrina?
7. Talk about Vincent Boisdore, Joe's father. In what way does he behave as both an old man and a child?
8. "Grief was infinite, though wasn't it something like love that, divided, did not diminish?" What does that question / observation mean, and how does it apply to members of the Boisdore family?
9. Whose narrative point of view most engaged you in this novel?
10. “MAKE GOOD, as if any good could be made out of what was, essentially, a hate crime of municipal proportions.” In what way are racism and class responsible for the Katrina debacle?
11. Consider each of the ways the Boisdore family members live up to the last line of the novel: "I'm home."
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
November Road
Lou Berney, 2018
HarperCollins
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062663849
Summary
Set against the assassination of JFK, a poignant and evocative crime novel that centers on a desperate cat-and-mouse chase across 1960s America—a story of unexpected connections, daring possibilities, and the hope of second chances from the Edgar Award-winning author of The Long and Faraway Gone.
Frank Guidry’s luck has finally run out.
A loyal street lieutenant to New Orleans’ mob boss Carlos Marcello, Guidry has learned that everybody is expendable. But now it’s his turn—he knows too much about the crime of the century: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Within hours of JFK’s murder, everyone with ties to Marcello is turning up dead, and Guidry suspects he’s next: he was in Dallas on an errand for the boss less than two weeks before the president was shot. With few good options, Guidry hits the road to Las Vegas, to see an old associate—a dangerous man who hates Marcello enough to help Guidry vanish.
Guidry knows that the first rule of running is "don’t stop," but when he sees a beautiful housewife on the side of the road with a broken-down car, two little daughters and a dog in the back seat, he sees the perfect disguise to cover his tracks from the hit men on his tail. Posing as an insurance man, Guidry offers to help Charlotte reach her destination, California. If she accompanies him to Vegas, he can help her get a new car.
For her, it’s more than a car—it’s an escape. She’s on the run too, from a stifling existence in small-town Oklahoma and a kindly husband who’s a hopeless drunk.
It’s an American story: two strangers meet to share the open road west, a dream, a hope—and find each other on the way.
Charlotte sees that he’s strong and kind; Guidry discovers that she’s smart and funny. He learns that’s she determined to give herself and her kids a new life; she can’t know that he’s desperate to leave his old one behind.
Another rule—fugitives shouldn’t fall in love, especially with each other. A road isn’t just a road, it’s a trail, and Guidry’s ruthless and relentless hunters are closing in on him. But now Guidry doesn’t want to just survive, he wants to really live, maybe for the first time.
Everyone’s expendable, or they should be, but now Guidry just can’t throw away the woman he’s come to love.
And it might get them both killed. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1964-65
• Where—Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
• Education—Loyola University, New Orleans; University of Massachuesetts, Amherst
• Awards—Edgar Award (Best Paperback)
• Currently—lives in Oklahoma City
Lou Berney is the author of several novels, including November Road (2018), The Long and Faraway Gone (2015), Whiplash River (2012), and Gutshot Straight (2010), as well as a collection of short stories, The Road to Bobby Joe (1991).
His short fiction has appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Ploughshares, and the Pushcart Prize anthology, and he has written feature screenplays and created television pilots for, among others, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Focus Features, ABC, and Fox. He teaches in the Red Earth MFA program at Oklahoma City University. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
[T]his superior novel from Edgar winner Lou Berney melds crime fiction with a tale about people reinventing themselves, played out during a cross-country automobile trip.…An emotional story about the power of love and redemption through sacrifice with the backdrop of a crucial historical moment.
Associated Press
(Starred review) [A] moving novel.… While Berney creates nail-biting suspense …, the book’s power derives from Charlotte, who finds hidden strength as she confronts unexpected challenges. This is much more than just another conspiracy thriller.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) [Berney] explores relationships between two complicated and realized characters. With depth and genre crossover appeal, this literary crime thriller will please fans of Dennis Lehane or George Pelecanos and also satisfy a wider audience. —Gregg Winsor, Johnson Cty. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Library Journal
(Starred review) Berney bends his notes exquisitely, playing with the melody, building his marvelously rich characters while making us commit completely to the love story, even though we hear the melancholy refrain and see the noir cloud lurking in the sky. Pitch-perfect fiction.
Booklist
(Starred review) As a shocked nation mourns the assassination of John F. Kennedy, two lost souls looking for a new chance at life find each other along the wide-open Western highways.… As the title suggests, there is an autumnal, melancholic sense of loss at the heart of the novel, yet… [it] is the kind of loss that gives way to a new world order. Perfectly captures these few weeks at the end of 1963.
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 NOVEMBER ROAD ... then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Frank Guidry at the beginning of November Road? Were you confused as to whether he was the hero or the villain of the story? How do your views of Guidry change over the course of the novel?
2. What was Guidry's relationship with Carlos Marcello? Before reading November Road, were you at all aware of the real-life Marcello—his hatred for and stated intent to kill President John F. Kennedy?
3. After the Kennedy assassination, how did Guidry's world shift? Why is Paul Barone after him?
4. Talk about Charlotte Roy. What do you think of her decision to pack up her daughters (plus dog) and leave her husband? Other than putting distance between herself and Dooley, what else does Charlotte want? What is she looking for? What are her ambitions for herself and her daughters>
5. Talk about the ways in which both Guidry and Charlotte change during the course of the novel? What attracts each of them to the other?
6. What is the symbolic meaning of the journey, the road?
7. Why is the novel titled "November Road"? Consider the month of November—not only is it the month of the JFK assassination in the novel, but it traditionally signals the end of fall and beginning of winter. Considering the national culture, how might November be seen as a sort of watershed in the national culture: an end to something and the beginning of something else?
8. How does JFK's assassination affect events and people Frank and Charlotte meet along the way?
9. If you are old enough to have lived through the JFK assassination, talk about what you recall of that weekend. If you are too young, what have you been told about it?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Beheld
TaraShea Nesbit, 2020
Bloomsbury
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781635573220
Summary
From the bestselling author of The Wives of Los Alamos comes the riveting story of a stranger's arrival in the fledgling colony of Plymouth, Massachusetts-and a crime that shakes the divided community to its core.
Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined.
Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading, and worshipping as they choose.
By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough.
With gripping, immersive details and exquisite prose, TaraShea Nesbit reframes the story of the pilgrims in the previously unheard voices of two women of very different status and means. She evokes a vivid, ominous Plymouth, populated by famous and unknown characters alike, each with conflicting desires and questionable behavior.
Suspenseful and beautifully wrought, Beheld is about a murder and a trial, and the motivations—personal and political—that cause people to act in unsavory ways.
It is also an intimate portrait of love, motherhood, and friendship that asks: Whose stories get told over time, who gets believed-and subsequently, who gets punished?
Show Morea (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1981
• Born—Dayton, Ohio, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Washington University in St. Louis; Ph.D., University of Colorado
• Currently—lives in Boulder, Colorado
TaraShea Nesbit’s writing has been featured in the Iowa Review, Quarterly West, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and other literary journals. She teaches creative writing and literature courses at the University of Denver and the University of Washington in Tacoma and is the nonfiction editor of Better: Culture & Lit.
A graduate of the M.F.A. program at Washington University in St. Louis, TaraShea is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in creative writing at the University of Denver. She lives in Oxford, Ohio, with her family. (Adapted from the publisher and USA Today.)
Book Reviews
There is a contradiction underpinning the whole project of English imperialism, and Nesbit flags it perfectly. On the one hand, the English pilgrims regard themselves as epitomizing civility, manners and thus superiority. On the other hand, they deploy barbaric cruelty in order to defend that superiority.… [Beheld] is most successful where it allows itself to stray from historical fact and plot—to invent and to play with language, to give itself imaginative time and space. Nesbit is brilliant in those moments.
Samantha Harvey - New York Times Book Review
[C]ompelling… successfully evokes what happens in this society strained by inequality…. Nesbit so persuasively creates her two main female characters… that the sections focused on one man can seem extraneous…. Nesbit clearly describes… how she used the historical record to inspire her fictional account,… [and] it can be fun… to observe how a skilled novelist such as Nesbit in Beheld disrupts expectation [of historical figures] to render the messy lives of those too often calcified in myth.
USA Today
A richly complex and sorrowful work…. The prominence of female characters provides a refreshing filter through which to see a familiar history…. In this powerful work, Nesbit renders the past without muting its gravity.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
(Starred review) [D]eeply enjoyable…. Capturing the alternating voices of the haves and the have-nots, Nesbit’s lush prose adds texture to stories of the colony’s women, and her deep immersion in primary sources adds complexity to the historical record.
Publishers Weekly
[W]e hear much of all the common squabbles of people living in close proximity during very hard times, but most intriguingly an increasing foreshadowing of a murder to come.… Readers who enjoy historical fiction, told with fine literary style, will be delighted. —Vicki Gregory, Sch. of Information, Univ. of South Florida, Tampa
Library Journal
Restoring women’s voices, primarily through Alice and Eleanor, adds a new and welcome dimension to our history, made more vivid by solid research and clear, concise prose. In Nesbit’s hands, history once again comes alive.
Booklist
Nesbit's novel has all the juicy sex, lies, and violence of a prestige Netflix drama and shines surprising light on the earliest years of America, massive warts and all. A dramatic look at the Pilgrims as seen through women's eyes.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. In the first pages of the novel, Alice Bradford is anticipating the arrival of a ship. The passage is also full of foreshadowing. "Everything," says Alice, "could have been a sign of what was to come" (6). How does foreshadowing work in the book? What expectations did you have as you read? What aspects of the story were still unexpected?
2. Both John and Eleanor Billington regularly refer to the puritans of Plymouth as "hypocrites." What behaviors do the Billingtons see as hypocritical? Do you agree with their assessment?
3. The novel is written in sections from the perspectives of different characters—primarily Alice Bradford, John Billington, Eleanor Billington, and John Newcomen. (The exceptions are discussed in Question 6.) The men’s sections are narrated in the third person; the women speak themselves. What is the effect of having these different perspectives and different voices? Were there voices you trusted more than others? Do the characters ever differ on the facts, or is it only their interpretations that differ?
4. There are a few sections from other perspectives as well—the sections headed "Meanwhile" (139), "Nature" (173), "The Diary of John Winthrop" (230), and "Dorothy"(221 and 234). What purpose do these other sections serve?
5. Alice and Dorothy are very close as girls—"sisters," Dorothy says after they share the blood from their scraped knees (111). But over time, Alice feels them growing apart. To what do you attribute the changes in their friendship? Do you feel either woman is to blame? Or is the distance brought on by certain cultural expectations at the time for how women and girls should behave?
6. Throughout the book, much goes unspoken about Dorothy’s death. How is our understanding of her death complicated through the course of the novel? How do you make sense of it in the end?
7. The conflict that leads to disaster in the novel is over a parcel of land. What is the significance of land for the colonists? What does it represent specifically for John Billington?
8. Although the murder in the colony is a first, death is very common in these characters’ lives, especially the death of infants and children. Religion—Anglican or puritan—is also important to their lives, and there is much discussion of God’s tests, signs, and punishments. How do grief and faith shape these people? Do you see differences in the characters’ personal relationships to God and religion?
9. Part Three expands the novel’s time frame considerably. What is the effect of these leaps in time? How do you feel about Alice and Eleanor’s fates?
10. "If ever I beheld love, John, there was thee." These are the last words we hear from Dorothy (236). What do you make of this statement? And how do you interpret the title of the book? Who or what in the story is beheld—or beholden?
11. The arrival of the Mayflower and founding of Plymouth Colony are familiar events in American history. Are there things you had learned—or assumed—about Plymouth and the puritans that the novel made you reconsider?
12. Prior to reading the book, what did you know about the interactions between the puritans and the indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, particularly the members of the Wampanoag Nation? Was there anything that surprised you upon reading the novel?
13. The Author’s Note in the back tells us about the research the author did to write this novel, as well as that several aspects of the novel were fabricated. What do you think the relationship should be in a historical novel between what can be verified and what an author imagines, particularly when much of the history of women, children, and people of color has been suppressed, ignored, or cannot—due to a lack of written records, for instance—be verified?
14. How might the themes and stories of the book be relevant to our present moment?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Prague Sonata
Bradford Morrow, 2017
Grove / Atlantic
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802127150
Summary
A literary quest novel that travels from Nazi-occupied Prague to turn-of-the-millennium New York as a young musicologist seeks to solve the mystery behind an eighteenth-century sonata manuscript.
Music and war, war and music—these are the twin motifs around which Bradford Morrow, recipient of the Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, has composed his magnum opus, The Prague Sonata, a novel more than a dozen years in the making.
In the early days of the new millennium, pages of a worn and weathered original sonata manuscript — the gift of a Czech immigrant living out her final days in Queens — come into the hands of Meta Taverner, a young musicologist whose concert piano career was cut short by an injury.
To Meta’s eye, it appears to be an authentic eighteenth-century work; to her discerning ear, the music rendered there is commanding, hauntingly beautiful, clearly the undiscovered composition of a master. But there is no indication of who the composer might be.
The gift comes with the request that Meta attempt to find the manuscript’s true owner — a Prague friend the old woman has not heard from since the Second World War forced them apart — and to make the three-part sonata whole again.
Leaving New York behind for the land of Dvorak and Kafka, Meta sets out on an unforgettable search to locate the remaining movements of the sonata and uncover a story that has influenced the course of many lives, even as it becomes clear that she isn’t the only one after the music’s secrets.
Magisterially evoking decades of Prague’s tragic and triumphant history, from the First World War through the soaring days of the Velvet Revolution, and moving from postwar London to the heartland of immigrant America, The Prague Sonata is both epic and intimate, evoking the ways in which individual notes of love and sacrifice become part of the celebratory symphony of life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 8, 1951
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Raised—Littleton, Colorado
• Education—B.A., University of Colorado
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Bradford Morrow is an American professor of literature, a novelist, editor, poet, and children's book writer. His most recent novel, The Prague Sonata, was published in 2017.
Background
Morrow was raised outside of Denver, Colorado, in Littleton, where he developed a taste for travel. He spent the summer of 1967, before his senior year in high school, as a medical assistant with the Amigos de las Americas in Honduras. His senior year was spent in Cuneo, Italy, as an American Field Service exchange student. Even during college, at the University of Colorado, he took a year off to live in Paris.
Morrow did graduate work at Yale University, after which he headed to Santa Barbara, California, and worked as a bookseller. Later, in 1981, he moved to New York City where he began writing novels. He also founded the literary journal Conjunctions, which is now published by Bard College and which he still edits. Since 1990, Morrow has been a professor of literature at Bard and, over the years, taught writing at Brown, Columbia, and Princeton.
Works
Starting with his 1988 Come Sunday, Morrow has written a total of eight novels, three volumes of stories, five poetry collections, and a volume of essays. In addition to his continued editing of Conjunctions, he has also edited other works of poetry and essays, and he has contributed to some 20 anthologies.
Novels include: Come Sunday (1988), The Almanac Branch (1991), Trinity Fields (1995), Giovanni's Gift (1997), Ariel’s Crossing (2002), The Diviner's Tale (2011), The Forgers (2014), and The Prague Sonata (2017). Trinity Fields and Ariel’s Crossing are the first two volumes of his planned "New Mexico Trilogy."
Awards and recognition
2007 - Guggenheim Fellowship
2007 - PEN/Nora Magid Award (magazine editing)
2003 - O. Henry Prize (short story)
1998 - Academy Award: American Academy of Arts and Letters
In addition to his awards, Morrow has served as a member of the board of trustees for the PEN American Center (1998-2002) and as chair of the PEN Forums Committee. (Adapted from Wikipedia and the author's website. Retrieved 11/7/2017 .)
Book Reviews
Sonata takes place in two time frames — World War II and the year 2000 — and, like many dual-period novels, the earlier period is the more engaging. That’s not to say that the contemporary story is dull but that Meta, et al. lack the heft and urgency of the war-time characters: the existential threat back then was dire; not so, 60 years later. All in all, The Prague Sonata is a pleasurable read. Oh, and after you finish, you’ll most certainly want to visit Prague, a beautiful old European city lovingly depicted by Morrow. READ MORE …
Molly Lundqist - LitLovers
Music infuses Morrow’s descriptions of war, revolution, peace, love, friendship, and betrayal. Finely crafted storytelling.… The reading pleasure comes from both Meta’s pursuit and the prose, which brims with musical, historical, and cultural detail.
Publishers Weekly
In the pileup of coincidence and details, the language occasionally goes flat, but the narrative moves satisfyingly to the ending you'll know you want. Verdict: A big, fun, page-turning rush of a novel. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [A] textured, style-rich historical novel.… [E]njoyable for anyone who loves a symphony of words. —Jen Baker
Booklist
The story, which runs a touch too long, takes a conventional whodunit twist with the introduction of a competing musicologist who wants the glory (and money) for himself.… [Nonetheless], an elegant foray into music and memory.
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 Prague Sonata … then take off on your own:
1. In what way does Bradford Morrow's novel resemble a musical sonata, the object at the heart of its plot?
2. One of the difficult questions posed by The Prague Sonata is what should be done with unclaimed relics of war. Who rightfully owns them? Can music be stolen or misused? What are your thoughts after having read Morrow's novel?
3. Follow-up to Question 2: What is the significance of Werner Herzog's epigraph — "Eternity depends on whether people are willing to take care of something" — and how does it relate to The Prague Sonata?
4. If you have read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code or Inferno, do you recognize similarities in those books and this one, say, in terms of set-up and basic plot elements, character development, suspense, or style? In what ways do the novels differ?
5. What does the novel suggest, symbolically, about the power of music as it spans generations, war, and diaspora?
6. How familiar were you (are you) with the history of what is now the Czech Republic: its founding after World War I, the World War II years, its post-war years under communism, and now as a representative democracy?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Sawkill Girls
Claire Legrand, 2018
HarperCollins
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062696601
Summary
A breathtaking and spine-tingling novel about three teenage girls who face off against an insidious monster that preys upon young women.
Who are the Sawkill Girls?
Marion: The newbie. Awkward and plain, steady and dependable. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she’s sure she’ll never find.
Zoey: The pariah. Luckless and lonely, hurting but hiding it. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Maybe she’s broken—or maybe everyone else is.
Val: The queen bee. Gorgeous and privileged, ruthless and regal. Words like silk and eyes like knives; a heart made of secrets and a mouth full of lies.
Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where gleaming horses graze in rolling pastures and cold waves crash against black cliffs. Where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires. Where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared to fight… until now. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—May 2, 1986
• Where—Irving, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., M.L.S, North Texas University
• Currently—lives in Princeton, New Jersey
Claire Legrand is a librarian and the author of fantasy novels, as well as short stories, for young readers. She was raised in Texas, received her B.A. in English Literature followed by a Master's in Library Science, both from North Texas University. She now lives in Princeton, N.J., where she both writes and works as a librarian. (Adapted from various sources online.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review) An idyllic island hides a deadly secret in this atmospheric, Gothic-flavored chiller, which mingles elements of dark fairy tales and outright horror.… [I]ncludes an asexual character and a beautifully wrought queer romance, focuses on the power of female friendship (Ages 14-up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) Girls have gone missing on Sawkill Island for so long that the wealthy residents have learned to carry on with a stiff upper lip when it happens.… Rich and earthy horror (Grade 9-up). —Beth McIntyre, Madison Public Library, WI
Library Journal
(Starred review) Through this dank, atmospheric, and genuinely frightening narrative, Legrand weaves powerful threads about the dangerous journey of growing up female.… [A]n intensely character-driven story about girls who support… betray… [and] love each other…. [U]nforgettable.
Booklist
[A] fast-paced… and creepy feel… part spine-chilling horror story and part coming-of-age lesbian romance. There is a feminist message in the way the girls refuse to be manipulated by those with ulterior motives, banding together to fight the monster (Age14-adult).
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 SAWKILL GIRLS … then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe the island of Sawkill Rock? How well does the author do in terms of creating an immersive atmosphere? Does the island seem to change during the course of the novel?
2. What are your thoughts about giving the Rock, an inanimate object, its own perspective? Why might the author have done so? What does the following passage mean? "It did not relish tying an innocent to the burden of its ancient might. But the Rock required an infantry"
3. Talk about your experience reading The Sawkill Girls. How did you get through it: did you read with bated breath, with relish … or did you just want it to be over? Reviewers use descriptions like creepy, gory, genuinely frightening, spine-tingling, horrifying. Care to add an adjective or two of your own?
4. Each of the three girls, Zoey, Marion, and Val, is dealing with her own set of problems. Discuss those the girls and the way their separate stories intertwine.
5. How would you describe each of the girls. Is there one whose story you find more sympathetic than the others? Or does one of the girls appeal to you more than the others?
6. One of the concerns of the book is competition: the way society pits girls against one another, manipulating them into butting heads. Talk about how that operates in The Sawkill Girls and how Zoe, Marion, and Val manage to overcome this competitiveness.
7. What are your thoughts about the Collector when you finally meet him? Did he meet the expectations of mystery surrounding him at the beginning of the novel?
8. What is your take on the fact that the three girls each represented some aspect of LGBTQIA?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)